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Yeah, right. Nobody is jealous of me retiring at 42 with millions.....
"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Ozymandias -- Percy Shelley
Meanwhile, I can only speak for myself, but I certainly would not trade with you. I worked for as long as I could and relished every minute of it. Now I'm retired and relish every minute of that as well. Win-win. But of course that's just me.
Yeah it's so great that families need to make at least 3x what they made 30 years ago (relatively speaking) in order to buy the same things. That's a train wreck.
You lived much better having no job security and losing jobs to outsourcing? Wait till you are too old to find that next job after getting displaced. Hope you didn’t go crazy and spend all your money on new toys.
I did not lose jobs to outsourcing. I lost them due to mergers, acquisitions, and downsizing which resulted from changes in the economy and automation. Even with all of those moves - Ohio to Arkansas to Kansas to California to Illinois to Arizona to New York - and much lower level jobs than my father had, I still had a higher standard of living. The days of having one job for life or of living in the same area are long gone for many careers. I have been retired for the past several years, but I was still getting job offers a couple of years after I retired. My job moves occurred over 20 years ago. The employment situation is much, much better now.
There is no shortage of opportunity. In fact as experienced boomers retire there are often severe shortages of capable workers. Many people retire and get sucked back in to working part time.
Retained earning ratios are a part of the current calculation, one that is much more complex than you have allowed here. BLS would prefer to use and has several times tried to develop a direct measure based on consumer experiences with insurance premiums, co-pays, and out-of-pocket expenses. But data barriers have prevented any methodology that would produce results of consistent quality. There is therefore no viable direct alternative measure currently available.
No, as neither did BLS, whose explanations of indirect measurement I paraphrased into everyday English. But do feel free to invest some of your own sweat-equity into further explorations, if you've a mind for it.
Yeah it's so great that families need to make at least 3x what they made 30 years ago (relatively speaking) in order to buy the same things. That's a train wreck.
That is not true. Overall increases in salaries have outpaced increases in cost of living. The overall COL has increased by a factor of 2.2 and salaries by about 2.5. I do agree that some people are feeling the pinch and it is only going to be worse...
Those with college level education or skills such as the trades have been doing better and better. Increases in salaries have been huge depending on the level of skills with the highest levels growing the fastest. The bottom of the pile has not done as well and will continue to decline. It is getting worse and worse for those impaired by drugs, those with a poor work ethic; i.e., lazy, for those without education and without strong skills. Globalization, automation, robotics, mass production and other factors are going to continue to take a toll. I should also mention competition for jobs by millions of unskilled, illegal aliens. Worldwide most of the low skilled manufacturing jobs have been replaced by automation. China is a leader in this approach. The old manufacturing jobs no longer exist and are never going to return, regardless of who is President.
"Millions of unskilled illegal aliens" are an important segment of the US workforce, and they are going to be living here regardless of who is President as well. In fact their numbers are likely to swell going forward as the population continues to age and demand for the sorts of home and personal care services that immigrants have specialized in continues to climb.
Yeah it's so great that families need to make at least 3x what they made 30 years ago (relatively speaking) in order to buy the same things. That's a train wreck.
The economy is exceptionally healthy.
Unemployment is down:
GDP is up:
Corporate earnings are up:
IRS tax receipts from businesses are up:
Charitable giving is up:
Inflation is stable and low:
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