> Is there any source to back up this claim that life is getting more difficult for Americans?
I'd posit that life hasn't been getting more difficult, but that it feels like it has become more difficult, largely because it's harder to advance your current socioeconomic status than it used to be (ie, "the hill is getting steeper"). This is also what makes the analogy particularly strong.
When you're used to accelerating growth, no growth or even constant growth feels like a downgrade.
I'm not sure what you mean by saying it's harder to"advance your current socioeconomic status". The Economist article I linked to gave evidence that people's purchasing power has been and continues to be increasing. In other words, stuff that was expensive for average people not so long ago is affordable for them now.
If "socioeconomic status" is defined as income or asset percentile, then that is inherently a zero sum goal. For someone to go from the middle third of Americans by income into the top third means that someone in the top third has to go into the middle third (or bottom third).
Sure, some things have gotten more expensive while others have gotten cheaper. But the quantitative analysis seems to indicate that in aggregate things are getting cheaper. I'm not sure how listing a handful of personal examples is a good response to a statement grounded in data.
And I'm pointing out that scores of people are calling this analysis naive, whithout sources to back up such a claim, in the face of multiple sources that say that incomes adjusted to purchasing power are at least the same if not improving. I don't doubt the veracity of your personal experiences with rising rents and education costs, but the plural of anecdote isn't data.
I get where you're coming from, but it's hard for me to watch you continue to balk at what people are saying to you. I am assuming good faith in your intentions to be scientific and well-reasoned, and it would be nice to be able to measure the changes people are talking about. Nonetheless...
What sources do you need to back up the "claim" that home ownership and health care are qualitatively more important in many ways than consumer goods? You can get all the "stuff" you want, but if you can't get a home or pay for health emergencies it will be hard not to live in some level of fear, always scrambling for slightly more security and feeling precarious. The area of my town that I live in for example, is full of homeless people, many of whom have computers or cell phones (many more don't). It is disturbingly frequent that I see one of them start to have escalating health issue, and eventually just "disappears". Disconcerting. I have no way to know if it was always this way, or if it getting worse...but certainly disconcerting.
TL;DR - Some of the people who seem to be pushing back on your "scientific rigor" may be just wanting to not forget about the actual hardships people are going through. They probably still understand that it's good to have sources for things etc.
> What sources do you need to back up the "claim" that home ownership and health care are qualitatively more important in many ways than consumer goods? You can get all the "stuff" you want, but if you can't get a home or pay for health emergencies it will be hard not to live in some level of fear, always scrambling for slightly more security and feeling precarious.
You can live comfortable and securely without owning a home. I do, and have been for the last half decade. Plenty of people in European countries with high standards of living rent for their whole lives. It's common among more densely populated countries, and as the US population is becoming more urban this is shift towards less home ownership is one that is likely going to happen in the US.
By comparison, you can't survive without food, water, heating (in many parts of the US), and other basic necessities. Plus, there are plenty of consumer goods that people would prioritize over home ownership:
If I told someone they could own a home but you had go without:
* A car
* Internet access
* Electricity
* Running Water
* A computer
* A cell phone
For many, even just not owning a car would make it impossible to live effectively. I'm willing to bet that most people would not take that offer even if they were deprived of just two things on that list. So it follows that these things have higher priority than home ownership in our hierarchy of needs.
> The area of my town that I live in for example, is full of homeless people, many of whom have computers or cell phones (many more don't). It is disturbingly frequent that I see one of them start to have escalating health issue, and eventually just "disappears". Disconcerting. I have no way to know if it was always this way, or if it getting worse...but certainly disconcerting.
The data does indicate that it is, on average, less bad than it was before. Even if it is not the case in your individual town, one counterexample is not sufficient to disprove a country-wide trend.
> Some of the people who seem to be pushing back on your "scientific rigor" may be just wanting to not forget about the actual hardships people are going through.
I don't deny that people are going through hardship. Whether or not someone thinks their life is difficult is their own opinion, and I respect others' opinions. But to claim that life is on average harder than it was before is no longer a statement of opinion, but a statement of fact. And it is not a statement backed up by the evidence that we have.
This is not just needless nit-picking. If the erroneous belief that the country is on a downward course takes hold, then people often become more willing to make drastic, irresponsible shifts in direction. I consider the Trump Presidency one such product of this erroneous belief in American decline. Think about this slogan, "Make America Great Again". In order for such a statement to be appealing, it effectively requires that the listener assume that America is worse in the present than it was in the past.
Now what we're arguing here isn't facts. Both of us are making true statements: You're saying the aggregate cost-of-living is not that much higher. I'm saying the necessities of health care, housing and education are hugely off track.
What we're disagreeing about is the philosophical interpretation of those facts. I'm saying it hardly matters if mobile phones are cheaper every year, if health care is more expensive. An aggregate doesn't take into account the relative weights of importance.
Not to mention the fact that wages and income are stagnant. That's a whole other issue that multiplies the concern.
It's not just mobile phones, it's electricity, cars, internet access, logistics, plumbing, and more than I can list in this comment. You seem to be under the impression that housing, healthcare, and education are the only things people need to get by. It's not. Focusing on "relative weights of importance" is an extremely easy way to slip into one's personal biases. Studies that measure the costs of people's necessities in aggregate show that it's still going down relative to incomes, or at least staying the same. Your sources do not refute this claim. They only measures the changes of individual expenditures. They did not attempt to measure aggregate costs of living. Yes, people are spending more on education, but they're spending less on other things and your source do not demonstrate otherwise.
And again, I think this is a naive way to look at things. It doesn't help anyone that cars have become nominally cheaper if healthcare has increased 900% above inflation since 1960.
Cheaper internet access can't possibly offset the fact that rent has added 130% above inflation (US average $610 in 1960, $1405 today, both in today's dollars).
You have to establish a hierarchy of needs if you want your analysis to have any utility whatsoever.
> And again, I think this is a naive way to look at things. It doesn't help anyone that cars have become nominally cheaper if healthcare has increased 900% above inflation since 1960.
It helps people that use cars, for one, which is a massive portion of Americans. And it's not just cars that are cheaper. Transportation is far cheaper. A coast to coast plane ticket is more than 20 times cheaper than it was in the 1980s. Again, you keep referencing specific costs, like healthcare, that have risen but then make the unsubstantiated conclusion that that overall costs have risen. People are spending more on some things like healthcare, but the studies conducted found that proportional to income meeting needs is cheaper.
> Cheaper internet access can't possibly offset the fact that rent has added 130% above inflation (US average $610 in 1960, $1405 today, both in today's dollars).
Again, it's not just cheap internet. On average, goods and services are getting cheaper across the board. You keep giving specific exceptions to the overall trend, as though it disproves it. That's as ineffective as claiming that global warming is false, because a few regions experienced cooling. One, two, or even three specific exceptions to an overall trend does not disprove that trend.
> You have to establish a hierarchy of needs if you want your analysis to have any utility whatsoever
That is exactly what the article I linked to did: they identified a set of necessities and calculated to cost of those necessities relative to post tax income over time.
By contrast, so far you have repeatedly cited increased costs of exactly three types goods and services.
The former is a much more comprehensive analysis than the latter.
I'd posit that life hasn't been getting more difficult, but that it feels like it has become more difficult, largely because it's harder to advance your current socioeconomic status than it used to be (ie, "the hill is getting steeper"). This is also what makes the analogy particularly strong.
When you're used to accelerating growth, no growth or even constant growth feels like a downgrade.