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Agreement on this topic is going to be highly relative to one's social class. Put 5 people from the working-class in a room and another 5 from the upper middle-class and they are going to come to different conclusions in terms of "needs" vs "wants".
this may be true, but then i'll step in as moderator and let the upper middle class folks know that we're not going to include an ipod as a need. just because some people don't have common sense doesn't mean we should take their opinion of "needs" seriously. arguments can be made for some things having become "needs' moreso than they used to be. and i can buy into a lot of that. it would be very tough to survive looking for a job, doing research for school, etc, without access to the internet. but that "need" could be fulfilled through a public library or school library, so i'm not convinced one needs it at home. though, maybe we do.
but still, i think a reasonable discussion could be had to come up with a pretty solid list of needs vs wants. i don't think we're all that stupid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by user_id
I'll pass on coming to NJ....been there once and will never go back. Regardless, states like NJ (i.e., states with slow growth the last 2-3 decades) don't have a lot of McMansion to begin with. McMansions shouldn't hold any special significance, a 3,000 upgraded home from the 1930's is comparable (most likely better) to a 3,000 McMansion built in the last 1-2 decades. My point was that not all of NJ is expensive...and its not. There are many areas where you could build a McMansion in the $300k range. Now if you say people are only building McMansions in more pricey communities...alright...no idea either way.
i don't blame you for not coming. lol. NJ may have slow growth, but i think it's unfair to paint it in that light. a state that has such population density can only grow so much. and yes, we do have a lot of mcmansions. probably not the same as a percentage of the whole as california...but they are here. they look completely out of place often, because it's not always a community of them in a development like parts of cali i've been to, rather, maybe 3 or 4 plopped in the middle of older homes. it often looks odd. but, yes, we do have them, and yes, they cost well beyond $300,000. not all of NJ is pricey, but a very large percentage of it is.
there's some folks who have replied to this thread that could tell you. i've looked as far as a 90-120 minute commute from manhattan, which is getting pretty far south, and you'd still be hard pressed to find that sized house for $300k. very hard. nearly everything on the coast or close is expensive because it's "shore" property. nearly everything in the northern and central parts are commutable to manhattan. nearly everything in the southwester parts are commutable to philly. it leaves a very small part of the state that's not very expensive, and also the cities that are a complete disaster (newark, paterson, irvington, east orange, camden, trenton, etc).
i'll peruse the listings one night, but $300k for a single family home in most of NJ isn't going to take you very far.
come to the Philippines and you can live quite well on 10K a year in many areas. for me it is paradise and allowed me to retire 10 years early, put behind me the stress and worry of the American economy, and I find better quality medical care with regard to doctors.
but still, i think a reasonable discussion could be had to come up with a pretty solid list of needs vs wants. i don't think we're all that stupid.
Well...feel free to try it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradykp
i don't blame you for not coming. lol. NJ may have slow growth, but i think it's unfair to paint it in that light. a state that has such population density can only grow so much. and yes, we do have a lot of mcmansions. probably not the same as a percentage of the whole as california...but they are here. they look completely out of place often, because it's not always a community of them in a development like parts of cali i've been to, rather, maybe 3 or 4 plopped in the middle of older homes.
The comment about growth was simply to point out that NJ is going to have a lot older housing stock than most other states, McMansions are a new thing, so one should think more about older homes when talking about states like NJ. I'd imagine that the OP has the newer, high-growth states in mind where McMansions are more common and usually within the means of the middle-class.
Anyhow, McMansions themselves aren't expensive, you can build one for around $200k. The reason why houses in the NYC metro area are expensive is because the land-values are higher. So while your comments about the cost of McMansions may be appropriate for NJ, the rest of the country is a much different story. Personally I don't understand why so many young folks are still slitting their wrists by buying homes in areas with high land-values.....but that is a different matter.
Seems to me also that the dual income household monkey threw a wrench in all these metrics. In general, occupation-to-income relationships were easy to cross-reference, but when you meddle the desire of households to pursue single income economics versus dual income economics, it throws the stratification out of whack. One is not going to suggest that the post doc guy making crap money and married to the homemaker is upper class solely based on education achievement. The landwoman-roughneck dual income couple bringing in 175K/yr to the household puts the former to shame in every category of material attainment (to include retirement, though this archetype seldom saves as they are still uneducated and generally spendthrifty due to upbringing and lack of education), yet no one would consider couple B 'upper middle class', they're still predominantly uneducated (largely white) and money-stupid (hate generalizing, but the whole state of Louisiana is a case study on these two).
Dual income households is a very difficult variable to normalize for. There had to be an income to education cross-referencing; dual income invalidates the stratification because people are essentially leveraging to meet a "standard". This is artificial. This "cooperative" approach to social class is invalid because these traits are not cumulative. Two [temporarily] well paid idiots don't make an upper class household, as well as one enlightened broke-a$$ doesn't make the household upper either due to maslow primacy of basic needs BEFORE actualization. Social stratification in America has gotten real muddled for that reason.
What is true is that a dual income household is, in general, a REQUISITE for the majority in order to even qualify for a (non-lower) middle class status. And that to me is disingenuous, because these households have parceled income sources, which assuming all occupations have X probability of job loss, means the dual household is likely to be insolvent, as it needs both incomes to meet the line. Which is to suggest, dual income households are PREDISPOSED to insolvency...if they didn't NEED to be dual income they wouldn't do it (and squelch the opportunity cost of upbringing children on their own vice coughing it up out of pocket). Fact is, they can't. Middle class is not attainable on one income therefore.
All the social classes below the elite are almost by exception defined by material attainment capacity. No one, no matter how educated, how middle class their parents are, how referenced in the cultural archetypes that socially define middle class, can in fact be middle class if he/she is living on a shoe box one paycheck away from dispossession and no disposable income. And that's the fallacy dual income households have created in this country for the "middle class". Dual income households can very well be the definitive proof that either 1)there is NO middle class or conversely 2)no on can afford to be it that's not already elite.
I'll go so far and suggest that marital status affects this quantity too. According to the linked wiki article's metrics, I'm upper middle by income and education...only because Im single (divorced). But, the second I pair up and attempt to bring up a family on my income? I'm down two classes. Just like that. How the hell does that happen??!!? Same values, same education, just an automatic reset of material acquisition standards big enough to send me to the other side of the tracks ON-THE-SPOT. This is the quantification problem dual households create. Truth is, as far as the metric is concerned, I was never upper middle, and educational background is not a qualifier (not anymore) for upper middle or middle class in the first place. You're simply upper class, or you're varying shades of working class. This doesn't affect the high school diploma non-skill non-tech worker so much, but for the professional degree college graduate bunch? It STINGS.
This ties directly to the aforementioned disagreement on the definition, mainly because of the disconnect in expectations. To reiterate, college degree graduates overwhelmingly sought education to attain material acquisition standards to put them in what most here would qualify as a upper middle class living. The contract broke, they didn't attain it, dual income 'relationship mortgaging' was the stop gap to compensate for this, and it failed miserably (divorced households all drop out of their living standards as soon as the divorce go through..they can't afford it as individuals). As such, it brought on the volatility of parceled income and increased probability of insolvency due to job loss.
So in closing, it then becomes apparent that only TWO classes can afford to replace themselves and KEEP their social status. Those are the Indigent, and the Elite. Everybody else? DINK(self-eliminating) or working class. A middle class that cannot afford to replace itself is no middle class at all.
Wow, Hindsight. I guess my middle-class neighborhood is an anomoly in that it's full of forty-something, college-educated, one-income, two (or more) kid families. Nearly all of the women have degrees, but most left their professions to raise children in their early thirties. The men typically work in IT or engineering, with a few marketing/sales and health care types thrown in for good measure.
Personally I don't understand why so many young folks are still slitting their wrists by buying homes in areas with high land-values.....but that is a different matter.
There's a reasons why land is expensive in certain towns. My town (Princeton Jnc., NJ), for example, has expensive land because of the features the town involves. It's got one of the best public schools in the country and has a train station with express trains to NYC all day long. As a result of the train station, 71% of the working population in our town works on Wall Street. And there's no McMansions here. Older homes are small and have smaller pieces of land (.5 to 1 acre), but all newer (1980s and later) homes have 1.5+ acre lots.
$300K gets you a fixer-upper 2-bedroom ranch if you're lucky. Whatever the prices may be for normal homes (probably dropped down to $900K at this point), people seem to want them... mostly just to get into the school system... but still, they're in demand.
So while you might not understand why people buy homes in areas with high land-values, appearently it makes sense for a lot of people (atleas in their minds).
come to the Philippines and you can live quite well on 10K a year in many areas. for me it is paradise and allowed me to retire 10 years early, put behind me the stress and worry of the American economy, and I find better quality medical care with regard to doctors.
my wife is filipina. her dad hasn't been back to his hometown in almost 40 years! i want to plan a trip!
So while you might not understand why people buy homes in areas with high land-values, appearently it makes sense for a lot of people (atleas in their minds).
I was not questioning whether it made sense "for a lot of people", indeed, that was implicit in my assertion. The land evaluations in some areas of the country are highly inflated, well beyond any real benefit one gains from the land, yet there are still young people out willingly transferring their wealth to their rent-seeking seniors. Anyhow....a totally different topic...well sort of.
Anyhow, I've never been to your town, if 70% of the population works on wall-street I'm glad.
The comment about growth was simply to point out that NJ is going to have a lot older housing stock than most other states, McMansions are a new thing, so one should think more about older homes when talking about states like NJ. I'd imagine that the OP has the newer, high-growth states in mind where McMansions are more common and usually within the means of the middle-class.
Anyhow, McMansions themselves aren't expensive, you can build one for around $200k. The reason why houses in the NYC metro area are expensive is because the land-values are higher. So while your comments about the cost of McMansions may be appropriate for NJ, the rest of the country is a much different story. Personally I don't understand why so many young folks are still slitting their wrists by buying homes in areas with high land-values.....but that is a different matter.
honestly, i don't know what the heck the OP is talking about. as many others, i think he's a bit off base on his classification of what one needs to be "middle class". but hey, to each their own i guess.
but, i'd like the OP, or anyone who agrees with his post, to find me someone on here that thinks it takes $500k in the ny metro area to be "middle class" for a household.
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