Stagnating middle class? Really? How does that jive with all of these facts?

[Axulus]

The general leftist talking point is that the middle class has stagnated in the United States. Income is stagnant. Wages are stagnant. People are struggling. Life for the median or average person is not much improved today compared to the so called "golden era" of the middle class which peaked in the late 70's and was crushed by the evil Ray Gun.

If so, how do you explain all of this? Improvement on almost every economic metric you can think of, as well as many non-economic ones, that has any value to life. If you can think of anything relevant that I have missed, please post it:

Square feet of living space per person:

1985 - Median living space per person/capita - ~650
2005 - Median living space per person/capita - ~750

http://www.huduser.org/publications/pdf/measuring_overcrowding_in_hsg.pdf

Life expectancy:

1980 - 73.66
2015 - 78.74

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN

Total percent of population with high school diploma, aged 25 or more:

1980 - 68.6%
2010 - 86.6%

Total percent of population with bachler's degree or higher, aged 25 or more

1980 -17.0%
2010 - 30.3%


http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2010/tables.html
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/1981/tab-12.pdf


Homicide victim rate:

1980 - 10.2 per 100,000
2013 - 4.5 per 100,000

Violent crime rate (excludes homicide):

1980 - 6.00 per 1,000
2013 - 3.68 per 1,000

Overall crime rates (violent, property, murder, rape, robbery, aggrevated assault, burgerly, larceny-theft, vehicle theft)

1980 - 5.95 per 100 population
2013 - 3.10 per 100 population

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

Suicide rate

1980 - 13.2 per 100,000
2013 - 12.6 per 100,000

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html
https://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures

Vehicle ownership rates (per household):

1980-
No vehicles 12.9% One vehicle - 35.5% Two vehicles - 34.0% Three or more vehicles - 17.5%

Median = 1 vehicle

Vehicles per capita - .614

Vehicle miles per capita - 6,707

2010 - No vehicles 9.2% One vehicle 34.1% Two vehicles 37.3% Three or more vehicles 19.3%

Median = 2 vehicles

Vehicles per capita - .801

Vehicle miles per capita - 9,459

http://cta.ornl.gov/data/chapter8.shtml

Airline miles traveled

1980 - 190,776 million - 842 miles per capita
2013 - 589,692 million - 1,863 miles per capita

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/r...ansportation_statistics/html/table_01_40.html

Motor vehicle deaths per 100 million miles traveled

1980 - 3.35
2013 - 1.11

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

Average hours worked per week - all employed persons

1980 - 35.0
2015 - 34.5

http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2009/05/art1full.pdf

Much more eating out at restaurants

Equality for homosexuals - less bigotry against them
Less bigotry against basically every minority group, women, African Americans, atheists, Mormans, and so on.
Drug war softening (legal marijuana, whether recreational or medical, in many states)

 

[Axulus]

In summary (reasonable approximation) the typical/median/average person in the United States, from 1980 to today

Lives 5 years longer
Has 15% more living space
Is 33% more likely to own a vehicle
Is 26% more likely to have graduated from high school
Is 94% more likely to have a bachler's degree or higher
Is 60% less likely to be murdered annually
Is 39% less likely to be a victim of a violent crime annually
Is 48% less likely to be the victim of any crime annually
Travels 120% more miles by air
Works .5 hours less per week
Is 54% less likely to die in a residential fire
Is 70% less likely to die from a fatal workplace injury
Is 66% less likely to die in a vehicle accident per vehicle mile traveled
Suffers from 43% less workplace injuries and time-loss illness annually while employed
Has air conditioning, a computer, internet access, dishwasher, and cell phone today, whereas the typical person in 1980 was lacking all of these
Has much cleaner air with 62% less pollutants of the 6 most common air pollutants that can harm health
Dines out much more frequently
If a minority, suffers much less from bigotry, sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.

Stagnating middle class? REALLY?

 

[arkirk]

In summary (reasonable approximation) the typical/median/average person in the United States, from 1980 to today

Lives 5 years longer
Has 15% more living space
Is 33% more likely to own a vehicle
Is 26% more likely to have graduated from high school
Is 94% more likely to have a bachler's degree or higher
Is 60% less likely to be murdered annually
Is 39% less likely to be a victim of a violent crime annually
Is 48% less likely to be the victim of any crime annually
Travels 120% more miles by air
Works .5 hours less per week
Is 54% less likely to die in a residential fire
Is 70% less likely to die from a fatal workplace injury
Is 66% less likely to die in a vehicle accident per vehicle mile traveled
Suffers from 43% less workplace injuries and time-loss illness annually while employed
Has air conditioning, a computer, internet access, dishwasher, and cell phone today, whereas the typical person in 1980 was lacking all of these
Has much cleaner air with 68% less pollutants of the 6 most common air pollutants that can harm health
Dines out much more frequently
If a minority, suffers much less from bigotry, sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.

Stagnating middle class? REALLY?

Every bit of this shit you have written up could be true for some people. It is not true on a large enough scale to count as actually improving the lot of the average man. Many of the things on the shining city on the hill list are things that are provided to get more work out of people.... If we do not question just where our economic philosophy is taking us, we can find ourselves someplace pretty awful.

 

[Axulus]

In summary (reasonable approximation) the typical/median/average person in the United States, from 1980 to today

Lives 5 years longer
Has 15% more living space
Is 33% more likely to own a vehicle
Is 26% more likely to have graduated from high school
Is 94% more likely to have a bachler's degree or higher
Is 60% less likely to be murdered annually
Is 39% less likely to be a victim of a violent crime annually
Is 48% less likely to be the victim of any crime annually
Travels 120% more miles by air
Works .5 hours less per week
Is 54% less likely to die in a residential fire
Is 70% less likely to die from a fatal workplace injury
Is 66% less likely to die in a vehicle accident per vehicle mile traveled
Suffers from 43% less workplace injuries and time-loss illness annually while employed
Has air conditioning, a computer, internet access, dishwasher, and cell phone today, whereas the typical person in 1980 was lacking all of these
Has much cleaner air with 68% less pollutants of the 6 most common air pollutants that can harm health
Dines out much more frequently
If a minority, suffers much less from bigotry, sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.

Stagnating middle class? REALLY?

View attachment 3394

Every bit of this shit you have written up could be true for some people. It is not true on a large enough scale to count as actually improving the lot of the average man. Many of the things on the shining city on the hill list are things that are provided to get more work out of people.... If we do not question just where our economic philosophy is taking us, we can find ourselves someplace pretty awful.

Then demonstrate it! Post your own data to challenge mine! Right now, your assertions are just empty air.

I tried my best to provide median data as it was available. From there, for much of the rest of it, there is no logical reason to believe any of it doesn't apply to the average man (except maybe the dining out data and the airline miles traveled data, at best - I could not find median data for those two categories).

You seem to have a strong need to deny such improvements to the average man as such improvements would mean your whole world view is built on a house of cards.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Random stats are random.

 

[Axulus]

Random stats are random.

Reading comprehension fail is fail

If you can think of anything relevant that I have missed, please post it

I posted stats on health, education, housing, air quality, crime victimization, workplace safety, home safety, vehicle safety, travel and the most important household technology improvements of the last 30 years. None of which support "stagnation" and in fact support nothing of the sort.

Care to post what I missed that you believe to be relevant to support the stagnation hypothesis?

 

[Canard DuJour]

Houses might be bigger (they're getting smaller here) but you need to look at debt to equity ratios. If people are less able than their parents to actually afford any square foot, it's debatable whether their lot has improved. And, given 40 years of productivity gains, the IT revolution and millions of mothers joining the workforce part-time, half an hour off the work week averaged among all workers is truly shit. The median household now needing two breadwinners would also explain the median household now needing two cars.

The rest is either incidental or down to the forward motion of technology. Like saying nicer weather or faster trains means improved conditions for lesbians. Not strictly false but hardly relevant.

 

[Toni]

Reading comprehension fail is fail

If you can think of anything relevant that I have missed, please post it

I posted stats on health, education, housing, air quality, crime victimization, workplace safety, home safety, vehicle safety, travel and the most important household technology improvements of the last 30 years. None of which support "stagnation" and in fact support nothing of the sort.

Care to post what I missed that you believe to be relevant to support the stagnation hypothesis?

Your big fail is that you are confusing random stats which are gathered and presented as pertaining to the AVERAGE American with the socioeconomic progress and status of middle class Americans. The data is AVERAGED across the entire US population, not specifically gathered about middle class Americans. It's like putting someone on public assistance and say, Donald Trump in a group and averaging their stats and saying that they represent me. They may. They may not. Actually, if you have just the one poor person and Donald Trump, then that average is significantly higher than my income. Where's the rest of what should be in my bank account??

NOTHING you posted pertains particularly to the US middle class but instead, are stats gathered and presented about the entire US population.

As a whole, literacy, life expectancy, etc. have increased for US citizens as a group. These gains may be most represented by lower class or upper class populations and leave out middle class Americans. Or may be even better for middle class but such gains are missed by lower class and/or upper classes. It is impossible to tell from the stats you posted. And if any segment of society is being left behind, the impact that has on the rest of society is completely ignored.

To what extent have these increased for Americans in the middle class? I want stats pertaining specifically to middle income Americans. What percentage of Americans belong to the middle class, compared with 30 years ago?

And so on..

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Reading comprehension fail is fail

If you can think of anything relevant that I have missed, please post it

The second quote is not mine.

Still, what you've posted is random. Fire deaths? really.

Let's start with your opening:

The general leftist talking point is that the middle class has stagnated in the United States. Income is stagnant. Wages are stagnant. People are struggling.

Funny, because these things are being brought up by republican candidates.

And then you go on to make a false statement like this:

Life for the median or average person is not much improved today compared to the so called "golden era" of the middle class which peaked in the late 70's and was crushed by the evil Ray Gun.

If so, how do you explain all of this? Improvement on almost every economic metric you can think of, as well as many non-economic ones, that has any value to life.

How is fire deaths an economic metric? Let alone air-conditioner ownership?

 

[Achwienichtig]

The general leftist talking point is that the middle class has stagnated in the United States. Income is stagnant. Wages are stagnant. People are struggling. Life for the median or average person is not much improved today compared to the so called "golden era" of the middle class which peaked in the late 70's and was crushed by the evil Ray Gun.

If so, how do you explain all of this? Improvement on almost every economic metric you can think of, as well as many non-economic ones, that has any value to life. If you can think of anything relevant that I have missed, please post it:

Square feet of living space per person:

1985 - Median living space per person/capita - ~650
2005 - Median living space per person/capita - ~750

http://www.huduser.org/publications/pdf/measuring_overcrowding_in_hsg.pdf

The median size of homes is up. But what about it? Don't you remember the 2008 crash? People were buying these homes on bad credit, and banks were trading their mortgages like baseball cards. The size of one's home doesn't necessarily reflect wealth. In fact, I noticed two key statistics missing from your list, median income and median wealth. Those are what you need to be looking at.

Life expectancy:

1980 - 73.66
2015 - 78.74

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN

People are living longer because the vast majority of pharmaceutical research goes to longevity enhancing products.

Total percent of population with high school diploma, aged 25 or more:

1980 - 68.6%
2010 - 86.6%

Total percent of population with bachler's degree or higher, aged 25 or more

1980 -17.0%
2010 - 30.3%


http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2010/tables.html
http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/1981/tab-12.pdf

Education is not always an economic advantage. Kids are accumulating insane amounts of student debt today, and the jobs they trained for don't necessarily exist. Again, you are missing the statistic on average amount of debt.

Homicide victim rate:

1980 - 10.2 per 100,000
2013 - 4.5 per 100,000

Violent crime rate (excludes homicide):

1980 - 6.00 per 1,000
2013 - 3.68 per 1,000

Overall crime rates (violent, property, murder, rape, robbery, aggrevated assault, burgerly, larceny-theft, vehicle theft)

1980 - 5.95 per 100 population
2013 - 3.10 per 100 population

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

Suicide rate

1980 - 13.2 per 100,000
2013 - 12.6 per 100,000

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779940.html
https://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures

Violence rates are extremely complex issues. Linking them one-to-one with economic wealth is a mistake.

Vehicle ownership rates (per household):

1980-
No vehicles 12.9% One vehicle - 35.5% Two vehicles - 34.0% Three or more vehicles - 17.5%

Median = 1 vehicle

Vehicles per capita - .614

Vehicle miles per capita - 6,707

2010 - No vehicles 9.2% One vehicle 34.1% Two vehicles 37.3% Three or more vehicles 19.3%

Median = 2 vehicles

Vehicles per capita - .801

Vehicle miles per capita - 9,459

http://cta.ornl.gov/data/chapter8.shtml

So people have cars to drive to work, and since more families have multiple income earners, more families have multiple cars. Question: how much debt did they accumulate buying those cars?

Airline miles traveled

1980 - 190,776 million - 842 miles per capita
2013 - 589,692 million - 1,863 miles per capita

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/r...ansportation_statistics/html/table_01_40.html

That doesn't tell me anything. The increase in miles is probably due to greater traveling for business purposes.

Motor vehicle deaths per 100 million miles traveled

1980 - 3.35
2013 - 1.11

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year

Yea! Car manufacturers are making cars safer!

Average hours worked per week - all employed persons

1980 - 35.0
2015 - 34.5

http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2009/05/art1full.pdf

Wait, you think the small drop in work hours is an indication of greater waelth? It's just an indication that more people have part time jobs. That's not a good thing.



OK, I'm leaving off here. You get the point.

 

[Jayjay]

Reading comprehension fail is fail



I posted stats on health, education, housing, air quality, crime victimization, workplace safety, home safety, vehicle safety, travel and the most important household technology improvements of the last 30 years. None of which support "stagnation" and in fact support nothing of the sort.

Care to post what I missed that you believe to be relevant to support the stagnation hypothesis?

Your big fail is that you are confusing random stats which are gathered and presented as pertaining to the AVERAGE American with the socioeconomic progress and status of middle class Americans. The data is AVERAGED across the entire US population, not specifically gathered about middle class Americans.

Most of the data pertained to a median, not average. If the median citizen is not representative of middle-class, who is?

 

[Jayjay]

In summary (reasonable approximation) the typical/median/average person in the United States, from 1980 to today

Lives 5 years longer
Has 15% more living space
Is 33% more likely to own a vehicle
Is 26% more likely to have graduated from high school
Is 94% more likely to have a bachler's degree or higher
Is 60% less likely to be murdered annually
Is 39% less likely to be a victim of a violent crime annually
Is 48% less likely to be the victim of any crime annually
Travels 120% more miles by air
Works .5 hours less per week
Is 54% less likely to die in a residential fire
Is 70% less likely to die from a fatal workplace injury
Is 66% less likely to die in a vehicle accident per vehicle mile traveled
Suffers from 43% less workplace injuries and time-loss illness annually while employed
Has air conditioning, a computer, internet access, dishwasher, and cell phone today, whereas the typical person in 1980 was lacking all of these
Has much cleaner air with 62% less pollutants of the 6 most common air pollutants that can harm health
Dines out much more frequently
If a minority, suffers much less from bigotry, sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.

Stagnating middle class? REALLY?

What's the control group?

 

[laughing dog]

All these middle class ingrates just are too stupid to know how good they have it.

 

[PyramidHead]

I take it, based on the OP, that only the middle class has enjoyed these improvements in technology, safety, and education. Rich people still die in car accidents just as much as they did in the 50's. Otherwise, what would be the point of citing a bunch of statistics that have affected every socioeconomic class in a thread about how the middle class is not stagnating relative to the rich?

 

[SimpleDon]

Your big fail is that you are confusing random stats which are gathered and presented as pertaining to the AVERAGE American with the socioeconomic progress and status of middle class Americans. The data is AVERAGED across the entire US population, not specifically gathered about middle class Americans.

Most of the data pertained to a median, not average. If the median citizen is not representative of middle-class, who is?

Generally the middle class is defined as households earning between the 20th to 80th percentiles in income, the middle three quintiles or the 25th to 75th percentiles, the middle two quartiles. The median data for either of these common definitions of the middle class won't be the same as the median data for the population as a whole, except obviously for household income.

The important question for the thread is if Auxlus made the same mistake that you did, in which case we can go on to better conceived threads.

 

[J842P]

Reading comprehension fail is fail

If you can think of anything relevant that I have missed, please post it

I posted stats on health, education, housing, air quality, crime victimization, workplace safety, home safety, vehicle safety, travel and the most important household technology improvements of the last 30 years. None of which support "stagnation" and in fact support nothing of the sort.

Care to post what I missed that you believe to be relevant to support the stagnation hypothesis?

The money, man! No one denies that the quality of life is better than the 80's ffs. It's about the money!

 

[AthenaAwakened]

The OP looks a lot like a document dump, a practice some lawyers engage in during the discovery portion of court proceedings. Opposing council have to tell each other what they know. A dump happens when one side or both decide not only to share relevant material but any and all material they have that is evenly remotely attached to the case. This is done in hopes that any damaging truths might be hidden beneath tons of irrelevant paperwork. It is about hiding truth not exposing it.

Neither the OP nor the following post makes any connection or explanation of how all these listed things relate to the title of the thread or even to each other.

And because the list is long and appears rather random. pages of analysis would be necessary to make those connections and explanations.

I'll put the kettle on.

 

[Toni]

Your big fail is that you are confusing random stats which are gathered and presented as pertaining to the AVERAGE American with the socioeconomic progress and status of middle class Americans. The data is AVERAGED across the entire US population, not specifically gathered about middle class Americans.

Most of the data pertained to a median, not average. If the median citizen is not representative of middle-class, who is?

Edited because SimpleDon's response was far better than mine.

 

[Random Person]

I don't think there is much evidence for a strong middle class in these stats. When I was growing up there was middle class people everywhere. Now all the people I came up with are either rich or poor it seems like.

Square feet of living space per person:

1985 - Median living space per person/capita - ~650
2005 - Median living space per person/capita - ~750

This is a bit deceiving. First, there has been a trend to buy bigger homes by going into more debt. Also the 80s and 90s were the most prosperous years in our country's history. The 2005 figure represents the inventory of homes built during this period, it's no surprise to see a 100 sq ft increase. The 1985 stat represents every home that was still standing up until that time. Also noted is this stat ends at 2005. Had it ended after the crash of 2008 it would have included homeless and people living with relatives or friends. I suspect it would have been lower the the 650 sg ft of 1985

Life expectancy:

1980 - 73.66
2015 - 78.74

Excellent but the stat includes poor people as well. It doesn't tell us anything about the middle class.

Total percent of population with high school diploma, aged 25 or more:

1980 - 68.6%
2010 - 86.6%

Total percent of population with bachler's degree or higher, aged 25 or more

1980 -17.0%
2010 - 30.3%

These stats are deceiving as well. A person that had a college degree in 1980 that was 60 years old would have graduated in 1942 and enjoyed a much nicer lifestyle than someone with a degree in 2010.

A bigger and more telling question would be how many people with a high school diploma are in the middle class? I suspect the percentage is surprisingly lower.

Homicide victim rate:

1980 - 10.2 per 100,000
2013 - 4.5 per 100,000

Violent crime rate (excludes homicide):

1980 - 6.00 per 1,000
2013 - 3.68 per 1,000

Overall crime rates (violent, property, murder, rape, robbery, aggrevated assault, burgerly, larceny-theft, vehicle theft)

1980 - 5.95 per 100 population
2013 - 3.10 per 100 population

Suicide rate

1980 - 13.2 per 100,000
2013 - 12.6 per 100,000

All these speak to the culture and not to the middle class in particular. One could argue that the ruling class is better able to control the masses.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In summary (reasonable approximation) the typical/median/average person in the United States, from 1980 to today

Lives 5 years longer
Has 15% more living space
Is 33% more likely to own a vehicle
Is 26% more likely to have graduated from high school
Is 94% more likely to have a bachler's degree or higher
Is 60% less likely to be murdered annually
Is 39% less likely to be a victim of a violent crime annually
Is 48% less likely to be the victim of any crime annually
Travels 120% more miles by air
Works .5 hours less per week
Is 54% less likely to die in a residential fire
Is 70% less likely to die from a fatal workplace injury
Is 66% less likely to die in a vehicle accident per vehicle mile traveled
Suffers from 43% less workplace injuries and time-loss illness annually while employed
Has air conditioning, a computer, internet access, dishwasher, and cell phone today, whereas the typical person in 1980 was lacking all of these
Has much cleaner air with 68% less pollutants of the 6 most common air pollutants that can harm health
Dines out much more frequently
If a minority, suffers much less from bigotry, sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.

Stagnating middle class? REALLY?

View attachment 3394

Every bit of this shit you have written up could be true for some people. It is not true on a large enough scale to count as actually improving the lot of the average man. Many of the things on the shining city on the hill list are things that are provided to get more work out of people.... If we do not question just where our economic philosophy is taking us, we can find ourselves someplace pretty awful.

Try again--everything on his list is inherently scaled to the population, saying it's not on a large enough scale to matter makes no sense at all.

Much of what he's talking about doesn't apply at the bottom of the pile but that's not "middle class".