Spreadin’ Love 502

~ Laura

NPR's chart of What American's Earn with a great breakdown by state. 

Matt Yglesias talks about the rise of single motherhood. "I continue to think the common sense explanation here is that we're witnessing the consequences of increased labor market opportunities for working class women, rather than diminished labor market opportunities for working class men."

Sandra talks about how she photographs food. 

New Yorkers reading on the subway.

Published by Laura

9 thoughts on “Spreadin’ Love 502”

  4. Matt Yg, wrongitty wrong wrong WRONG. At least in my view. Here is a comment I put up at 1/2 changed world, which I think is on point (but, I would, wouldn’t I?)
    I think normal is over. Useta be if you wanted to make tires you did it in Akron and you needed burly people to grab hot stinky tires out of molds and throw them on the cart. Always, those burly people were men. You had to pay them pretty well, because the work was nasty. And, people were policing disability payments/welfare etc., so if you didn’t do SOMETHING (or marry somebody with a job, and keep his house) your life was going to be unpleasant. Now, the tires are made in Ulsan and robots grab them out of the molds. So a whole lot of the semi- and un-skilled work men did is gone, it’s not coming back. Much of the work that’s out there – stocking shelves at Target, delivering auto parts to garages – is done at least as well by women as by men.

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  5. Relatedly, it’s one thing to say that it would make more economic sense for a woman to marry a high-income man than a low-income man but it’s another thing entirely to say that it would make more economic sense to marry nobody than to marry a low-income man. In pure economic terms, as long as your husband has nonzero earnings and does a nonzero level of housework and childcare he’s on balance contributing.
    I think what Matt Yglesias is missing is that for many women marriage isn’t being compared to a lifetime of loneliness, but instead to some form of serial monogamy.
    An unmarried baby-daddy who makes 50% of his child support payments and takes the kids every other weekend is also “on balance contributing.” More than the construction worker husband who worked about 3 months last year, but drinks a six-pack every night and sometimes does the dishes? Well, that’s a judgment call, and the downside risk may be enough to choose not to pressure him to tie the knot right away.
    On balance, not getting married allows you to have a different live-in partner in each of your 20s, 30s, and 40s, with some solo breaks in the middle, gathering many (but not all) of the benefits of marriage, and then live alone when your sex drive has largely faded, without being responsible for the man who will become impotent and have a heart attack at 57, and then be a burden for the next 15 years before he finally widows you at 72.

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  6. “An unmarried baby-daddy who makes 50% of his child support payments and takes the kids every other weekend is also “on balance contributing.” More than the construction worker husband who worked about 3 months last year, but drinks a six-pack every night and sometimes does the dishes?”
    If it’s the same guy (unemployed 9 months a year), it’s unlikely that he’s going to manage 50% of his child support payments or remember to take the kids every weekend.

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  7. If it’s the same guy, no longer getting “free” room and board from his working wife, he may be more likely to pick up some odd jobs during the 9-month layoff so that he can afford his beer.
    In any event, when he falls behind there’s a legal claim to more of his wages during his employed summer.

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  9. Those will be cash jobs, and neither his kids nor any level of government will see any of it, particularly since the family’s total housing costs have now essentially doubled.
    Oh, and unemployment is currently 8.2%.

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