Absolutely nailed it. Official statistics v. lived experience. I asked just this question to a panel of four economists at the Levy Institute, congressional series seminar this week. Randy Wray's answer was best; ignore the statistics, people need jobs, pass a job guarantee; wall street has run amok, re-regulate it; the rich are too rich, so tax the hell out of them; need to rebuild manufacturing, make the Fed gear investment toward actually building real things. Now to build the political power to defeat the massive monied powers aligned against the people.
The tv our grandparents bought still works, too. The tv you bought 5 years ago is obsolete and the company made it stop working by no longer supporting it via required internet updates.
Decades ago, hence forgetting the actual numbers, I was deeply concerned that rent went up every year at a much higher percentage than income went up. It wasn't sustainable. Nobody cared. ... Well, maybe now they care.
At the very least, let us have regulations that cap both expenses and income to keep it in the proverbial Goldilocks Zone. But do it by percentages, not dollars, so that it automatically adjusts. Still blows my mind that we set a "minimum wage" that is out of date before it even gets legalized. Why can't minimum wage be a percentage of something reliable, adjustable each year like COLA?
When we prioritize what we care about, and we care about what matters, things change for the better. If we don't change for the better, then we have to admit that it wasn't a priority.
PS. It matters that we care about all the members of our species, and the planet we call home.
“Any politician promising affordability without a bold plan to shift power back to working people is full of shit.”
You are on fire. If only you were the chairman of the DNC, there might be a shot a creating the FDR working class coalition necessary to legislate us out of this mess. As it is, AOC refusing to support a Jeffries primary shows how even progressive darlings embrace the full of shit label.
My students were always shocked when I told them I worked retail jobs to pay for college and graduated with just $800 of debt after four years. And that debt was because of the recession in the early 90's when I could not find work.
I cannot wait for you to find that video person, Corbin! This stuff needs to get out there and go viral. Thank you for doing the deep work to uncover what has for so long been widely felt but not well understood.
The relative price of a TV may have declined since 1950, but people didn't pay (except through ads) for the entertainment provided. Today, you can't even watch a college football game without forking over money. WWII vets received a free college education and a stipend for living expenses. My mother complained bitterly in 1968 about paying $200 in annual tuition in Florida when her cousins were sending their kids to college for free (yes free) in California. If you confine your observations to the last 10 years, the rate of tuition increase doesn't look too bad. But compare it to the historical data and you get an entirely different picture. The same with healthcare although even the last ten years looks pretty dire.
They are stealing your time and now they are stealing your retirement money, too. In order to continue to have funds for buy-backs of sagging stocks, invested in oil and gas, the permission to raid 401K plans by Private Investment funds was granted by a Republican controlled Congress. These risky and self-serving "investors" can now access your 401K and never need tell what they have invested in, even buy-backs of their own stock that hides their losses. What can stop them? Make sure your employer picks investment pans that openly state they will NOT allow investments from Private Equity Funds as part of your portfolio. These funds already loose money for many public pension funds. Do not let them make bad investments with your retirement. For more information see what is being done to divest from Private Equity Funds already loosing retirees their pension millions. www.divestoregon.us for the ongoing story.
Corbin, I love reading your pieces. They get me revved up. You have a great writing voice.
I was an editor in my previous life and I really can't help myself, when I read something, sometimes typos jump out at me. Not criticizing AT ALL, but in case you want to fix:
* 4th paragraph - Americas s/b Americans.
* Under "They're Stealing Our Time," you say median income is $42k, then say 4-year degree costs $40k, then say it takes six months to pay for college. Should that have been 12 months? Or did I not understand the math?
* Following paragraph, "essnetials" s/b essentials
* 5th paragraph under "The Political Consequences" - "see" s/b seen
* 2nd paragraph under "What Any Real Solution Requires" - "We're need" s/b "We need"
* 6th paragraph same section - "take" s/b taking
* same paragraph - "still go can't" s/b "still can't"
Always happy to do a read-through if you should want.
In 1960s I attended a top college in NYC, paid nothing other than a small amount of money for books and registration. I worked part time for apt. rent etc, with one roommate, later my own apt. and graduate school. My rent was $60 a mo. in central Manhattan. My total annual expenses were approx $3000. In graduate school I took out a government loan for $5,000 to help with expenses. The loan was payable beginning TEN years after graduation at 3% interest for ten years. By that time I had a job that I liked that paid a modest salary with no medical, I paid my own med. insurance, primarily for emergencies, under $1000 per year. I had a wonderful social life, colleagues and professional friends in NYC., developed my work to a high level of proficiency. I paid off the total loan in one payment and added the interest that I would have paid had I paid monthly for ten years and asked that they put the overage back in the pot for others.
Our generation created a lot in many ways for the benefit of us all. Young people now arent given the chance unless they come from wealthy backgrounds. The wealthy by and large are not creators, they are extractors, and so we are declining.
Urban research finds 52 percent of people in American families don't have the resources to cover what it really costs to live securely in their community.
This affordability crisis arises from household prices like child care, health care, rent, and home sales increasing faster than earnings. While average earnings have grown 38 percent nationwide since 2017, annual child care prices for two young children have risen by 40 percent, rents by 50 percent, and home sale prices by 80 percent, and the lowest-priced "Silver" health care plan on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace has risen 41 percent.
Grocery prices have also become more of a cost burden for American households. Since 2019, the average monthly cost of groceries has risen by 32 percent, while earnings growth trailed slightly at 29 percent.
Now, previously low-cost areas across the country have become substantially more expensive. Parts of Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, Nashville, and Central Florida have all seen costs for groceries, health care, and housing rise faster than other relatively low-cost areas.
Yea, the GOP used to crow about the low cost of housing in Florida. It's not so low now and insurance rates are off the charts. And don't get me started with the toll roads that continue to proliferate.
Purchasing power declines mean too many deferred or outright skipped necessities. One such crisis unfolding is gross undersaving for retirement. You think ACA healtcare is about to melt down? Wait till half the country is trying to live on Social Security alone . The current baby boomers are about to find out how little their puny savings buy as inflation devours and as they find how Defined Contribution Benefits compare to conventional pensions which largely were closed before 2000 .
Absolutely nailed it. Official statistics v. lived experience. I asked just this question to a panel of four economists at the Levy Institute, congressional series seminar this week. Randy Wray's answer was best; ignore the statistics, people need jobs, pass a job guarantee; wall street has run amok, re-regulate it; the rich are too rich, so tax the hell out of them; need to rebuild manufacturing, make the Fed gear investment toward actually building real things. Now to build the political power to defeat the massive monied powers aligned against the people.
The tv our grandparents bought still works, too. The tv you bought 5 years ago is obsolete and the company made it stop working by no longer supporting it via required internet updates.
Decades ago, hence forgetting the actual numbers, I was deeply concerned that rent went up every year at a much higher percentage than income went up. It wasn't sustainable. Nobody cared. ... Well, maybe now they care.
At the very least, let us have regulations that cap both expenses and income to keep it in the proverbial Goldilocks Zone. But do it by percentages, not dollars, so that it automatically adjusts. Still blows my mind that we set a "minimum wage" that is out of date before it even gets legalized. Why can't minimum wage be a percentage of something reliable, adjustable each year like COLA?
When we prioritize what we care about, and we care about what matters, things change for the better. If we don't change for the better, then we have to admit that it wasn't a priority.
PS. It matters that we care about all the members of our species, and the planet we call home.
“Any politician promising affordability without a bold plan to shift power back to working people is full of shit.”
You are on fire. If only you were the chairman of the DNC, there might be a shot a creating the FDR working class coalition necessary to legislate us out of this mess. As it is, AOC refusing to support a Jeffries primary shows how even progressive darlings embrace the full of shit label.
My students were always shocked when I told them I worked retail jobs to pay for college and graduated with just $800 of debt after four years. And that debt was because of the recession in the early 90's when I could not find work.
I majored in sociology and psychology. This might interest you, especially the Principles of a Pluralistic Commonwealth as an economic function.
www.thenextsystem.org
You have a good website, carry on..
I cannot wait for you to find that video person, Corbin! This stuff needs to get out there and go viral. Thank you for doing the deep work to uncover what has for so long been widely felt but not well understood.
We’ve got some help coming on!
The relative price of a TV may have declined since 1950, but people didn't pay (except through ads) for the entertainment provided. Today, you can't even watch a college football game without forking over money. WWII vets received a free college education and a stipend for living expenses. My mother complained bitterly in 1968 about paying $200 in annual tuition in Florida when her cousins were sending their kids to college for free (yes free) in California. If you confine your observations to the last 10 years, the rate of tuition increase doesn't look too bad. But compare it to the historical data and you get an entirely different picture. The same with healthcare although even the last ten years looks pretty dire.
Outstanding piece as usual. Sharing with my subscribers tomorrow.
I have so enjoyed this series and have in my list to copy the whole thing to have on hand when I communicate with legislators.
Thank you.
They are stealing your time and now they are stealing your retirement money, too. In order to continue to have funds for buy-backs of sagging stocks, invested in oil and gas, the permission to raid 401K plans by Private Investment funds was granted by a Republican controlled Congress. These risky and self-serving "investors" can now access your 401K and never need tell what they have invested in, even buy-backs of their own stock that hides their losses. What can stop them? Make sure your employer picks investment pans that openly state they will NOT allow investments from Private Equity Funds as part of your portfolio. These funds already loose money for many public pension funds. Do not let them make bad investments with your retirement. For more information see what is being done to divest from Private Equity Funds already loosing retirees their pension millions. www.divestoregon.us for the ongoing story.
Corbin, I love reading your pieces. They get me revved up. You have a great writing voice.
I was an editor in my previous life and I really can't help myself, when I read something, sometimes typos jump out at me. Not criticizing AT ALL, but in case you want to fix:
* 4th paragraph - Americas s/b Americans.
* Under "They're Stealing Our Time," you say median income is $42k, then say 4-year degree costs $40k, then say it takes six months to pay for college. Should that have been 12 months? Or did I not understand the math?
* Following paragraph, "essnetials" s/b essentials
* 5th paragraph under "The Political Consequences" - "see" s/b seen
* 2nd paragraph under "What Any Real Solution Requires" - "We're need" s/b "We need"
* 6th paragraph same section - "take" s/b taking
* same paragraph - "still go can't" s/b "still can't"
Always happy to do a read-through if you should want.
Updated thanks!
Restock!!!!
We work and we are owned.
It's called modern slavery.
Debt bondage, specifically.
Perfect. I am typical of my generation:
In 1960s I attended a top college in NYC, paid nothing other than a small amount of money for books and registration. I worked part time for apt. rent etc, with one roommate, later my own apt. and graduate school. My rent was $60 a mo. in central Manhattan. My total annual expenses were approx $3000. In graduate school I took out a government loan for $5,000 to help with expenses. The loan was payable beginning TEN years after graduation at 3% interest for ten years. By that time I had a job that I liked that paid a modest salary with no medical, I paid my own med. insurance, primarily for emergencies, under $1000 per year. I had a wonderful social life, colleagues and professional friends in NYC., developed my work to a high level of proficiency. I paid off the total loan in one payment and added the interest that I would have paid had I paid monthly for ten years and asked that they put the overage back in the pot for others.
Our generation created a lot in many ways for the benefit of us all. Young people now arent given the chance unless they come from wealthy backgrounds. The wealthy by and large are not creators, they are extractors, and so we are declining.
Excellent article! These numbers do not lie.
Relevant findings from the Urban Institute's Affordability Tracker (https://www.urban.org/data-tools/american-affordability-tracker):
Urban research finds 52 percent of people in American families don't have the resources to cover what it really costs to live securely in their community.
This affordability crisis arises from household prices like child care, health care, rent, and home sales increasing faster than earnings. While average earnings have grown 38 percent nationwide since 2017, annual child care prices for two young children have risen by 40 percent, rents by 50 percent, and home sale prices by 80 percent, and the lowest-priced "Silver" health care plan on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace has risen 41 percent.
Grocery prices have also become more of a cost burden for American households. Since 2019, the average monthly cost of groceries has risen by 32 percent, while earnings growth trailed slightly at 29 percent.
Now, previously low-cost areas across the country have become substantially more expensive. Parts of Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, Nashville, and Central Florida have all seen costs for groceries, health care, and housing rise faster than other relatively low-cost areas.
Yea, the GOP used to crow about the low cost of housing in Florida. It's not so low now and insurance rates are off the charts. And don't get me started with the toll roads that continue to proliferate.
And I just read that Florida Power and Light has received permission for the highest utility rate increase in American history.
I’ve been saying the same thing for years. Thank you Corbin.
https://youtu.be/wcvyF0GLtw4?si=D1w_bj3Yw3mm8J3L
Purchasing power declines mean too many deferred or outright skipped necessities. One such crisis unfolding is gross undersaving for retirement. You think ACA healtcare is about to melt down? Wait till half the country is trying to live on Social Security alone . The current baby boomers are about to find out how little their puny savings buy as inflation devours and as they find how Defined Contribution Benefits compare to conventional pensions which largely were closed before 2000 .