I wonder how the average amount of free space per dwelling has changed over the last 50 or so years...
Perhaps this trend could be explained to some extent by the fact(?) that mommy & daddy have a lot more space at home nowadays than daddy's parents did when he turned 18, making living with the parents more attractive to today's young adults than it was to prior generations.
Not at all suggesting this would be the only likely factor, of course.
Houses today are much bigger. This is one of those things that people often forget when comparing current economic markers or generations to the past. Our standard of living is simply much higher today. The average house had approximately 500 sqft per person in 1973 but had increased by roughly 65% by 2010.
That may be true, but that's not a good data set to use either way.
The graph only accounts for 45 million houses in the US, including only the houses owned by the young and the old. But that is a small fraction of US homes. (If those were all homes, the average household size would be 7 people.)
Those exact same houses from the 70s (even from the 50s, in fact) are selling for seven figures near me. That's about 20x the median household income in my city.
That's what blows me away about San Francisco. Not only are you paying 10x ($1.5M) what most people in the US pay for a house ($150K), you're getting a lot less house at the same time.
We're talking going from ~2000 sq. ft. to ~1100 sq. ft., old construction, no insulation, etc.
If you really wanted to make a comparison between equal houses, the difference is more like 20x ($3M for a similar house in the Bay Area).
If you're comparing NYC to St. Louis and desire a 60th floor apartment in a high rise, then the COL difference is infinity or mu or NAN or something. You simply can't make the comparison.
The same is true when comparing the average detached home in the Midwest to San Francisco. For most people, the answer to, "how much more would I have to make to buy the same house out there?" is "it doesn't matter, because you'll never make that much."
The article strongly refutes your assertion that "Our standard of living is simply much higher today."
Obviously the standard of living is in decline. An article such as this provides some evidence, as does the well known fact that the male median wage has been in decline since 1973.
I don't see any such refutation in the OP. And our standard of living is obviously far higher than at any time in the past. Even given wage (lack of) changes, the access to more and better medicines, having at our fingertips the entire artistic output of the history of the world, safer and longer-lasting cars, longer life expectancy, ubiquitous and free to nearly-free instantaneous communication, ubiquitous good sanitation, refrigeration, lower crime rates, lower pollution, and on and on.
I can't fathom how anyone can claim that virtually any American is better off than his counterpart from any time in the past. So let's do a thought experiment: can you pick a past time in USA history where you'd like to be transported, keeping everything else (such as your economic quintile) equal, where you'd be better off? Or forget about keeping things equal, would you rather go back a hundred years and be in John Rockefeller's shoes? There's a good argument to be made [1] that you're better off than he was.
I'd give up current times to go back to the 50s-70s where you could comfortably live on one income in the suburbs.
I don't much care for safer cars, longer life expectancy, instant world wide communications compared to the freedom of living a much better life during one of the most prosperous times in US history. Quality of life experiences feels like it was much better before the 21st century race to the bottom. What's the point of living "better" if you're going to be chained to a desk or job for 50-60 years, or constantly have to retrain decade after decade?
>I'd give up current times to go back to the 50s-70s where you could comfortably live on one income in the suburbs.
You can still do that if you're willing to make sacrifices. A colleague of mine gets by on one income - I don't know what he makes now, but he started at $35k about five years ago. And this is in the SF bay area.
When you do the math having both spouses working doesn't increase your standard of living very much because of taxes and child care.
>where you could comfortably live on one income in the suburbs.
Does anyone have statistics on how many "traditional" single-income households there are in the U.S.? I live with my wife and four kids (home schooled) in a fairly large house, with a single income under that is apparently under the starting salaries for newly minted software-engineering graduates in the big urban areas.
Not that I think white Americans deserve some extra-consideration but the recent decline in the life expectancy of white Americans [1], coupled with indeed further medical discoveries, seems like a demonstration that the effective decline in wages is able to outpace even these better medicines.
Most of the improvements are superficial, apart from medicine maybe.
- Housing
- Education
- Quality of jobs
- Career growth
- Job security
These are less accessible than 30-40 years ago, while surely you can enjoy the magic of Facebook on your shiny iPhone, which were admittedly unavailable then.
Medicine's not improved much either. Mostly access has improved for the underprivileged.
Robert Gordon makes the point in his book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, that life expectancy improved twice as much from 1900 - 1950 as from 1950 - 2000.
lol this is complete propaganda. Whether you realize it or not.
> And our standard of living is obviously far higher than at any time in the past
Human health declined beginning with the agricultural era. I mean, you don't even have any knowledge of every time in the past, yet you are so confident in claiming our lives have never been better.
> the access to more and better medicines, having at our fingertips
You do realise that the extreme majority of illnesses experienced today are caused by the modern world and lifestyles? These medicines are designed to fix problems that didn't exist previously. The most commonly sold medicine is probably heart medication or something like that. These were things people did not experience 50,000 years ago, or even 500 years ago.
> safer and longer-lasting cars
Do you realise that most people just use cars to sit in traffic for hours going to a job they hate? You consider that a sign of how great things are?
> longer life expectancy
Well it is now declining, but quality over quantity. Sitting around at 90 years old watching tv isn't something I would count as life.
> ubiquitous and free to nearly-free instantaneous communication
social media and communication over the internet is a terrible replacement for real-life communication. Social media is actually really depressing. There are even recent studies that link time on social media with depression.
These forms of communication are usually just a sign of isolation.
> refrigeration
great for ice-cream
> lower pollution
lol? Climate change?
> I can't fathom how anyone can claim that virtually any American is better off than his counterpart from any time in the past
I can't even fathom how someone who hasn't lived in any time but now can make that statement. Literally any time in human history? How was it like, I don't know, 200,000 years ago? Tell us. You will mention lower life expectancy. That is mostly due to infant mortality rates. Many people lived until they were 70. They had actual lives, not sitting at a computer typing shit all day.
Everything you say is complete propaganda of a corrupt capitalist society and you don't even realise it.
> I can't even fathom how someone who hasn't lived in any time but now can make that statement. Literally any time in human history? How was it like, I don't know, 200,000 years ago? Tell us. You will mention lower life expectancy. That is mostly due to infant mortality rates. Many people lived until they were 70. They had actual lives, not sitting at a computer typing shit all day.
For an account of living in agricultural (pre-industrial) society, I wholeheartedly recommend "The Peasants" by W. Reymont - the Nobel prize winning, extremely realistic account of how life was in a small village in central Poland around year 1900. In short: everyone was working pretty hard, but only the peasants who owned land were living a decent life. The others (a majority) worked on farms owned by the village's "elite" and always feared about their future (not to mention they sometimes didn't even own homes so they slept in for example their master's stable, next to the piles of horse shit). On the other hand, the work was more varied that most jobs today and there wasn't that much to do in the winters so everyone rested then.
I would absolutely go back 100 years and live John Rockefeller's life. I certainly value a lot of the advancements we've made since then, but for me luxury means not having to work!
I don't know if there's any reasonable way you can actually measure "standard of living", since it arguably includes "happiness" which is difficult to quantify.
Except he worked hard a good part of his life--whether or not a lot of people here agree with his goals. (And worked quite hard on philanthropy as well.)
John D. Rockefeller also did live to a rather old age. Not everyone in that era was as fortunate.
Maybe you missed the sub-title, which is "For the first time since the 1880s, more young Americans are living with their parents than with a romantic partner."
"I can't fathom how anyone can claim"
I can't fathom that you mean this literally so I assume you offer this in the rhetorical sense. You may wish to consider "Don't Get Offended":
"One oft-underestimated threat to epistemic rationality is getting offended. While getting offended by something sometimes feels good and can help you assert moral superiority, in most cases it doesn't help you figure out what the world looks like. In fact, getting offended usually makes it harder to figure out what the world looks like, since it means you won't be evaluating evidence very well."
I am guessing that, in reality, you do have the power to fathom such a thing. If you need help, there are thousands of well-reasoned essays on the web, which make the point that you claim to have difficulty fathoming. Google will steer you to them.
Or you can play Devil's Advocate to your own mind, and make the case yourself, to yourself.
My point is that most of these metrics just use sticker prices. If you say something like wages have decreased in relation to housing and automotive prices, you can't ignore that houses are bigger today and automobiles are more reliable. If the median car price has stayed the same but your car now lasts you almost 100% longer [1], that is a stable sticker price but a 50% percent reduction is the yearly cost. If the median price of a house has increased by 75% [2] but the house is 50% bigger, the effective price increase is barely above inflation.
The problem with the argument that uneconomic factors have improved is not just that these are hard to measure but that a lot of folks have an interest in fudging the measurements.
Inflation adjusted wages have been quite stagnant while measures of inflation are rather dubious to say the least.
My old car is indeed a bit more reliable than my previous old car but both were reliable - I can't see that compensating for more or less everything costing more relative my relatively fixed income.
You seem like the type who is unlikely to change an opinion, so I'm not going to expend any more effort on this. However, for your own edification, you might want to stop and ask yourself whether this:
"If the median price of a house has increased by 75% but the house is 50% bigger, the effective price increase is barely above inflation."
can be reconciled to this:
"For the first time since the 1880s, more young Americans are living with their parents than with a romantic partner."
People are angry about the decline in the standard of living, and for most us, the justification for that anger is obvious.
>You seem like the type who is unlikely to change an opinion
There is no need to be rude. I posted twice in this conversation and linked to sources both times. I'm not sure how that gives the impression that I am being unreasonable.
>ask yourself whether this...can be reconciled to this...
It certainly can because they are measuring two separate things. Housing costs are up, but on a rate basis they are not as far up as most think. More Americans are living at home. The former is likely partially responsible for the latter, but it is unlikely that it is the only cause. As the article suggests, another cause is likely that younger people simply aren't living with romantic partners as much as the number of people living alone is also higher.
You really seem stuck on that one sentence from the article, but it doesn't say what you're trying to read into it. It does not say that standard of living has decreased. Heck, it doesn't even imply that. The only thing you can really get out of that text is that people's circumstances and priorities have changed. The change might be a decrease, but there's no need to read that into it.
Spot on. Every time I mention the high price of homes and how hard it is for non-boomers to enjoy such things as their own home, possibility of kids, family, stable jobs, there's never a shortage of defenders telling me that I'm out of line: they didn't live in a McMansion and get a new iPhone every year; younger folk have it easy and complain too much.
Well sorry, the exact same 1200 ft^2 brick home built in the 50s, that you bought for 2 year's salary (with a high school education) in the 70's, NOW costs 6 times my salary (or 12 times the median salary for the area).
The $600 iPhone which I absolutely need for any modern job (thanks to BYOD) isn't gonna make a dent in the cost of housing, health care, and college these days.
> The $600 iPhone which I absolutely need for any modern job (thanks to BYOD)
I agree with your overall point that things like housing, healthcare, and education are much more expensive today and are much more difficult to acquire, securely, on a median income. However, when you say things like "I absolutely need a $600 iPhone for any modern job", it comes across like out-of-touch whining. No, you do not need the latest iPhone for any modern job. You want the latest iPhone. You can get a very capable, brand new Android phone for around $100 bucks.
In the same way that client-facing bankers don't need to wear suits.
If part of your job is conveying status, bringing an Android to work conveys a completely different kind of status than an iPhone. It may not feel good, but that doesn't mean $600 for an iPhone, even when you can barely afford food/rent, is poorly spent.
If you're in a position where 1) your phone is out of your pocket and 2) you need to impress people, I'd be willing to bet you can afford the nicer phone or justify its cost to your management.
Functionally you don't need a smartphone to do most work. And that's coming from someone who works with the devices at a major telecom...
Oh, puhleeze, this is just straight up bullshit. A client-facing banker may need to wear a suit, but no one gives a shit if it's a Saville Row bespoke version. If it's so important for your job that you need an iPhone because an Android is somehow for the unwashed masses, you can afford it.
Live in SF bay area and save up $50k (One year if you could make $120k(?) and live with your parents?). Buy two $25k houses, one to live in, one to rent out for your living expenses. Semi-retire. ?
That's great for the small minority of people like you or me for whom that ("just make $120k. just go save $50k annually.") is a realistic achievable plan.
Everyone else who's not in this small minority still has a right to complain about coastal/urban housing prices.
Yeah, just to be clear, the question marks in the original were my attempt at saying I was unsure of how realistic the proposition was. Certainly hanging around HN, you could easily come to the conclusion that $120k is essentially a starting salary for software engineers in the Silicon Valley area (and how that's not enough, since the VCs are always taking the bulk of the value). But I don't have a feel for how "true" that is. My own personal story is that I live on a large plot of land in a large house, and support a wife and 4 kids on a significantly smaller income in fly-over country.
The census data linked does break it down by region (Northeast, Midwest, South, and West) and by city versus rural (Inside MSA and Outside MSA). It also lists both average and median. The exact rate of increase obviously varies depending on these facts, but the pattern is the same, American houses today are just bigger.
Actually looking at your data, it's the size of newly built houses. So definitely the houses themselves are getting bigger.
But with the occupants of all the houses, old and new, getting on average poorer, I'd be most interested in the average and median square footage that Americans live in and I don't think your data really gives data on that.
I would also add in the usable space (number of usable rooms). Many houses come with a formal dining room combined with a formal living room (often called the great room); they then have a family room that flows into the kitchen. Add in an oversized master bedroom, and you have quite a bit of square footage but not really anything you can do with it that you couldn't do with smaller houses.
This is an excellent point. Why is "living in mom and dad's basement" wrong and "living in <someone else's> basement" acceptable? Why do we need 2 people (mom and dad) taking up an entire 4k-6k sq ft "single family" dwelling sitting on 1/4-1/2 acre of land?
This country has a housing problem and this is the root of it.
Living in Mom and Dad's basement is fundamentally different than living with your peers. It's typically very socially limiting, and a sign of stagnating development.
I say this as someone who lived with his parents for two years during college, and would gladly pay the $12k/year it would have cost me to get those two years back, so maybe I'm biased, but nearly everyone I've talked to who's been living with their parents has had negative ramifications from it. Some romantic, some social development, some just general annoyance re: dealing with their parents quirks.
And I mean as a parent, my goal is helping my child develop into a fully autonomous adult. Fully autonomous does not mean 'depends on me for housing.'
I appreciate what you are saying here, but IMHO it's a relationship problem, not a housing one. Just as you would have gladly lived away from your parents, I gladly lived with mine (and did so in college).
My landlord doesn't think he has a right or obligation to control my behavior. If I'm not making too much noise or destroying the apartment I can do whatever I want. I will never have to ask permission to throw a party, never have to explain where I'm going when I leave, and never have to introduce my guests to him. I never even have to talk to him.
I very much prefer a simple "check-in-mailbox" relationship with the person who owns my dwelling. I actually like my parents, but I sure don't want them as landlords!
Agreed. I had a very nice childhood and I couldn't wait to get out of my parents place. There is something invigorating about being in complete control of your own life.
>Why do we need 2 people (mom and dad) taking up an entire 4k-6k sq ft "single family" dwelling sitting on 1/4-1/2 acre of land?
>This country has a housing problem and this is the root of it.
This country has practically unlimited space for housing. We do not have land short; much less a land shortage caused by people living in comfortable houses.
Perhaps this trend could be explained to some extent by the fact(?) that mommy & daddy have a lot more space at home nowadays than daddy's parents did when he turned 18, making living with the parents more attractive to today's young adults than it was to prior generations.
Not at all suggesting this would be the only likely factor, of course.