Seven things the Middle Class can no longer afford

[Amethyst]

I know I've posted this in some previous thread, yet it seems pertinent to this one. In the late 1970's, a quip was making the rounds due to the difficulty which many college graduates were having in finding jobs in their field:

"My daughter has her Master's,
My son, his PhD;
But Daddy is the only one
Who has a J.O.B."

In addition, younger "baby boomers" were already starting to blame the older ones for sucking up all the good jobs and pushing up housing prices.

Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose. I realize this is not a popular viewpoint.

Amethyst

 

[Independent]

Yes its hard to believe that middle-class wages on avg. in the USA were actually higher 21 years ago in the year that current college grads were born.

The median wage is lower now than it was 5 years ago and lower than 15 years ago.

Globalization and outsourcing brought our standard of living(lifestyle) way down.

Technology disruption in the job market is a big issue now for all jobs.

Anesthesiologist being replaced by robots and CRNAs is a interesting area.
The next 15 years will be interesting in the job market.

There is so much disruption now in the economy its hard to tell exactly how things will turn out.

Tesla,airbnb,Applepay,google self driving cars,Amazon,UPS using natural gas for their fleet,Digital classrooms,Uber,etc, are all going to change the job market in different ways.

I wonder what college is going to look like in 18 years for a baby being born today.

The only place that I know to find historical data on median earnings is here:
https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/

There are a number of tables available that cut the numbers differently, so I'm not sure which one to use.

Looking at P-20, I see males going from $42,885 to $43,617 over the 21 years from 1992 to 2013. Females did better, going from $26,343 to $31,515.

Some of the female gain probably came from more hours worked and from different types of jobs. I could get more data by looking at more tables, but I'm going to guess that earnings have been mostly flat over the last 30-35 years -- not going up like we'd like, or like we saw in the previous decades -- but, not going down sharply, like the author of the OP piece claims.

 

[ziggy29]

In addition, younger "baby boomers" were already starting to blame the older ones for sucking up all the good jobs and pushing up housing prices.

Well, that is much of the idea behind what some call "Generation Jones" -- a generation (really, half of a generation) which was "jonesing" for the deal their parents got but found that the deal was largely null and void by the time they got there. "Jonesers" are said to encompass the last few years of the Boom and the first few years of Generation X -- basically, mid 1950s to about 1966 or so. They are sometimes said to be the first cohort to not have it better than their parents.

 

[Amethyst]

Such a relief to have one's own generational nickname.


A.

Well, that is much of the idea behind what some call "Generation Jones" -- a generation (really, half of a generation) which was "jonesing" for the deal their parents got but found that the deal was largely null and void by the time they got there. "Jonesers" are said to encompass the last few years of the Boom and the first few years of Generation X -- basically, mid 1950s to about 1966 or so..

 

[dallas27]

Income is not linked to education. There is correlation, which is what they "sell". But there is NO causation.

Income can be accurately predicted by relative intelligence on aptitude tests (not grades).


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[purplesky]

The only place that I know to find historical data on median earnings is here:
https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/

There are a number of tables available that cut the numbers differently, so I'm not sure which one to use.

Looking at P-20, I see males going from $42,885 to $43,617 over the 21 years from 1992 to 2013. Females did better, going from $26,343 to $31,515.

Some of the female gain probably came from more hours worked and from different types of jobs. I could get more data by looking at more tables, but I'm going to guess that earnings have been mostly flat over the last 30-35 years -- not going up like we'd like, or like we saw in the previous decades -- but, not going down sharply, like the author of the OP piece claims.

I hate to admit. This topic sometimes gives me a headache.

Hopefully sooner than later we will see a meaningful bump in wages.

We will then see a new home construction housing recovery.

 

[photoguy]

Income is not linked to education. There is correlation, which is what they "sell". But there is NO causation.

Education is most certainly a causal factor in income (but obviously not the sole determinant). The easiest way to see this is look at highly paid professions that have strict education requirements like physicians.

 

[scrabbler1]

I know I've posted this in some previous thread, yet it seems pertinent to this one. In the late 1970's, a quip was making the rounds due to the difficulty which many college graduates were having in finding jobs in their field:

"My daughter has her Master's,
My son, his PhD;
But Daddy is the only one
Who has a J.O.B."

In addition, younger "baby boomers" were already starting to blame the older ones for sucking up all the good jobs and pushing up housing prices.

Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose. I realize this is not a popular viewpoint.

Amethyst

LOL good one. Your joke reminds me of one I have posted in this forum a few times. I first heard it back in the mid-1980s when I was graduating from college as a business major. I believe it was a Jackie Mason joke.

"The philosphy majors can't gets jobs when they graduate from college........but at least they know why!" LOL

 

[ERD50]

San Francisco is the least affordable housing market in the country:

Is Tech Money Good For San Francisco’s Middle Class? An Economist’s Perspective | TechCrunch

If I had a middle class income I wouldn't expect to be able to live in Cupertino. ...

Right, and you probably wouldn't. From wiki:

Cupertino is the 11th wealthiest city with a .... median household income exceeding $160,000.

U.S. ... median household income was $51,939 in 2013 ...

So over 3x the US median. I'd be shocked if the house prices in the 11th wealthiest city in the US weren't inline with that standing.

Actually, I'm rather surprised that household incomes in such rarefied air (11th out of the entire US?) are only ~ 3x the median. That seems 'flatter' than I would expect.

-ERD50

 

[photoguy]

I imagine anybody actually moving to Cupertino and buying a home would have a household income at least double the stated 160k (say they make at least 300k). This would make the cheapest homes fall into the roughly 3x gross income rule of thumb.

However there are quite a few apartments and this is probably dragging down the median. And neighborhoods in the Bay Area may have people who bought in a long time ago and could no longer afford to do so now.


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[athena53]

Right now, at the beginning of my career, I have a family with a wife, two children, and a single income less than $50k a year. No one in this family has a need that goes unfulfilled. After all the expenses, we still manage an ample emergency fund of approximately 1 years living expenses, no debt, and retirement savings that put me on track to retire between 50-55 using very conservative estimates.

DS, is that you?

Seriously- my son turns 30 next week and makes about that. He owns a house and has a wonderful wife and a beautiful 6-month old daughter. DDIL is a SAHM. He paid cash for the used Nissan he drives to work; at one point he asked me if he should take out a 401(k) loan to pay the remaining balance on the loan for the Nissan SUV she brought into the marriage. She worked for the dealership so probably got better deal than most. The car loan was at 2%. I told him heck, No! She also had some debt from a 2-year business school. (He wanted a SAHM and my biggest fear was that he'd marry someone with $120K in loans.) They tithe. My biggest complaint is that while he's very good at accumulating money he shows no interest in investing it. Could be worse.

They're just really happy. They have cell phones but they aren't smartphones; vacations are at her family's place on a beach in Michigan or the occasional trip to a B&B. Next week they'll be visiting us. My granddaughter's clothing includes a lot of used pieces traded around by women in their church. DDIL turned DS' Man Cave into a home and the screened-in back porch now has wicker furniture she got at a garage sale.

It really helps that they live in a LCOL area, but I'd call them solid middle class and their life looks pretty good from here.

 

[Amethyst]

Today I overheard one man asserting to another that while your child won't get that much better of an education at Harvard than at U of MD, it's worth it to try to get your child into Harvard because your child will have "many, many times more and better opportunities" as a graduate of Harvard versus U of MD.

So there is an assertion of future income related to "access to greater opportunities," versus education per se.

Amethyst

Income is not linked to education. There is correlation, which is what they "sell". But there is NO causation.

Income can be accurately predicted by relative intelligence on aptitude tests (not grades).


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[growing_older]

In addition, younger "baby boomers" were already starting to blame the older ones for sucking up all the good jobs and pushing up housing prices.

So as each new generation come of age, the older generations lament the lack of decorum and breaking of traditions, and the younger ones lament the lack of opportunity and the better deal the older generation had. I wonder how much of this is comparison bias. The younger ones compare themselves at their current young age to the older ones after a lifetime of earning and savings, while the older ones compare the younger ones to their own memories of themselves, but filtered by rose colored glasses so they forget the difficult parts and remember the "best days of our lives" instead.

PS As a young boomer I do strongly believe those slightly older had a big leg up due to demographics, but I also benefited greatly by being just young enough to not participate in a series of wars that drafted young adults.

Likewise, I agree that the few highest name recognition schools do provide greater access to opportunity. People with similar backgrounds get a second look with that well known school name on a resume.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Income is not linked to education. There is correlation, which is what they "sell". But there is NO causation.

Income can be accurately predicted by relative intelligence on aptitude tests (not grades).


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Do you have a source for this?

 

[MRG]

I probably can't afford a new or lightly used(restored) Model T at this time. Things change.

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[Mulligan]

I personally have never heard of no relationship between income and education. In fact, all I have read is the opposite. There are sources all over the internet. Here is just one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/u...clearly-new-data-say.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

The pay gap between college graduates and everyone else reached a record high last year, according to the new data, which is based on an analysis of Labor Department statistics by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. Americans with four-year college degrees made 98 percent more an hour on average in 2013 than people without a degree. That’s up from 89 percent five years earlier, 85 percent a decade earlier and 64 percent in the early 1980s.


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[StickInTheMud]

DS, is that you?

Seriously- my son turns 30 next week and makes about that. He owns a house and has a wonderful wife and a beautiful 6-month old daughter. DDIL is a SAHM. He paid cash for the used Nissan he drives to work; at one point he asked me if he should take out a 401(k) loan to pay the remaining balance on the loan for the Nissan SUV she brought into the marriage. She worked for the dealership so probably got better deal than most. The car loan was at 2%. I told him heck, No! She also had some debt from a 2-year business school. (He wanted a SAHM and my biggest fear was that he'd marry someone with $120K in loans.) They tithe. My biggest complaint is that while he's very good at accumulating money he shows no interest in investing it. Could be worse.

They're just really happy. They have cell phones but they aren't smartphones; vacations are at her family's place on a beach in Michigan or the occasional trip to a B&B. Next week they'll be visiting us. My granddaughter's clothing includes a lot of used pieces traded around by women in their church. DDIL turned DS' Man Cave into a home and the screened-in back porch now has wicker furniture she got at a garage sale.

It really helps that they live in a LCOL area, but I'd call them solid middle class and their life looks pretty good from here.

It sounds like your son and I would get along well. It was always my plan to marry and have a SAHM to raise the kids. Like anything in life, it takes planning. I searched high and low for a woman that wanted the same things, and when I found her, I married her.

We followed the traditional (or not so traditional now-adays) path of living separately until we were married. During our engagement, she was working as a school teacher and saved up every dime of her salary whilst living with her parents, and I paid off my student loans. Then we got married, bought a modest house, and threw all the money we had at the down payment except for a small chunk that would be the emergency fund. We ended up with a mortgage of about $15k. The loan officer at the bank looked at us sideways when we asked for such a small mortgage. Within 2 years, that mortgage was paid off.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that you can live comfortably on a very modest income, but you have to prepare for it. You can't marry someone with wildly different financial habits, establish a lifestyle that requires two incomes, start a family with loads of debt, and still expect to magically transition over to a single income household with a SAHM when the child comes along.

Once the first child comes, you're either financially prepared or you're not. If that kid comes while both of you still need to work to support yourselves and pay off debts, you're going to be locked into that situation for at least 4-5 years before the daycare expenses end and that second income can finally be freed up to pay off the debts. If you have multiple children, you're looking at potentially a decade or more of work that you could have avoided, if you had just planned for it just 2 years earlier.

 

[ArkTinkerer]

Today I overheard one man asserting to another that while your child won't get that much better of an education at Harvard than at U of MD, it's worth it to try to get your child into Harvard because your child will have "many, many times more and better opportunities" as a graduate of Harvard versus U of MD.

So there is an assertion of future income related to "access to greater opportunities," versus education per se.

Amethyst

I don't know about Harvard but MIT has "need blind" admissions. My understanding is if you get in, then you will pay what the FAFSA figures your family can afford. So, IF you can get in, there is little cost difference between there and many other lesser schools. Except of course, if you can get in at MIT, you could probably get a full ride somewhere else!

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Here is a link to the Payscale report on starting and median salaries by college:

Full List of Schools - PayScale College Salary Report 2013-14

Salaries by major:
Majors That Pay You Back: PayScale College Salary Report 2012-13

An article on importance of what kind of degree:
College Major More Important Than Degree Itself

The Job Outlook Handbook:
Home : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

We referred to all of these sources frequently with our kids when having school and salary discussions. They don't have to be petroleum engineers, and they can go to just CC or a 4 year + masters degree, but they do have to have reasonable expectations of being self supporting after graduation with a good ROI on our net cost, after accounting for any kind of aid they can qualify for.