Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In 2014 it's about 65k in earned income to match the benefits a family of 4 receives on public assistance in the SF Bay Area.
It's huge risk to give up a sure thing for the unknown...
In 30 years of managing subsidized rentals it is the rare person that leaves the system... I can count on one hand the number I personally know.
The other side of the coin is for many it becomes a generational way of life... with Housing Certificates being passed down to the next generation.
But is there a cliff on earnings or do they taper?
I think they should do something along these lines (numbers used for ease of understanding; not a specific program). Let's say we provide someone who has no income with $1000/mo to get by. If that person works and earns money, then reduce the benefit by $1 for every $3 earned. I am not sure 3:1 is right and the specific numbers are not important; the idea is that we should always provide an incentive to work and increase earnings. Then once you get past the point where assistance is provided and start being taxed to help provide assistance, the same thing should be true - it should be progressive so that every additional dollar in your gross pay increases your net pay (all other things being equal). Even if that dollar pushes you into the next band with a higher rate only the portion in that band is taxed at that rate. It all sounds so simple when it is just the general idea of how it should work but once it gets legislated they do some really bizarre things.
This board has a very skewed perception of the average American
So why don't you contribute to the discussion by stating which way you think the perception is skewed and why you think that? As it is, your statement above is meaningless.
50th percentile household net worth for age 65+ is about $170K. If you don't have a pension and your net worth is the equity in your house, I'd call that "no retirement" and that's easily half the country. You're living off your Social Security check.
If you've lived your life in suburbia with a corporate or public sector job, most of your peer group is probably well above that 50th percentile household. Most of us self-segregate along socioeconomic lines and don't interact much with people outside that socioeconomic class. If you're in the bottom 50%, you're probably not hanging out on internet message boards that discuss retirement and personal finances.
In my state the average household income runs about $20k/year below the national average. So to my perception it is different too.
That's income, not wealth. "No retirement" means you didn't save and didn't have a public sector or union job with a generous pension. You can earn an inflation-adjusted $52K for your entire work career and retire comfortably. You'd either need to pick a public sector job with a pension or have an awful lot of deferred gratification where you're saving instead of spending. The vast majority of people at that $52K household income don't save.
In addition, there are other things connected to serious illnesses such as caregiving which may mean leaving your employment. When my husband fell down a flight of stairs and suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury (in addition, to his dementia & physical problems) I needed to immediately quit my full time job, my part time job and stop taking extra paying gigs, so that I could monitor his care in the hospital.
After he was released he needed 24/7 supervision so, obviously I could not return to work. In addition, because of his TBI, dementia & nerve damage in his legs (which may have caused his fall) we needed to move to a one story apartment and put our condo on the market.
So, our income dropped by over $2,000 a month and our expenses went up almost $2,000 a month. So, at the minimum we were losing $4,000 a month. Of course, some people have lots of savings but since my husband has been partially disabled for 15 years and totally disabled for six years we do not have a lot of extra cash just laying like some 64 year olds.
Sure, Medicare & our supplemental insurance covered most of the medical bills but his TBI was still a financial disaster to us. And, as you know, Medicare does not cover ongoing expenses like home health care or respite care or nursing home care so it will continue to be a financial disaster.
This is so true. These are the things that go unrecognized by most people unless they experience a tragedy in their own family.
50th percentile household net worth for age 65+ is about $170K. If you don't have a pension and your net worth is the equity in your house, I'd call that "no retirement" and that's easily half the country. You're living off your Social Security check.
If you've lived your life in suburbia with a corporate or public sector job, most of your peer group is probably well above that 50th percentile household. Most of us self-segregate along socioeconomic lines and don't interact much with people outside that socioeconomic class. If you're in the bottom 50%, you're probably not hanging out on internet message boards that discuss retirement and personal finances.
Your link is interesting, but I checked it out and as I suspected, they do not include pension plans in their data. Perhaps it would be nearly impossible to do so, but the omission skews the data to make it appear things are worse (on average) than they are. Sure, some pensions are not very generous, and some people are drawing pensions based on less than a full careers worth of work in that pension system, which makes the pension much smaller.
However, if we posit a retiree with a net worth of zero (under the parameters of the study you linked to) but with a secure, inflation protected pension adequate to live comfortably but not lavishly, we see that the hypothetical retiree is not at all destitute (as the net worth figure alone would suggest) but is actually pretty well fixed for life. Our hypothetical retiree doesn't even have to worry about outliving his resources if he should turn out to be one the outliers who lives to age 100 or more.
Your final paragraph is spot on. So many people live entirely within a restricted environment which they just assume is typical, hence all those discussions in the Economics Forum where people who earn $150,000 a year are whining that they are barely middle class and are struggling to make ends meet. Maybe they are struggling to maintain a lifestyle identical to that of their neighbors, but their comments reveal an appaling lack of perspective. And no, all of the whiners do not live in New York City.
This board has a very skewed perception of the average American
If there is an "average American", I have yet to meet this person...
You will get off in the weeds with mean versus median, income versus worth versus liquid wealth, etc.
I do think most people in the forum are aware that that most people in the US have a tough time just paying their current expenses and have little or nothing left over to save for the future. I think that most people who are doing poorly are either trying to improve their situation or feel there is nothing they can do to improve it and often they are right. I think that very few people are lazy and gaming the system. Some are, but most are not. A lot of people on this forum (maybe even most) think I am wrong about that. I would call that a skewed perception.
Married 38 years helped put husband through school using small inheritance from her mother. He is a PhD in sports medicine. He gets a job in hcol area taking her away from friends and job. She does home daycare to make ends meet while raising their 3 children because his schedule is so hectic.
After living in hcol area for 7 years, he has affair at work and leaves her. She is basketcase not able to accept that he will not come back. He sues for divorce. She gets mortgaged house and 900$ a month for 3 years and part of current retirement. She has to pay him $35000 for his interest in house(2006 before drop in housing prices). House value then plummits.
He leaves state and gets new job which she is not entitled to retirement, leaving no retirement to get half of. He worked in hcol job area for 9 years, before that he was at a different state universitg for 6 years. He Marries girlfriend has a great life.
She continues to do home daycare to support herself. Will be 70 in January. She was 60 when divorced he was 57. He is still working at another university between trips to Europe.and Hawaii.
She gets by week to week. Her adult children are in no position to help her as they are getting their lives together. Two of them have non visible disabilities that they struggle with and are just able to support themselves.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
