alt Hacker NewsYou can easily live a “lower middle class 1980s life” on minimum wage today. Find a 1980s apartment, an early 2000s used car, and don’t bother paying for TV, Starbucks, a cellphone, etc.
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babypuncher • yesterday at 3:48 PM
this is straight up not even true, and even if it was, you're ignoring the fact that things like cell phone and internet are required to function in modern society.
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The rent on a literal 1980s apartment (let alone SFH mortgage) in every area that I’ve lived in has scaled up faster than average income. This is the trend for essentials.
Consumer electronics are cheaper; this is the trend for substitutable goods.
Love me the right 20-30 year old car, but the dramatic cost rise around covid times means the savings is only relative to new. A 3x increase in old car prices hasn’t been matched by 3 fold wage increases for most.
And of course we’re discussing this in a larger conversation about automating away 1980s jobs.