Minimal Quality of Life

Famous economist Robert Reich recently wrote: “60% of American households can’t afford a minimal quality of life.” To prove his statement, he linked to a study which, I kid you not, considered necessary for “Minimal Quality of Life” attendance of two Major League Basketball games per year per person (link).

This is a textbook example of Wittgenstein’s Ruler: when you use a flawed measuring stick, the results reveal more about your instrument than what you’re trying to measure. A study that treats MLB games as necessities tells us more about the researchers than about the living standards of Americans.

That said, a reader asked me how I would define the Minimal Quality of Life. That’s a good question requiring a thoughtful answer, hence this blog post.

Principles to define the Minimal Quality of Life

Let’s begin by discussing a few guiding principles.

First, Minimal Quality of Life should be defined in achievable terms, without containing zero-sum elements.ShareCopy Statements like “Everyone has the right to live in the most desirable city” or “Everyone deserves a top-tier degree” are self-defeating because these goods derive their value from scarcity. If we made degrees a human right, everyone would want a PhD to stand out. It’s a game we cannot win, and hence we shouldn’t play.

This principle has practical implications. For example, the “higher education” component of quality of life should mean “access to high-quality learning content and affordable certification that doesn’t require physical attendance,” not “the right to attend prestigious universities.” Similarly, while everyone should have access to decent housing, no one can claim an inherent right to live in the specific locations that everyone else also wants, since this is mathematically impossible.

Secondly, Minimal Quality of Life should be defined by access to goods and services, not dollar amounts.ShareCopy Consider housing as an example: if the average house costs $500,000 but the average family has only $200,000, we might assume each family needs an additional $300,000 to live well. However, simply giving everyone $300,000 wouldn’t solve the underlying problem. Without building more housing, we would still have fewer dwellings than families, meaning some families would remain priced out regardless of their wealth. The real solution is to build enough housing for everyone.

This means we should resist defining Minimal Quality of Life through minimum wage or wealth targets, and instead focus on whether we’re producing sufficient goods and services for everyone’s basic needs.

Thirdly, a definition of Minimal Quality of Life should remain truly minimal. By definition, this standard won’t satisfy most people. If it did, we’d call it Good Quality of Life instead. But why focus on minimal rather than good standards? I address this question in the following section.