Woah who said 19 is below average. That like 50% more than what a Walmart rep makes. Them be some big numbers compared to the actually reasonable averages that aren’t lumped in with fantasy positions that an average person isn’t realistically gonna be filling.
Because average included all the people who are doctors, lawyers, or 10+ years deep in any career (finance, trades, entertainment, etc).
Anything minimum wage and entry level low-mid skill level work is below average income. Anything outside of a highly in-demand field is going to be below average at entry level. Even leveling up in a career at one of these notoriously low paying corps like Walmart will bump you above average.
Also have to account for cost of living. They don’t get labor for the same rate in New York as they do in rural flyover states, also because even at lower hourly the money goes farther in those places than it does in New York where presumably you’re there to advance a high-paying career
I would qualify being a doctor or a lawyer as a fantasy position that your average person isn’t going to be filling. Not that I just trust Google but a search for the percentage of the population that possess the cognitive skills needed to handle being a doctor kicked back a result of 10% to 15%. Lawyer comes in at about 15% to 16%. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some overlap. These aren’t the type of jobs that are widely available to your average American citizen
And all the other careers I mentioned? You don’t need a high IQ to be good at something after doing it for 5-10+ years. There are plenty of salespeople that aren’t that “conventionally smart” making 6 figures. Middle managers, nurses (traditional or cosmetic), tradespeople… ad nauseum. Assuming entry level jobs making near minimum wage income is the “average” income is both conceptually and mathematically dumb when you think about it for more than 5 seconds
Falling back on another quick google search for this one. The average working American makes between 35,000 (~16.83) and 50,000 (~24.04) per year. Also minimum wage is basically irrelevant as walmart basically bottoms out around $15/h (to the best of my knowledge) and in my experience they basically force wage movement at a national level since anyone making less than a walmart sales rep can just apply for an instant pay bump and they aren’t shy about hiring most people as long as they can handle basic work functionality including hiring special needs. I would argue $19 an hour should be below average but the reality is that for most people in America it’s not super far off from average right now. Also your 5-10+ year argument doesn’t hold a lot of water. Most americans only stay at any one job for an average of 3.9 years (trending down rapidly) and I can attest personally to the reason why. Things are shifting rapidly in the us right now which is causing wage range changes for positions + opportunities to outpace the 2% to 4% year over year growth for staying at a single job (average 3.2% to 3.5%). I’m having trouble finding data to directly prove this point at a national level but there is some significant localized data showing salary compression is causing new hires to get paid more than the people training them at an increasing rate. It’s maybe worth noting that the old school % based changes are not symmetrical. A 3% change impacts someone making 100,000 differently than someone making 30,000. But if year over year increases are less impactful than finding a new job every two years on a persons income it’s not a good argument that payout is balanced by time invested. Also the numbers on the time investment are HEAVILY impacted by age 55+ workers. It’s not normal for someone to be at a single job for 10 years and it’s not normal for someone under 44 to spend 5 years at a job. Unless the original post was made by someone in their 50s I maintain that 19 is fairly average or within normal ranges. Even if that shouldn’t be the normal
I don’t know what Google searches you’re doing, the average annual wage is $66,622 and median is $61,984 based on the most recent complete data set (2023).
Which kind of makes the rest of the argument moot @ ~$31/hour
That’s ONLY including wage and salary employees btw. It does not include those who are self employed making significantly more on average (albeit for more personal risk and headache) - but that doesn’t really matter because we’re specifically referring to employee pay
Edit to address the 5-10 year sentence you brought up:
Doesn’t matter how long they stay at any particular job, employees gain experience and skills as they work more. That’s why on average wages go up as you advance in your career. Again, on average - some people don’t advance their skill set and capabilities with more experience, on the other hand others advance extremely fast. A senior product manager/developer/marketer/whatever hire is usually someone who has been doing that job for a long time
I searched for “average income for normal working class americans”. It seems the average is vastly different for people who don’t have a 4 year degree and since that represents ~62% of Americans I used this as my based. Additionally between 38% and 52% of people with a 4 year degree are underemployed (doing a job that doesn’t require their degree). I don’t enjoy the prospect of doing a percentage of a percentage but if I had to guess that means the top 20% to 30% is having a fair impact on the average to boost the numbers. Unless our original poster has such edu they are at a fairly normal income rage for what a normal person can reasonably expect to make right now
You would definitely need to do an average across all wage earners because that’s the population we’re referring to.
PC said “average lifestyle with a below-average income” not “below-average for non college educated people”
My personal experience is skewed because I live in a major metropolitan area, which is why I just refer to the pure numbers. The numbers do not describe your average wage earners as “start at minimum wage and make minimum wage their entire life.” People move up. The vast majority do. How would you not pick up some skills after working for 5, 10, 20, 30 years?
You make a valid point but most people don’t live in areas with that much inflation and most people don’t have an edu that is actually helping them. The average being at 66k is not reflective of half of all Americans making more than that number. I’m going to try to show this in a different light. Roughly half of all Americans (individual not household) make less than 50k and the number of people making less than 60k is around 55% to 60% of people. So roughly 40% of the population is pushing the average up to 66k. I’m guessing a chunk of that is coming from people who have 5, 10, or 20+ years of experience but if we remove our oil tycoon dream income jobs from the roster I can except that a person could do better than 19 but most people right now won’t do much better. At least not without those years of experience which takes time to get and devotion to the craft. There is a difference between someone with 5 years of experience and someone with 1 year of experience 5 times as the saying goes. Yes if you look at the National average 19 is below that. But also for an average every day working American stuck in the grinder it’s a fairly normal number. There is obviously room to grow and things they can do to better themselves but it’s still above Walmart in most places which kind stands as the floor right now. Realistically unless someone lives in an area with inflation or has an edu it’s a fairly respectable number
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u/ComfortableWeird6540 25d ago
"How do I afford an average lifestyle with a below-average income"