Oddities in Monthly Pay Table

[hal]

Hello Folks,
At this hour, I thought I'd use my lunch time to figure something out. My original intent was to investigate the relationship between cost of living, income, and discretionary spending.

Income - cost of living = Discretionary spending.

Simple right? Well, incomes can be a range as given by the rule: One tech level lower to one tech level higher.

So, out of curiosity, I divided the current tech level income by the one tech level lower to get the percentage increase current tech level is over its next lower tech level. Then I went the added step of also calculating the next higher tech level divided the the lower tech level to give a range of percentage increase. I had expected a reasonably pattern setting numbers, but instead, got one I wasn't expecting.

TL      pay     1TL % incr    2TL % incr
------------------------------------------------------------
0	625		
1	650	1.04	        1.08
2	675	1.038461538	1.076923077
3	700	1.037037037	1.185185185
4	800	1.142857143	1.571428571
5	1100	1.375	        2
6	1600	1.454545455	1.909090909
7	2100	1.3125	        1.625
8	2600	1.238095238	1.714285714
9	3600	1.384615385	2.153846154
10	5600	1.555555556	2.25
11	8100	1.446428571	1.892857143
12	10600	1.308641975	can't be calculated

Not a smooth progression at all. Also, I need TL 13 values in order to calculate the range of income from one TL lower and one TL higher.

[Rupert]

The monthly income is Cost of Living + 10% of starting wealth, so what you're looking at is the increase in wealth with TL.

[Varyon]

There are two effects involved here that are making there not be a clear pattern. First, there's the changing pattern of Starting Wealth. It starts at $250 and then increases linearly, at +$250 per +1 TL, until you reach $1000 at TL 3. It then follows the Size and Speed/Range Table at +2 steps (~x2) per +1 TL until you reach $10,000 at TL 6, at which point it changes to +1 SSR per +1 TL, with TL 11's $75,000 not quite adhering (that "should" be $70,000, but in general 75 is actually easier to work with than 70).

In addition to this, as Rupert notes, Wages are actually 10% of the above Starting Wealth plus monthly Cost of Living, the latter of which is TL invariant. So you basically have a x + c, where x is a changing pattern and c is a constant that is generally fairly significant compared to x (it's larger up through TL 5 and doesn't drop below 10% until TL 11).

I will note that GURPS does get some notable benefits from CoL not scaling with TL. First, a lot of things - rations, meals at restaurants, clothing, etc - can simply be stated to be some fraction/multiple of CoL and you automatically get a scaling with Status while keeping with the GURPS pattern of items largely having the same cost at every TL they are generally available (although personally I think giving a flat cost for these things and then providing something like the Luxury Pricing from Low Tech would be more readily-usable). Secondly, this automatically results in what has historically largely been the case, that one's discretionary income (as a percentage of earnings) increases as technology improves.

[hal]

Thank you for pointing out the mathematical relationships. :)

If I can at all, find a way to determine specifics of "discretionary income" for the various wealth levels, and then find a way to assign percentages of population who are of a given wealth level - I can try to figure out a way to define just how much discretionary income is available for any and all kinds of services and products.

For those of you who are familiar with MIDKEMIA PRESS - you might remember a product called CITIES. CHAOSIUM later reprinted that same product under the same name. If you were around when THIEVE'S WORLD boxed edition, also by Chaosium - printed aspects of the business counts that came from CITIES. But even S.J. Ross alluded to the same principle of "how many business are present within a city" where he specified that x number of people have to be present before a given business is present.

Something like that was also presented in A MAGICAL MEDIEVAL SOCIETY WESTERN EUROPE by Joseph Browning and Suzi Yee that was presented for use with D&D - so the concept is not unique to MIDKEMIA PRESS (which still sells PDF versions of CITIES by the way) - it forms a rational basis for trying to determine what businesses are present within a given population. In my jumbled memory banks I laughingly call a brain with faulty data retrieval methodologies - I recall someone used the city of Paris and its listed businesses to estimate how many population were present and used that as a model for guestimating ratios of population to frequency of businesses.

So, where do I want to go with this? I did some research on Median Income levels in 2022, as a way to try and figure out what percentage of population were of a given income class. Maybe somewhere along the way I'll put together some inferences I've got in the works. problem is, it is only good for TL 8 American society - not representative of the world in general.

So, what do I need? What percentage of population fit in the categories of Poor, Struggling, average, comfortable, wealthy, Very Wealthy, and Rich+

From there, I want to try and figure out what the available (in a GURPS universe using GURPS rules and guidelines - inclusive of GURPS SPACE for the wealth rules and GDP) - to get a reasonable round figure for disposable income. From there, I'd want to try and estimate whether or not a mage or alchemist can make a living, and if so, from what class of people. If, in order to afford the potions made by an Alchemist, one has to be of social status 2 or higher - that gives me some foundation to work with. If Social Status -1 can not under any circumstance afford to buy either of Alchemical potions or major magic items - that would be a start. If only 10% of the overall populaltion can afford to buy with their discretionary income. But it will get worse in the grand scheme of things...

Discretionary income spending is a zero sum game. Money spent on Armor will not be money spent patronizing the arts. It won't be money spent on fancy clothing that changes every season. It won't be spent on fancy houses, bribing public officials, and all that fun stuff. For you see, all of those discretionary spending dollars pay for the monthly income of those who cater to the trades that are by their very nature, non-essential things required for day to day living.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Secondly, this automatically results in what has historically largely been the case, that one's discretionary income (as a percentage of earnings) increases as technology improves.

Um.... that's not actually true. Absolute discretionary income certainly increases, but as a percentage of income it really doesn't; the rule for the last few thousand years is "a single male, couple without children, or couple with adult children is net income positive; a couple with young children and no working offspring is struggling and likely needs external support". This tells us that lifestyle as a percentage of income is pretty close to a TL-invariant 50%.

[Rasputin]

Alright, when dealing with wealth, you need to subtract $600 as Cost of Living for Status 0 for each month. That's a fixed number for all-time. I'm not saying I agree with it, but this is how the tables are constructed.

After you do this, the table on p. B517 looks like this:

TL/Net Monthly pay
0/$25
1/$50
2/$75
3/$100
4/$200
5/$500
6/$1,000
7/$1,500
8/$2,000
9/$3,000
10/$5,000
11/$7,500
12/$10,000

Taking tenfold these numbers gives you a familiar table: p. B27. That's right; starting wealth at each TL is always ten months of net income.

For TL 13, I'd make the net pay $15,000, so before Cost of Living, it's $15,600, and starting wealth is $150,000. Why? Well, starting at TL 6 and dividing by 1,000, this pattern resembles another familiar table, aside from a decimal point at TL 11. Which one? Hint: it's on p. B550.

Edit: If you assume the 80/20 rule on p. B26 for starting wealth, this is effectively the Cost of Living going up as TL goes up. Status 0 at TL 1 has $600 for Cost of Living, $40 going into the "settled lifestyle," and $10 as disposable, effectively a $640 Cost of Living. Status 0 at TL 7 has $600 for Cost of Living, $1,200 going into the "settled lifestyle," and $300 as disposable, effectively a $1,800 Cost of Living.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

Edit: If you assume the 80/20 rule on p. B26 for starting wealth, this is effectively the Cost of Living going up as TL goes up. Status 0 at TL 1 has $600 for Cost of Living, $40 going into the "settled lifestyle," and $10 as disposable, effectively a $640 Cost of Living. Status 0 at TL 7 has $600 for Cost of Living, $1,200 going into the "settled lifestyle," and $300 as disposable, effectively a $1,800 Cost of Living.

Huh? You don't split your income 80/20, only your starting wealth, and only to find how much spare cash you have for adventuring equipment at the start. (The 80% doesn't actually simulate your home economics.) A starting Status 0 character at TL7 has property appropriate to a Status 0 person and $3,000 they can spend on adventuring equipment. If they have an Average Wealth job getting the typical monthly pay, they earn $2,100 a month. They must spend $600 a month. This leaves them with $1,500 a month, which they might save, trying for a higher Wealth level, or they might spend on things that wouldn't be available to lower-TL characters in such great quantities. They might eat out once in a while, go to a movie, take a vacation, maybe even buy more adventuring equipment. It assumes a character who is not in any significant debt (take Debt for that) and who has not made any special investments or received any special inheritance or pension (take Independent Income for that).

People in higher TLs simply have more leisure spending they can do than in lower TLs, which is why Cost of Living doesn't increase with TL.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

People in higher TLs simply have more leisure spending they can do than in lower TLs, which is why Cost of Living doesn't increase with TL.

The numbers just plain don't work for that - it means that someone living a nice Status-0 lifestyle ($600/month), earning a nice Status-0 income ($2,600/month at TL8) has $2,000/month of entirely discretionary spending. In under a year they'll have Comfortable Wealth if they want it, and be Wealthy in under four.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Rupert

The numbers just plain don't work for that - it means that someone living a nice Status-0 lifestyle ($600/month), earning a nice Status-0 income ($2,600/month at TL8) has $2,000/month of entirely discretionary spending. In under a year they'll have Comfortable Wealth if they want it, and be Wealthy in under four.

"If they want it." Yes, they will. These rules are for adventurers, remember, not everyone. If a PC wants to live at their Status with no discretionary spending at all, saving everything, then they will earn the right to spend bonus character points on a new Wealth level. If they do not want to or cannot spend bonus character points on a new Wealth level, then they must spend or lose the excess as their character would do.

GURPS is not an economic simulator! You don't determine your Wealth by how much money you have. You determine how much money you have by your Wealth. If you want to change how much money you have, come up with an in-game explanation (like saving money) and raise your Wealth level.

NPCs who remain at a steady Wealth level do not save enough to raise their Wealth level. It's not necessarily that they cannot raise their Wealth level; they simply do not. There may be in-game reasons why they can't raise their Wealth: often Debt, maybe bad jobs. But if an NPC keeps a steady Wealth level, it is explained by their not saving whatever discretionary money they get each month.

The system is doing exactly what it's designed to do. Collecting discretionary cash over your Cost of Living is a feature, not a bug. Money is subordinate to Wealth, not the other way around. Players get to decide how to develop their characters, whether or not the characters themselves have any say in the matter.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Um.... that's not actually true. Absolute discretionary income certainly increases, but as a percentage of income it really doesn't; the rule for the last few thousand years is "a single male, couple without children, or couple with adult children is net income positive; a couple with young children and no working offspring is struggling and likely needs external support". This tells us that lifestyle as a percentage of income is pretty close to a TL-invariant 50%.

I had thought the general trend was a higher percentage of discretionary income. Something constant works a lot better for remaking the Wealth and CoL rules, of course, but I didn't think it matched historical trends. With the current rules, a person at TL 0, if they are unable to work for a month (due to illness or injury, say), would require around 2 years' savings to support themselves for a month at their nominal Status (less if they go lower, but Status -2 is the floor and calls for 4 months' savings per month if you have Average Wealth). Meanwhile, a person at TL 8 would be able to sustain themselves at their nominal status for a bit over 3 months per month of savings (assuming Average Wealth, 1 month's savings would support them for 20 months - a bit shy of 2 years - of Status -2 living). If we make CoL simply 50% of income, that means at all TL's you burn through 1 month's savings for every month you don't work. I had thought part of increasing TL's was that people could maintain their lifestyles more readily if they have to take time away from working, albeit not quite to the extreme of GURPS.

Originally Posted by Rupert

The numbers just plain don't work for that - it means that someone living a nice Status-0 lifestyle ($600/month), earning a nice Status-0 income ($2,600/month at TL8) has $2,000/month of entirely discretionary spending. In under a year they'll have Comfortable Wealth if they want it, and be Wealthy in under four.

It's a fact that only spending the minimum necessary to maintain your quality of life will result in your overall savings increasing over time, absent disasters, unless your quality of life involves living above your means. But note someone who saves money until they have nominal funds comparable to someone of a higher Wealth level doesn't suddenly gain the Wealth trait - their default jobs still match their Wealth level (if they have the skills they can potentially qualify for a better job, one matching a higher Wealth level, but by RAW this is divorced from their actual Wealth level; for balance purposes, it may be appropriate for them to suffer penalties for this, as their interviewers, clients, supervisors, peers, and possibly even underlings look down on them for being too poor), in settings like DF they still only get as much from selling loot as their actual paid-for-with-points Wealth level allows, the stuff they started with from having a settled lifestyle (if applicable) doesn't magically get upgraded to something appropriate for a higher Wealth level (and considering their holdings should represent a lot more than 80% of their Starting Wealth, replacing it piecemeal will require a lot more cash than just what a higher-Wealth unsettled character would start with), etc.

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

"If they want it." Yes, they will. These rules are for adventurers, remember, not everyone. If a PC wants to live at their Status with no discretionary spending at all, saving everything, then they will earn the right to spend bonus character points on a new Wealth level. If they do not want to or cannot spend bonus character points on a new Wealth level, then they must spend or lose the excess as their character would do.

There's no requirement that someone who doesn't invest points into having a higher Wealth level automatically loses their excess cash if they accumulate too much. A group can play that way if they wish, but I see nothing in RAW that supports this interpretation. As I noted above, having as much money on hand as someone of a higher Wealth level doesn't result in you having the same Wealth level as them.