<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>faitswulff</author><text>The Wall Street Journal has a great infographic here comparing how many hours of worth it would take to pay median rent today versus in 1968: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wsj.com&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;how-much-does-the-federal-minimum-wage-buy-you-now-vs-then-11614866413&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wsj.com&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;how-much-does-the-federal-minim...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Spoiler: it’s not pretty.</text><parent_chain><item><author>paulluuk</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t really know the stats, but I&amp;#x27;m curious if this is true. Yes, GDP has been going up for a long time in many countries, and so the &amp;quot;average wealth&amp;quot; of each generation is going up.&lt;p&gt;However, is the same true for purchasing power?&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you hear about these mythical stories of janitors who could afford to actually buy a house, despite having two children and their partners being stay-at-home moms.&lt;p&gt;And yet today, I hear so many stories about 30 year olds with masters degrees who are still living with their parents because they can&amp;#x27;t afford to rent a studio.&lt;p&gt;Like I said, and I can&amp;#x27;t find good stats on this online. If you have any stats on which you based your comment, I&amp;#x27;d love to see them!</text></item><item><author>throwaway0a5e</author><text>How much social mobility we talking?&lt;p&gt;Statistically nobody goes from trailer park to billionare by working hard.&lt;p&gt;You have very, very, good odds of doing better than your parents if you manage to get to age 25 without incurring a felony record, addiction to something that will likely kill you or too many child support payments.&lt;p&gt;edit: I&amp;#x27;m only talking about the US</text></item><item><author>wishigotitfree</author><text>Starting conditions (where one was born, levels of wealth and opportunity there, one&amp;#x27;s parents&amp;#x27; education and jobs) are shockingly predictive about an individual&amp;#x27;s future. Hard work leading to social mobility has always been the exception, not the rule. Most will not beat the odds since if they did, those wouldn&amp;#x27;t BE the odds. A lot of us are just so deluded by survivorship bias borne of listening only to success stories, but it seems more and more people are seeing through the illusion. In my opinion, that&amp;#x27;s a good thing, as recognizing the true state of things is the first step to improving them, and this combination of consciousness and lived experience can prove to be potent immunization against bad faith actors who want to maintain the illusion of widespread social mobility.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life</title><url>https://insidermag.net/survey-shows-people-no-longer-believe-working-hard-will-lead-to-a-better-life/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>wishigotitfree</author><text>&amp;gt; Yes, GDP has been going up for a long time in many countries, and so the &amp;quot;average wealth&amp;quot; of each generation is going up.&lt;p&gt;GDP does not correlate to &amp;quot;average wealth&amp;quot; and is itself a dubious measure for economic progress depending on what figures you pick to calculate it.&lt;p&gt;Also, no matter what metric you use, the &amp;quot;average wealth&amp;quot; of the younger generations, particularly millennials, is not in fact higher than their predecessors. The level of their productivity is a historical high point, but this is infamously contrasted by stagnating wages, assets, and by some metrics even overall quality of life.</text><parent_chain><item><author>paulluuk</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t really know the stats, but I&amp;#x27;m curious if this is true. Yes, GDP has been going up for a long time in many countries, and so the &amp;quot;average wealth&amp;quot; of each generation is going up.&lt;p&gt;However, is the same true for purchasing power?&lt;p&gt;Sometimes you hear about these mythical stories of janitors who could afford to actually buy a house, despite having two children and their partners being stay-at-home moms.&lt;p&gt;And yet today, I hear so many stories about 30 year olds with masters degrees who are still living with their parents because they can&amp;#x27;t afford to rent a studio.&lt;p&gt;Like I said, and I can&amp;#x27;t find good stats on this online. If you have any stats on which you based your comment, I&amp;#x27;d love to see them!</text></item><item><author>throwaway0a5e</author><text>How much social mobility we talking?&lt;p&gt;Statistically nobody goes from trailer park to billionare by working hard.&lt;p&gt;You have very, very, good odds of doing better than your parents if you manage to get to age 25 without incurring a felony record, addiction to something that will likely kill you or too many child support payments.&lt;p&gt;edit: I&amp;#x27;m only talking about the US</text></item><item><author>wishigotitfree</author><text>Starting conditions (where one was born, levels of wealth and opportunity there, one&amp;#x27;s parents&amp;#x27; education and jobs) are shockingly predictive about an individual&amp;#x27;s future. Hard work leading to social mobility has always been the exception, not the rule. Most will not beat the odds since if they did, those wouldn&amp;#x27;t BE the odds. A lot of us are just so deluded by survivorship bias borne of listening only to success stories, but it seems more and more people are seeing through the illusion. In my opinion, that&amp;#x27;s a good thing, as recognizing the true state of things is the first step to improving them, and this combination of consciousness and lived experience can prove to be potent immunization against bad faith actors who want to maintain the illusion of widespread social mobility.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life</title><url>https://insidermag.net/survey-shows-people-no-longer-believe-working-hard-will-lead-to-a-better-life/</url></story>