Why Obamacare Is Unpopular (The only enthusiasm for it comes from David Brook's 'educated class')

If you are spending more work time than your father to a) put a chicken on the table; b) drive 100 miles in your car; c) provide shelter of equivalent size/quality, then your standard of living may have declined, but this is not true of the average American.

All the economists who have looked at it carefully concede that CPI overstates inflation by about 1% a year: this has HUGE consequences for whether real wages or income per capita are rising or falling over time.

Moreover, even if the CPI did a perfect job of accounting for the price of chicken, homes or refrigerators over time, it is positively lousy at accounting for new technology. The introduction of computers, cell phones, iPods and similar electronic gadgets have enormously improved the quality of life. Most of us have managed to acquire these goods to varying degrees without having to starve ourselves, our families, dress them in rags or force them to live in hovels.

Taking the entire “package” of current goods and services that can be afforded by the average worker today versus 40 years ago, how many would gladly swap today’s package for yesterday’s? If more than half would make the swap, that would be solid evidence we’ve been losing ground. Otherwise, we’ve been gaining ground on average. The share of income needed for food, clothing, shelter has steadily declined over the past century, which likewise is solid evidence we have been gaining rather than losing ground in terms of standard of living.

Medical costs . . . up or down? Are you spending less time at work today to provide medical care or are you spending more time than 40 years ago? Gas? Automobile? Higher education for your children? Vacations? I don’t even buy that people work less time for equivalent homes compared to 40 years ago. What did a 5 acre lot and house in Florida cost someone 40 years ago versus today? Dallas? Jersey? I’m not buying it.

I just don’t buy it. My bet is that if I dug into these studies you say are out there I’d find them lacking.

Here’s a fact regarding car prices:

With the average new-car price topping $20,000 for the first time, it now takes more than six months of a typical family’s entire pretax earnings to buy a new car.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/RISE+IN+CAR+PRICES+OUTPACES+AVERAGE+SALARY%5CSticker+shock+makes...-a083919214

2008 median family income: 52,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income

Avg. car price in 1972: 4,500. Median family income: 14,000.

http://www.bbhq.com/prices.htm

So about 1/3 annual income for a car in 1972. About 1/2 in 2010.