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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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And yet the median household income is not even half of the lower bound of that estimate.

The median nurse salary is slightly above the median household income.

Presumably there are reasons people are leaving this supposedly "very attainable" money on the table.

One component of this is that US households are highly degenerate. We have insane levels of single parenting, and old-age divorcees relative to Europe, which does a lot for the median household income. For example, if you restrict yourself to households of married parents with children, the median jumps from $70k to $100k. We also have huge underclass which pulls the median down substantially.

Well yeah, travel nursing is what it sounds like- plenty of people are willing to take a lower but still perfectly respectable salary in exchange for not living on the road.

Of course, some people prefer pornhub and PlayStation, but if your willing to work there are tons of higher paying jobs that don’t take a ton of effort to get. Travel nursing & big 4 accounting come to mind as attainable 4 year degrees for most of the population.

Some people don’t want to chase the $$$’s but that doesn’t mean it’s not an attainable option.

"some people"

Presumably the median person isn't a lazy bum and would like the 40% pay raise from just being a regular nurse (without any travel, decent working conditions and ironclad employment security) would earn them. I don't think this is as attainable as you think. The median salary is probably what it is for a reason.