The above is the title of a recent a newspaper op-ed (pdf here) by columnist David French. He’s asking a good question! My quick take is that there are four things going on:
1. People want improvement. If you’re at X, then it’s great to go to 1.2X, it’s kinda scary to stay at X, and it’s distressing to go to 0.9X. It does seem that people react to the change in their economic situation rather than than the absolute level.
2. People want more. Housing is more expensive than it used to be, but part of that is that people want to live in bigger apartments and bigger houses. Cars are much more reliable than ever, but nowadays lots of people want two or three cars in their household.
3. Entitlement. Some people are struggling and it makes sense for them to be distressed with the economy. On the other hand, lots of people are sitting there with expensive houses all paid for and some money in the bank, but they’re not saying how amazingly wonderful things are, because they feel that they deserve every bit of it. This averages out to unhappy in the population.
4. Lack of security. The concern that, things might be ok now, but you might have to be scrambling in the future.
This is not to deny that lots of people are struggling economically. I’m just talking here about average poll findings. The question is not why some or even many people are economically miserable, so much as why the average response to such questions is lower than in earlier decades when people had a lot less. The point is that people are thinking about their future, they’re not comparing to how things were in past decades.
French gives some examples of how the competitive economy has distorted the upper middle class. He even talks about youth sports travel teams. It’s hard for me to believe that the high cost of Disney tickets and travel team fees are driving the affordability crisis–neither of these is anything like the struggle to pay the rent and take care of kids or elderly relatives while commuting to some faraway job with rigid working conditions. French also talks about the frustration of flying, but most people get on planes only rarely.
One other thing. French writes:
In this story, maybe the problem isn’t oligarchy. Elon Musk’s billions don’t tangibly change my life.
But . . . Elon Musk’s billions do tangibly change your life! Remember, they went in and screwed up the government. Planes are crashing, people are getting shot on the street, your data are at risk, they’re reducing childhood vaccinations and making it more difficult to develop future adult vaccines . . . so, yeah, you can blame those billions. You can also blame the zillions of dollars spent by lobbyists to legalize gambling on people’s phones.
I agree that “oligarchy” is not the only problem–and, arguably, oligarchy does lots of good things too—but it’s naive to think that it’s not changing your life. Even if you are not personally a gambling addict, you might have a loved one who is. Even if the kids in your family are currently vaccinated, you or they could get killed by the next pandemic. Etc.
I can’t get past the paywall, so I’ll just raise a question that might be easily answered if I could: compared to what? The assertion in the title does make me ask what is being compared? And what sort of evidence is he citing? Do surveys as if people are “miserable,” “worried,” “unhappy,” or what? And is that evidence consistently measured over time? I have to say I’m not automatically convinced that the assertion is correct. But it also raises another concern: people are bombarded with stories that help them feel miserable. I watch the national news most nights (while eating dinner and to see what the new drug ads are like). Every network has daily stories about car wrecks, weather disasters, airplane incidents, and crimes caught on camera. I keep wondering if these things are getting more common or are they just getting noticed and broadcast. I don’t know the answer, but I lean towards believing that these are not more frequent events, at least not all of them (I think severe weather has become somewhat more common but I’m not sure to what degree; the others I am less sure about). One particular one I keep coming back to is the daily reports of close calls at airports. I did not hear about that in my youth (or middle age, for that matter). Are things really worse than they used to be?
So, when I see that headline, it strikes me like much of the new reporting: large emotional impact with little evidentiary support. Maybe someone willing to pay the NYT can shed light on that.
Dale:
I added a pdf link to the post.
@Dale Lehman:
You should travel more – the urban/rural divide beggars belief! (Living in a megalopolises and exploring them counter-clockwise, on foot, mostly, was already tough enough.)
Last time we drove Down South, my wife said “Keep your trap shut – they’ll murder you!”.
This being said, the Washington Monument in MD was kinda nice to look at (not a trace of brass).