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Location: Just transplanted to FL from the N GA mountains
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tamajane
I would have loved that life but it was totally fried by the 80s.
It was fried in the 80's because of rampant inflation (notice we haven't heard about that for a good while?), astronomical interest rates, and high unemployment. If a woman could find a job she had better take it, and many did. I would have loved to have stayed home full time and take care of the kids. I also thought it important to feed and clothe them without government assistance, which was quite the stigma back then. Wonder which I chose?
It was fried in the 80's because of rampant inflation (notice we haven't heard about that for a good while?), astronomical interest rates, and high unemployment. If a woman could find a job she had better take it, and many did. I would have loved to have stayed home full time and take care of the kids. I also thought it important to feed and clothe them without government assistance, which was quite the stigma back then. Wonder which I chose?
Socially, women were expected to work by that point as well. The question became "What do you do?" for women as well as men. It was also the rise of the McMansions so it did often take two incomes to afford a large home and two nice financed cars. Very different expectations from even a decade earlier, socially and economically.
Is that your definition of middle class? Or rather how many of them since it sounds like you want it all for nothing and say your "middle class" wage can't afford it...
I know people making six figures and still paycheck to paycheck because they want all those too.
Now if you are asking by what annual income makes a household middle class; that varies as well.
Here in NYC "middle class" ranges from about $50K to over $150K per. However if you asked households earning within that range a good number would not consider themselves middle class. More to the point if they could keep those earnings and live most anywhere else (excluding west coast and parts of north east), they might even be considered well off.
As for "not affording" things; I've told ya, middle-class on average has been able to keep thing up by use of credit. Dining out, vacations, shopping, two or more rides, etc... For many it goes onto the credit card or cards.
High taxes, high cost of housing, high cost of healthcare, high cost of education and for responsible ones the need to save a whole lot to fund retirement.
Um, yeah... That's called working a full 50 week year. Prorate the teachers' salaries to get their full-time equivalent salary... Divide it by the 180 work days/year they actually work, and then multiply that result by the 250 days/year other full-time employees work.
For example... $50,000/year teacher salary is equivalent to a salary of $69,450 earned by those who work 250 days a year instead of 180.
According to the BLS, teacher's average income is $55,000. That would be $76,400 if they actually worked a 250 work day year.
That's what happens when you don't work in the summer, or for extended periods of time over the winter holidays and spring break: You earn less.
I really don't need you to do basic math for me but thanks anyway. So it seems that you think 76K is too much money for a teacher? How nice of you to share that, but given your posting history I would guess that you think anything over minimum wage is too much to pay a teacher.
In states where teachers earn 55k a year most cops and firefighters earn 80-100k. In California prison guards with a GED can make 100k after a few years. And apparently you are comfortable with not calculating the amount of time teachers spend outside of the classroom grading papers, preparing materials for the class? You should get out in the real world more rather than preach from your ivory tower
And that would come from which sources? The very same unearned investment income about which another poster is complaining?
That's, in part, because Warren Buffet did the Burger King tax inversion so that BK's global income is no longer subject to US tax. Canada, baby... Restaurant Brands International.
1. It's fine with tax-deferred - like retirements plans. I am paying full taxes on what I take out now.
2. No, one or two deals like Buffet (or any corp does) doesn't move the needle. You are effectively saying that one might have 39 million instead of 39.3 million if one particular moves (out of 10's of thousands) was or was not done.
When my parents got engaged and dad wanted to take mom out of the city, part of the deal was mom gets a car. There were a couple other wives in the neighborhood who didn't have cars and she would give them rides. I heard the stories about her being the taxi. Otherwise the moms all had cars, usually they got the new car and dads drove the clunkers, because the dads worked in town and the moms drove all over to appointments, picking up the kids, shopping, errands.
When I hear about how horrible those days were for women, I didn't see any of that personally. I only saw men working hard and sacrificing to support their wives and families and moms living a comfy life being SAH moms and communities in which people looked out for one another, which were not vacant during the day. Moms were there, kids played outside without "play date" appointments. I would have loved that life but it was totally fried by the 80s.
Lots of guys at least from certain parts of NYC drive the "beater" car into work leaving their sweet ride at home for the wife. This and or she has her own and the sweet ride is left in garage or parked somewhere.
It is also important to remember back in the 1950's/post war building boom many of those new suburban developments were built around having a car. There often weren't corner stores/markets and other things within walking distance. You had to drive "into town" or wherever to go shopping, drop off and pick up dry cleaning, and all the other things housewives did all day.
Um, yeah... That's called [b]working a full 50 week year.
So the richest country in the world can't have health care for all and only gets two weeks TOTAL off as opposed to many of our peers (countries developed as much) that get a total of 6-8 weeks?
I see what you are saying. We're not #1 and, in fact, are 2nd world. Why not just admit it? State clearly that you prefer larger corporate profits and a society structured around indentured servants rather then human beings...and your POV will make perfect sense.
It's really this idea of "We're number one" and "the richest in history"....which conflicts 100% with your theory that a full time worker should only have 10 days a year off.
(Typical Euro country has 36 days plus including holidays - plus weekends, of course. Also, many have 1/2 days or shorter days on Fridays).
So which is it? Working longer and harder for less...or a work/life balance ?
Post feminism, parents who were part of one-income families wanted their daughters to have careers as well. They wanted their kids to do "better" than they had, although they had a lot of good things post WWII which have been lost.
It is interesting observing the ever increasing expectations of doing better than the previous generation. Where does it end? We are all supposed to be millionaires, then billionaires? Of course it collapses in on itself and kills our psyche when we can never have enough.
This question is not specific to the US, but if capitalism brings so much wealth (and it does) why can´t families survive on a single income anymore like in the past when usually only men worked and women were not in the workforce?
Watch HGTV and see what kind of houses these people think they should have, especially first time buyers.
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