The claim is correct. The reason that people have more and better stuff is that women in extremely large numbers, have gone out and taken jobs in order to support families.
Principally, the increase in costs to raise a family comes from large rises in the cost of housing and healthcare.
Quote: "The crisis facing the middle class started more than a generation ago. Even as productivity rose, the wages of the average fully-employed male have been flat since the 1970s.
But core expenses kept going up. By the early 2000s, families were spending twice as much (adjusted for inflation) on mortgages than they did a generation ago -- for a house that was, on average, only ten percent bigger and 25 years older. They also had to pay twice as much to hang on to their health insurance."
Do you believe the average fully employed male today has fewer goods/services than in the past?
If not, then my point stands.
(Regarding Warren, see my other posts in this thread. Her data shows that a two-income couple of 2000 has more income and also consumes considerably more stuff than a single-earner in 1970. E.g., the 2000-era couple spends 55% more on 2 cars than the 1970-era couple spent on 1 car.)
It is possible for incomes to have gone down and people to have more stuff. A lot of people have bought their stuff by taking on debt. Incomes over the past 10 years have marginally increased but their debt levels have increased. It seems to me that a lot of people are living a middle class lifestyle without a middle class income.
That is still possible. A lot of the consumption increase is required by both spouses being in the workforce. The second car is not a luxury, but a necessity. Money spend on house-cleaning, eating out, etc. has also perhaps gone up, but due to a time reallocation (away from the 1950s housewife to a 3rd party).
Understanding and measuring the value of things, always fascinated me. It's far from obvious I think.
Can we measure wealth by the "amount/quality" of good/services that you have?
Do we instantly become all richer if somebody discovers a cheaper way to build a car/TV/whatever ? (suddenly more people can afford it), or does the concept of wealth make sense mostly in relation to condition of other people ?
But anyway, perhaps we also have to take in consideration one of our often undervalued stuff: time, our time
I'm not sure, didn't check the data out there, but I have the feeling that modern life for the average people means less time for themselves.
Of course, your increased possibilities (increased wealth or reduced costs) allow you to travel around the world, take tons of pictures, having fun etc in ways that were unthinkable for the previous generations (of comparable incomes).
But we didn't get it for free, we sold our time, little pieces of our own time, one second here, one minute there.
I don't mean only the time we dedicate doing things like working, commuting etc, but also the time we sold by listening to music we didn't choose to listen, by watching advertisements of things that perhaps we don't need, by enjoying shopping, searching for stuff, addicted to all that consumer-mania stimuli which transforms our time, our attention into our perceived wealth.
Yes, because without a huge marked of people wanting to get a car/TV/whatever, those goods couldn't be affordable. Everybody in a consumer society is participating in this wealth transformation, one's own second at a time.
Principally, the increase in costs to raise a family comes from large rises in the cost of housing and healthcare.
Quote: "The crisis facing the middle class started more than a generation ago. Even as productivity rose, the wages of the average fully-employed male have been flat since the 1970s. But core expenses kept going up. By the early 2000s, families were spending twice as much (adjusted for inflation) on mortgages than they did a generation ago -- for a house that was, on average, only ten percent bigger and 25 years older. They also had to pay twice as much to hang on to their health insurance."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/america-witho...