Do you really understand just how unequal it is? Most Americans vastly underestimate it [0]. And that's from 2013; inequality has rapidly worsened since. Do you understand the effects of that inequality?
> look at how much better the human quality of life is compared to even 50 years ago.
I don't think this is true.
There is quality of life in owning a house, a family house. There is quality of life in having job security. There is quality of life in feeling safe letting your kids go outside in an urban environment. There is quality of life in not having record proportions of your populace behind bars. There is quality of life in being able to weather illness without filing for medical bankruptcy. There is quality of life in being able to support a family with an average wage. Etc.
I admire your restraint while responding. Saying "at least you're not a feudal lord's slave!" is the most uninspiring argument by the intellectually lazy status quo apologists.
(I'm sure the parent isn't in this category, so I'm speaking in general.)
> Do you really understand just how unequal it is?
But the above blog post and study you linked to are misleading as well. For instance, wealth gets vastly skewed by age. The average net worth for people 65-75 is almost 10 times the average net worth of someone under 35[1]. For anyone who knows anything about investing, this isn't very surprising. Steady investment will cause people's savings to grow drastically from when they start to when they retire. A vulgar look at the numbers can have people saying "person A has 10 times the wealth of person B!", without considering that person B will also reach the level of person A when they get to the same age.
That's not to say that age alone would simply explain all of the inequality in society, but it's a major factor and an example of why you need to actually dive into the data rather than running with the baseline numbers. When it gets ignored it's likely people are pushing a polemic and aren't genuinely interested in what's happening.
> The average net worth for people 65-75 is almost 10 times the average net worth of someone under 35[1].
Is that because they're older? Or is it because when 70 yo's were young they could go through college on part time work, buy a house with an average wage, and then have that house skyrocket in value because housing was turned into an investment vehicle?
Dig into those statistics, and look at how much of the €400k net worth is tied up in their homes, homes which they owned outright at 25-27 years old. That's unimaginable today. People that age are living with their parents.
Look at those statistics and compare the median to the average - the distribution is extremely skewed - you could even call it 'unequal'. 'Record levels of inequality' even.
Age isn't as much of a factor as the 'nerdwallet' blog seems to think; and to the degree to which it is, is a natural consequence of having had more time to work and invest during a boom period, then having a certain generation and class of people 'pull up the ladder' after them.
Honest question, but do you know much about investing? The investment curve isn't linear. Someone making steady contributions should have around 10 times the amount of wealth at age 67 than they do at age 30 [1].
Millennials have more wealth than previous generations _at_ _the_ _same_ _age_[2]. Generation Z is earning even more than millennials _at_ _the_ _same_ _age_[3].
If you have evidence for why we should dismiss age cohorts, feel free to share it. All of the data I've seen shows that it's extremely important, and people who intentionally ignore it are pushing a narrative that doesn't match reality.
> Someone making steady contributions should have around 10 times the amount of wealth at age 67 than they do at age 30.
What part of that justifies or explains away record inequality?
> Millennials have more wealth than previous generations _at_ _the_ _same_ _age_[2]. Generation Z is earning even more than millennials _at_ _the_ _same_ _age_[3].
Hm - might that be because they live with their parents and can't afford kids? Or because they're sharing an apartment with 5 other people, and having a lot less fun in their life (aka, quality of life).
And are we ignoring the difference between average and median when cherry-picking statistics?
> If you have evidence for why we should dismiss age cohorts, feel free to share it.
My argument isn't that we should ignore age. I never said that. No one said that.
It's that even accounting for age, however you want to do that, there's an extremely problematic level of inequality.
America has 10 million hungry children. Half a million people claim medical bankruptcy every year. There's no excuse for that - and now a cabal of billionaires is gutting Medicaid to help pay for a $4tn tax break mostly for the top 1%.
As of 2023, the top 1% of U.S. households held 30% of the nation's wealth, while the bottom 50% possessed just 2.6%.
This is all deeply psychotic. It's perverse and abnormal in the extreme; and no, it's not explained away by age demographics. It's very intentional bipartisan policy, inflicted against the will of a large majority of Americans.
Quality of life is about to take a very hard hit, directly because of the level of inequality [0].
You can't separate these things and expect the world to make sense. When the ultra-wealthy capture too much of the levers of power, and strip-mine all our potential just to get a bit more in a bid for total control, quality of life for humanity suffers.
We've been suffering for it, as I explained above, and we're going to see a lot more of the same. House prices could double in the next 5 years. Even if you own a house or 6 and think that's just great, society will suffer and quality of life will fall.
You might think that owning houses, starting families, clean water, living oceans, a habitable biosphere and healthy division of power don't affect quality of life, but I promise you, they do. And those things are suffering, because of the level of inequality we have reached.
... Let's say, being generous and ignoring a lot of negative externalities, that we actually have improved average quality of life by 10% over the last 50 years. Put that in context - productivity has doubled. Where did all the difference go? ... And what are the beneficiaries of this wealth doing with that money?
The level of inequality is huge, and rising rapidly. That comes with a very serious level of existential threat to life on Earth itself; not just its quality.
You make a lot of claims about the future, but you are guessing. We have no idea. All I hear is fear mongering and hate against people with more than they have.
Fwiw, I think there is a upper bound where inequality starts hurting the average (we aren't near it) however all the solutions I hear are worse than doing nothing. The government forcing equality by taking from one to give to another will never work. It's been tried and it fails horribly.
Do you really understand just how unequal it is? Most Americans vastly underestimate it [0]. And that's from 2013; inequality has rapidly worsened since. Do you understand the effects of that inequality?
> look at how much better the human quality of life is compared to even 50 years ago.
I don't think this is true.
There is quality of life in owning a house, a family house. There is quality of life in having job security. There is quality of life in feeling safe letting your kids go outside in an urban environment. There is quality of life in not having record proportions of your populace behind bars. There is quality of life in being able to weather illness without filing for medical bankruptcy. There is quality of life in being able to support a family with an average wage. Etc.
0 - https://web.archive.org/web/20191016221950/http://www.people...