May 13, 2016

Ask an Economist: Are Living Standards Higher Than They Used to Be?

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So how are we doing these days? Let’s ask some economists. Their consensus, apparently, is that we’re way better off compared to the golden days of our youth, but not so much compared to more recent years. In fact, economists are split about evenly on whether we’re collectively better off than we were before the financial crash, which seems right to me. Roughly speaking, I’d say we’ve recovered to about 2007 levels, but haven’t yet surpassed them.

But this raises a question: Why do so many Americans think they were better off 30 or 40 or 50 years ago? There are several obvious possibilities:

  • Wages were rising back then. They may be higher now, but it’s steady increases that make things seem great.
  • Sure, we lacked cell phones and 500 channels and cancer cures back in the day, but we didn’t miss them because we never had them. The fact that we have them now doesn’t really make people think they’re better off.
  • On a related note, all the new stuff we have doesn’t really make us happier. If we grew up with it, it’s background noise. If we didn’t grow up with it, it’s just a complicated pain in the butt that we’re forced to keep up with even though we don’t really like it much. (Except for those 500 channels, of course. Everyone loves those.)
  • It’s basically cultural, not economic. A lot of people really were happier 50 years ago, but it had nothing to do with living standards. Whites didn’t have to compete with blacks or Asians. Men ruled the roost. Everyone knew their place. We didn’t worry about heroin epidemics. Etc.

It’s a funny thing about living standards. Take cars. They’re way better on practically every metric you can think of compared to, say, 1960. Cars today are faster, more reliable, more comfortable, more convenient, quieter, smoother, safer, and cheaper. And they come in way more varieties than they used to.

But do people like their cars today more than they did in the 60s? Probably not. We’ve gotten jaded. Cars were still kind of cool to the postwar generation. Today nearly everyone has a car and they’re just another possession. Our automobile living standard is far higher than it used to be, but our automobile happiness probably isn’t.

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That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

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Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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