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Everything is Shit: Tracking the Great Enshittening


956 Worldwide

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Just now, 52-80 said:

If you want to see America over time, better to zoom out a bit no?

And I did.  Note that the first three charts I linked went back to 1930, 1945, and 1964.  And every one of them shows a turning point in the early 1970s -- the divorce between productivity growth and wage growth and the end of significant real wage growth.  

That's not a new observation, either (obviously).  That is, I'm not cherrypicking some random take on things - those two phenomena have been widely discussed for many years now.

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i for one am pretty impressed with the display and acknowledgement of all this data showing just how great Americans are doing right now with regard to wages and outpacing inflation. seriously! that should make a certain decision about eight months from now a really easy choice, not to mention allow @StassneyHorn to justifiably gloat! 😄

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FWIW, 5280, utilizing *household* income as a measure is in problematic because it doesn't account for the (something like) doubling of two-earner households since the 70s or something like that.

QOL is often much higher when one person isn't working, but you have enough money, and you're not running errands and trying to keep up on evenings/weekends.

To link it to the umbrella topic, it's IMO enshittification that, for most households, one-earner and all the benefits that go with that is not something sustainable.

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9 hours ago, Covri said:

Straight from your source, rent going up above average in previous years which historically affects lower income folks more.

 

You_Doodle_2024-02-27T22_36_54Z.thumb.jpeg.458ba1886bae39398f0c5aa8ad7e9a13.jpeg

Tip: you can overlay the actual data series so you don't need to hand draw a fictitious red line.

Here's the change in price of rent vs disposable income of people earning in 21-40th percentile.  Is that lower income enough for you?

fredgraph(1).thumb.png.75c9cb03269fe7aad037e2bdac53f2ca.png

The first image starts at the beginning of the data set availability (1984).

The second image starts at your chosen period of 10 years ago (2014).

fredgraph(2).thumb.png.3947e897f9f7c475de8dd638c04328d6.png

 

Can you point to the historically-affecting thing on the graph?

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7 hours ago, choripan said:

FWIW, 5280, utilizing *household* income as a measure is in problematic because it doesn't account for the (something like) doubling of two-earner households since the 70s or something like that.

Also false.

This is change of two-earner+ households, since the start of the 1984 income data series from above.  It's gone down.

The average in the 1970s was 57.44%. The last measurement was in 2019 at 59%.  That is not... a double.

 

image.png.d3ac3645af6fd956c8fabfb070240bdb.png

This information comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economics Supplements 1968-2020.  And recomiled in the 2021 BLS' Womens Databook.  Feel free to verify it for yourself.

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Yogi Berra said something about this theory of American dystopia some of your fuckers  embrace.

Nobody goes there any more.  It's too crowded.

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6 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

So, how about that Wendy’s surge pricing? 

I just don’t understand the logic. Assuming there is a surge in demand around noon. You don’t have a lack of supply. Just sell more burgers. There is a reason some place aren’t open 24/7, there is little demand at 4am. They don’t stay open and charge less due to low demand. They don’t sell burgers. It makes sense.

Surge pricing only makes sense if there is a lack of supply, which there is not. 

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5 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

I just don’t understand the logic. Assuming there is a surge in demand around noon. You don’t have a lack of supply. Just sell more burgers. There is a reason some place aren’t open 24/7, there is little demand at 4am. They don’t stay open and charge less due to low demand. They don’t sell burgers. It makes sense.

Surge pricing only makes sense if there is a lack of supply, which there is not. 

2566eb3466fad2a1e8dd776392a53af7.thumb.jpg.15c6c7577685f926d9cc96e8253f123d.jpg

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46 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

I just don’t understand the logic. Assuming there is a surge in demand around noon. You don’t have a lack of supply. Just sell more burgers. There is a reason some place aren’t open 24/7, there is little demand at 4am. They don’t stay open and charge less due to low demand. They don’t sell burgers. It makes sense.

Surge pricing only makes sense if there is a lack of supply, which there is not. 

It makes sense if you think you can charge more because people are hungry.  
 

I do think this will backfire, when you’re a national chain with minimal difference in product to other burger slingers, the commercials write themselves. 
 

Restaurants do this already, kind of. Happy Hour or charging less for a burger at the bar than the same burger in the restaurant at dinner seating. But that is always predictable. 

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2 hours ago, 52-80 said:

Also false.

This is change of two-earner+ households, since the start of the 1984 income data series from above.  It's gone down.

The average in the 1970s was 57.44%. The last measurement was in 2019 at 59%.  That is not... a double.

 

image.png.d3ac3645af6fd956c8fabfb070240bdb.png

This information comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economics Supplements 1968-2020.  And recomiled in the 2021 BLS' Womens Databook.  Feel free to verify it for yourself.

image.png.cea56fe631a69d386305c7419e801a46.png

 

You cherry picked by having the data start in the 80s when my initial post said "the 70s or something like that."

25% dual earner in 1960 to 60ish percent these days is a huge jump.

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All these charts remind me of this text from a Fortune article last month:

First, we need to help people make sense of their world, not tell them what to think. That means listening closely to people’s experiences. If they’re afraid they can’t pay their bills, we need to help them make sense of that lived reality. That starts by taking that lived reality seriously, not just telling people things are fine.

When we listen to people, it becomes clear that aggregate statistics no longer reflect the reality most people live in. Unemployment may be low, but if you can only find work at low wages and irregular hours, things aren’t fine. Inflation may be dropping, but if your paycheck no longer covers your rent (the way we measure inflation doesn’t adequately capture housing costs), things aren’t fine. If you’re two percent better off than last year, but you were on the edge of disaster last year, things aren’t fine.

We need to talk about that reality–economic inequality, corporate power, and economic insecurity.

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45 minutes ago, choripan said:

image.png.cea56fe631a69d386305c7419e801a46.png

 

You cherry picked by having the data start in the 80s when my initial post said "the 70s or something like that."

25% dual earner in 1960 to 60ish percent these days is a huge jump.

You funny man.  Serious question, did you even read the post to which you are responding?

"Cherry picked by having data start in the 80s..."

I plotted the data from 1984, because that matches the data FROM THE PRECEDING POST, where the LOW INCOME HOUSEHOLD was first made available.  Feel free to lobby your complaint to the Bureau of Labor Services.

"my initial post said "the 70s or something like that."

I *also* gave you the rate of 2+ earners in the 70s.  It is 57.44%.  Which is virtually same as 2019.  It's in the 8th column in case you're having trouble.

"25% dual earner in 1960 to 60ish percent these days is a huge jump."

Why move goalpost to the 1960s?

image.png.9aef2ade59a077f225bd94b602442937.png

 

This is a larger dataset covering all married opposite-sex couples in the US.  It is not a smaller subset of married couples WITH children under 18.

When you mention the "household income" in relation,  the household is from a large survey covering all "consumer units" (CU), not households-with-small-children? I actually like Pew Research, but the larger raw data is available to examine yourself...

 

Edited by 52-80
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1 hour ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I do think this will backfire, when you’re a national chain with minimal difference in product to other burger slingers, the commercials write themselves. 
 

newcokead.0.0.jpg

 

I presume surge pricing was just a random idea that leaked and they were a long way from implementing.

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1 hour ago, 52-80 said:

You funny man.  Serious question, did you even read the post to which you are responding?

"Cherry picked by having data start in the 80s..."

I plotted the data from 1984, because that matches the data FROM THE PRECEDING POST, where the LOW INCOME HOUSEHOLD was first made available.  Feel free to lobby your complaint to the Bureau of Labor Services.

"my initial post said "the 70s or something like that."

I *also* gave you the rate of 2+ earners in the 70s.  It is 57.44%.  Which is virtually same as 2019.  It's in the 8th column in case you're having trouble.

"25% dual earner in 1960 to 60ish percent these days is a huge jump."

Why move goalpost to the 1960s?

image.png.9aef2ade59a077f225bd94b602442937.png

 

This is a larger dataset covering all married opposite-sex couples in the US.  It is not a smaller subset of married couples WITH children under 18.

When you mention the "household income" in relation,  the household is from a large survey covering all "consumer units" (CU), not households-with-small-children? I actually like Pew Research, but the larger raw data is available to examine yourself...

 

I set the goalposts at 70s or something like that. Never moved 'em, unless you think the 60s isn't something like that. Semantics there.

Point is, regardless of whether 50 or 60 years ago (stop fixating on the trees and catch the forest), the transition to de facto dual-earner being required for most people is an enshittening of QOL, even if just for peace of mind that, if you choose to both work, you're not in too much trouble if one of the two earners loses their job bc you could live off of one income.

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What if the reason everyone could afford a house and car and all this other stuff is because they bought modest houses and cars in places that made sense? Not everyone lived downtown back in the day and not everyone drove a car with all the bells and whistles of today. 

you can still buy a 17k brand new car with warranty. You just have to know how to drive stick. Houses have gotten absolutely enormous in the US. Accounting for areas becoming more desirable or big high paying jobs being concentrated in different areas is also something to consider when people talk about the affordability of things. It was always most expensive to be closest to the best employers. There just happens to be a lot more good employers employing people who can afford living close to those places. 

I also have a feeling that discretionary income spend is drastically different than it was back then. The “Starbucks” effect so to speak. Same with eating out. Same with a lot of convenience based spending that is discretionary. It feels like people are paying more than they used to to be lazier than they were. 

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8 minutes ago, immamac said:

What if the reason everyone could afford a house and car and all this other stuff is because they bought modest houses and cars in places that made sense? Not everyone lived downtown back in the day and not everyone drove a car with all the bells and whistles of today. 

you can still buy a 17k brand new car with warranty. You just have to know how to drive stick. Houses have gotten absolutely enormous in the US. Accounting for areas becoming more desirable or big high paying jobs being concentrated in different areas is also something to consider when people talk about the affordability of things. It was always most expensive to be closest to the best employers. There just happens to be a lot more good employers employing people who can afford living close to those places. 

I also have a feeling that discretionary income spend is drastically different than it was back then. The “Starbucks” effect so to speak. Same with eating out. Same with a lot of convenience based spending that is discretionary. It feels like people are paying more than they used to to be lazier than they were. 

Both my parents grew up in the Americana(50's and 60's) era of suburbia in single income homes.

They both grew up in families of four, 2 bedroom 1 bath houses, no attached garage, 1 car, 1 television, rarely dined out, public school, a couple family vacations their whole childhood.

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59 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

They both grew up in families of four, 2 bedroom 1 bath houses, no attached garage, 1 car, 1 television, rarely dined out, public school, a couple family vacations their whole childhood.

Sure.  My folks didn't have it so nice, but they aspired to that, and that's pretty close to what I grew up in, 1970s equivalent (modest home in a neighborhood that was in a far-out burb when we moved in, a fancy dinner out for most of my life was Red Lobster, family vacations were almost all road trips to visit grandparents in S. TX, Mexico, and family in Louisiana -- one big trip to Colorado, another two to Florida.  Biggest luxury/sacrifice was private school -- and it was a strain for us).

But today, in many/most cities, the "modest home" isn't really an option anymore because it's not economically viable to build (land cost is too high, doesn't make economic sense to build a starter home on the lot).  Because both parents work, we now have two cars (have to, because 99% of American cities have shit for mass transit).  And substitute the TV of the 1960s-70s with "total entertainment expense" today ("a 21-inch (diagonal) GE color television in 1965 had an advertised price of $499, which is equal to $4,724 in today's dollars") - I bought a damn nice 55 inch LG TV for something like $500, and then when you add in streaming services, consider our phones as entertainment devices....your annual "entertainment" costs are probably pretty similar.  It's not "extravagant" to have a TV, a smartphone, and several streaming plans - that's actually comparable to the "we had one TV" standard of the 1960s.  And finally, family vacations....the vast majority of Americans take pretty modest vacations - again, as a percentage of their annual income, vacation expense (even including a flight on Spirit Airlines, and your hotel room in Nashville to see the Opry or whatnot) is pretty similar to what we spent loading up in the Family Truckster and road-tripping to Jellystone National Park.

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2 hours ago, immamac said:

you can still buy a 17k brand new car with warranty. You just have to know how to drive stick. Houses have gotten absolutely enormous in the US. Accounting for areas becoming more desirable or big high paying jobs being concentrated in different areas is also something to consider when people talk about the affordability of things. It was always most expensive to be closest to the best employers. There just happens to be a lot more good employers employing people who can afford living close to those places. 

Counterpoint - there aren't any small and reasonable houses to buy if you look around. If you want small, you're renting or got extremely lucky with your timing on buying. Hell just on my street in the last couple years I've seen a few small older homes with a nice yard get knocked down and replaced with a t-bone neighborhood of nuts to butts townhouses

2 hours ago, immamac said:

I also have a feeling that discretionary income spend is drastically different than it was back then. The “Starbucks” effect so to speak. Same with eating out. Same with a lot of convenience based spending that is discretionary. It feels like people are paying more than they used to to be lazier than they were. 

DAE avocado toast???

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6 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Counterpoint - there aren't any small and reasonable houses to buy if you look around. If you want small, you're renting or got extremely lucky with your timing on buying. Hell just on my street in the last couple years I've seen a few small older homes with a nice yard get knocked down and replaced with a t-bone neighborhood of nuts to butts townhouses

DAE avocado toast???

I mean culturally it's shifted away from brunch at someone's hosted house/event and now it's brunch at a restaurant where someone could probably order avocado toast that is a lot more than if they had avocados at their friends house etc. Thats more my point than the actual ordering avocado toast. It's that people for no real reason that I understand go to meet at a bar to drink and not talk to anyone else outside their group, when they could drink at one of their own huge houses or backyards for a fraction of the cost. 

People like meeting out, I get it. Bars have existed for a long time, I get that too. I don't think that the way people interact at bars is at all the same today as it used to be and now the prices at bars are significantly more margin filled than before as well. It's more the "see and be seen scene" that I'm talking about. It's not that it hasn't always existed, it's just now that it exists in a ubiquitous fashion it seems. 

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25 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Counterpoint - there aren't any small and reasonable houses to buy if you look around. If you want small, you're renting or got extremely lucky with your timing on buying. Hell just on my street in the last couple years I've seen a few small older homes with a nice yard get knocked down and replaced with a t-bone neighborhood of nuts to butts townhouses

DAE avocado toast???

A few years ago they built a really large "affordable housing" community over by my kids high school. It was one of those developments that looked like old row houses. Narrow, 2 story, with the garage around back on an ally. My son and I used to drive through there to get to one of the Brushy Creek MUD lakes we liked to bass fish. Every house under construction had a sold sign in the front yard. Every one of them was also for rent, most listed by the same agent. So a huge chunk of this development that was supposed to be affordable housing got bought up by investors and turned into rental properties. 

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I enjoying listening to Marketplace on NPR as I'm making dinner. They had an interesting segment on whether starter homes still exist. The home we're in was our "starter home". We were supposed to live here for a bit then move on to something else. That was in 2004. If we were to move on now, I'm not actually sure what we could afford, either in Dallas or outside of it. Sure, it would be nice to have a nicer home but I quite enjoy the lower payment we're making.

https://www.marketplace.org/2024/02/27/are-we-finished-with-starter-homes/

 

Edited by mdmost
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20 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Ripping people off is a business model.  And it's one that works because it's ubiquitous.  I encounter it regularly, and I don't have the fucking time or energy to fight every assfucking businesses try to give me.  I am far from alone.

Why do you hate convenience fees. We are here to help you. That'll be 12.99 plus our convenient Payment Acceptance Fee.

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3 hours ago, immamac said:

What if the reason everyone could afford a house and car and all this other stuff is because they bought modest houses and cars in places that made sense? Not everyone lived downtown back in the day and not everyone drove a car with all the bells and whistles of today. 

you can still buy a 17k brand new car with warranty. You just have to know how to drive stick. Houses have gotten absolutely enormous in the US. Accounting for areas becoming more desirable or big high paying jobs being concentrated in different areas is also something to consider when people talk about the affordability of things. It was always most expensive to be closest to the best employers. There just happens to be a lot more good employers employing people who can afford living close to those places. 

I also have a feeling that discretionary income spend is drastically different than it was back then. The “Starbucks” effect so to speak. Same with eating out. Same with a lot of convenience based spending that is discretionary. It feels like people are paying more than they used to to be lazier than they were. 

You're onto something with how expectations have bloated up for the "same" things.

In grad school at Texas I rented a room in a 1940s house near campus. (OF COURSE it's gone and underneath foo-foo shit now.) You may know that grad students don't get paid much and that they are traditionally expected to be depressed about it. But one day I'm sitting in my 1940s room, wondering what 1940s people did, and it occurs to me that I have everything for a 1940s middle class life: cook some food on the stove, read a book from a great library, catch a bus, do my job, hang out with friends in the back yard with beer somebody scrounged up. Also I was banging my mid-20s girlfriend on the reg or just noodling around on the acoustic guitar, maybe riding my bicycle if I got bored. The kind of shit people jet off to Costa Rica to do.

Later I worked in Mexico for less money but overall better lifestyle. Mexico made me think of how my parents grew up in the USA, maybe similar material culture but still plenty of cool stuff to do for not much $.

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6 hours ago, choripan said:

Point is, regardless of whether 50 or 60 years ago (stop fixating on the trees and catch the forest), the transition to de facto dual-earner being required for most people is an enshittening of QOL, even if just for peace of mind that, if you choose to both work, you're not in too much trouble if one of the two earners loses their job bc you could live off of one income.

If you reflect on what you have just written, you might have unintentionally made a point that you probably dont want to make. 

ignoring the fact that the total household labor participation rate was the same as today… lets assume this fictitious, idealized single-earner household, what was that picture? the man, a union factory worker, having enough for house, car, and an annual vacation?

where do you think the woman is in that picture? her educational attainment and economic freedom?

the quality of life for the typical/median family, or the lower-class family, 50 or 60 years ago, its not what you think it is.

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In 1970, around 10% of adult women had a bachelors or better, and 40% of all women (not just married) participated in labor force. 

Today, their education rate is 45%, and labor participation is at 53%. 

The apparent narrative is that women are *now* forced to work. But roughly same proportion were working in the past, but they were less educated and earned far less. 

Fellas, should we ask the wimmenz if their situation has been enshittified?

*data: BLS and National Center for Education Statistics

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4 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

How much does it cost to get a cheap blender and chuck some ice cream in it?

Ice Cream? This is not a Wendy's, sir.

Frosty's are a bit more like Water, Sugar, Powdered MILK, Sunflower Creamer [Sunflower Oil, Maltodextrin, MILK Protein, Emulsifier (E471), Antioxidant (E306)], Whey (MILK), Cocoa Powder (3.7%), Stabiliser (E412), Flavouring (Flavouring, Dextrose), Carrageenan [Stabiliser (E407), Dextrin], Stabiliser (E415)

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8 hours ago, mdmost said:

I enjoying listening to Marketplace on NPR as I'm making dinner. They had an interesting segment on whether starter homes still exist. The home we're in was our "starter home". We were supposed to live here for a bit then move on to something else. That was in 2004. If we were to move on now, I'm not actually sure what we could afford, either in Dallas or outside of it. Sure, it would be nice to have a nicer home but I quite enjoy the lower payment we're making.

https://www.marketplace.org/2024/02/27/are-we-finished-with-starter-homes/

 

New 900 square feet homes have been popping up recently. A new type of “starter home”. Around $315K price point, which is affordable as fuck for my area. Anything below that is a double wide. 

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13 hours ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

When we listen to people, it becomes clear that aggregate statistics no longer reflect the reality most people live in. Unemployment may be low, but if you can only find work at low wages and irregular hours, things aren’t fine. Inflation may be dropping, but if your paycheck no longer covers your rent (the way we measure inflation doesn’t adequately capture housing costs), things aren’t fine. If you’re two percent better off than last year, but you were on the edge of disaster last year, things aren’t fine.

We need to talk about that reality–economic inequality, corporate power, and economic insecurity.

The last sentence doesn't fit with the rest of the paragraph. If most people live in those conditions then income inequality isn't the issue. The issue is that the statistics and metrics being used are poor indicators of economic conditions of individuals and that national economic growth needs to be such that individual income outpaces inflation. Without knowing the details, personally I would assume that the metrics being used have been bastardized by politicians to fit a narrative that is incongruous with reality. I doubt economists just randomly chose bad measurements.

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48 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

New 900 square feet homes have been popping up recently. A new type of “starter home”. Around $315K price point, which is affordable as fuck for my area. Anything below that is a double wide. 

I live in a nice golf course community, in a nice, good sized house, with a nice pool and in a good suburban school district and I think we have been here about 8 years or so and we payed less than that. Now, people are looking at $800K for a similar home. And in most of the nice cities west of Texas, prices don't get any better.

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14 hours ago, 52-80 said:

If you reflect on what you have just written, you might have unintentionally made a point that you probably dont want to make. 

ignoring the fact that the total household labor participation rate was the same as today… lets assume this fictitious, idealized single-earner household, what was that picture? the man, a union factory worker, having enough for house, car, and an annual vacation?

where do you think the woman is in that picture? her educational attainment and economic freedom?

the quality of life for the typical/median family, or the lower-class family, 50 or 60 years ago, its not what you think it is.

Nowhere did I say or imply that I support dual-earner with a regression to 1960s social norms. Are you being purposefully obtuse?

 

image.thumb.gif.256f9987510718051fbd8df2a96a40a7.gif

 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, choripan said:

Nowhere did I say or imply that I support dual-earner with a regression to 1960s social norms. Are you being purposefully obtuse?

I didn't accuse you of saying it explicitly, or implying it surreptitiously.  What do you think the word "unintentional" means?

However, what you bemoan is -- i quote -- "the transition to de facto dual-earner [from 50 or 60 years ago]...is an enshittening of QOL" , which implies the QOL conditions were better 50/60 years ago where single-earner was the norm.

1. the transition in dual-earner household is objectively false.  thats been shown with the BLS data.

2. the QOL 50/60 years ago is shittier across all dimensions.  this can be shown 1 million ways.

3. the marginally lower womens participation in workforce in the past is because they earned very little for their labor, due to their far lower education level.  wanting to return to 50/60s condition is not a good thing.  (its written in academia, but is also obvious, that higher pay potential induces people to WANT to work. if you dont cant earn much, you stay at home and care for the kids.  if you can earn a lot, you'd rather work and pay for a babysitter)

 

distrust of government data + denial of objective facts + yearning for conditions of decades past == are you guys accidentally doing a right-wing LARP?

 

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