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The Guardian’s bogus claim about money, long commutes, and life satisfaction

37 点作者 pascal07超过 11 年前

8 条评论

mhaymo超过 11 年前
&gt; Earning more money doesn’t increase satisfaction with life. It just compensates for the lack of satisfaction (“Utility” in the formula) caused by longer commutes.<p>I don&#x27;t understand this line. How can money compensate for a loss of utility without increasing utility? An earlier quote from the paper asks &quot;how much additional income would a commuter have to earn in order to be as well off as somebody who does not commute?&quot;, and the phrase &quot;as well off&quot; implies to me that the person is <i>as satisfied</i>.<p>Apart from the &quot;40% of salary&quot; detail, it seems to me that The Guardian got it right.
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wac超过 11 年前
So this blogger has pointed out 2 problems with a single Guardian quote. The first point doesn&#x27;t make sense to me as it seems to argue that the Guardian&#x27;s &quot;be as satisfied with&quot; means the same thing as &quot;increase satisfaction&quot;.<p>The second point seems to me to be almost as poor. The blogger claims that the 40% more money claim from the Guardian is bogus since the footnote clearly shows that their calculation is in absolute Euro terms not percentages. However if you read the next sentence of the footnote:<p>&quot;Full compensation for commuting one hour (one way), compared with no commuting, is estimated to require an additional monthly income of approximately 515 Euro or 40 percent of the average monthly wage. This valuation implies that the time spent commuting is worth 1.6 times the hourly wage or the average compensation for working. [...]&quot; (Page 17, Footnote 14)<p>It seems that the research authors themselves argue that their research implies commuting is worth a multiple of hourly wage. Thus we easily verify that the weighted commuting hours (1.6*2) is 40% of the normal (8 hour) working day.<p>The Guardian could have been more accurate by adding a &quot;average&quot; to their quote, but I think that this is implied by the context anyway.
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cylinder超过 11 年前
Commuting is about attitude. Plenty of people don&#x27;t mind, or even enjoy, their commutes. The future is clearly office hotels paired with remote work. Go in the office a couple of times a week to reconnect personally. Work from home the rest of the time. It&#x27;s the ideal mix. Company gets to reduce their real estate requirements due to hoteling: what is an office, these days, anyways? You don&#x27;t need your family photos all over your desk. You need a laptop and a phone - grab a desk and get to work. When you aren&#x27;t in the office, someone else is using that desk. Corporations invented airbnb long ago.<p>Certain areas are quite conducive to this lifestyle. NYC metro area, for example. There are quite beautiful villages in upstate NY sitting on a Metro-North stop, about 1.5 hours from Grand Central. If you only had to do that twice a week, it&#x27;s completely manageable (especially in Autumn when you can gaze out the window on the Hudson Valley line at the incredible fall foliage).
officemonkey超过 11 年前
If only economics were the only factor in commute time.<p>Housing price, cost of living, and public school quality play a significant role in determining where to live for many people.<p>I&#x27;ve avoided positions in cities like New York and Washington DC precisely because I didn&#x27;t want to (a) live in a shoe box, (b) spend 3+ hours in a daily commute, and&#x2F;or (c) pay for private schools.<p>I would take a pay cut to reduce my commute and relocate to a lower-cost area. How much is almost entirely based on how much I can reduce my mortgage payment.
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kabouseng超过 11 年前
One should also be careful about making blanket statements. For a high earning individual it is possible no amount of additional pay will compensate for the lost time.
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droob超过 11 年前
Also, in this example, the part they got wrong-ish is kinda beside the point. Most people will read it as &quot;a person with a 1-hr commute has to earn (yadda yadda yadda) more money to be as satisfied with life…&quot;
sgdesign超过 11 年前
Shouldn&#x27;t we be suspicious of subjective measures like &quot;satisfaction&quot; anyway? I know there are a lot of psychology studies based on similarly vague concepts, but I always feel like it&#x27;s just too easy for scientists (to say nothing of journalists) to fudge their numbers either way to prove their point.
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robmcm超过 11 年前
Well done for putting the effort in to check facts.