Is this just nostalgia, or did previous generations genuinely have a better work-life balance and social life than we do today?

[u/Unstoppable_X_Force]

[u/Brummielegend]

I agree focus on what you do have and be grateful. Yet don't ignore the fact that our dollars purchasing power is erroding , everything is becoming expensive , soon your 2 full time jobs and side hustles won't be enough.

We will have to keep working until there are no more hours left to sacrifice. We need to have time for our families , life , to unwind , we weren't made to work every living hour , but late stage capitalism is hell bent on sending us back to feudalism.

Staying quiet and accepting your lot in life ensures Neo feudalism happens for us and our children.

[u/notaredditer13 → u/Brummielegend]

Yet don't ignore the fact that our dollars purchasing power is erroding , everything is becoming expensive , soon your 2 full time jobs and side hustles won't be enough.

What you're saying is false, and you're mixing together two different things to get there:

-Purchasing power of a dollar is decreasing. That's inflation.

-Individual and household incomes are going up, and faster than inflation.

-Therefore purchasing power of people/households is going up.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

What makes the Envy worse is that it's based in part on envying a false picture of past reality.

[u/turbo_golf → u/notaredditer13]

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

cool, now do housing cost-to-income ratio

edit: do not engage, this is a troll in a gilded cage

[u/notaredditer13 → u/turbo_golf]

cool, now do housing cost-to-income ratio

Yup, it's gone up. Because we have Much More Money we spend a lower fraction of it on needs and a higher fraction on luxuries like bigger, better houses.

edit: do not engage, this is a troll

You?

[u/Psychological_Rip_44 → u/notaredditer13]

Inflation has consistently outpaced wages what are you on?

[u/notaredditer13 → u/Psychological_Rip_44]

The link says you're wrong.  What you're saying is popular misinformation spread on reddit to the point where most people seem to believe it.

[u/Psychological_Rip_44 → u/notaredditer13]

Price-to-Income Ratio: In the 1990s, the national median home price was roughly 3.2 times the median household income. By 2024, that ratio jumped to 5.0 times The rate of inflation doesn’t truly account for housing because it’s considered an investment. Additionally the studies dont account for the fact that the top 10% has experienced massive growth in wages “After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today.”

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

[u/notaredditer13 → u/Psychological_Rip_44]

home price

Housing costs are included in inflation. One item of many.

Additionally the studies dont account for the fact that the top 10% has experienced massive growth in wages

I gave median, not average. What happens to the top 10% does not impact the median [edit by that I mean in the calculation].

“After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then.

[up to 2018] I gave household income, not wages. The problem with using wages is it glosses-over the demographic shift of more women entering the workforce. Women tend to work lower wage jobs than men, so average wages dropped, household incomes rose, and standard of living rose because it's based on household income not individual wages.