This is why we need Unions

[NewEnglandAutumn]

I looked up average household incomes for the years 1980 and 2013
Then I looked up average home prices for the same years

The average home sold for $47,200 in 1980
The 1980 median family income of $21,020

The average home sales price is $436,800 2023
The average median household income in the United States was $67,521

Homes cost 2.25 x annual income 1908
Homes cost 6.47 x annual income 2023

**these are averages and can be different depending on where you get your information. For constancy I used the same sources for comparison.

I sometimes do the same for cars, appliances etc
American workers fall further and further behind every year
It is no wonder why homelessness is on the rise

I believe that as income disparity increases social unrest and poverty increases.
Income equality is a matter of national security.

[blm]

1. Typo. 1980, not 1908

[BOSSHOG]

2. If billionaires

Were kind, decent, empathetic human beings we would not need unions. Billionaires could be worth 30 billion instead of 60 billion and own one less yacht. Socialism doesn’t make capitalism look good. Greedy bastards and republicans make capitalism look very bad. And like every thing relative to quality of life for citizens, billionaires and republicans don’t give a fuck.

[leftstreet]

5. Capitalism "looks very bad," because it is

If you have to regulate and legislate it to achieve equality, it's no longer capitalism

[BOSSHOG]

7. Roger that teammate!

[leftstreet]

3. DURec

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. In the 1970s I was an airline ticket agent for

a small airline, and worked at DCA, Washington National Airport. We were not unionized, but we got a lot of benefits from other jobs being union. For instance, if we went over 8 hours in any given day, we got time and a half for the additional time worked. It didn't matter whether or not we hit 40 hours in the week.

There was also a four hour minimum pay if called in to work for any reason. One time, after I'd gone home for the night, I got a phone call telling me that a flight was diverting from Baltimore to our house, and they needed some people to meet the flight, help offload it, and take care of stranded passengers. Luckily, I lived about two miles from DCA so raced there, and did what was needed. I spent less than two hours, but got four hours of pay at time and a half.

I'm thinking there were other comparable benefits, but none come to mind at this point.

[BOSSHOG]

8. In High School Mock Senate

“In the 70s,” I introduced a bill calculating overtime as anything over 8 hours a day not 40 hours a week. It crashed and burned, but I got good feedback from the only vote that counted, the instructor.

[MichMan]

6. Why average home price and not median?

You used median income.

[LisaM]

9. Part of the problem is housing costs.

There doesn't seem to be any political will to contain them. I know that places like Airbnb and VRBO are taking housing stock off the market and increasing rents, but the appetite to fix this doesn't exist. (I cannot talk even my most liberal friends out of using Airbnb, with so many of them on vacation right now, I am forever biting my tongue on social media).

[Happy Hoosier]

14. Up to now, home price appreciation....

... has been the primary ways Middle-Class Americans build wealth.

It has formed a way for some to fund retirement, and for others to pass on generational wealth.

If that is curtailed (and maybe we need that), then we MUST also find better ways for Middle-Class Americans to build wealth.

The reason so many want to use AirBnB's is laregely because they are vastly better than commericial hotels at a lower cost. I routinely have to spend well over $1000 to stay a week in a hotel near my M-I-L. I COULD rent an AirBnB for about half that. I don't. But I sure see the appeal.

[LisaM]

16. Sure. I see the appeal of crossing a picket line to buy something I want, too.

But I don't do it. There are plenty of regular BnBs, too. And they don't cost that much AND they provide breakfast. I still don't understand how Airbnb gets away with calling itself a BnB when the don't have the nB.

I know people who have had to move multiple times because of illegal Airbnb units in their building. Some people just buy whole buildings and churn through short term rentals. Not only does it decrease housing stock, it forces up rents. I am a renter and I have to think that my home-owning friends who use Airbnb don't even care about me.

[Happy Hoosier]

17. None near my M-I-L

But like I said, I don't stay in the Airbnb's for the reasons you mention. But it's absolutely crazy that it costs so much to rent a single hotel room for 5 nights. Especially now that housekeeping is "by request only" and "breakfast" most often consists of microwavable crap.

I don't think it's that no one cares a bout you. It's that given that pretty much all wealth creation is going to the top 1-5%, people are doing the best they can to eek some pleasure out of life. We're left trying to fight each other for the scraps the ultra-wealthy let fall to the floor.

[marble falls]

22. How does one feel grifted by a tax one isn't paying? How do you feel about schools and ...

... and infrastructure? Paid for by property taxes. Are you posting in the the correct place????

They bought a double lot, they pay more tax or do you suggest when they sell the new owner gets both lots and only pays for one???

[GP6971]

27. Hello.

[marble falls]

31. Drawing them out works.

[GP6971]

33. At the very least

it's alerting other posters that something is "amiss".

[Bev54]

10. As a Banker back in the day, average house prices were in line at 2.5 x the average wage

for the area. It is so far out of line anywhere right now. I live in Canada and it is outrageous.

[Omaha Steve]

11. Did you know we have a Labor Group on the DU?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1117

[bringthePaine]

12. succinct, factual, and inarguable! bravo!

[raccoon]

13. I don't dispute that the price of housing has gone way up more than household incomes. As have drug

prices (the legal ones), college tuition (and part of the problem is that states and the federal government have cut way back on the
funding they give colleges, at least the state colleges), have gone WAY up in the last few decades.

However, the average size of new homes built has also gone WAY up in the last few decades. Look at any subdivision built in the 1950's, 1960's, or 1970's.

And ITA we need unions big time.

[Happy Hoosier]

15. The house I grew up in was pretty tiny.

My house is mucgh MUCH bigger. But, for example, my wife and I both require a home office. I work form home full time, and she's an academic, so also often is working at home. So we need a 4 Bedroom house just so my wife and I can have home offices.

[Mariana]

30. In my area the only new housing is fugly condo buildings and giant McMansions.

There is certainly a demand for smaller detached houses here, whenever they go up for sale they get snapped right up. None are being built though.

[GP6971]

19. Hello.

[marble falls]

21. I'm thinking, hello, pizza delivery.

[GP6971]

26. Same here.

Looks like it was delivered.

[GP6971]

29. A little off topic

isn't it?

[marble falls]

32. Now that's funny.

[keep_left]

23. Glad to see this one got removed. I was going to report it, came back, and it was gone.