Is the middle-class disappearing?
12 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economic growth, human capital, income redistribution, politics - USA, poverty and inequality Tags: middle class stagnation
The Stigler diet is still as cheap as can be
12 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in George Stigler, labour economics, poverty and inequality Tags: cost of subsistence, poverty and inequality, school breakfast programmes, School lunches
The always excellent Matthew Kahn reminded me today of the Stigler diet: George Stigler’s famous 1945 journal article The Cost of Subsistence in the Journal of Farm Economics. Stigler posed this problem:
For a moderately active man (economist) weighing 154 pounds, how much of each of 77 foods should be eaten on a daily basis so that the man’s intake of nine nutrients (including calories) will be at least equal to the recommended dietary allowances suggested by the National Research Council in 1943, with the cost of the diet being minimal.
Stigler managed to find a nearly optimal daily diet of:
- 1.6 pounds of wheat flour,
- 0.3 pounds of cabbage,
- 0.6 ounces of spinach,
- 0.4 pounds of pancake flour,
- 1.1 ounces of pork liver.
All of this food necessary to sustain health and weight of a moderately active man amounted to $0.16 per day in 1944, which is an annual cost of $39.93, not including leap years. A recent update for inflation put the annual cost of the Stigler diet at $561.43 in 2005. Not more than two dollars a day .
Stigler later concluded that the main issue about food consumption is a preference for a variety rather than a nutritional diet which could be obtained very low cost if you like cabbage, spinach, flour and a little bit of pork liver. For many years, pork liver was not available in my local supermarkets in Australia and New Zealand until recently when Asian buyers started to buy again.
When various claims made about child poverty and children going without food, and adults too, the purpose of the Stigler diet in the calculations of the cost of subsistence is to show that it is actually extremely cheap to get the necessities of life in a capitalist society. Something more than either a lack of income in a modern welfare state or far from high prices of this extremely cheap, but spartan diet must be playing a role.
Public relations people earn 54% more than journalists & outnumber them nearly 5 to 1
12 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
Lower Working Age Population and Secular Stagnation
11 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply, population economics Tags: ageing society, ageing workforce, Population demographics
Bad career advice and well paid blue-collar jobs
11 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of education, occupational choice Tags: Charles Murray
One of the many excellent points Charles Murray makes is too many teenagers of average or modest academic ability are encouraged to go on to higher education. Their career advisers and schools do not alert them to the many well-paid blue-collar jobs that do not require higher education or at least no university education.
When did global technological leadership migrate across the Atlantic?
10 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economic growth, human capital, politics - USA, technological progress Tags: global technological frontier, growth of knowledge, innovation, Schumpeter, technology diffusion
HT: theatlantic.com/a-short-history-of-american-invention/385279/ via Mikko Packalen and Jay Bhattacharya
The Unappreciated Success Of Charter Schools
10 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of education, Public Choice, rentseeking, unions Tags: charter schools, School choice
The division of labour between modern parents
10 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply Tags: engines of liberation, female labour force participation, household production, motherhood penalty
Notice that mothers spent about 30 hours per week on housework in the 1960s. The engines of liberation were smaller families and the availability of a large number of labour saving household white goods, and preprepared and takeaway food.
How many were on Unemployment Insurance
09 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply, unemployment Tags: unemployment insurance
Everyone is richer in the USA and the middle class is moving up
09 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economic growth, great recession, macroeconomics, poverty and inequality Tags: The Great Enrichment
The middle class is shrinking in the USA because most of of 10% shrinkage is due to them becoming rich.
Everyone is wealthier than in the past and would have been wealthier but for the Great Recession and the countless tax rises of Obama.
The first Paul Krugman on efficiency wage arguments for a higher minimum wage
09 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, minimum wage, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, poverty and inequality Tags: George Bush derangement syndrome, living wage, Paul Krugman, public intellectuals
HT: economistsview
The rise of single parenthood in the USA
09 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, politics - USA, population economics, welfare reform Tags: single parenthood
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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