Talk:Standard of living in the United States

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[edit] Archiving

As the last active discussion on this page dates back to September 2006 I have taken the liberty of archiving all past discussions. I have also re-written most of this article and removed nearly all unreferenced content. Please add only referenced content as this is a controversial article. Thank you, Signature^brendel 00:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hit job on the US

The article was a hit job on the US, mention a brief blurb on our relative wealth, then a bunch of rambling paragraphs on how the US is relatively unequal. I've fixed it up a little more fairly.--Rotten 10:30, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I see but please leave the quote in w/o just linking to it. Citing an authoritative source directly in the article builds a reader's confidence in what he or she is reading. Also the article is quite neutral- it gives the HDI (rank 8), nominal and GDP per capita ranks (3 & 8) and a comparison of median household income (rank 2)- in all these esteemed rankings the US is among the top 10, so this article is hardly a "hit job" on the US. Signature^brendel 00:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Something should be mentioned about home ownership and access to consumer goods, these are both important factors in standard of living.--Rotten 16:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

And incidentally, you are confusing quality of life with standard of living, which are two very different measures.--Rotten 17:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The Economist is measuring standard of living, dubbing it quality of life. Homeownership studies have been conducted and I'll include some stats ASAP. As for consumer goods, you need to be careful not to get trivial, as w/ TVs - if we include a bunch of frivolous bragging stats on "look how many things we own"- this article will turn into the same piece of POV-war crap it was two months ago. The paragraph you added is fine as it makes a general statement that "Americans have high rates of appliance ownership" and you merely use TV and radio ownership rates as quick one sentence examples. But overall, please, let's stick with income, homeownership and any authoritative studies we can find. Regards, Signature^brendel 18:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Please stop reverting my addition. The Wikipedia article defines SOL as "The standard of living refers to the quality and quantity of goods and services available to people and the way these services and goods are distributed within a population." I think my paragraph is therefor relevant to the article and I'm putting it back in, although I will mention that these are only several "goods". Please don't revert without discussing it on here, you don't own Wikipedia.--Rotten 20:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

My apologies, I didn't see that you had moved it.--Rotten 21:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)