Yeah I worked this out a few years back. 1955/1985/2015, minimum wages in relation to the cost of a house. In 1955 it was equivalent to £45/h; in 1985 £26; in 2015 £9/h
Work harder, afford less?
Submitted 14 hours ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to workreform@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/24b5f302-5c0d-4463-8238-bdfd168f1009.jpeg
Comments
lyralycan@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
One thing I haven’t seen anyone talk about in this discussion is the size difference in houses that are being built today vs 1950.
Typical homes being built in the 1950s were around a thousand square feet. Today they’re over two thousand square feet. The kind of homes that would be a starter home for a working class family back in the 1950s just don’t exist anymore.
grue@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
The kind of homes that would be a starter home for a working class family back in the 1950s just don’t exist anymore.
First of all, yes they do. They’re just mostly condos instead of single-family detached houses.
Second, even houses literally built in the '50s that still exist are expensive these days.
DagwoodIII@piefed.social 8 hours ago
That’s not really relevant.
There are plenty of reasons for houses to be bigger today; things like improved building techniques, better heating.
Also, I doubt the claim. In my area, when a big old one family house gets torn down, it’s usually replaced by a dozen condos. The average size of today’s houses might be skewed by giant mansions
Nester@feddit.uk 12 hours ago
This sounds interesting, how did you calcualte this?
thenoirwolfess@fedinsfw.app 11 hours ago
A lot of cross-referencing, finding studies/articles and historical archives of both for the time period (conveniently one from 1955 was available) regarding 2 bedroom house prices on average across the Kingdom, and the government’s data on minimum wages. I divided the house cost by the wage per hour for each period, and got the hours necessary to earn that much. I then made a very rough assumption of the ability to save 40% of the total earned and arrived at a more realistic timeframe to buy a house outright.
Once I had the monetary value of each thing I put them into the RBS Inflation Calculator to see their value today. Minimum wages in 1955 were equal to ~£25, but 2 bed house prices were nearly half the price they are now, so for the wages to match the housing market also they need to be ~£48. (I performed this study in 2018 but before an event involving the loss of most of my digital data. I should remake the study so you guys don’t rely on my memory alone)
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 12 hours ago
That’s not news. That’s capitalism. It’ll get worse before it gets better. We all know yearly rises in profits are not sustainable, yet shareholders throughout the land ( a small percentage of the population) keep whipping that horse.
AmyAye@nord.pub 10 hours ago
It turns out the fear pushers are right.
Our lives are in fact being ruined by a minority groups.
But its not black people, or gay people, or Muslims, or Mexicans, or Trans people.
Its billionaires.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
It’s definitely news to many people that it could be this extreme and it’s weird to be condescending about that.
Cheebus@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
If this AI/Data Center shit kicks off, it might not ever get better
VitoRobles@lemmy.today 8 hours ago
I was complaining to a Gen Z’er about the price of McDonalds and they go, “Well actually you can get the ‘real’ price by downloading the app” and I couldn’t figure out how to explain to them that all of this was bullshit loopholes in the past 10 years. All the convenience fees, service fees, download the app, nickeling and dime bullshit has conditioned young people to believe that it’s okay to accept this shit.
quarkquasar@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I think constantly about how my grandparents and their generation were the ones keeping the stupid at bay.
My existential adult fear now is that I’ll die, go to heaven, and have to explain all this to my grandparents while looking them in the eye.
homes@piefed.world 13 hours ago
It’s 6:37 AM and a Sunday morning, and I’m already pissed
lepthesr@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
I think about it every time waking up in my trailer, down by the river
Treczoks@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
But thanks to the one percent vacuuming up all productivity as their wealth, this is no longer the case. What do the poor need money for?
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
Nixon in the back
Hmmm, perfect time to go off the gold standard
SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Something something bootstraps.
a7y_fj_9n@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
This is why gang culture is surplussing
AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Yeah but, now we have AC and TVs so we can’t say we’re more poor /s
TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 hours ago
I think it’s irresponsible to say stuff like this without citing the study.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 8 hours ago
The Patrick Webb (@Patrickwebb) guy on twitter only links to a publication called “Leading Report” who also doesn’t provide a reference.
x.com/Patrickwebb/status/2081107766735740996
theleadingreport.com/…/new-study-finds-that-a-min…
Turns out Patrick Webb and Jacob Cabe started Leading Report to make their Twitter fakes more believable by being able to link to a website.
…feedback.org/who-is-behind-the-misleading-leadin…
Your instincts were spot on.
TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 hours ago
Yo, thanks for doing the work on this. I was really curious about the sources for this, because I’d love to show it to some people I know who don’t engage in these sorts of spaces that haven’t yet woken up to the plight of the proletariat that they in fact share.
I made my comment in between waking up and getting my morning chores done, so I was hopeful someone would be able to cite the study during the work week this week as me and my coworkers gripe about rising costs, hopeful that’d shake some of them out of their rabid dedication to the messaging of the Republican party. It’s a shame it’s a farce.
I understand media literacy is on the decline, and I understand the appeal to want to say things like this because they certainly feel true, but I wasn’t alive in '71 and this sort of comparison, while poignant, requires some more study and math than I think is approachable to the average bear.
We all gotta be on the lookout for dishonest actors like this. These kind of tactics are exactly what the far right have been doing for decades to fool their base.
gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 hours ago
I think it’s irresponsible to be a lackey for corpos too, yet here you are
TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 hours ago
I understand the urges and anger at the current system that inspire this kind of reply, but as another user pointed out, this guy, even if ostensibly on the side of the working class, is distributing misinformation.
The plight of the proletariat is dire as is, we don’t need to resort to far right tactics to prove that point and citing fake studies weakens the case for change in the eyes of people who have the media literacy to check those things.