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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

There seems to be a real disconnect between some HN readers and most Chinese, who have a median income of $10k. Half of the Chinese live on less. Most of them don't live paycheck to paycheck and many don't have huge debts on top.

Instead, the Chinese are financially responsible and save between 25% and 50% of their income. They accomplish this by reducing their consumption.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2010/06/24/one-big-...

[edit: I misread, apparently it's urban Chinese. A little more googling gives similar numbers, so I stand by the point I'm making. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-09/here-s-wh... http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2016-01/21/content_231834... ]

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1. the article you linked says they have an average income of 10k, not median.

2. they have significantly lower cost of living

3. fta:

>in both China and the U.S., the average family’s assets were about eight times its average income.

4. seems this was a study of 2000 urban chinese, not all chinese. a sample of 2000 urbanites probably doesnt scale to over a billion people....

5. china has undergone several decades of large economic growth. if you compared china today with theUS in the late 1950s theyd probably seem pretty similar...

6. only 12% of chinese (from the 2000 person sample) owned a car

1) In higher inequality countries (which includes China) the median is usually lower than the average. So that only makes my point stronger.

2) The numbers provided are adjusted for PPP.

4) Whether urban or overall, it illustrates that far poorer people than Americans are able to save money. The savings rates across the country don't differ significantly. India also has a very high savings rate.

5) Yes, and it's still poor by US standards. So was 1950's USA. If 1950's Americans could save (did they), why can't vastly richer 2016 Americans?

6) As I noted, Chinese people save money by reducing consumption.

Adjusted for inflation median household income in the US has grown by about 20% since 1950. Given massive increases in inequality since then the lower percentiles have seen close to zero growth since then. But TVs have gotten bigger, which is nice.

You are off by about 60% - prior to 1996 inflation was overstated by 1.6%/year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boskin_Commission

It's actually still overstated; for example, there is no hedonic adjustment to health care in CPI. In 1950, I'd be a cripple. In 2014 I had surgery and now I'm in great shape. Since surgery costs more than a doctor saying "you're fucked", the BLS treated it as inflation.

And really, this claim just doesn't pass the smell test. And by "smell", I mean the smell of an outhouse. In 1950 the bottom 16-32% (depending on which set of numbers you look at) lacked full indoor plumbing.

https://books.google.com/books?id=_nY9LFtlqygC&pg=PA180&lpg=...

I'm basing those numbers on this:

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2015/09/23...

I'm obviously not making an argument that technology hasn't advanced since the 1950s. Don't be silly.

6. 'reducing consumption' by not owning a car is only even an option for a tiny minority of americans.

Imagine how horrible it would be to spend an hour commuting in the dollar vans with all those Chinese immigrants! See also Scott Sumner's article on this: http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=31723

The fact is that Chinese people earn low wages and still save money in the United States.

[edit: removed the last sentence, apparently I misread.]

i've had commutes over an hour, and still had to have a car - without one itd be on the order of 4 hours.

I misread your comment. My apologies, it was just an error on my part.

America loves to live on credit and extend into the future. I appreciate your comment quite a bit for its humor and sarcastic tone.

Everyone, every entity, loaded up on credit. It's really astounding. You go overseas and realize it's not normal. It's very distorting to the economy as well as so many organizations can stay in business with credit

Very true... other than a house, before the 1950's most people didn't buy much of anything on credit if it could be avoided. Unfortunately, credit/loans distort pricing/value and drive prices up until it becomes difficult without credit.

The sad thing to me the past few years has been food pricing... it just seems to be several times what it was even a decade ago, and very little reason behind it from a production standpoint. It feels like I don't really save any money when I cook, though the food is usually better, and I do get more portions (portion control is actually harder though).

Statistics bureau in my country does not publish median income, but I have a good guess on what it looks like based on averages and quantiles. I would consider 40% of that a good deal on rent in urban area. Add communal bills on top of that and you easily get at least 50% of median household income spent on having a roof above you alone. Add food, clothing, an occasional treat for a child and it gets pretty difficult to survive till next paycheck without constantly thinking about reducing price of everyday meal. I would guess that most HN readers are (and it would be strange if they did not, actually) disconnected from a below average/median person to a level that they only exist in some urban legends of a student living in a cupboard under some granny's stairs and having ramen on holidays. That's a bit superfluous, but median income in urban areas is not something easy to make a living of. Your mileage may vary.

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