Oct 25th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Better Off
Robert Farley writes:
Oddly enough, I actually am better off that I was four years ago. The wife says it’s because I’m not a “working American.” Blogging is work, hon, and didn’t I just power wash the deck last week?
I, too, am better off than I was four years ago. Obviously, it’s a big country and so lots of people’s personal well-being will move in the opposite direction of broad national aggregates. Still, I think it’d be interesting to know more about this — overall economic conditions are, right now, somewhat worse than they were four years ago and the trendline is downward. But how many people are worse off than they were four years ago? More than half, it would seem. But how many more?
55 Responses to “Better Off”
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October 25th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
I went from being a UT grad student to being a professor in Singapore! So I’m better off, but I did it by leaving America, so I probably don’t count.
October 25th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Age is a big confounding factor here. Generally people early in their careers will see more robust change in “offness” in the “better” direction than mid-level professionals
October 25th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
“I went from being a UT grad student to being a professor in Singapore! So I’m better off”
Are you fully discounting your lack of access to SXSW?
October 25th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
A year and a half ago I was significantly better off than I was 4 years ago. Now I am retrogressing.
October 25th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Obviously, you have to account for the fact that people tend to advance their careers as they age, so even in a flat economy, most people will be better and better off until they fall off the end of the conveyor belt by dying (although I suppose a lot of retirees find themselves suddenly worse off due to inadequate savings, market fluctuations, forced retirement, etc.). I wonder if this effect makes people unduly satisfied with poor economic performance? After all, things are still getting better for them, just not at the rate they would be during a an economic boom. Do people price this into their expectations?
October 25th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
The mere fact that so many people are so much worse off makes me worse off.
October 25th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Well, I peaked in high school, so to me every administration is just a slow downward slide…
October 25th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
I wonder if this effect makes people unduly satisfied with poor economic performance?
How dare people be satisfied if the statistics say they shouldn’t be!
October 25th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
“But how many more?” Probably considerably less than a year from now, which makes the question less pertinent.
October 25th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I’m worse off than i was four years ago. Four years ago i was living it up in college. Now i have to work at a shitty job. Much worse off.
October 25th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
All due respect, Matt, but I think most 27 year old college grads are better off than they were when they were 23. Economically, there is nothing but upside for you between those years.
David
October 25th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I’m much better off than I was four years ago, and four years ago I could have said the same thing. That doesn’t mean the country is better off, though.
October 25th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
In general most people get more well off with time due to increases in human capital like experience or education. The question should really be “were your gains as high as they potentially could have been?” Eg if the DIJA ends up being higher when Bush is done compared to when he entered office one could say its better, but it being better isn’t analagous to success if the gains are way below the long-term trend
October 25th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Hm, not sure what you’re getting at with this comment… It’s great if people are happy, whatever gets you through the day etc. I was just curious whether the dynamic I described will skew people’s perception of reality. One could imagine other influences that make people unduly pessimistic about reality. For instance, sensational news about rampant kidnapping and guerrilla activity make Colombia seem like an extremely dangerous place, but the reality is a little more banal: it’s far more dangerous to visit than, say, Italy, but the vast majority of foreign tourists enjoy an incident-free visit.
October 25th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
That’s one way to describe the stock market losing half its value.
October 25th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I am not sure you are correct about this. People should be significantly better off than they were 4 years ago. After all as we go through life we gain experience and become more productive especially in a knowledge based economy. The economy can get worse in the snese that 30 year olds did better eight years ago than 30 year olds do today. Yet 30 year olds make a lot more than 23 year olds.
October 25th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Of course bloggers are going to be better off. Four years ago, they were just shiftless nerdy losers with opinions. Now they’re getting paid for that.
I’m better off too, and it’s not just because I can now vent my own useless comments on the internets. It’s also because I live in a nice neighbourhood with lots of rich financial workers. I overhear five cellphone conversations a day–people saying how much trouble they’re in at work. And that makes me feel better off.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
As professionals, over the last three years, my coworkers and my pay at our shop has this FY dropped below the overall rate of inflation. Our benefits package provides the same level of service as four years ago. However, the cost of the benefits to our employer is greater, and our medical co-payment has increased at a rate greater than inflation.
This is (to you) anecdotal evidence regarding Mixner’s previous contention that increased non-cash benefits may be covering for a flat mean income. The adjusted cost to my employer-provided insurance has increased, but its ppp (purchasing power parity) has dropped slightly.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Oops, median, not mean.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I’m not better off, and neither are many of my co-workers, who work on advance-guard research and development of new security software. The funding just isn’t there anymore for exploratory work. We’re losing some great people, as they go off to be…system administrators and low-level programmers. I’m looking for a job myself–my funding ends early next year. It’s happening in all areas of technology and scientific research. If it doesn’t immediately start making money, it doesn’t have a chance.
These aren’t frivolous questions, either. We’re talking about people who are trying to figure out how to create stronger protection for financial transactions, classified systems, public infrastructure controlled by computer networks (like the power grid), confidential email discussions. A little investment in exploratory research now prevents the waste of hundreds of millions of dollars on systems that don’t work later on.
Basic science questions aren’t frivolous either. Look at the ramifications of that fruit fly study that Palin likes to sneer at. If we don’t support the people who ask these profound questions, we lose the potential solutions to so many real-world problems. And we lose scientists and developers and engineers, as they go elsewhere–leave the country, or, worse, leave their fields altogether–in order to continue to make a living. Yeah, basic science and technology research in this country are worse off now than they were four years ago.
October 25th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
I wonder how the statistics would differ by age? I’m close in age to you, Matt, and I’m better off too, because four years ago I had just stopped working retail and gotten an office job. So I would think people who were in college within the last ten years or so would skew this.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
My family and I are much worse off than we were 4 years ago. I used to work as a contract linguist for the US government but I was laid off 2 years ago. Funding was cut on the mission that I worked on and was diverted to the Middle East. In those 2 years I have not been able to find another job in my field nor have I been able to find a simple job like working retail that would cover even fuel expenses.
My husband is an analyst in the US Army Reserve and returned from his first deployment to Iraq in February. He spent 5 months looking for a job and was unable to find anything that would cover our bills. We went through all of our life savings just to get by. As a result, he had to volunteer for a second deployment to godforsaken Iraq so that we would have an income that barely covers our expenses.
There is so much more that is worse in our lives than just what I’ve written. I won’t go into more detail and bore you all but suffice it to say that Bush/Cheney have caused much misery in this family. They have caused us much worry and fear. They have cost us our life savings and have kept my husband and I apart for what will be 2 years by the time my husband comes back from Iraq.
I pray that there is a special place in Hell for these two heartless scoundrels.
There is early voting where I live and I proudly voted for Obama/Biden today.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the obvious metric, which is how Matt’s propserity compares with some Manhattan bred Harvard weenie who was 27 years old in 2000. Matt got in early and is riding high on the blogging wave, while his 2000 counterpart was similarly early and high-riding on the dot-com boom. But unless Matt can figure out how to cash out for several million, I’d say he’s worse off.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
MY is probably the worst middle class example I can think of for measuring better off/ not better off (not that he would disagree). Recent college grad w/ job, liberal blogger, single no kids, not old, not sick, has health insurance, living in the DC metro area, just now bought a home. Those are pretty good things to be right now.
“But how many people are worse off than they were four years ago? More than half, it would seem.”
It doesn’t seem so to me. Any middle class person who owns a home or has investments is probably worth less than they were 4 years ago. The Dow has lost alround 20% since 4 years ago, and while home prices are higher, they’re still going down. Consumers have more debt on average, with the same income. *Millions* of people have either declared bankruptcy or have been foreclosed on in the past 4 years.
October 25th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
“liberal blogger”
To explain: would you like to be a *conservative* blogger right now, or in 2004?
October 25th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
After the staggering losses in asset values of homes and stocks, the biggest percentage drop in assets surely since the Depression almost everyone over 30 is now worse off. Four years ago however was almost the peak of the housing bubble which makes for a very bad baseline point.
As always with such questions it’s important to separate income from assets. Virtually all assets are held by the top half. Most by the top 10%. Their drop in assets has been huge but incomes not so much.
We are only on the cusp of the system wide drop in income. Keep this question in mind for 2010. You won’t need a reminder. It will be story number 1,2,3,4,5…………..
October 25th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Isn’t the question: did you beat expectations? When I was 20, I sort of assumed I’d eventually be a 24 year old grad student. And now I am!
If I’d turned into a 24 year old office worker, I’d be richer than I was when I was 20, but a lot worse off.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Oddly, perhaps, people don’t seem to vote their pocketbooks. What is referred to as sociotropic voting (voting based on the economic condition of the country) has a much firmer basis in the political science literature than does pocketbook voting (with only the 1984 election seeing that variable play a bigger role).
October 25th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Oddly, perhaps, people don’t seem to vote their pocketbooks. What is referred to as sociotropic voting (voting based on the economic condition of the country) has a much firmer basis in the political science literature than does pocketbook voting (with only the 1984 election seeing that variable play a bigger role).
This is really weird. On the one hand, it sounds pretty smart. If I’m an economic issue voter, I’ll do my cause more good if I vote on this basis. That’s what government policy will impact and it gives me the best odds to improve my personal situation. On the other hand, voters are really dumb. Their ability to properly assign blame is really limited and they have an absurdly short term memory (< 1 year). So as I said, this is kind of weird.
October 26th, 2008 at 1:09 am
I’m better off than I was four years ago, but only because I was laid off in early ‘01 and unemployed until 2005, whereas I’m employed now.
On the other hand, I earn about as much as I did a decade ago, and was making $10k more at that job I was laid off from in ‘01. Factor in inflation, and the fact that I have the expense of a car now, and I’m definitely not so happy.
October 26th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Its possible for every living person in the US to be better off than they were four years ago, and for the US as a whole to be worse off than it was four years ago.
Its easy. I am 27. Four years ago I was 23. I was pursuing a post graduate degree. I didn’t have much, and I wasn’t particularly employable. Now I have that degree, have a bit more, and am relatively employable.
How is that compatible with the US being worse off? Easy. If the typical 27 year old is worse off now than a typical 27 year old was four years ago, the fact that the typical 27 year old now is still better off than the typical 23 year old was four years ago isn’t particularly relevant.
October 26th, 2008 at 1:26 am
I would be better off than I was four years ago if I hadn’t had two kids in the last four years.
October 26th, 2008 at 2:29 am
Man, that’s really hard for me to say. On the one hand, I was a student four year ago and therefore earned next to nothing. On the other, I’m now paying a third of my income per month to loans for the higher education I got four years ago. I’m certainly earning more now than I was then, but good lord am I worrying more about money than I was in 2004.
And can I say that while paying for something bought on credit like a house, car, or computer seems completely fair, paying for stuff that I know seems like I’m flushing money down the drain? At least at the end of my car payments I own a car. At the end of my loan payments I’ve just paid for the privilege of knowing the things that I know.
There’s just got to be a better way to train lawyers.
October 26th, 2008 at 4:16 am
Patrick’s comment, #31, deserves to be pasted over and over. I’m a little surprised Matthew doesn’t get this — he seems to be less innumerate than the typical pundit.
October 26th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I’m another young-ish person who’s much better off … but I was in a dead-end job, found something better in 06, and live in a blue state. However, my red-state mother and aunt are unemployed and lack health insurance, which wasn’t the case four years ago. They are slipping into semi-genteel poverty, and as republicans, they don’t want the government to do anything about it.
October 26th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Well, it may be that frogs won’t actually sit around while you increase the temperature of the pan, but people will.
The national debt has doubled, New Orleans is wrecked, and nothing has been done about AGW…and you can be better off?
Only if you paid attention in class and made that educational dollar work for you- not in career terms, but in becoming smarter and wiser. That, and $3, will buy you a cup of coffee. Or, you could make it at home for about ten cents.
In some respects we’re all better off. Not too long ago gay people were blackmailed by the police, and black people were beaten with clubs or shot.
Still, it’s a little flabbergasting to learn that young pundits can consider themselves better off, as we learn that most of our drinking water is contaminated with the drugs we piss endlessly into our toilets.
Death, where is thy sting?
October 26th, 2008 at 11:08 am
For all intents and purposes I am financially better off than I was four years ago (in graduate school making less than 1/3 my current salary). That in mind, I am far worse off than my potential dictates, mostly because I chose the path of less pay/more intellectual freedom (research & academic engineer).
My point is that its not US that are brought into the equation that determines how many are worse off. If you look at average numbers for this year compared to say 1950, we are worse off. Its harder to compare back simply four year.
I assume that many of the working middle class (not those in high technical jobs (engineers, scientists) or intellectual workers (journalists, bloggers, academics) is actually in worse shape. Since many of the jobs that the working middle class perform are dependent on the general health of the economy and our global marketplace, times are getting worse.
If we move to more than just money, I am worse off. I was far happier in graduate school than I am now. My life has had some great changes, but in the long and short of it I am less secure about my future and that of my children.
In college every appeared to have an upside.
October 26th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I’m definitely better off than I was four years ago– my income this year will be about twice what it was in 2004, although a non-trivial chunk of that is being eaten up by higher expenses too, especially rent and taxes (I moved from Florda, with no state income tax, to Maryland with both state and local income taxes).
In 2004 however I was about even with where I’d been in 2000 in both income and outgo. During the recession of 2001 my income fell by about a quarter, and I did not fully recover until 2004. So just because a person grows older does not necessarily mean their income goes up– and even when income goes up costs have a mysterious way of going up too.
October 26th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I think its probably safe to say that if you have the time/ interest to read and comment on Matt’s blog you are likely in a segment of the economy with relative buoyancy.
On the other hand, my own personal experience is that there are great number of people out there who consider themselves “middle class”, have 2.5 kids and are up to their ears in debt with both spouses working to maintain status quo. The fact that so many wealth considerations for the soft middle in this country are based on the illusory access of debt, or employer sponsored benefits means that we have a house of cards where “better off” means realistically very little.
October 26th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Like the Werewolf, I am better off then I was four years ago. I moved to New Zealand.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:16 am
I’m better off now than I was 4 years ago, but that’s not surprising. 4 years ago I was a jobless 3rd year computer engineering student living off Cheetos and flat Dr. Pepper. However, I still would much prefer that my young 401(k) hadn’t taken a pounding in the last few months.
And I feel your pain, JonF. I moved from Texas (college at Texas A&M) to Maryland in 2006 for my first industry job. $1700 a month for an apartment, and I still live 45 minutes outside DC. I’m moving back the first chance I get.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I am better off but that is to be expected when my spouse goes form residency to full time job as a surgeon. Add to it, I am an attorney who practices criminal defense and Bankruptcy, and both of us have seen a pick up in our work. So we are not a fair comparison to most or even nearly all citizens. All that being said, we both believe in assisting those who need help including our parents and others through our higher taxes in Obama’s tax plan. So no question who we are voting for next Tuesday.
October 27th, 2008 at 10:45 am
My family is of a demographic that you would expect to have gotten better off over the past 8 years (we started out as 30 year olds with advanced degrees) and yes indeed, our income has nearly doubled and our net worth has gone up by about a factor of 8 (less impressive than it sounds when you start with very little net worth). But there have been rough patches along the way. We now have 2 children, who have pretty much sucked up every bit of the income increases so that our disposable income isn’t much different from what it was 8 years ago, and during the 8 years we had one lay off (which thankfully didn’t last too long).
But younger people with good educations and professional experience should really be some of the best cushioned against economic hard times. I mean, wasn’t that the point of spending all that money on school in the first place?
October 27th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Four years ago I had a cushy big law firm job and man, I was fuckin’ rollin’ in it. I hung that up 2 years ago and so I’m **much** worse off economically.
However, I did buy a power washer a couple weeks ago, and it’s awesome. So let’s call it a push.
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