When I was around 20 years of age, I got a piece of gig-work, monitoring local newspapers for mentions of an energy provider. It was a daily job, 7 days a week, but all up, took me about 2 hours. One of those hours was because one of the papers only came out weekly and was only available from the printers directly, so I had to drive there every Thursday morning, before I started work. For this job, I was paid $300 a week. Which wasn't much less than I was getting working full-time at McDonald's, which I was doing concurrently, as well as going to university full-time.
It was too much money for the difficulty of the task.
However, the person who gave me the job, represented the energy company in the region and for this part of the job, that is what they paid him. Since he wasn't doing the job, he paid me what he would have been paid. This was in his opinion fair, because while the task was simple, the value of the task to the company was high enough to pay that amount. For them, it was a drop in several oceans, for me, it half filled the only bucket I had.
The value of a job is something I have thought about a fair bit since then, and I am an advocate for people getting paid what the job is worth. I think it is very short-sighted when companies look to underpay workers, because they will end up losing the best to those who are willing to pay what the job is worth. And, I also think that people should get paid for doing their job, regardless of who they are. Equal pay for the same work, at least in the areas where that kind of thing can be enumerated. Not all work can, for instance one actor can have more audience draw than another, so should be paid for their value to the production. But, for 1:1 work and output, same pay.
But, I have been thinking about this a bit lately, and while I haven't fleshed out all my thoughts yet, it seems that it could be that,
Women entering the workforce have ruined earnings.
Before you jump to conclusions as to why and call me a 1950s man, just know that this isn't about women at all, it is about economics and the way businesses work, combined with the changes in our culture. So, first off all let's have a think about what a family looked like in the mid-1950s.
So, the stereotypical nuclear family of the 1950s consisted of an economically stable family made up of a father, mother, and two or three children. Children were precious assets and the center of the family. Very few wives worked, and even if they had to work, it was combined with their role as housewives and mothers.
That'll do for an average description.
Since that time, the participation rate of women in the US workforce has increased about 60%, from 33% and peaking around 2000 at 60%, and currently at 75%. The shaded areas are recessions in the US. Now, obviously it is good that women are working, well, at least in my opinion, but what does this actually mean?
Well, looking at the description above, it said that very few wives worked, and looking at the chart, it was about 1one in three with a job. And while I can't be sure, I am going out on a limb that the majority of those jobs weren't in highly paid positions, and were likely similar to female dominated roles as now, teaching, nursing, and the now largely defunct, secretary roles. This is relevant, because it means that in the large majority of those 1950s families, the man was the bread winner. Just to reiterate, this isn't about male and female roles in society, it is about economics.
What was the income of a 1950s household?
I am glad you asked.
The average family income in 1955 was $4,200, according to the United States Census Bureau. In this same year, men earned an average salary of $3,400, while women earned an average salary of $1,100. The average salary for men represented an increase of $160 from 1954.
In 1955, adjusted for "today's dollars" it was just shy of 40,000 dollars a year per household, which as we can probably recognize, isn't a large amount, as the 2022 median is almost double, at $75,000. However, the price of goods and services have also changed, as has the amount of goods and services. Back then, entertainment expenses were likely quite low in comparison.
However, the challenge is that our culture has changed, so it is hard to compare apples of the past, with oranges of the present. For instance, while real median family income hasn't quite doubled since 1955, since 1960, the number of households has increased by 2.5x. That is significant, because there are more people in the workforce percentage wise, but there are less marriages, families, and a lot more one person households.
Since 1960, the number of one-person households in the US has increased from 6.9M to 37.89M in 2022, which is a 5.5x increase. As I have mentioned in earlier articles, this has a significant impact on the economy, because the more singles there are, the more goods and services are required, which means more is spent. Not only that, the higher the demand is on housing, and all other resources. The more we spread out and isolate, the more economic activity we generate.
The more expensive life becomes.
Now, this is something to put a pin in too, because all businesses look to increase their profits yearly, and it isn't just to keep up with the inflation rate. For instance, if a company increase profits by 10% a year, it will take about 7.2 years to double their profits. But, if every company is doing this, how is it sustainable?
If we look at mean personal income over time, it is a relatively smooth line and currently sits at 59K in 2022, but if we count back 7 years to 2015, it was 44K. However, Mean doesn't tell the story. If we look at the Median income in the US, it tells something else.
2015 was 36K, 2022 was 40K. The massive discrepancy is because the average is skewed by the obscenely wealthy, but the median is using the middle score, giving a more realistic view of the situation, as it is skewed less by a handful of individuals. It is not quite as smooth, is it? There are ups and downs. What this actually indicates is that while average income keeps increasing, median income sees periods were it falls away.
The rich get richer.
And while I have gone off on a few tangents, I think that this is a good point to bring back the start, with women participating in the workforce. In the US, the participation rate of women in the workforce comprises about 47% of the total workforce. Essentially, we have more people working, more economic activity is being generated, more wealth created, but, we aren't any better off for it. And I think that a lot of this is because of that corporate model to keep increasing profits. In order to do so, efficiencies have to be made and while more workers can generate more goods and services, that movement of money into profit has to come from somewhere.
Where one person used to get paid a whole pizza, once another was hired, they cut the pizza in half to feed two.
Back in 1950s world, it was possible for a single income family to live a pretty decent life, but now, with two people in the equivalent household working, many can't afford to come close to that kind of lifestyle. There is no way for me to be a 1950s man with a stay-at-home housewife, because I just don't earn enough. Seventy years ago however, that was the average. An average man could earn an income to buy a house, car and maintain a family with two or three children, but how many men can do that today?
Are our lives better?
Again, I am not talking about the gender roles and the like, nor calling for a return to "the good old days", but it is worth considering what might have actually happened. While women have far more freedom and opportunity to work (which is a good thing), corporations have leveraged it to make more profits, by generating more, but paying comparatively less on average. Their profits increase, while men and women both earn less for their time and energy. The gender pay gap is becoming less of an issue over time, but the total pay gap is becoming more so, which is evidenced by the wealth gap between rich and poor.
What is fair pay?
And how does that fit into a model that looks for continual increases in profits? How does that ledger balance? Even if we all go out and get second jobs and work more, there are only so many goods and services that can be demanded at any given point in time. So, in order to keep those profits climbing, the prices will increase, as will the efficiencies to decrease costs. It is a continual cycle that will always eventually lead to more people having less, because it is unsustainable.
Like most of what we do as humanity.
The universe doesn't care about fairness at all, as it is 100% carefree about everything. However, as a society, we should be thinking about what is fair in terms of many things in this world. We should be looking to close gaps in wellbeing and increase quality of opportunity. Profit and wealth don't translate into increase in quality of life, unless they are spent on doing just that. And if the money was being spent on that, the areas of the economy that generate wealth, would likely change a great deal. Profits would still be made, just in different industries.
What I do think is, that women are mistaken.
It is not a man's world. It is the 0.1%'s world.
Nearly everyone is getting screwed over.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
