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by coldtea 60 days ago
Yeah, just not in anything that matters, like rent/housing, education, and healthcare.

And increasingly not even for basics like food, with inflation eating away that PP.

But hey, you can buy tech gadgets cheaper than in the 1990s.
1 comments
goosejuice 60 days ago
I have a hard time with this perspective. It's hard to measure. The quality difference of housing and healthcare in particular has increased dramatically in the US over the years and our minimum expectations have risen quite a bit as technology has progressed.

It's easier than ever to access quality education but that doesn't mean people will do it on their own accord. The cost of licensure or a diploma has certainly increased. Education for the disabled has improved dramatically.

Historical diseases of affluence now affect the poor more than the rich due to increased availability and affordability but costly procedures disproportionately favour the wealthy flipping the mortality picture. Despite that all cause mortality from cancer is down and survival rates are better. The disparity is real but it's not easy to attribute the cause in a neat package.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28408935/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...

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coldtea 60 days ago
>I have a hard time with this perspective. It's hard to measure. The quality difference of housing and healthcare in particular has increased dramatically in the US over the years and our minimum expectations have risen quite a bit as technology has progressed.

People live a reality everyday, "hard to measure" or not, and that's not about the "quality difference of housing and healthcare" increasing dramatically, it's them becoming stratospherically expensive...

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goosejuice 60 days ago
Define stratospherically and then compare against outcomes across generations from the silent generation to today.

Life expectancy, cancer mortality, heart disease mortality, infant mortality, infectious disease, high school and college completion, social safety nets, houses w/ a/c, indoor plumbing, w/d, refrigeration... Life for those in the lowest quintile of income is arguably better today than it has ever been despite raging inequality.

Just because things were historically cheaper as a percentage of income, which isn't clearly true across all categories in that timeline, it doesn't mean quality of life was materially better.

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