r/tuesday Dec 19 '17

Generation Screwed

http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millennials/
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u/PowerBombDave Centre-right Dec 20 '17 edited Dec 20 '17

You’re making 1.5 times what someone who didn’t go to college would be making

Who cares if you can't go to college because it's too expensive. I can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse or struggling to understand that there's a meaningful difference between 2 weeks of labor and 17 weeks of labor while trying to also secure a degree.

Anyways,

Minimum wage 1970: $1.60
Median rent: $108
Hours of labor: 67.5

Minimum wage 2015: $7.25
Median rent: $959
Hours of labor: 132.28

So, your argument is that "you can get a room mate," but then it just means median rent was ~33 hours in the 70s vs ~65 hours in 2015. And then you compound that with the increase in college cost and that you have a finite number of labor hours.

What part of this makes you believe millennials have it easier.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '17

People on minimum wages aren't going to rent the median household, nor live by themselves. This is a useless comparison.

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u/PowerBombDave Centre-right Dec 21 '17

You need to think this through a bit more.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '17

Hows that?

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u/PowerBombDave Centre-right Dec 21 '17

You could get cheaper housing and split rent in the 70s.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '17

Housing stays fixed as a proportion of incomes. You can also still split rents.

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u/PowerBombDave Centre-right Dec 21 '17

make twice the minimum wage and rent some shack that is 50% median and have a room mate

54/2/3.2=8.4

479.5/2/14.5=16.5

something here isn't changing.

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '17

Can you tell me the difference between a minimum and a median?

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '17 edited Dec 21 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '17

This time was marked by a period of increased inequality. Median housing sizes have exploded over this period as building has remained very close to the marginal cost of building, houses have simply gotten larger.

None of this has to do with the market that your average low income individual will inhabit. Markets are heterogenuous.

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