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I have to agree with most of these speaking personally. The only thing I don't have to worry about is insurance as my company has a decent plan I partake in.
I've always enjoyed my vacation but can't afford to lately. I can accumulate the vacation hours but just don't have the extra money to take one the way I like to. My idea of vacation is traveling to foreign countries.
I can afford 8 of 8. I'm above median income adjusted for household size but not hugely so (about 20%). For a family of four, that would be about $91,000/yr. You could afford them all especially if you worked a regular job that provided health insurance and benefits not included in income. Basically anyone who is middle-class and isn't self-employed has benefits.
The average longevity of a car is 11 to 12 years before it is crushed. The median age car is probably more like 4 or 5. In my part of the country, road salt corrosion makes a 12 year old car really iffy.
The biggest difference I notice is almost all households now have both parents working. When I was in elementary school 20 years ago I'd say 90% of mom's stayed at home. Now in the same area of NJ maybe 20% of moms stay at home. I think both parents working has become the new standard, I think it has to do with college becoming 13th grade and everyone walking out of school with an extra $400 a month in student loan debt. It use to be the norm for women to stay at home, now everyone goes to college to peruse a great career. Because both parents work there is more disposable income that is spent on the home, cars, keeping up with the jones etc. It makes middle class look more like upper class without even noticing.
The biggest difference I notice is almost all households now have both parents working. When I was in elementary school 20 years ago I'd say 90% of mom's stayed at home. Now in the same area of NJ maybe 20% of moms stay at home. I think both parents working has become the new standard, I think it has to do with college becoming 13th grade and everyone walking out of school with an extra $400 a month in student loan debt. It use to be the norm for women to stay at home, now everyone goes to college to peruse a great career. Because both parents work there is more disposable income that is spent on the home, cars, keeping up with the jones etc. It makes middle class look more like upper class without even noticing.
When 90% of moms stayed at home new houses were 1200 sqft on average vs 2400+ today. Families had one car, one tv, 10-15 channels on tv and eating out wasn't a common thing. Now it's two cars, often large ones, tvs in multiple rooms, smart phones for everyone, tablets too and all too often the eating it takes the place of th old eating out. Revisionist history sometimes blurs the true issue
The biggest difference I notice is almost all households now have both parents working. When I was in elementary school 20 years ago I'd say 90% of mom's stayed at home. Now in the same area of NJ maybe 20% of moms stay at home. I think both parents working has become the new standard, I think it has to do with college becoming 13th grade and everyone walking out of school with an extra $400 a month in student loan debt. It use to be the norm for women to stay at home, now everyone goes to college to peruse a great career. Because both parents work there is more disposable income that is spent on the home, cars, keeping up with the jones etc. It makes middle class look more like upper class without even noticing.
The irony is that this article is about things that the middle class family can't afford. According to your argument, families would have be able to afford more. The problem is our appetite outgrew our incomes Families actually were able to afford more on less income (or were satisfied with less) thirty years ago.
This is total nonsense. The middle class can afford middle class things.
Vacations: For most boomers as kids, a vacation involved tents, a camper trailer, or extremely modest motels. Food was equally modest. The photo in the article shows a Caribbean Island beach at an exclusive resort. If you move the bar to define a vacation as a 1000+ mile flight and a high end resort, the middle class has never been able to afford that.
New vehicles: You can buy a Hyundia Accent with a 100,000 mile factory warranty for $17,000. You can reasonably expect to drive it for 10 years/150,000 miles without the car imploding on you. Compare that to a 1965 automobile that was unreliable garbage after the 3/36K factory warranty expired. It was worth a bottle of champagne if the car actually did 100,000 miles. In terms of cost per mile, inflation-adjusted, cars are cheaper and more affordable than years ago. Once again, the photo in the article shows a row of shiny new BMWs. Those are luxury cars. The middle class never was able to afford luxury cars.
Student loans: This one is an issue since college costs have radically out-paced the inflation rate. If you look at the reason for this, it's not because college profs make more or because college profs teach less students for their dollars. It's because today's generation demands all the expensive non-teaching stuff that doubles the cost. If we went back to the model that college is about classrooms and not about football teams and non-academic student activities and non-academic student support systems, college would cost what it used to cost.
Emergency savings: This one is covered ad nauseum in personal finance. 5% savings rate instead of 10% to 15% savings rate. It's all about burning discretionary income instead of saving it.
Retirement savings: The rules of the game today are that you need to save steadily for your retirement. People fling the money at discretionary spending instead.
Medical care: This is a national problem. Some of the middle class has excellent corporate health insurance. The rest are caught in the gap where they're too affluent to qualify for Medicaid but they're paying big premiums for not-so-great coverage.
Dental work: If you get fluoride treatment as a young adult and get to the dental hygienist a couple times per year, most people don't have huge dental restoration bills. The same nuts who are anti-vaxxers also walk around telling everyone fluoride is poison. There's no magic to this.
Living paycheck-to-paycheck: Well duh. If you live in too much house, drive too much car, and squander your disposable income instead of saving it, you live paycheck-to-paycheck and it's a dire emergency if you lose your job. Maybe if you lived in a 1,200 square foot house on a small lot instead of a 3,000 square foot house on a large lot; and maybe if you drove a base model economy car instead of a fancier brand; and maybe if you prepared your own food at home instead of spending your cash at Starbucks, going out to lunch at work, and at restaurants and doing takeout or buying processed food, you could save some money. ....like the middle class used to do it.
Yes, and you understand what the term middle class means, correct?
Actually meadian income is easy define, class or middle class is not. However if you make more than 1/2 of all earners you are in the middle and thus middle class
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Not sure why I feel compelled to say more, but when someone quotes the $50K median household income as representative of the "middle class," it has to be called out. The middle income of all households in the country, representing all income classes, has little to do with a true discussion of what the middle class can afford. Although the numbers vary, many sources and economists consider middle class to be somewhere between roughly $50K-$140k. I do not have the specific figure, but if we took the median income of households earning in this range, I suspect it will be more than $50K. Regardless, the middle class is not representative of the first household to earn just enough to be labelled within the class, nor should that particular family's spending ability be representative of everyone within the class.
For the bulk of the middle class, what makes paying the bills truly tough seems, more often than not, lifestyle choices (in terms of opportunity cost) and not a true hardship. Poor spending decisions compound on so many households, but it is easier to blame outside factors and play the victim. No, that's not to say everyone is a doing this, but articles such as the one posted sure help those folks do so.
You don't have specific figures because class is hard to define. You do go on to state50-140k so it does look like 50k is middle class
If you go to state university within your own state, tuition is not that expensive. This is especially the case if you work part-time throughout school and/or received some grants or scholarship.
State universities were originally designed to be tuition free or very low cost. Most public universities today are repurposed teacher's colleges. It is obscene how much they cost.
Private college was always expensive, but now much more so.
When 90% of moms stayed at home new houses were 1200 sqft on average vs 2400+ today. Families had one car, one tv, 10-15 channels on tv and eating out wasn't a common thing. Now it's two cars, often large ones, tvs in multiple rooms, smart phones for everyone, tablets too and all too often the eating it takes the place of th old eating out. Revisionist history sometimes blurs the true issue
This is true. I stay home with our kids and I've realized more and more that we basically live a 1950s middle class life and we love it. No apologies. Our house is just over 1000 sq feet and was even built in the 50s; it's been updated, of course. I've had many friends cry on my shoulder that they can't stay home with their kids, but they also turn around and buy $600,000+ houses, go on expensive vacations, and drive two new cars. We live very well and very comfortably (and can afford MOST of the things on the article's list) but no, we are not going on exotic vacations or spending over a half of a million dollars on a house. We do eat out 1-2x a week and have smart phones, though .
State universities were originally designed to be tuition free or very low cost. Most public universities today are repurposed teacher's colleges. It is obscene how much they cost.
Private college was always expensive, but now much more so.
Our biggest state school still cost $12,500 a year for residence I think. Even with some scholarships and grants you're looking at upwards of $35k-$40k in debt which translates to around $500 a month in student loan debt if you actually want to pay it off in this lifetime. So a married couple who both went to state school have an extra $1,000 in debt starting out. I honestly have no idea how 2 people each carrying $75k+ in student loans can ever get ahead.
I have a buddy with a good job making almost $100k, he's respected and very hard working. Problem is it cost him about $175k to get his education. As a result he can't get a mortgage, or afford anything "nice". Any extra $ he makes is getting sucked away by his crazy student loans. There are people making $60k who went to tech schools that own homes and drive nice new cars. He'll be lucky if he can do that by the time he's 50. College isn't what it used to be, and asking an 18 year old fresh out of high school to think long term and be financially responsible is just hit or miss.
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