Its certainly difficult to judge the qwuabity of life by any measure
Amen, Brother 🙏
Wage by itself may not be indictive of quality of life.
In some countries, medical costs are a major cost for people while it is hidden under a subsidy in other countries.
Housing prices can vary wildly and may be partially influenced by government policy.
What
Why would the lowest full time annual wage be the best measure of anything to do with an economy?
Economies are huge. No one single data point on the spectrum of wages is the best measure of a anything
It would however be amazing to have a high floor for individual equity.
Why not do the lowest, at the very least there’s a median which is disproprotionate already. Might as well be logarathmic or whatever
Why have a median then, middle class?
The lowest are likely to have serious issues and not be particularly helpful (how well the paperboy, special needs cashier etc is not particularly representative or useful.)
We also have measures that capture most of what you’re looking for there in the poverty rate.
What might be helpful is stuff like the interquartile ranges (think medians but more of them) or specific medians e.g., what’s the median for the bottom twenty, bottom forty etc.
Measures at the extremes are rarely very helpful except for arguing in ignorance or bad faith.
It’s not a bad measure but I don’t think it’s the best, I’m currently working my way through Spirit Level and so I think some measure like the Gini coefficient would be important.
I think that median income, Gini coefficient, poverty rate and something like the human development index would give a decent overall picture. I don’t think a single metric really does the job.
I mean, you’d also need to take into account cost of living, the rate of un/under employment, hours worked per week, working conditions in general, and a bunch of other stuff.
The lowest wage might tell something about the most shitty boss and the most desperated worker.
But it does not tell anything about an economy.
No. Because with a minimum wage in place, a higher number for this indicator would be associated with higher unemployment.
I think it’s a great idea. And all the people in this thread pointing out it wouldn’t be perfect are ignoring the glaring imperfections of “household median”.
