# The Great Divorce \[Charles Murray’s book “Coming Apart”\]

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-divorce-charles-murray-s-book-coming-apart/611338>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [January 31, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-divorce-charles-murray-s-book-coming-apart/611338 "2012-01-31T20:51:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-divorce-charles-murray-s-book-coming-apart/611338/62 "2012-02-10T22:01:17Z")

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> [@Terr](#):
>
> 1. Frum is complaining about falling wages compared to 60 years ago. Do you think the graph supports that statement?
> 2. Here is the census info on median household income: [http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/2010/H08\_2010.xls](http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/2010/H08_2010.xls)
> 
> 2004 - $51,174  
> 2011 - $49,445
> 
> This is adjusted for inflation. So - look at the graph and go down about 3% from the last number. Does that change the general trend for the 60 years?

Median household income is a bad measurement, since the Frum’s hypothetical is part of his parents’ (or more likely parent’s) household.

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**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-divorce-charles-murray-s-book-coming-apart/611338/63 "2012-02-10T23:16:30Z")

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> [@MOIDALIZE](#):
>
> Median household income won’t tell us the whole story. You need to break the income down by percentile to see whether the lower percentiles have seen gains, something like [this graph](http://economistsview.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b33869e20168e5ef5a8c970c-800wi) or [this](http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/figure5.png). But even those graphs don’t tell us enough, because we also need to know the change in percentage of the workforce that is at each percentile and the effect of education. If Grandpa had no more than a HS diploma and still ended up in the 70th percentile, and Dad had no more than a HS diploma and was in the 50th percentile, where is Son likely to end up if he has no more than a HS diploma?

Good point.

The anecdote was about someone coming home with a high school diploma and getting work that can support a family. Does anyone really think a high school diploma is all one needs these days to do well in the workplace?

My mother got a mortgage on a flat on the outskirts of London as an auxiliary nurse (nurse helper, maybe?) on her own, no husband, before I was born, with no financial help from her parents. She left school at 15 with no qualifications and had no vocational training other than on the job; her literacy skills are still not that good; forget their and they’re, the and ther are a problem.

Lots of people of my parents’ generation are like that - she’s only an outlier in that she bought it as a female rather than a male homeowner.

That same flat would now be worth easily £350,000. Someone who left school at fifteen with no qualifications and questionable literacy skills would need a lottery win to buy it - no chance of a mortgage.

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