Ask HN: Is America in Recession? Official numbers say the U.S. isn’t in recession—does real life feel different? |
Ask HN: Is America in Recession? Official numbers say the U.S. isn’t in recession—does real life feel different? |
I've lived thru 8 recessions, none had achieved this level of difficulty. None had so completely barred new entrants to society.
I read somewhere that when women started working in the war efforts, businesses took advantage and skewed home prices and whatnot to make it so women had no choice but to continue working. This worked out well, because women wanted to work and have similar social treatment as men.
The issue then is that things kept skewing to the point where today a childless couple with high paying jobs can barely afford a vehicle and tiny apartment.
This may or may not be accurate. But it is an interesting opinion that I've heard a number of times over the years.
When people say things like this, they gloss over the fact that the standard of living, of what most people find acceptable, has gone up dramatically. Average home size has more than doubled, while family size has gone down. Cars have significantly more technology in them. Everyone now needs a $1k smart phone in their pocket.
I live in a home from the 1940s. I’m sure at some point there was a family of 5 living here. My dad grew up in a similar home in the 1950s with 6 people in the home. I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone these days who think my house is big enough for a family that size.
My parents both have some emotional scars I’ve seen from growing up poor in the idyllic era everyone likes to reference.
I think debt has really allowed things to get out of hand. The availability and normalization of using debt for everything has meant companies don’t have to keep prices affordable or pay decent wages, they just need to convince the public that having excessive amounts of personal debt is ok and normal. Then they also create new forms of debt to hide it from people and keep them spending, like BNPL. The idea of living within one’s means has shifted to mean if a person can make the monthly payments.
We don’t _forget_ this. We refute it. It’s not true. It’s a dream that real estate developers _sold_ that wasn’t real.
In 1975 the women’s labor participation rate stood right around 50% its around 55% now [0].
In 1975 the US home ownership rate was 65%, its 65% now [1].
There were more families with no cars in the 70s than now. 1 and 2 car families were about the same rate (with more 2 car families now) but the big difference is how many more families have more than 2 cars now than then [2].
More stats for you: - food as a percentage of family budget is lower now than then (and the only reason its close is that we eat out way more now)[3] - houses are bigger now than then[4] - data on employee tenure doesn’t go back that far, but the data we do have to the 80s shows employee tenure hasn’t changed [5]
There are lots of interesting economic challenges now, but _generally_ more people now are living better lives than then past economically. Anyone that sells you some story about some glorious past is lying to you for some reason.
Home ownership rates are always the tell. The US had very stable home ownership rates in the 45% range until the New Deal efforts that started subsidizing like crazy home ownership. They rose in the post war era until about 1960 when they reached the mid 60s. They have fluctuated in a tight curve in that band since then. The home ownership rate is tightly correlated to mortgage rates, not generational values, and spikes in 2005 (right before the bubble burst) not in the dim past [6].
[0] https://blog.dol.gov/2023/03/15/working-women-data-from-the-... [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N [2] https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/passenger_travel_20... [3] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic... [4] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/programs-surveys/a... [5] https://www.ebri.org/content/trends-in-employee-tenure-1983-... [6] https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/research/fi...
In my market: In mid 1990s one person could afford basic bills on typical, full-time wages. By 2007 living costs had doubled, most due to housing increases. For the next 12 years, wages and living costs mostly kept parity until 2020.
During 2020, basic bills (mostly housing) rose and a typical wage-earning home required ~3 incomes as rents shot up. By late 2021 we were firmly at 4 incomes while everything shot up, especially housing and insurances.
The one thing killing me in the economy is housing. Rent is up like crazy, but even more so rental criteria is ridiculous and competition is insane.
And this is in a dilapidated rust belt city with maybe one industry propping up the entire economy. It’s a bit cheaper than when I was in Florida a few years back, but not by a ton.
If I could figure out housing, all other problems would solve themselves, but it’s the one problem I can’t solve. My credit score took a battering during a long period of unemployment, and now I’m about as much of a pariah as a three time felon with two evictions, and I don’t even have an eviction.
But how was in after the 2008 crisis. How hard was it to find rent them. If you had a job, and income were the rents still ridiculous? Or was it easy enough to find a place if you had money?
Yes. People with solid jobs and money in the bank - people who've lived responsibly by saving before buying, almost no one will rent to them because of a zero credit score.
And we know a bit about competition too. We got our current rental in 2021. It was a FB ad, with a crayon drawing of the layout. It was up for less than 2hrs and had 50 applicants. We got it by offering 6 mos in advance + heavy security deposit.
October 13th, 2025
https://fortune.com/2025/10/13/gofundme-ceo-economy-inflatio...
Also home ownership rates, it’s by owner occupied dwellings, which would include owner occupied duplexes and triplexes. My building is technically owner occupied, he claims the in-law unit and receives mail there. But both flats are rented out.
The census owner % methodology is by respondent address. So if those are 3 addresses then that’s 33% owner occupied building. If you are all sharing an address and the landlord is the respondent then its 100% owner occupied. But importantly the methodology has been largely the same across measurement periods back to the 70s.
It gets harder before that because the census didn’t track the data.
My mom managed to keep the family afloat on one income but she was working a higher-income job (w/ wages somewhat lower than the men below her). Winters could be tougher; we ate what we grew during the summer and didn't always have money for furnace fuel.
Could any factory worker do that today?
Or are we talking federal minimum i.e. 4 x 14k = 56k.
I guess you are talking min(min wage)
Median wage goalpost is up the field from the typical wage goalpost. The latter is the most obtainable income range, the sort that folks could once earn and stay housed.
source: I once supported my young family on a typical wage
Past that, homelessness and wage earning are generally at odds with each other. This is for a for a number of pronounced reasons, obvious and not. One of the less discernible reasons is that being unhoused makes employers uneasy; I once lost a job when my boss learned I was homeless.
So people who are good at managing money, who tend to avoid credit, don't get a chance to demonstrate good -credit- management and hence end up with a low score.
This is one reason why getting a credit card, using it, and then paying it off in full every month is a valuable thing to do.
So for all the good money managers out there, be even smarter - build a good credit management history as a side effect of your good money management. That'll pay off in the long run.
All your savings will evaporate when you can’t get a good mortgage rate. That’s not good money management
Re: mortgages. IDK how things are where you're at, but from what I've seen, with houses of equal valuation, the value of the monthly with a mortgage will typically be more than double than when renting. Renting, saving, then buying out of one's pocket (likely a lower valuation house than when renting) seems like a viable strategy. Mortagages aren't some unavoidable fact of life.
It may or may not be what gives the best result, but that's ok. The peace of mind of not being in debt and having greater savings may be worth it, and have second order effects like enabling you to take more risk in other parts of your life.
I think you meant to say “my answer” not “the answer.”