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I lived in rural TN in the early 70's. My wage as a helper at a residential construction site (unskilled) was $5 an hour. That is about $25 today.
I guess the first question is whether such a person makes $25 an hour today? I'll bet not - more like $15 or $16.
Next in line, the living wage. Construction can't go on 100% of the time due to weather, financing and other such delays. You might get lucky to work 4 days per week. We lived VERY simply at the time and could barely make it on that $5 an hour.
This is in low-wage TN.
It's not hard to figure out the real cost of living. Sure, you can throw out somewhere in bumfork, ID where you can claim you hunt your own Bear. But short of that.....
Let's talk about a married couple with one child. He makes 30K ($15 per) and she is raising the child so only makes 10K doing some part time. Household income = 40K
1. It cost 11K per year per person for health care in this country. That's a real number....either you pay it or someone else does. So 33K per year for this family.
2. It cost 12K per year for public school - we pay it in property and other taxes. 12K to our sample family - again, one way or another.
3. Each household pays many thousands of dollars for our Federal and other Governments - military, police, etc - a low figure would be 6K. Let's add that to the mix - 6K.
4. The family needs at least one car. Any way you look at it, the total cost for a car and gas and insurance, etc. is $300 a month. We'll add $3600 to the tally.
5. Housing - at the very lowest end, $1500 a months for apt, utilities, etc - add 18K to the total.
6. Clothes, household goods, phone, etc - we'll be frugal and add $2 per year - 2K.
I'm sure that I missed a lot, but that is a foundation for a low-end life.
Yeah, I'm sure you can figure out how they can take more welfare or live in mom's basement, but I didn't put a penny in there for travel to attend a funeral or a wedding nor anything about saving for the future - nor anything about what happens if either parent gets sick, etc.
It shouldn't be too hard to grasp the facts in these matters. States with household incomes approaching the figures given have incredibly high poverty rates along with many of the other social ills (opiate addiction, suicide, etc.)....
If we want to go back to squatters cities then we can live on those wages. But we can't live decently.
Are you saying that the above family is paying the $33k in healthcare? Because I assure you, they are not paying ANYTHING. The taxpayers are paying for that. Same for the schools. They are being subsidized in many ways whether it's free and reduced meals, Section 8 housing, etc. Each household DOES NOT pay for government. Low income people get money back.
Many of us were, you boast no unique insight here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by craigiri
Let's talk about a married couple with one child. He makes 30K ($15 per) and she is raising the child so only makes 10K doing some part time. Household income = 40K
1. It cost 11K per year per person for health care in this country. That's a real number....either you pay it or someone else does. So 33K per year for this family.
2. It cost 12K per year for public school - we pay it in property and other taxes. 12K to our sample family - again, one way or another.
3. Each household pays many thousands of dollars for our Federal and other Governments - military, police, etc - a low figure would be 6K. Let's add that to the mix - 6K.
4. The family needs at least one car. Any way you look at it, the total cost for a car and gas and insurance, etc. is $300 a month. We'll add $3600 to the tally.
5. Housing - at the very lowest end, $1500 a months for apt, utilities, etc - add 18K to the total.
6. Clothes, household goods, phone, etc - we'll be frugal and add $2 per year - 2K.
There is so much wrong with your post, let's start with the first three:
1. Nope. You're conflating healthcare spending with out of pocket costs. The average family spends about $5k annually on healthcare (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm) and I suspect you'd find it much lower for a family making $40k.
2. Nope. Again you're mixing up costs with actual out of pocket costs. I'd invite you to think about how much in school related taxes a $40k earning family with only $18k in housing costs pays. Hint = nowhere near $12k.
3. Nope. According to TurboTax a family of three making 40k will pay $0 in federal income taxes, and in fact have a refund of about $300. That's assuming no other deductions child care etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by craigiri
I'm sure that I missed a lot
Yep, you missed how to do a common sense logical analysis of a 40k budget.
No, they don't. That is a gross generalization. There are some places, specifically extreme rural areas were that is true, but there are 39,000+ places to choose from that have populations between 100,000 to 500,000 where Cost-of-Living is low and there's jobs-a-plenty.
You just haven't done any research.
If that wasn't the case, people would be flocking by the millions to say, Cowville, Iowa, so they could make their $300,000 a year in the high tech jobs there and live in those $90,000 houses that are for sale.
Except that there are no high tech jobs in Cowville that pay $300,000 a year and if there were, the houses would then cost upwards of half a million bucks.
Then you have to bear the cost.
I'm willing to cut some slack for those suffering through no fault of their own.
People with Type I Diabetes (diabetes mellitus) are born that way, but people with Type II Diabetes buy it.
They own it.
I'm not paying for it. They can get their lard asses up off the couch and go walk 15 minutes a day and alter their diet instead of bleeding everyone else dry.
The education system never produces people with an IQ of 150.
Those people are born that way. You can only educate people to their maximum potential, and an IQ of 150 is not the maximum potential for 90% of the population.
If you want people with an IQ of 150 or better, then you need to start engaging in selective breeding.
That might not be a bad idea, actually.
You consume, do you not? You're part of the problem.
You vote, do you not? Whether you do or not you're still part of the problem.
There is no law, theory or corollary in Economics that says wages must rise, except in the case of Monetary Inflation, and Monetary Inflation is practically non-existent in the economy, or when demand for a specific skill-set, and your government identifies 800+ skill-sets, in a given labor market is high or the supply is low, and there are several thousand labor markets in the US.
Prices are rising because of Demand-pull and Cost-push Inflation, and wages are not supposed to rise in either case, and both are your fault.
You vote for the politicians at the local, State and federal level that enact the laws, regulations and ordinances, as well as taxes and fees that drive up the prices of goods and services. That's Cost-push Inflation.
If you don't like it, then elect better government, and yes, that might mean you'll have to turn off the damn TV and spend 20-30 hours a week organizing a 3rd Party or campaigning for a candidate that will reduce Cost-push Inflation.
Demand-pull Inflation occurs when Demand exceeds Supply. You can stop consuming, or you can increase Supply, and, yes, that might mean you'll have to start a business that will increase the amount of goods and services affected in order to halt further price increases or lower prices.
If you can't or won't do any of those things, you'll just have to learn how to deal with it.
Well, you'll have to choose between roots and an higher Standard of Living.
Nobody said life was easy.
Only thing I will comment on is as a type 2 diabetic I have been a gym rat for 18 years .
I was running 4 miles every other day , recently cut it to 3 and weight lift the days I don’t run. I held levels for years at prediabetic levels but finally at 66 I turned fully diabetic and was put on some light duty meds last week .
You may be able to stall diabetes but exercise and diet only work just so long and you can’t fight genetics forever . Eventually they win no matter how much you exercise .
I lived in rural TN in the early 70's. My wage as a helper at a residential construction site (unskilled) was $5 an hour. That is about $25 today.
I guess the first question is whether such a person makes $25 an hour today? I'll bet not - more like $15 or $16.
Next in line, the living wage. Construction can't go on 100% of the time due to weather, financing and other such delays. You might get lucky to work 4 days per week. We lived VERY simply at the time and could barely make it on that $5 an hour.
This is in low-wage TN.
It's not hard to figure out the real cost of living. Sure, you can throw out somewhere in bumfork, ID where you can claim you hunt your own Bear. But short of that.....
Let's talk about a married couple with one child. He makes 30K ($15 per) and she is raising the child so only makes 10K doing some part time. Household income = 40K
1. It cost 11K per year per person for health care in this country. That's a real number....either you pay it or someone else does. So 33K per year for this family.
2. It cost 12K per year for public school - we pay it in property and other taxes. 12K to our sample family - again, one way or another.
3. Each household pays many thousands of dollars for our Federal and other Governments - military, police, etc - a low figure would be 6K. Let's add that to the mix - 6K.
4. The family needs at least one car. Any way you look at it, the total cost for a car and gas and insurance, etc. is $300 a month. We'll add $3600 to the tally.
5. Housing - at the very lowest end, $1500 a months for apt, utilities, etc - add 18K to the total.
6. Clothes, household goods, phone, etc - we'll be frugal and add $2 per year - 2K.
I'm sure that I missed a lot, but that is a foundation for a low-end life.
Yeah, I'm sure you can figure out how they can take more welfare or live in mom's basement, but I didn't put a penny in there for travel to attend a funeral or a wedding nor anything about saving for the future - nor anything about what happens if either parent gets sick, etc.
It shouldn't be too hard to grasp the facts in these matters. States with household incomes approaching the figures given have incredibly high poverty rates along with many of the other social ills (opiate addiction, suicide, etc.)....
If we want to go back to squatters cities then we can live on those wages. But we can't live decently.
In the 1970s in nyc I became an hvac tech . What I earned back then shows it is about 45-50k today. That is pretty much the wage for a new comer like I was
Only thing I will comment on is as a type 2 diabetic I have been a gym rat for 18 years .
I was running 4 miles every other day , recently cut it to 3 and weight lift the days I don’t run. I held levels for years at prediabetic levels but finally at 66 I turned fully diabetic and was put on some light duty meds last week .
You may be able to stall diabetes but exercise and diet only work just so long and you can’t fight genetics forever . Eventually they win no matter how much you exercise .
You did pretty well if you were pre-diabetic and staved a type 2 diagnosis off until age 66. That was a lot of health care cost, in both money and well-being, that you saved yourself. Diet is pretty huge though, just as much if not more than exercise, based on my mom's experience.
The doctor kept me off meds as long as he could . But he told me years ago as you age all the exercise and diet may no longer hold the line. But I am on 1 mg of primeglide every other day . So we will see how that works
1. It cost 11K per year per person for health care in this country. That's a real number....either you pay it or someone else does. So 33K per year for this family.
Your understanding is incredibly poor.
$33,000 annually is the average spent on healthcare for 3 people, not what people pay for healthcare.
If he is working, then he likely has access to health plan coverage through his employer.
He will have the family plan, and he will pay the exact same amount each month as his co-worker who is married and has no children, and the exact same amount as his co-worker who is married and has 12 children and the exact same amount has his co-worker who is not married and has three children.
The employer's family plan has an annual cost per employee in the family plan, broken into monthly or bi-weekly installment payments.
He will not pay 100% of the cost of the family plan.
While an employee who has a "self-only" plan can only pay 9.56% of his annual income for the plan by law (the employer pays the other 90.44% of the plan), the law is complicated for family plans, because it is dependent on the size of the employer, which considers a number of factors such as annual revenues and total number of permanent employees, plus the percentage the plan covers, which is require by law to be a minimum of 60% coverage.
Even so, generally, employers pay not less than 50% of the family plan, and most employers pay 71% of the costs, so the employee for a family plan only pays 29% of the costs.
The average cost of a family plan in the US is $34,464 annually, with the employee paying $833/month and the employer paying $2,872/month.
$33,000 annually is the average spent on healthcare for 3 people, not what people pay for healthcare
I'm actually in awe that craigiri could read somewhere that the United States spends 11k per person on healthcare then translate that into something that would appear in a budget line item for a typical family, per person. BLS publishes actual household spending figures, median is 5k annually per household on medical expenses across all families.
What if they don't have health insurance through work? According to the Kaiser ACA calculator their monthly premiums for a Silver Plan would be $206 with subsidies. Also, since they are within 400% of FPL they'd qualify for cost sharing so their total out of pocket costs would be no more than $2,600/year for the entire family.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mircea
Your understanding is incredibly poor.
$33,000 annually is the average spent on healthcare for 3 people, not what people pay for healthcare.
If he is working, then he likely has access to health plan coverage through his employer.
He will have the family plan, and he will pay the exact same amount each month as his co-worker who is married and has no children, and the exact same amount as his co-worker who is married and has 12 children and the exact same amount has his co-worker who is not married and has three children.
The employer's family plan has an annual cost per employee in the family plan, broken into monthly or bi-weekly installment payments.
He will not pay 100% of the cost of the family plan.
While an employee who has a "self-only" plan can only pay 9.56% of his annual income for the plan by law (the employer pays the other 90.44% of the plan), the law is complicated for family plans, because it is dependent on the size of the employer, which considers a number of factors such as annual revenues and total number of permanent employees, plus the percentage the plan covers, which is require by law to be a minimum of 60% coverage.
Even so, generally, employers pay not less than 50% of the family plan, and most employers pay 71% of the costs, so the employee for a family plan only pays 29% of the costs.
The average cost of a family plan in the US is $34,464 annually, with the employee paying $833/month and the employer paying $2,872/month.
That seems really high. We are in open enrollment period now at work, and our choices for family are:
1. Deductible Plan Employee pays $200/month, employer pays $1,300, maximum out of pocket $5,400
2. High Deductible/HSA Employee pays $57/month, employer pays $1,161 maximum out of pocket $6,000
3. HMO Employee pays $156/month, employer pays $1,044 maximum out of pocket $3,000
That seems really high. We are in open enrollment period now at work, and our choices for family are:
1. Deductible Plan Employee pays $200/month, employer pays $1,300, maximum out of pocket $5,400
2. High Deductible/HSA Employee pays $57/month, employer pays $1,161 maximum out of pocket $6,000
3. HMO Employee pays $156/month, employer pays $1,044 maximum out of pocket $3,000
If most employers with >100 employees are on self-insured plans or some hybrid of that, and all employees pay the same rate for the same coverage... and you're finding out out that most people are paying more in premiums than the actual cost of the healthcare they receive... what does this tell you?
There are a handful of people at any given time racking up low-to-mid 6 figure bills that you're all subsidizing. Probably aren't even "at" the company for the majority of the year.
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