reply on: Wage levels: USA outpaces Europeans \ stacker news ~econ

21 sats \ 11 replies \ @Undisciplined 22 Apr \ parent \ on: Wage levels: USA outpaces Europeans econ

Part of that is selection. During the pandemic a lot of people left the workforce and haven't returned. That was largely people earning below average salaries, so it moved the average up.

I don't think wage growth has been that robust over the past four years.

40 sats \ 10 replies \ @TomK OP 22 Apr

But imagine what this did to Europeans...

61 sats \ 9 replies \ @Satosora 22 Apr

Maybe they didnt poll from the right group? I just feel 80k is being very optimistic.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @TomK OP 22 Apr

I had read such figures on various occasions before. the gap between the USA and the Europeans is widening immensely, not least because of the climate apocalypse we are celebrating so extensively

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @Undisciplined 22 Apr

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1dxDl

Depending on the choices made by the analyst, 77k is not far above what the Fed is reporting.

61 sats \ 6 replies \ @Satosora 22 Apr

Fed reports a lot of bs. Over-inflating numbers and under-inflating numbers for their purpose.

40 sats \ 0 replies \ @TomK OP 22 Apr

But we have to deal with this bs

21 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 22 Apr

That's fine. My point is just that the first chart is right in line with other available data. If you find something counter to it, I'm sure we'd all be interested.

40 sats \ 2 replies \ @Satosora 22 Apr

Average salary 54k https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll/average-salary-us/#:~:text=How%20much%20does%20the%20average,Q4%20of%202023%20was%20%2459%2C384.&text=This%20is%20up%205.4%25%20from,was%20making%20%2456%2C316%20per%20year.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 22 Apr

I think what was misleading on the first graph is that it isn't specific about what the number refers to.

That $54k is only drawn from wage earners. A lot of income in America comes from non-wage sources. That makes $54k a dramatic underestimate of income.

Another thing going on here is that taking the mean, rather than median, of income will give a fairly high seeming value because of the extreme high-earners in the distribution.