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A real estate agent on social media has given some stats comparing the costs of housing (ownership and rent), college education and gas vs. the income in years 1970 and 2023. It sure looks like the American Dream is unattainable for a substantial portion of the Gen Z generation. www.youtube.com

Politico conducted its 2020 Voter Priorities Survey and results show that a vast majority of Trump voters believe the election results are not valid and that illegal voting and fraud took place during the election. Twenty-one percent of Trump voters believe the results are valid and 79 percent believe the election was stolen.

Vanity

I'm looking for the average hourly wage (or yearly income of wages over time. Preferred by decade. Like 1950, 1960 and so on. All I can find is household income. That's that what I want as that doesn't tell what wages are. I mean the number of women working has changed over time. If anyone has a link or knows how to use google better than me I'd appreciate it. When I search I just get household income.

The number of Americans living with a spouse or partner has fallen notably in the last decade, driven in part by decisions to delay marriage in the wake of a recession that hit new entrants into the workforce especially hard. Forty-two percent of Americans live without a spouse or partner, up from 39 percent in 2007, according to the Pew Research Center’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau figures. For those under the age of 35 years old, 61 percent live without a spouse or partner, up 5 percentage points from a decade ago. The higher number of spouseless households comes...

But slowly, over the course of six years, our physical relationship dwindled to nothing. I buried it because I had no idea how to talk about it, let alone fix it. Those years were pre-internet and pre-social media; I couldn’t simply tap my problem into Google and find answers. It’s agonising to be in a relationship full of love and lacking in sex. It’s a tragedy, in fact, or it was for me. And a sexless relationship carries a lot of shame. Just as having too much sex is taboo, so is having none. I kept quiet. Instead, my repressed...

Economist Marina Adshade is the author of The Love Market: What You Need To Know About How We Date, Mate And Marry. She teaches at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver School of Economics. Jezebel, the women-focused website with a penchant for feminism and cute animals, recently declared the beginning of a new era with the eye-catching headline: “New Trend: Men Wanting Babies, Women Wanting Freedom”. The article, and a similar one in New York Magazine, proclaims an end to supposedly long-standing paradigm in which maternally driven women have been forcing men into reluctant fatherhood. Men, apparently, are now the...

Margaret Wente, one of the country’s best columnists, has written an interesting piece on the changing roles of men and women. It’s all about the fact that women are increasingly more successful — better educated, more ambitious, more focused – than men. “Women are flourishing in this new world, but many men aren’t. Men have always defined themselves as providers — it’s the main source of their identity. What happens when they aren’t needed as providers any more? What happens when their sense of purpose is lost? The answer is, they become unmoored. They stop being adults” She quotes from...

If we get straight to the point and skip the BS that’s only used to soften the blow of painful facts, we can admit it’s hard to find a good man. Even if we take our standards, expectations, and delusional hopes off the table and really look at the situation for what it is, we can clearly see that we are not to blame for the lack of good men. No, we have society who can take the blame for this one. Unfortunately, our culture has evolved in a way that has made finding a good man tough ― and...

Arran Squire, 36, appeared on This Morning where he shocked hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield with the hyper-realistic and sexy appearance of “Samantha”. He explained his children frequently chat to the £4,000 robot, as well as it joining him and his wife in the bedroom for kinky threesomes. It was revealed during the interview that the robot responds to users’ voice and will only be romantic to her owner if she’s treated well. But Samantha’s TV debut let to Arran, who runs firm Synthea Amatus, being dubbed “perverted” and “strange” for his robot passion. He has now hit back...

Looking ahead to the next phase of life can seem pretty dreadful if you can’t stand the person who you’ll be spending it with. That may be what some boomers are facing. Among U.S. adults ages 50 and older, the divorce rate has roughly doubled since the 1990s, according to a recent Pew Research Center report. Statistically speaking we’re healthier and probably going to be living a lot longer — possibly 30 years longer — than average retirees once did. The surge in late-in-life — or “gray” — divorce is one possibly unintended consequence of this so-called longevity bonus. Read:...

Mid-February is the most frigid time of year, so it’s always seemed apt that that this is when they choose to hold the highest holy day of the cult of coupledom. If you’re reading this, there’s a not insignificant chance that you are one or several of the following: a) young b) female c) single or d) nauseated by the sheer volume of saccharine romantic propaganda sloshing around the public sphere at this particular time of year. But none of us live outside culture, and feeling frustrated on Valentine’s Day doesn’t make you stupid or duped or a mindless drone...

A divorce coach who charges $2,500 a session to advise women how to leave their husbands has insisted she is not a “marriage wrecker.” Single Emma Heptonstall ditched her high-flying job as a lawyer and set herself up as a self-proclaimed “divorce alchemist” — teaching mainly women, but occasionally men, how to have “happy splits.” The 44-year-old said: “I’m the divorce alchemist for ladies who leave. I know some people think I am not in a position to advise, having never been married, but I think that makes me objective.” “I’m not going to compare my situation with other people’s...

Alexis de Tocqueville came to America in 1831 to study its prisons, but ended up documenting nearly every facet of American life. With journalistic curiosity, the French aristocrat scrutinized America’s religion and government, its society and industry. He wanted to know what allowed the United States to surpass Europe as the world’s political and economic superpower. His conclusion? Women. The women Tocqueville saw were not CEOs or celebrities, politicians or professional athletes. They were largely confined to the home: cleaning, cooking, taking care of children. But to the young political historian, no position seemed more important. “There have never been...

The film industry has messed with our relationship perceptions, would you agree? We are constantly expecting to have the perfect, fairy tale relationship - like Hollywood ruined real life relationships didn’t it? We expect to have Chuck and Blair or Allie and Noah love story. But nothing is further from that truth. We love to imagine that you will traditionally fall in love or that you’ll randomly meet your perfect “other half” in the back of a limo. Sure enough, you will encounter your peak and low moments, but in essence you dream of finding that special soul mate you...

Manila (AFP) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday China's leaders told him they were prepared to go to war over competing claims in the South China Sea. Duterte, who met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing this week, said he was making the threat public in response to domestic criticism he was being too weak with China over the dispute. "I really said it to their face. That is ours and we intend to drill oil there," Duterte said, revealing his previously unreported plans to explore for natural resources in disputed areas. "And they...

I often encounter “pro-marriage” people while gathering stories for the blog. These pro-marriage people come in two varieties. On the one end of the spectrum are people like Terrell Clemmons and Jennifer Roback Morse, who understand marriage, but who also understand the social changes that have made marriage unattractive for men. Both Clemmons and Morse have a background in STEM fields, so they are able to understand incentives and tradeoffs. They understand that society has to rollback the changes to education, divorce laws, etc. if they expect men to be interested in marriage again. They understand that men are not...

I hear the same story, told in different ways, all over New York City. There’s 34-year-old Kate, who works in finance downtown. “She’s beautiful, smart, talented . . . everything going for her,” her colleague tells me. “But her boyfriend doesn’t feel settled in his career, so she spent thousands of dollars to freeze her eggs as she waits for him to be ready.

Society places such high importance on getting married that it’s easy to feel almost like a failure if you never manage to find a man to settle down with. While it’s fantastic if you do eventually find a guy you’d like to marry, it’s really no big deal if you never end up getting hitched as long as you have these things: 1. A solid group of friends It doesn’t matter whether your social circle is big or small — what DOES matter is the quality of the people in it. Even the most independent people need at least one...

At the end of the day, most men just want a woman who’s nice. “Nice,” to a man, means being soft, gentle and kind. It means asking your husband how his day was and really listening. It means doing something nice for him with no expectation of getting something in return—you know, the way you did when you were dating. But wait a minute, you say. Don’t women want the same thing? A man who’s nice? Not exactly. Most women do want a man who’s kind, but that’s not the same as nice. Ask any guy you know, and he’ll...