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We're all being asked to sacrifice the living standards our parents grew up with because the utter failure of local, state and federal government to provide housing, public transit, education and healthcare, something most of the Western world manages to pull off without issue.

We have never been more productive in this country's history and yet we cannot even meet a bar set in the 1950s.

It's frankly ridiculous as is this piece.



Median disposable household income is higher in the US than anywhere else in the world [0]. Real median personal income has increased 50% since the 1970s [1].

0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per...

1. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/globalization-did-not-hollow-o...


What’s your point? All of the things I listed have far outpaced income and disposable income.


"disposable" income means "subtracting necessities like housing" so if disposable income is going up, by definition your claim cannot be correct


Officially, disposable income means income minus taxes. Lots of people assume it means minus necessities like housing and food, but that is discretionary income.


That's not correct.

From the article:

> Note that this includes taxes and transfers, including in-kind transfers like government-provided health care.

So excluding housing, health insurance and student loan repayments etc.


  > utter failure of local, state and federal government to provide housing, public transit, education and healthcare
i guess the expectation in the (for lack of a better word) neoliberal era was these would be provided by the private sector?




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