Because once you start looking at it, you find out that what used to be 'cheap' really isn't, and the lowest 10th percentile is better off today than the 40th percentile or more was just 50 years ago.
All these stats are just national averages so I agree certain areas have gotten worse due to local conditions. Southern California is beautiful so it's no wonder that as it's become easier to move, people have wanted to move there and prices have gone up. Couple that with poor housing policy and you definitely have certain areas that have regressed in terms of affordability and real wages. The point of the article isn't to say that everything is good everywhere, it's just to say that in general, things have been improving, so rather than tearing the system down, we should focus solutions narrowly on areas like southern California that could use better housing policy, for example. Also more households own 2 or more cars today than they did in 1980. In 1960 almost a quarter of households owned no cars.
Even more importantly is what Gale Pooley describes as the time value of money. Here's a great example: https://galepooley.substack.com/p/we-should-measure-prices-in-time.
Here's a calculator he's created: https://galepooley.substack.com/p/try-our-new-time-price-calculator
Because once you start looking at it, you find out that what used to be 'cheap' really isn't, and the lowest 10th percentile is better off today than the 40th percentile or more was just 50 years ago.
Completely agree, this is a great point. Thanks for sharing
Don't mind me re-stacking 1/3 of this post because it's just so damn good and necessary
Fine with me 😂
All these stats are just national averages so I agree certain areas have gotten worse due to local conditions. Southern California is beautiful so it's no wonder that as it's become easier to move, people have wanted to move there and prices have gone up. Couple that with poor housing policy and you definitely have certain areas that have regressed in terms of affordability and real wages. The point of the article isn't to say that everything is good everywhere, it's just to say that in general, things have been improving, so rather than tearing the system down, we should focus solutions narrowly on areas like southern California that could use better housing policy, for example. Also more households own 2 or more cars today than they did in 1980. In 1960 almost a quarter of households owned no cars.