Is this it? This is life?

[Dylanc1500]

Are you sure it isn't just fantasy, or caught in a landslide, with no escape from reality?

[Teddy07]

On 1/13/2019 at 4:32 PM, wasab said:

USA gdp is 62,518 per carpita meaning everyone earns $62,518 USD annually on avarrgae. But because wealth inequality here, top 10% earns more than half of the wealth so we need to take away over 50%. Thus the average income should actually be somewhere in the $30,000-$40,000

Are you sure?

The U.S. Census Bureau reported in September 2017 that real median household income was $59,039 in 2016

[Hiya!]

Welcome to adult life...(said someone who is still in a college supported by her dad)

[Stroal]

On 1/9/2019 at 4:58 PM, William Payne said:

What you described is how work works. Some people are happy to just go to work and do their job and do what makes them happy in their own time. 

 

My advice to you is to ask yourself what do you want from your life. I will be 31 this year and I can tell you that unless you are one of those people who can seperate work and life. I say find out what you love to do and what you want to do with your life. 

 

Without money you can’t do anything, but you need a job to earn money. Your desired lifestyle will determine how much money you need to sustain yourself. 

 

Money requires work. 

 

There are are two types of workers. Those who are happy to work 40 or more hours a week for an employer and shut off completely when they go home. 

 

The second kind are the hard ones, they want to work but they want to come up with their own ideas, make their own decisions, be a part of something or even create something. 

 

That can be tough as an employee as often times all your boss wants you to do is come into work and do your designated job and that’s it, nothing more. 

 

In that case you have to start looking into self employment and finding a way to have your own business. 

There are jobs, especially in research, that allows you to do both. The problem is it's really hard. I work in programming, specifically doing research on neural networks and machine learning. It's great, it's a challenge, I get to come up with new ideas, and solve problems my way.

But on the other side of that coin is the constant setbacks, things not working as they should, tons of head scratching, and a lot of failure. It's not glamorous, and most days are pretty boring. But I love doing it. As I've gotten older, I've realized that problems aren't always bad. Problems are a constant in any life worth living. The person you marry is the person you fight with, the job you love is the job you stress over. 

Learn to enjoy the mundane, life is short, and it's better to learn to enjoy all nuances of life than to constantly try to pursue unattainable constant happiness. 

[wasab]

3 minutes ago, Teddy07 said:

Are you sure?

The U.S. Census Bureau reported in September 2017 that real median household income was $59,039 in 2016

Household income. Household is the key word. I am going to presume each household consists of two main earners. (Husband and wife) then 59,039/2 is your per capita. 

[Teddy07]

2 minutes ago, wasab said:

Household income. Household is the key word. I am going to presume each household consists of two main earners. (Husband and wife) then 59,039/2 is your per capita. 

You are right. The per person income is for sure lower than. I totally missed that point, thanks. I am interested in the topic but it is sad that there seems to be no statistic about per person median income.

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, Teddy07 said:

You are right. The per person income is for sure lower than. I totally missed that point, thanks. I am interested in the topic but it is sad that there seems to be no statistic about per person median income.

Keep in mind that Median and Average are different things.

 

Average is just add up everything, divide by the total number of things. The technical term for average is "Mean".

 

Median is the "middle" number. (The number that is exactly in the middle between all others).

 

The main difference is that Averages tend to end up being numbers that weren't part of the original equation. Example: Average income: $43,784.88. Yet it's entirely possible that none of the incomes measured actually were $43,784.88.

 

Whereas with Median, the "middle" number is simply the "most middle" income measured, so it's an actual hard number.

 

Median vs Average tend to be pretty similar, but there are scenarios where they will be different.

 

Now in terms of "household" income, if you live alone, your household income is also your individual income. If you have a spouse who also works, your household income is the income of both of you combined.

 

You cannot simply take household income and divide by 2, since that assumes every "household" has 2 income earners, when many are single, and others have more than 2 income earners (example: kids that have jobs - yes that counts. Same with if your parents or grandparents live in your house with you).

 

As a "rough and dirty" calculation, household / 2 does kinda work, but it's not particularly accurate.

[wasab]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Keep in mind that Median and Average are different things.

 

Average is just add up everything, divide by the total number of things. The technical term for average is "Mean".

 

Median is the "middle" number. (The number that is exactly in the middle between all others).

 

The main difference is that Averages tend to end up being numbers that weren't part of the original equation. Example: Average income: $43,784.88. Yet it's entirely possible that none of the incomes measured actually were $43,784.88.

 

Whereas with Median, the "middle" number is simply the "most middle" income measured, so it's an actual hard number.

 

Median vs Average tend to be pretty similar, but there are scenarios where they will be different.

 

Now in terms of "household" income, if you live alone, your household income is also your individual income. If you have a spouse who also works, your household income is the income of both of you combined.

 

You cannot simply take household income and divide by 2, since that assumes every "household" has 2 income earners, when many are single, and others have more than 2 income earners (example: kids that have jobs - yes that counts. Same with if your parents or grandparents live in your house with you).

 

As a "rough and dirty" calculation, household / 2 does kinda work, but it's not particularly accurate.

Right, per capita is average. I do note that average can easily be skrew by outlier reflected by the huge degree of wealth inequality in the USoA which is why I take the Gini coefficient, which stands somewhere at 0.4xx at the moment which is more or less 50% so I multiply the per carpita by .5  to get a picture of the median per capita income. My 30k-40k income per capita seems accurate when compare next to  median household income