why do increases in minimum standards that basically don’t affect me (I was already buying higher-than-minimum-quality things) and don’t at all affect the median Indian make me much poorer relative to the median Indian?
Well, this itself may prove too much.
Suppose that the minimum to survive in the west is raised to $90,000, and if you have less than that you are thrown out onto the streets and made homeless.
If the minimum to not be homeless is $90,000 and you earn $100,000, are you REALLY 100 times richer than someone on $1000 who has a shack to live in and food to eat?
and the now-much-richer countries have a safety net that enables everyone to reach this.
that’s a nice fantasy but in reality the way the west works is if you are a single young male and you have less than enough money to afford rent, there is no safety net in many places, especially the USA and the UK. You are thrown into the homelessness trap.
If minimum standards rise to $90,000 and I’m earning $100,000, I would argue they do probably affect me substantially and my original premise of ‘minimum standards that basically don’t affect me’ no longer holds. For example, I might to start putting substantial money aside to make sure I can meet the minimum if I lose my job, which will eat into my standard of living. That’s why I used numbers where I think that statement does actually hold ($10,000 minimum versus $100,000 income).
that’s a nice fantasy but in reality the way the west works is if you are a single young male and you have less than enough money to afford rent, there is no safety net in many places, especially the USA and the UK. You are thrown into the homelessness trap.
Sure, this is why I said ‘hypothetically’ and ‘in 50 years’. I’m not sure your above claim is true in the UK even as of today in any case.
(UK benefits are a bit of a maze so I’m wary of saying anything too general, but running through one website (www.entitledto.co.uk) and trying to select answers that correspond to ’22 year old single healthy male living in my area with no source of income’, I get an entitlement of £8,300 per year, most of which (around £5,200) is meant to cover the cost of shared housing. Eyeballing that number I think 100pw should indeed be enough to get a room in a shared property at the low end of the housing market around here.
I think it is also true that a 21 year old wouldn’t get that entitlement because they are supposed to live with their parents, but there are meant to be ‘protections’ in place where that isn’t possible for whatever reason. I haven’t dug further than that.)
If minimum standards rise to $90,000 and I’m earning $100,000, I would argue they do probably affect me substantially and my original premise of ‘minimum standards that basically don’t affect me’ no longer holds.
And I think the reality of the situation facing many people in the intended audience of the original graph is at least somewhat like that.
As this debate has progressed, the amount of income corresponding the targeted person has gradually moved upwards from $70k gross in an expensive area of The West (Bay Area, Oxford UK, NYC, London) to $200k net in an average-cost-area (Ohio). I feel like there is something of a motte-and-bailey defence going on here:
the “motte” is the position that the superstar lawyer earning $200k after tax who inexplicably lives in Cleveland, Ohio could pretty reasonably be said to be roughly 200 times richer than the person in the developing world on $1000. Not quite true (because it still fails the division test), but close. Problem with the “motte”: If you literally told young EA recruitment targets that they all earned $200k post tax and lived in Cleveland, Ohio where living costs are average, they would unanimously object that that’s nowhere near their situation in life.
the “bailey” is position that young potential EA recruits earning $70k net in an expensive area are literally 100 times richer than an average Indian earning $700. Advantage of the “bailey”: makes people feel extremely guilty and more likely to donate money or sign the pledge. Disdvantage of the “bailey”: as always, it’s not actually a defensible position. We can see this by the fact that as I push on it, a retreat is happening.
Was this intended as a response to my comment? I didn’t bring up the $70k figure or the $200k figure. I did take up one part of your argument (the ‘minimum standards’ part) and try to explain why I don’t think using a $2k - $5k minimum as equivalent to the median Indian actually makes sense.
Advantage of the “bailey”: makes people feel extremely guilty and more likely to donate money or sign the pledge.
FWIW I doubt this is actually true. I have generally strongly preferred to understate people’s relative income rather than overstate it when ‘selling’ the pledge, because it shrinks the inferential distance.
Well, this itself may prove too much.
Suppose that the minimum to survive in the west is raised to $90,000, and if you have less than that you are thrown out onto the streets and made homeless.
If the minimum to not be homeless is $90,000 and you earn $100,000, are you REALLY 100 times richer than someone on $1000 who has a shack to live in and food to eat?
that’s a nice fantasy but in reality the way the west works is if you are a single young male and you have less than enough money to afford rent, there is no safety net in many places, especially the USA and the UK. You are thrown into the homelessness trap.
If minimum standards rise to $90,000 and I’m earning $100,000, I would argue they do probably affect me substantially and my original premise of ‘minimum standards that basically don’t affect me’ no longer holds. For example, I might to start putting substantial money aside to make sure I can meet the minimum if I lose my job, which will eat into my standard of living. That’s why I used numbers where I think that statement does actually hold ($10,000 minimum versus $100,000 income).
Sure, this is why I said ‘hypothetically’ and ‘in 50 years’. I’m not sure your above claim is true in the UK even as of today in any case.
(UK benefits are a bit of a maze so I’m wary of saying anything too general, but running through one website (www.entitledto.co.uk) and trying to select answers that correspond to ’22 year old single healthy male living in my area with no source of income’, I get an entitlement of £8,300 per year, most of which (around £5,200) is meant to cover the cost of shared housing. Eyeballing that number I think 100pw should indeed be enough to get a room in a shared property at the low end of the housing market around here.
I think it is also true that a 21 year old wouldn’t get that entitlement because they are supposed to live with their parents, but there are meant to be ‘protections’ in place where that isn’t possible for whatever reason. I haven’t dug further than that.)
And I think the reality of the situation facing many people in the intended audience of the original graph is at least somewhat like that.
As this debate has progressed, the amount of income corresponding the targeted person has gradually moved upwards from $70k gross in an expensive area of The West (Bay Area, Oxford UK, NYC, London) to $200k net in an average-cost-area (Ohio). I feel like there is something of a motte-and-bailey defence going on here:
the “motte” is the position that the superstar lawyer earning $200k after tax who inexplicably lives in Cleveland, Ohio could pretty reasonably be said to be roughly 200 times richer than the person in the developing world on $1000. Not quite true (because it still fails the division test), but close. Problem with the “motte”: If you literally told young EA recruitment targets that they all earned $200k post tax and lived in Cleveland, Ohio where living costs are average, they would unanimously object that that’s nowhere near their situation in life.
the “bailey” is position that young potential EA recruits earning $70k net in an expensive area are literally 100 times richer than an average Indian earning $700. Advantage of the “bailey”: makes people feel extremely guilty and more likely to donate money or sign the pledge. Disdvantage of the “bailey”: as always, it’s not actually a defensible position. We can see this by the fact that as I push on it, a retreat is happening.
Was this intended as a response to my comment? I didn’t bring up the $70k figure or the $200k figure. I did take up one part of your argument (the ‘minimum standards’ part) and try to explain why I don’t think using a $2k - $5k minimum as equivalent to the median Indian actually makes sense.
FWIW I doubt this is actually true. I have generally strongly preferred to understate people’s relative income rather than overstate it when ‘selling’ the pledge, because it shrinks the inferential distance.
that may be true, but they are figures that have been brought up
Maybe. But the promotional materials certainly seem to frame it that way.