Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
As far as loans go for school. Think Community Colleges should be tuition free for first time college student's. Once enrolled in a program have to live in the State you graduated from for 2 year's or pay 75% of the tuition back to the State you completed College in.
15% discount for return students, 20% for healthcare workers & first responders, and 40% for Veterans with 4 or more years of Active Duty.
Reform Federal Loans to be interest free. No deductions from account up to 6 years. Deductions automatically taken from paycheck a percentage is calculated by where you live, current take home pay, and family size of head of household. Loan payments stop after 26 year's.
40 years ago people got married out of high school and had 2 kids by 20 or 21. Our economy has changed, offshoring and bad trade deals have decreased jobs making it harder to earn a living. Also millennials demand a life filled with expensive tech and the modern economy dictates they get college degrees that cost them 100k. There is a lot wrong with today’s economy and society.
Yes, it is a complicated answer.
Part of it is certainly a higher living standard.
Back in the 1950s people didn't have:
-a cable TV subscription
-Everyone 14 and up with a cell phone that has a data plan
And contrary to what you claim, wages are not stagnant.
The only year wages did not increase was 2009, and in that year wages actually declined, instead of being stagnant.
Average wages in 2016 were $48,642 and $50,321 in 2017.
The percent change is 3.45%, while all forms of Inflation increased 2.18% over the same period, leaving a net gain of 1.27%
Average wage in 2010 was $41,673, so there has been a 20.75% increase through 2017.
All forms of Inflation increased 11.73% over the same period, so that results in a net wage increase of 9.02%
Average wage in 2000 was $32,154 so that is a 56.49% increase, while all forms of Inflation have increased 40.9% so that represents a 15.59% net increase in wages since 2000.
Average wage in 1990 was $21,027 so wages have increased 139.31% since then, while all forms of Inflation have increased 81.94% giving a net increase of 57.37%.
That debunks the whole wage stagnation myth.
We have additional evidence, because in 1990, 79% of Americans made $30,000 or less, while as of 2017, only 48% of Americans earned $30,000 or less.
Not everyone agrees with you that wage stagnation is some kind of hoax
Quote:
Meanwhile, wage gains have gone largely to the highest earners. Since 2000, usual weekly wages have risen 3% (in real terms) among workers in the lowest tenth of the earnings distribution and 4.3% among the lowest quarter. But among people in the top tenth of the distribution, real wages have risen a cumulative 15.7%, to $2,112 a week – nearly five times the usual weekly earnings of the bottom tenth ($426).
Sluggish and uneven wage growth has been cited as a key factor behind widening income inequality in the United States. A recent Pew Research Center report, based on an analysis of household income data from the Census Bureau, found that in 2016 Americans in the top tenth of the income distribution earned 8.7 times as much as Americans in the bottom tenth ($109,578 versus $12,523). In 1970, when the analysis period began, the top tenth earned 6.9 times as much as the bottom tenth ($63,512 versus $9,212). For most Americans, real wages have barely budged for decades | Pew Research Center
Quote:
Stagnant worker salaries thus aren’t a bug in the current economy: they’re a feature. Holding worker salaries as low as possible is a key to securing short-term quarterly profits, executive bonuses and rising share prices. Seemingly unnoticed by the world’s leading economists, shareholder value is not only the gospel of the global economy. It’s also the root cause of stagnant worker salaries. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevede.../#759510e11abc
Quote:
For much of the postwar period, American wage and salary earners received an average of 64% of gross domestic product. Although signs of weakness emerged in the mid-1980s, the labor share of national income stood at 64% as recently as the first quarter of 2001. Then the world changed. The labor share fell almost without interruption for more than a decade, bottoming out at 56% in the final quarter of 2011 and now resting at about 58%. More than half of this decline occurred between 2001 and the end of 2007, before the onset of the Great Recession.
A simple calculation shows the significance of the decline from 64% to 58%. If workers in 2016 had received the share of national income they averaged over most of the postwar period, their total earnings would have been $1.2 trillion higher in that year alone. This equates to an annual salary boost of more than $7,500 for each worker. https://outline.com/3z6S2q
Quote:
After adjusting for inflation, wages are only 10 percent higher in 2017 than they were in 1973, with annual real wage growth just below 0.2 percent.[1] The U.S. economy has experienced long-term real wage stagnation and a persistent lack of economic progress for many workers. https://www.brookings.edu/research/t...t-wage-growth/
I remember conversations that I had at the turn of the century with a friend of a friend's kid when he was in high school (he was born in 1984). His father had a BS and maybe an MS in an engineering discipline (structural or mechanical, IIRC) and he worked for a public utility. The father was also good with money. He told his son you have X amount (fairly big total) that i'll give you for your education, but no more. The kid was a top student at a top high school, but he decided that he wanted to also be able to pay for all of his graduate school with that money, and that the way to do that was to go to a Junior College for two years and then transfer to a four year school. I didn't have any conversations with him after that year he was hanging out with my friend's son, but I imagine he executed his plan. He was very confident.
100% accurate. Junior/community colleges actually have articulation agreements with State Universities for specific 4-year degree programs for EXACTLY that reason.
Willingly taking on tens of thousands of dollars of unnecessary student loan debt is a ridiculously foolish choice. And it's EXACTLY such... a choice. As such... make foolish choices = pay the consequences for such.
-Everyone 14 and up with a cell phone that has a data plan
-internet subscription
-exotic vacations by flight
-eat out as much as we do today
-the latest cell phone
-multiple flat screen TVs
-tablets
-computers
-Netflix account
-more expensive cars
-bigger homes with more features
-xbox
-smart watch
etc...
Even if you eliminate most of that it is still too expensive. Health care, high rent/mortgage even for a small house or condo, taxes, cost of food constantly going up, etc. Vehicles are really expensive, even a decent used one and auto insurance is as well. Wages not keeping up for many.
In the 50s there was a lot of marketing for new fangled stuff. Everyone had to get the cool asbestos vinyl tile checker floors, and were prompted to get the newest vacuum cleaners and kitchen gadgets, and a new car that looked a space age sculpture every four years. It was a time of prosperity and consumerism. People did buy that stuff, and still on one income. Yes houses were smaller but they got filled with the latest stuff being marketed by Mad Men.
No shortage of people use credit to buy stuff they don’t need and carry balances.
That right there explains how many WASTE a significant percentage of their income. They pay absurdly high interest rates on revolving credit balances because they feel "entitled" to that which they cannot afford.
Quote:
Challenging to build any semblance of wealth, let alone $500 for an emergency, when one continuously lives beyond their means, whatever those means.
And there it is... NO ONE should be living beyond their means. It just sinks them ever lower in a poverty spiral trap.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
