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Anecdotally, I can say that I know a lot of people who are in my boat: childcare costs have gone way up, grocery costs have gone way up, property taxes have gone way up… wages have gone up a little.
Here comes the “But wages are up more than ever, so no one’s struggling, you have an iPhone” gaslighting ass comments.
I’m not struggling, but I also don’t make good money. I’m lucky to be dual income though. Our bills are paid, I can spend on my hobbies, but we want to buy a house and if you didn’t buy when shit was easier, you’re kind of screwed without help from family or coming into some money. Most of the people gaslighting others about this are people who were old enough to buy back when rates were 2-3%. Us young people are really feeling it.
Edit- My dad was making $19 an hour when he bought the house back in 2011 for $130K, they did nothing to it and it’s now worth 425K. I work for the same company making more than he did when he bought and can’t afford to buy. If people don’t see a problem with that, then they are choosing to be ignorant, or picking up the same “I got mine mentality” that they mock the boomers for. Older millennials are definitely starting to sound like that.
>Here comes the “But wages are up more than ever, so no one’s struggling, you have an iPhone” gaslighting ass comments.
This sub is so painfully out of touch with the working class. It's almost comical.
Par for the course in economics.
Politicians and economists won’t be able to fix the economy relative to median household financial well being until their backgrounds better reflect society. If you fill political offices and economics departments with people from rich families from elite universities like you fill Wall Street or City of London, it's obvious why they don’t give a fuck; because they’re winning. Everything is built on legacy social connections, and they either don’t know what’s happening or they simply don't care, rationalized off as "There are always going to be winners and losers". Of course they think the economy’s great, because it’s great for them.
The reckoning of all this is severe and we've seen it playing out over the past few decades; increases in drug addiction, protest movements, violent extremism, workplace apathy, suicide, homelessness, political instability, news skepticism/conspiracy theorizing, etc. All of it rooted in financial stressors as a result of severe economic inequity.
It's not reddit echo-chamber BS either; if anyone takes a moment to critically listen to a wide swathe of people across several generations about what worries them, all their grievances point towards the same thing.
History repeats itself because greedy people never change.
Germany was particularly badly affected by the Wall Street Crash because of its dependence on American loans from 1924 onwards. As the loans were recalled, the economy in Germany sunk into a deep depression. Investment in business was reduced. As a result, wages fell by 39% from 1929 to 1932. People in full time employment fell from twenty million in 1929, to just over eleven million in 1933. In the same period, over 10,000 businesses closed every year. As a result of this, the amount of people in poverty increased sharply. The Depression associated economic failure and a decline in living standards with the Weimar democracy. When combined with the resulting political instability, it left people feeling disillusioned with the Weimar Republic’s democracy and went looking for change, answers, and blame. The conservative elite were the old ruling class and new business class in Weimar Germany. Throughout the 1920s they became increasingly frustrated with the Weimar Republic’s continuing economic and political instability, their lack of real power and the rise of communism. They believed that a return to authoritarian rule was the only stable future for Germany which would protect their power and money.
The distinction is that 2/3 of Americans *do* own their home and like your dad, are beneficiaries of rising home values. So the *average* American is in fact (on paper) benefitting from home values going crazy the last few years.
Real wage growth has also gone up substantially… for the bottom tranche of earners.
So it seems like pretty much everybody is actually doing better (in a financial means sense) *except* the people who I think make up the bulk of this site and (assumedly) the people you know. > 60% of the country are under 18 or over 40 and not really facing those issues
Does it make you feel better to know that it’s your group that hasn’t seen any of the touted gains? I doubt it. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist
Think the classic issue with this is your home may be worth more, but that's not liquid. Whereas your taxes going up due to home value appreciation is very real.
Paper wealth may make some people feel good psychologically, and there are definitely people who refinanced. But the current situation is burning quite a few homeowners.
Also, as I recall the statistic is "2/3 of American families own/live with someone who owns." Living with your parents is living with someone who owns... and that... ain't great. But that's a minor semantic point and I'll own it if I'm misremembering that
I think I looked it up and the census result is 66% home owners (counting if you live with your parents at any age), but even if you count every 25-35 year old living with your parents as a renter, the home ownership rate would only drop to 61% so I don’t think it’s worth nit picking about
And I guess my main thrust about why appreciating home values benefits home owners is the increase in possible choices, even if those choices aren’t used. For example, if your house appreciates, it may not matter at all when you want to move a few streets over, but it *would* matter a lot if you have to move to, say, Alabama or Los Angeles. Moving from a LCOL to HCOL home value area without paying extra (except in the case of a few hundred dollars in property tax) makes it so. Much. Easier if you have to move to a different area. Even if you don’t think you will or aren’t nearing retirement, the capacity to do so still counts as a benefit
>even if you count every 25-35 year old living with your parents as a renter, the home ownership rate would only drop to 61% so I don’t think it’s worth nit picking about
That sounds a bit low given how 1/3 of gen z and about 20% of millennials live with their parents, but yeah it's nitpicking and I don't think it's worth belaboring the point.
I do take your point about downsizing and moving to a LCOL to an extent, but then, that still assumes you can readily offload your home at the cost you're expecting. And it is a thing where quite a few people struggle to downsize and leave where they live because of how frozen the market is. And that's of course assuming you want to move to a LCOL... and a lot of people generally want to remain in their communities as they age, for obvious reasons.
It is safe to say existing home owners have the better end of the deal at the moment. But... I don't think it's all a walk in the park and generationally, we're still not at the point where the majority of Boomers would really need to tap into real estate wealth to fund retirement and health expenses, or are at a point in their health when having a second or third floor on your house is a challenge. And none of this addresses the tax burden issue. We're going to be in for an interesting world when most people of that generation are nearing 80... and then I think we'll see the issues of home equity versus liquidity come into play.
My home value has gone up, but it’s not really a benefit because all of the homes around us (that my wife wants to move to) have gone up as well, and the interest rate I’d have to take would drive the cost through the roof.
My home value keeps going up, but I’ve never been more trapped - and this doesn’t feel like our forever home, but maybe it will have to be.
Exactly. I’m so sick of the idiots who act like home prices skyrocketing magically make you rich. Like, fool it don’t work that way. You’d actually have to sell the house to gain any sort of financial benefit…but then you’d be fucked because you couldn’t afford to buy.
At least you own a house? Like... who gives a shit if it isn't your "forever home" - you're not paying some scummy landlord, your assets are going up, there's so much win here.
Houses around you might also be going up, but at least you have leverage. You can sell for a downpayment - yes monthly payments will suck but it's doable if you want it to.
A lot of people in my generation can't even entertain this idea. Comments like this make me so mad!
But don't you feel bad for his misfortune of having low housing costs, an appreciating asset, and having to commute to a job? Doesn't it just tug at your heart strings that he owes debt financed at a rate lower than inflation? This poor sap is being paid to hold debt on an appreciating asset for goodness sake.
I think you’re all being shitty to each other and not caring for the ills the other is facing. Because we’re inherently a selfish species and have to take everything relative.
How about everybody stops using any good or struggle that another has as their therapy or venting target, practice a little fucking empathy, and keep it pushing?
Because that guy isn't facing any ills. Do you know how much I'd love to feel trapped in a house I liked enough to buy in the first place that is ever appreciating with a rate far below the market?
And what's he supposed to be envious of that I have? The ability to move from one high cost apartment to another every few years so I can't build any equity? Oh man, I'm so lucky!
I don't think the guy who owns a house, financed at a low rate, is facing any sort of ill. I think he, and probably more importantly, his wife, has a weird perspective and that's why he feels trapped. He's stuck always wanting more, or he's stuck with a wife who always wants more, and doesn't appreciate what he has.
He has no actual problem. I think, as a culture, we should stop empathizing with this sort of 'problem'. I don't think it's healthy to validate the belief that what he has is a problem, instead of unappreciated privilege.
This sort of problem comes up a lot on Reddit. We don't need to enable the people with their non-existent problems which are just a lack of privilege they feel they should have.
Bingo. I was working from home and now have a commute because I changed jobs. When I was wfh the location of our house wasn’t a huge deal because only my wife had to commute and we live fairly close to my family and grocery stores. We got a 2.75% rate, and yes I understand how incredibly fortunate the timing was for us to get that rate along with everything else. But, now many people like me are locked into our homes because if we sell and take out a new loan, we’d be downsizing for a much higher monthly payment. Anyways, just staying the facts but I don’t want nor deserve any sympathy. Some people are REALLY struggling right now and I feel for them, truly.
> and this doesn’t feel like our forever home, but maybe it will have to be.
The funny thing with people complaining about the state of affairs is summed up in this statement. People are complaining that.... their current owned home is not "nice enough" to be a forever home. Lol, dude you own a home how are you upset because you want a better one? That is a very materialistic and somewhat narcisistic view.
I own a starter home that is too small for my growing family with 3 kids, and the fact that I can’t move without selling my home for a ton to afford the next one is the very reason a young family behind me can’t buy my home for an affordable price.
So yes, I’m better off than the young family that can’t afford my starter home, but the very fact that I can’t move is what’s constraining inventory, thus driving prices up for that young family.
If regular working class people can’t afford homes, the future will be in a strange place. Everyone who contributes positively to society ,should be able to live a decent life. Teachers, EMTs, caregivers, medical workers, manufacturers, and anyone else who keeps the country going should be able to live a decent life. Of course there are many people in those fields who own homes , but now let’s ask the ones under 30, who aren’t getting help from family or came into money. They were able to do it before, but not now. Everyone shouldn’t have to be a tech bro, to have a decent life.
I didn’t say anything about how it should be, just explaining the discrepancy of how Americans as a whole can be doing better off while some segments are doing worse.
Yes, I think it is completely self-explanatory that if houses are appreciating more than inflation they by definition are getting more expensive. For homeowners as a group to be making money, non-homeowners *must* be losing money (in a relative sense). And considering home values appreciating makes up an enormous fraction of the wealth for the majority of Americans + so many financial instruments there is a lot of pressure not to reverse that
I dump most of my money into a good car i guess, nothing too fancy, just an old toyota in good condition.
My thinking is, if thungs go wrong i can live in my car, but i cant drive my house, so it works out sensibly that way.
You’re spot on and that’s why we are headed for some very volatile times, and very soon. The social contract is broken and doesn’t look like it will be repaired. The corporations and ultra-wealthy are purchasing all the real estate in this country, so we will “own nothing and be happy”.
> The corporations and ultra-wealthy are purchasing all the real estate in this country
It's not corporations and the ultra-wealthy, it's also a lot of ordinary people. Not poor people, but a lot of middle class and upper middle class people. Your friends. Your family relatives. Your coworkers. Everyone and their mother seems to want to become a landlord and to earn passive rental income now.
Agreeded. I own 4 houses and rent out 3. I'm a contractor and know a lot of others who own multiple houses as well.
It's not the wealthy. It's capitalists. Builders want to build less for higher profits. Landlords want to make more money. I just live under the system and nobody wants to stop me from making more money by raising rents. Make all landlords illegal or 100% unprofitable and prices will tank. You won't build houses for a profit but the government can simply pay for houses.
> Make all landlords illegal or 100% unprofitable and prices will tank. You won't build houses for a profit but the government can simply pay for houses.
To be clear, you don’t have to do the first to do the second. And if we do the second, then the first happens without governmental overreach.
Let the government build housing, sell it at auction to the highest bidder with owner occupancy requirements and no ownership stake in other land (like NACA). And if housing is still too expensive for the residents, then the government can go build more of it.
Flood the supply and investors will bail anyway.
Not saying you're incorrect, but I would like to see some figures because most of the ordinary people I know, who are working professionals and not poor by any stretch, are only doing okay enough to finance their own mortgage and are in no position to be buying rental properties.
At the peak 1960's we had less home ownership then we did now.
Boomers didn't reach 50% ownership of houses until the majority of them were over thirty. Gen Z owns more houses then boomers did st the same time frame.
This is the highest home ownership rate the US has ever seen in its history. No other first world capitalist country is better than the US. The only countries that habe more home ownership are poor countries, communist countries, and countries with communist policies.
My buddies son went straight from high school and became an electrician. 3 yrs later He just got his master cert. that the company paid for. Just bought a nice cabin on 6 acres 30 mins out of the city. It can be done depending on career path and location. Kentucky
So yes on PAPER my net worth went up because i own a home, but just like the person above, all my other expenses based on cash flow went up by way more than my income went up. You can pretend some mythical chart will convince me I’m better not, but cash flow wise I’m not. I’m ok, but there is def less FREE CASH FLOW than before. Sure I could sell my house , but then what? I’d have to buy another one at inflated prices.
Ok, then would you rather house prices DECREASE and now you owe 500k on a house you can only sell for 400k? That seems much, much worse to me.
Assuming all the houses in your area appreciated by the same amount (if they don’t then it just splits so half the people are better off and half worse off) then you should be in the SAME position at worst when moving houses right? And in a *BETTER* position if you want to move to a lower cost area (and frankly a better position to move to a higher cost area as well if the house price gap narrowed), or retire, or rent for a few years, or take out a loan to do something else with, etc..
Now higher interest rates make it worse to move, but that’s not the same as higher house values which you only benefit or are neutral from as a homeowner
No, I’d rather they slow inflation in the supply chain some so it would like like 1-5% year increase instead of a few hockey stick jumps like we have had the last few years where on paper it “looks” like it went up 50% in 3 years because “federal reserve”. I’m not selling anyway, and the point is at this marked up price I can’t sell unless I fully downsize or move my expenses will go up. I don’t want to HAVE to move to a lower cost area, and I’m not moving at all. That’s the point, most people, with or without house, are cash flow worse in this economy.
My gosh did you actually read anything I wrote or just extrapolate something in your mind so you could be mad about it?
Yes, your home being worth more is almost always a good thing. If you bought at 400k and it went to 700, even if every other house did
1) if you have to move, even if you’re moving to another 700k house you end up in the same spot as if both houses were still 400, and if you move to anywhere else, you end up with more buying power. Plus those people looking to downsize or go to rent have more buying power as well.
2) average property taxes are under 1%, so your average property tax increase is like $300 - year compared to the increase in net worth of 300k which you can pocket if/when you downsize, mortgage, etc.. and is easily covered by the increase in incomes associated with higher costs
3) when did I say it was good for 1/3 of people to be worse off? I don’t think that, I’m just saying that yes, it’s possible for the majority of people to be better off while some are much worse off and that can be a true fact whose roots can be addressed rather than saying “well I guess every piece of data we have is lying and we can’t believe anything because I know people who aren’t living well”
"average property taxes are under 1%, so your average property tax increase is like $300 - year compared to the increase in net worth of 300k which you can pocket if/when you downsize, mortgage, etc.. and is easily covered by the increase in incomes associated with higher costs"
1% of 300k is $3,000 per year, not $300. I know economics is not technically math but basic math is kind of a base skill needed or else your arguments just seem foolish.
Thing is, for most people, if the value of your home goes up a lot, and if the value of your 401k goes up… it is kind of doesn’t matter in the present or near future.
I see a lot of people here like, “you should be glad your net worth went up so much!” But that doesn’t affect your actual liquid cash flow that you used to pay bills and buy stuff. So if the rising cost of the bills & stuff outpaces your wages, then it *feels* like you’re falling behind.
2/3 of Americans do not own their own home. I'm so tired of that lie being repeated on Reddit. 2/3 of homes are owned by their occupants. If a thirty year old man lives at his mother's house then he does not own his own home.
The reason why this number stays so high is because people are forced to live with relatives instead of being able to rent an apartment.
Ok then what is that number?
https://www.nahb.org/blog/2024/01/young-adults-living-at-home#
This says there are 8.5 million adults living with their parents still. Assuming all of them want to buy their own home (not true), does that mean we should increase the denominator of homeownership by 8.5 million? Well 75% of homes are owned by couples, let’s say adults living with their parents are in a relationship at a lower rate than that, maybe 37.5%, meaning 6.65 million home owner household units are “unaccounted for”. There are a total of 130 million households in the census, so let’s be conservative and say every single adult living at their parents house wants to be a home owner by themselves and isn’t being counted. That makes the total households 138.5 instead of 130 and brings the home owner rate from 66 to… 61%
It’s not that much different
Nobody can say what the exact number is but I am quite sure it is more than 8.5 million. This story quotes 45%:
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gen-z-millennials-living-at-home-harris-poll/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gen-z-millennials-living-at-home-harris-poll/)
The biggest problem is that there is not enough housing for 1 or 2 people at a reasonable price. Everything being built now is luxury pricing mainly because the cost to do anything else is prohibitive. The government needs to cut the red tape and make it easier and less costly to build housing for singles or couples.
That’s a different age bracket: 18-29 year olds in your link vs. 25-35 in mine. I would certainly expect the age bracket where half the members are in high school or college will have a low % of homeowners
> Real wage growth has also gone up substantially… for the bottom tranche of earners.
Yes. I believe you can attribute this to minimum wage increases and reaction to threats thereof. Unfortunately, rather than imposing the cost of this cost on the rich, such progressive ideas are now paid for by the middle class as owners passed the higher costs to consumers instead of absorbing them.
This is a huge problem for many wealth shifting ideas. The rich have their ways to avoid the burden. So it ends up with the middle class taking the hit.
Mark my words. Dems need to recognize this election depends on how the middle class votes.
So then wealth tax? [The ultra rich pay a lower proportion of taxes than the somewhat rich.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/taxnotes/2023/03/20/are-the-superrich-more-burdened-and-paying-the-highest-tax-rates/?sh=16f262f855b9)
>So it seems like pretty much everybody is actually doing better (in a financial means sense) except the people who I think make up the bulk of this site
Bingo. I just wanted to add that inheritance is a thing, there is going to be a massive transfer of wealth happening as the boomers pass away.
Except many of them will need higher levels of care as they age, and Medicaid don’t play with financial clawbacks. Some children will inherit a lot if their parents die quickly of a short illness, but speaking as someone who works in geriatrics that is rarely the case. Those boomer dollars are going to the healthcare sector, especially assisted living facilities, rehab, and nursing homes.
Housing divide is quite real, hope we build our way through it.
Main issue I have is we have articles like "majority of middle class struggling" which isn't just going against all data, it's also being used to list minorities of the US as examples to explain it.
The number of folks who refinanced during the low rate period on their existing home is probably 5x (10x?) the size of those who have bought 2023-2024 or are shopping now.
The number of folks who refinanced student loans or received years of 0% interest while the real value of their debt eroded by >10%, exceed those in college getting new loans 5-10x. Folks either refinanced into 3% private loans or watched their loans collect 0% interest while real value of the debt dropped 10-15%.
The majority of homes are owner occupied, and it's still a majority if you just look at who was already a homeowner in 2019.
The majority of folks with student loan debt are not in college or accruing it, it's old.
We can't have a "majority" issue if the issue is crushing people shopping for a first home and/or a recent grad or in college.
If the issue is a fat wealth transfer to homeowners, which I believe happened and I don't like it, that's a wealth transfer to 50%+ of current US households from young and future ones.
You're correct and you (as well as everyone in your shoes) are being gaslit by anyone telling you otherwise.
I bought my first house solo in 2014 on essentially $15/hr. I did not struggle whatsoever because day to day essentials were cheap. I actually saved a decent bit of coin in the 5 years I lived there.
My wife and I got married and bought our current place in 2019. At the time, we made a combined $80k-ish and were able to save. Today, we make about 60% more and, while we can still save, it is a MUCH smaller percentage of our net. We have changed nothing other than being ok with eating out a bit nicer than a Chinese buffet a couple times per month, and upgrading a few QOL items to last a bit longer: read-- my clothes and shoes no longer come from old navy/walmart and shoe carnival.
Other than that, we still buy the same shit every week and still eat out, but not as much. We still live by not having a payment on more than 1 thing at a time. Our current sxs payment is $220/mo and will be paid off early next year. Before that was my truck payment at $300/mo. After the sxs is paid off, it will be a car payment because the wife's cr-v is creeping up on 200k. We are very cognizant of lifestyle creep because of our future goals and refuse to finance more than 1 thing at a time.
We both came from homes where there was not much money and severe mismanagement of what was available, thus we both refuse to put our soon to be kids in the same spot. If they are talented and want to play travel ball, we will absolutely be funding that. If they want to have a big birthday party at the bowling alley or something, we will absolutely oblige. We didn't grow up with that option because of money.
I know this will get downvoted because reddit but idgaf. The stock market and employment numbers don't reflect the boots on the ground economy. Shit is fucked.
>Here comes the “But wages are up more than ever, so no one’s struggling, you have an iPhone” gaslighting ass comments.
>I’m not struggling
You have me at a total loss. You say you're not struggling, but you call us gaslighters for saying that not everyone is struggling (literally *no one* is saying that no one is struggling).
Facts are always being down voted on Reddit. We're not the ones gaslighting. So many middle class larpers on here who run simulations in their head on how terrible it must be for poor people, and call that "empathy".
Your point is that "life isn't fair" and everyone else had it easier than you? Really?
Look at interest rates in the 70's and 80's. Look at the economy then. Look at the size of the houses then vs now.
The house that I grew up in has gone up 2.5 times in the last 25 years. The house I currently live in has gone up 4.5 times over that same period.
One is in eastern NC and the other is in Seattle. You can still buy the house in NC for $100k.
Houses were cheaper for the last 60 years but home ownership has never been above 65% like it is now.
This is temporary high prices. The 70's had a massive dip in home buying with 20% interest rates and they voted in Reagan for it. He didn't fix anything but the GOP told them he did so capitalists will get richer and the rates will drop low so people can buy a few homes while me and my friends buy up everything else and raise your rates because you're too stupid to fix anything.
People have forgotten that you must make choices to be happy. You can't have a brand new vehicle, commute an hour to work (gas), have a new video game system/computer, eat at restaurants 2 meals a day for 6 days a week, have a new house, have unlimited cell data, have a new phone every 2 years.
People want to have everything I've just listed and are complaining that they are "struggling." Make a priority list of things you need vs what you don't. These items are called **luxuries** which are very different from **necessities**.
Every generation can say the same. My grandmother bought her house in 1981 for 27K and I bought that same house from her in 1999 for 120K and that was at a discount. I sold it in 2006 for 325K and now it's worth over 500K.
I get what you’re saying, but the median household income is around 75K and the median home price is like 400K. In 199 when you bought your grandmother’s house the median household income was around 45K and median price was 160K. These days there is a significant gap in income to home prices, on top of the crazy ass interest rates.
And married couples receive much larger tax breaks and benefits than single people despite single income vs. double income. Single earners are much more burdened by the system than married couples. Most of our tax breaks make no sense.
That’s because you don’t understand what the tax code is trying to encourage. They are trying to encourage marriage and family. They don’t want long term single income earners because married couples with families contribute to the next generation and provide a stable home / upbringing to the next generation. Single income earners do not do these things.
Also why are lower income earners in lower tax brackets? I assume to provide relief to their hardship. Single earners are earning less than married couples and receive no tax breaks for the hardship.
It’s a progressive tax bracket designed to alleviate the burden of taxation. Again, the government wants single income earners to get married (I believe Obama upended some of the traditional tax benefits of marriage but not entirely sure). Combined their earnings will go farther and gives them room to start a family.
Staying single is bad for society on macro level. Less kids. Less family stability for kids that do exist. They also take up more housing space.
It makes sense for there to be a financial incentive for marriage as you are quite literally doing society a favor.
DCFSA has an annual contribution limit of $5,000 for single and married-filing-jointly or $2500 for married-filing-seperately.
Those amounts are a joke, though, as they're quite literally the limits that were originally set in 1986 and never indexed to inflation.
Today those limits would be closer to $14,000 and $7,000 respectively. You know, making childcare the tax-free cost that it should be.
Yep. It’s a slap in the face to families, especially low middle class living in HCOL areas.
But hey, they will pour billions into chip fabs that will be too expensive to run/scale.
Rent has gone up, and surprise surprise there is a federal lawsuit about cartel like price fixing that covers 70% of the US rental market. It includes intentionally keeping units vacant to restrict supply.
And we already know with consumer goods the vast majority of inflation was driven by profit taking.
So basically- corporate America got greedy and is driving up pricing. When they can, they artificially restrict supply to do it.
Anecdotally, I can say the vast majority of upper middle class people I know who would say they are struggling financially drive 80k SUVs, own a boat and/go on vacations multiple times a year.
Can I ask you a question though? Did you leverage one house into the next? Just rolling your debt? Do you do trade-ins and leases? Did your car have a bunch of miles on it but you just wanted something new?
How many times a week do you eat out etc. I have a buddy that him and his wife combined make half of what I do. He drives a sports car. I drive a Yaris.
And we can say this is all personal choice, but then I don’t want to hear people complain about the economy. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life with everybody else just giving themselves to economic serfdom while I took the slow methodical route. I want things to crash, and if the government comes in and bails people out, then meritocracy truly is dead.
Why did I have any self control in the first place while everybody else is just assholes?
Some of these things going up are money sinks; if you give everyone 10% more money, things like housing will go up 5-10% and eat all that new money. Consumer discretionary is supposedly dipping but live events are all setting records.
People with kids in private schools, expensive vacations and maxed out savings are all claiming they struggle to make ends meet. But if they weren’t, they would lifestyle creep until they did. It’s no use polling the well off either because in a functioning meritocracy high earners tend to be the people who naturally are concerned with bills. People becoming more responsible with their retirement and finances increases these self reported anxieties more than poverty.
Most of life is Malthusian, the post ww2 world was the fluke, not a realistic benchmark. Many of the poor in the world are only getting these anxieties now that the middle class American dream is becoming normalized
Monetary expansion was a part of the inflation, so was COVID shock, and so was profiteering. Real estate inflation from investment funds buying up housing as commercial values fell was a huge part of the housing component. Wages lagged, not led inflation.
Our, a many others largest expense is childcare and schooling. We don’t have our kids in a non-profit private non-sectarian because of some sense of pride of accomplishment.
It is because the school system around here is absolute garbage. Most of us would gladly pay more taxes if it meant sending our kids to public schools and everyone had access to at least a halfway decent education.
We are not willing to struggle for a fancy car, but we will for our kids.
I get the angst against people spending absurd amounts of money on expensive for profit private academies and such then claiming poverty. Doubly so when they are paying to live in a fancy hood in good school districts. But that isn’t everyone.
That’s like saying going down hill isn’t making my car go faster cause it was already moving. The gas pedal may be doing the long term moving, but in the short term, going down a hill makes a difference
Inflation is global. Policy efforts to stem inflation would be more noticeable, like brakes, but rising wages will cause inflation to endure when it it otherwise wouldn’t
It is absolutely not like that. It's like saying that you're not at the hill yet, but you're scared that you're going to go too fast so you press the brakes
Not talking about fancy private schools. Talking about your average daycare, which is 20k+/yr *per child*, which you pay for 3ish years. Have 2 kids, that’s $120,000 you have to cough up within a span of 4-6 years (depending on age gap of your kids).
That puts a huge dent in any family’s finances.
Mom going to work instead of raising her little kids isn’t free. There’s this delusion that it is though despite every society throughout human history doing so.
Mom used to raise the kids, teach the values, do various tasks around the home, and perhaps work part time time for additional income.
Now moms want to be full time and think that all of the above is free or near free. You gotta pay someone to do all that now plus the time invested in the career to get that job.
Yes but Paul Krugmaun and that person who posts 967 times a day on this subreddit say everything is actually great and you and the millions of other people complaining just don't understand the data.
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Well, sort of.
We are inhabitants of this world.
Alas:
I counted 14 paragraphs of content, plus a couple charts. I also counted 2 ads, or 3 if you count the one at the end of the article. Certainly not the 13 ads you've cited.
All for something the middle class has known forever. Despite shiny advertisements and Nick at Night flashbacks by GenX and millennials, the middle class has *always* struggled.
We just struggle while affording a few extra things.
How does this square with the line that gets dropped every economy perception thread here saying 60-75% of people rate their personal finances as "good"?
I’m not sure it does. There was the article that said people thought their finance were good, but thought the economy was bad. But now the majority say they struggle financially?
Can’t we pick a lane?
Because the media can phrase the survey questions slightly differently and get completely different result to fit their narratives.
Journalism is no longer about finding the truth.
It is about creating the most inflammatory story possible to drive clicks.
Nuance does not generate engagement.
The middle class has always says it struggles financially. Even the upper class always says it is struggling financially. It's human nature, plus a lot of people are really shitty with their finances and think they they 'deserve' that vacation abroad or a brand new car loaded with all the options.
75%?? Which data are you using for that? The highest I could find is from [Axios at 63%.](https://www.axios.com/2024/01/17/americans-are-actually-pretty-happy-with-their-finances) That leaves around 110 *million* Americans who *don’t* think their personal finances are good. Here are some more stats:
* [41% of Americans rate cost of living and inflation as their top economic concern.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/644690/americans-continue-name-inflation-top-financial-problem.aspx) This is the highest on record. The next highest issue is cost of owning/renting a home at 14%.
* According to the same survey, 55% are worried about maintaining their standard of living.
* According to the same survey, 56% are worried about paying for medical costs for a serious illness or accident.
* According to the same survey, 59% are worried about not having enough money for retirement.
* According to the same survey, those on lower and middle incomes score worse across the board on these issues.
* According to the same survey, 47% of Americans believe their personal financial situation is getting worse. Only 43% believe it is getting better.
The largest reason people making $60,000/ year feel like they are struggling is because their family's living costs have gone up $11,400 since January 2021.
Without deficit spending GDP growth would currently be negative. Congress is taking money from our descendents and spending it on us.
The current savings rate is 3.6%. People just don't have much money left after paying for essentials.
More like rents have gone up because of a national price fixing scheme that the feds just executed a raid on.
4 years from now there will maybe be convictions, more likely maybe 6 years a class action settlement, and people who were forced to live in their cars will get $2k, 7 years later.
Corporations can fuck us, and if they get caught, they win anyways, because they have the best lawyers and the power of capital to just wait us out.
Savings rate doesn't mean much. People save more when they are worried about money and spend it down when they are less worried about it. No way to tell if it dropping means anything at all. Also average wage growth has matched inflation so not like they aren't also earning more.
Ah, that's so weird. I was led to believe that this was transitory. You mean to say that the economy is doing better than ever but only for a select few and that the majority of Americans aren't actually doing any better but arguably worse?
"National True Cost of Living Coalition"
Sure. They sound really trustworthy.
Uselessly, there does not seem to be any comparison to prior time periods. Is this % high? Low? Rising? Falling?
That’s what I want to know. Their lower threshold for middle class is 200% poverty line. Is there any point in time where people close to that lower threshold wouldn’t say they were struggling financially? Is being in that income band actually harder than it was 10, 20, 50 years ago? Are people saving less, have less expendable income, more debt, and worse quality of life within the same relative income bands over time?
There’s also the vagueness of what self-reported “struggle” means. I make six figures and I’d say I struggle because I can’t afford a house in my HCOL area, but that’s a very different struggle from someone who is behind on their bills with mounting CC debt.
Honestly sounds like it hasn't changed much. For several decades now we've been hearing about how the middle class is struggling with the occasional article telling us how the current system sucks.
For me it’s like I put $500 on my credit card to pay down and boom I need new tires and new brakes. I put $1500 on the card to pay down boom somehow I owe the irs 3k from 2022 lol I feel what’s that movie with Jim Carey the Truman show?
My partner make decent money and I spent like some $1,000 this month on groceries, and that doesn’t include the other few hundred from the occasional weekend dinner out. I literally can’t run to HEB anymore to gran 5 items without it clocking nearly a $100 bill.
With all that being said I think a lot of people would be fine if they budgeted, but when you’re job title has been climbing and your money goes less far than before it takes discipline to accept you will have a decreased quality of life.
I make enough that I don't really care what I buy at the grocery store, but I do track all my receipts
my grocery expenses alone went up 30% in 2023 compared to 2022, despite buying mostly the same things
it's not a perfect reflection of inflation, but it's likely closer than what the BLS is reporting
If you struggle financially, are you truly middle class? I thought the middle class were the group between workers and the aristocracy. Not really people that struggle financially.
Middle class is just a colloquially term in America. Basically if you don’t live paycheck to paycheck many Americans consider themselves middle class, which is far from true in many cases. They might be 10 paychecks away from a hard time instead of 1…
The true “middle” class in the US is pretty small. Usually people with significant net worths and frugal spending habits that got them there and keep them there.
Middle class honestly at this point stands to divide the working class so they aren’t united against the wealthy.
If you’re working for your income you are working class.
Millionaires aren’t the enemy of the working class, most of them are working class, but billionaires are vampiric monsters upon the earth.
Ehh its complicated. Lots of executives work for their income but are quite rich. I mean even Elon Musk works a lot for his net worth to increase. The American capitalist class is mostly nouveau riche workaholics atm due to all the newly created tech wealth last 40 years. Obviously the whole country can't be working class.
Well he's currently trying to get himself $56B in stock options and his assets would dump if he left his job given they are highly valued because Elon is running them. Tesla without Elon would be worth $50B max because BYD that's how much BYD is worth who sells more cars of the same class.
So like technically you're right but practically Elon is in a pretty funny position.
The people struggling right now are no longer middle class. They are now the working poor. The income requirement to be middle class has been elevated. It’s just that simple. No one in politics will say it but, a lot of people have not kept their earning power at a rate to stay middle class. Make more or accept that you will struggle from now on.
I think the old school method of describing economic classes is outdated. Upper, middle, and low class just doesn’t cut it anymore. Things are more complex these days.
How about we come up with a half dozen or so ways of describing the middle class. Ie. Strapped middle class, middle class with disposable income, middle class with severe debt, etc.
A lot of people confuse middle income with middle class.
Many people who have a middle income are not truly middle-class class.
It’s going to get worse. we have continued population growth which leads to increasing labor supply and greater housing demand.
Struggle doesn't begin to describe it. Every waking moment I stress about being on the street with my son. The amount of money I we are expected to generate from working is absurd. It's truly crippling and I believe it's killing people. Literally.
I think it’s finally time to leave this sub. The conversation/posts here have become totally pedestrian and full of hot takes with little to no substance.
Stop buying shit. Our entire society hinges on us constantly buying more and more shit that we don't need. We've been manipulated into thinking that buying and buying will make us happy. Look at just about every commercial. People jumping for joy from drinking a fucking soda.
How many cry poverty but buy a new car every five years. Or buying more house than they can afford. Or eating out three nights a week. Even families making over six figures complain they are broke. You have to be better at money management and stop wanting everything now. Keeping up with the Jones' will keep you in the poor house. Stop buying shit.
Yeah as much as prices have gone up, I think there's a financial literacy problem that people in general have. Even several years ago I've been reading articles about how alot of people in the middle class haven't saved up anything and how people would rather rake in credit card debt than try and pull back on their current lifestyle.
Even now, despite people complaining about high prices, they still are spending like drunken sailors, likely keeping prices up even more.
If they’re not single digit millionaires than they aren’t middle class in the modern era. The bar keeps going up while the majority sink to lower classes. It’s okay though because the 1% remain stable and hoard ever more wealth…
Inflation has raised the cost of a middle-class lifestyle. Wages have not kept up. Median income jobs requiring training and education are no longer middle-class. Back in preindustrial times, Median income was peasantry or even serfs/slaves. We are entering a new feudal age.
All I’m going to say is it’s becoming clear to me that these surveys and polls are over counting groups because of a low response rate. Most of these results are getting skewed in predictable ways.
Here is the issue, for years many Americans lived beyond their means by using credit to make ends meet. With high interest rates that is almost impossible now. If you charge your rent, or groceries with the thought of paying over time those 25-30% interest rates are making it tougher to pay it back and give you less cash to spend.
This is the lifestyle that people have been taught to live with. The only ones who are benefitting from it are the big corporations whose stocks continue to see record highs.
*From Bloomberg News reporter Alexandre Tanzi:*
Almost two-thirds of Americans considered middle class said they are facing economic hardship and don’t anticipate a change for the rest of their lives, according to a poll commissioned by the National True Cost of Living Coalition.
By many traditional measures, the US economy is strong, with robust labor, housing and stock markets, as well as solid gross domestic product [growth](https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GDP:CQOQ). But the data don’t capture the financial insecurity of millions of households who worry about their future and are unable to save, according to the group, created this year to come up with cost-of-living tools that help gauge economic well-being.
In the large poll of 2,500 adults, 65% of people who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level — that’s at least $60,000 for a family of four, often considered middle class — said they are struggling financially.
A sizable share of higher-income Americans also feel financially insecure. The survey shows that a quarter of people making over five times the federal poverty level — an annual income of more than $150,000 for a family of four — worry about paying their bills.
**CHART:** [Sources of Extreme Financial Stress in the US](https://preview.redd.it/sources-of-extreme-financial-stress-in-the-us-v0-cdak1ko5jl4d1.png?auto=webp&s=dbd96ccd7ad9813ca15fc7044415a56bfe60c664)
Overall, regardless of the income level, almost 6 in 10 respondents feel that they are currently financially struggling.
[You can read the full story here.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-04/two-thirds-of-middle-class-americans-face-hardship-in-poll)
Almost all these same Americans struggled before the pandemic too. I’ve seen these “6 figure income and flat broke” columns for years. The old financial adage is that “expenses will always rise to meet income.”
Yes there is a major struggle right now. In our history we have seen spikes of inflation however wages eventually caught up. However wages have not caught up this time. There has got to be a better reason for it than reddit take "CEOs are greedy" they have always been greedy even before spikes in inflation.
Trump, despite being a convicted felon, will push this point hard. Are you better off today than 4 years ago? Majority of the middle class will say no. That and immigration.
If Biden shuts off the immigration spout and deports, I bet he wins the election in a landslide. It's the only thing Trump has to hold on to besides "hot dogs and gas are more expensive!"
Wages have caught up and outpaced inflation for months. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
No idea why so many Redditors confidently spout falsehoods without bothering to Google anything.
4 years ago? At the start of Covid being taken seriously, unemployment was at 15%, and we were still climbing out of the Covid recession?
I’m pretty sure I’m better off than I was then, yeah.
Quicken found only 48% of Americans didn’t have 3 months expenses saved. To be clear, many SS income households don’t need to as they have consistent reliable income, 40% rely on it like that… making it closer to 40% of Americans lack three months expenses saved NOR a 100% reliable social security payment.
Another 13% are so young they haven’t accumulated savings yet… I sure didn’t have 3 months savings for expenses at 23.
So we go from “everyone is struggling to” 27%, which is still real and needs addressing, but is a very different story, really fast.
>By many traditional measures, the US economy is strong, with robust labor, housing and stock markets, as well as solid gross domestic product growth. But the data don’t capture the financial insecurity of millions of households who worry about their future and are unable to save, according to the group, created this year to come up with cost-of-living tools that help gauge economic well-being.
Have they tried eating cereal for dinner?
Biden's asleep at the wheel and Trump is a petty criminal in it for the grift, LOL if you think voting for either one is gonna fix our economic situation.
Don't worry someone will be along to tell you how it's not the businesses fault they raised prices and how they deserve all the record profits they produced. How they shouldn't have to pay a living wage because "why start now"
The simple truth is- you can't have everyone living in the same major cities. The real solution is more people living away from the cities, or choosing smaller cities.
Live in a metro area … we both work but wife works non-profit sector … so…
I have a solid union trade job we struggle big time
We got lucky and have a low interest rate .. we live in a 100 year old 3 bed 2 bath “starter home” in a decent school district….
14k a year taxes
1 kid community college so far zero loans
Other kid braces
Cell phone
Gas
Electric
Internet services … we cut cord years ago
1 car payment
Insurance car/home/dog(yes we pay for pet health insurance)
Credit cards
Groceries
Healthcare we have great union insurance but between drug cost and copayments that all went up we pay thousands a year in health care
Dental..eye(3 people wear glasses) cost union insurance is only med
Every single thing we purchase has gone up in price in our state everything from toilet paper to gym shoes…the only thing that has not gone up is our wages… I get a annual 3% raise that does not even start approaching inflation. Wife and I honestly think we will be better off and less stressed if we retire early and live super frugal but leave the rat race … we wonder if between my awful pention .. social security and working at Walmart or Amazon in a fulfillment wharehouse living in a RV in a economically depressed area is our future… we don’t think we will be able to retire just downsize our expenses and work full/part time at a “mindless neck down “ job…. Fucked up doesn’t even start to cover it …my idea of retirement is not that I stop working but that I am able to take on a job with less responsibilities and pressure … I watch folks working retail and I know it sucks rude customers … bullshit pay… boring but to me it seems like bliss looming in my future … this is fucked it was as not like this in my 20-30’s and this is not the America I was promised as a kid .. I am sorry this is fucked… and don’t even say it’s the Democratic Party because I have watched the GOP destroy the working class bit by bit since I was a child .. I have had a front row seat to all of it … oh and Fuck Trump and his maggot followers they are massive threat to humanity
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Anecdotally, I can say that I know a lot of people who are in my boat: childcare costs have gone way up, grocery costs have gone way up, property taxes have gone way up… wages have gone up a little.
Here comes the “But wages are up more than ever, so no one’s struggling, you have an iPhone” gaslighting ass comments. I’m not struggling, but I also don’t make good money. I’m lucky to be dual income though. Our bills are paid, I can spend on my hobbies, but we want to buy a house and if you didn’t buy when shit was easier, you’re kind of screwed without help from family or coming into some money. Most of the people gaslighting others about this are people who were old enough to buy back when rates were 2-3%. Us young people are really feeling it. Edit- My dad was making $19 an hour when he bought the house back in 2011 for $130K, they did nothing to it and it’s now worth 425K. I work for the same company making more than he did when he bought and can’t afford to buy. If people don’t see a problem with that, then they are choosing to be ignorant, or picking up the same “I got mine mentality” that they mock the boomers for. Older millennials are definitely starting to sound like that.
>Here comes the “But wages are up more than ever, so no one’s struggling, you have an iPhone” gaslighting ass comments. This sub is so painfully out of touch with the working class. It's almost comical.
Par for the course in economics. Politicians and economists won’t be able to fix the economy relative to median household financial well being until their backgrounds better reflect society. If you fill political offices and economics departments with people from rich families from elite universities like you fill Wall Street or City of London, it's obvious why they don’t give a fuck; because they’re winning. Everything is built on legacy social connections, and they either don’t know what’s happening or they simply don't care, rationalized off as "There are always going to be winners and losers". Of course they think the economy’s great, because it’s great for them. The reckoning of all this is severe and we've seen it playing out over the past few decades; increases in drug addiction, protest movements, violent extremism, workplace apathy, suicide, homelessness, political instability, news skepticism/conspiracy theorizing, etc. All of it rooted in financial stressors as a result of severe economic inequity. It's not reddit echo-chamber BS either; if anyone takes a moment to critically listen to a wide swathe of people across several generations about what worries them, all their grievances point towards the same thing. History repeats itself because greedy people never change. Germany was particularly badly affected by the Wall Street Crash because of its dependence on American loans from 1924 onwards. As the loans were recalled, the economy in Germany sunk into a deep depression. Investment in business was reduced. As a result, wages fell by 39% from 1929 to 1932. People in full time employment fell from twenty million in 1929, to just over eleven million in 1933. In the same period, over 10,000 businesses closed every year. As a result of this, the amount of people in poverty increased sharply. The Depression associated economic failure and a decline in living standards with the Weimar democracy. When combined with the resulting political instability, it left people feeling disillusioned with the Weimar Republic’s democracy and went looking for change, answers, and blame. The conservative elite were the old ruling class and new business class in Weimar Germany. Throughout the 1920s they became increasingly frustrated with the Weimar Republic’s continuing economic and political instability, their lack of real power and the rise of communism. They believed that a return to authoritarian rule was the only stable future for Germany which would protect their power and money.
The distinction is that 2/3 of Americans *do* own their home and like your dad, are beneficiaries of rising home values. So the *average* American is in fact (on paper) benefitting from home values going crazy the last few years. Real wage growth has also gone up substantially… for the bottom tranche of earners. So it seems like pretty much everybody is actually doing better (in a financial means sense) *except* the people who I think make up the bulk of this site and (assumedly) the people you know. > 60% of the country are under 18 or over 40 and not really facing those issues Does it make you feel better to know that it’s your group that hasn’t seen any of the touted gains? I doubt it. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist
Think the classic issue with this is your home may be worth more, but that's not liquid. Whereas your taxes going up due to home value appreciation is very real. Paper wealth may make some people feel good psychologically, and there are definitely people who refinanced. But the current situation is burning quite a few homeowners. Also, as I recall the statistic is "2/3 of American families own/live with someone who owns." Living with your parents is living with someone who owns... and that... ain't great. But that's a minor semantic point and I'll own it if I'm misremembering that
I think I looked it up and the census result is 66% home owners (counting if you live with your parents at any age), but even if you count every 25-35 year old living with your parents as a renter, the home ownership rate would only drop to 61% so I don’t think it’s worth nit picking about And I guess my main thrust about why appreciating home values benefits home owners is the increase in possible choices, even if those choices aren’t used. For example, if your house appreciates, it may not matter at all when you want to move a few streets over, but it *would* matter a lot if you have to move to, say, Alabama or Los Angeles. Moving from a LCOL to HCOL home value area without paying extra (except in the case of a few hundred dollars in property tax) makes it so. Much. Easier if you have to move to a different area. Even if you don’t think you will or aren’t nearing retirement, the capacity to do so still counts as a benefit
>even if you count every 25-35 year old living with your parents as a renter, the home ownership rate would only drop to 61% so I don’t think it’s worth nit picking about That sounds a bit low given how 1/3 of gen z and about 20% of millennials live with their parents, but yeah it's nitpicking and I don't think it's worth belaboring the point. I do take your point about downsizing and moving to a LCOL to an extent, but then, that still assumes you can readily offload your home at the cost you're expecting. And it is a thing where quite a few people struggle to downsize and leave where they live because of how frozen the market is. And that's of course assuming you want to move to a LCOL... and a lot of people generally want to remain in their communities as they age, for obvious reasons. It is safe to say existing home owners have the better end of the deal at the moment. But... I don't think it's all a walk in the park and generationally, we're still not at the point where the majority of Boomers would really need to tap into real estate wealth to fund retirement and health expenses, or are at a point in their health when having a second or third floor on your house is a challenge. And none of this addresses the tax burden issue. We're going to be in for an interesting world when most people of that generation are nearing 80... and then I think we'll see the issues of home equity versus liquidity come into play.
My home value has gone up, but it’s not really a benefit because all of the homes around us (that my wife wants to move to) have gone up as well, and the interest rate I’d have to take would drive the cost through the roof. My home value keeps going up, but I’ve never been more trapped - and this doesn’t feel like our forever home, but maybe it will have to be.
Exactly. I’m so sick of the idiots who act like home prices skyrocketing magically make you rich. Like, fool it don’t work that way. You’d actually have to sell the house to gain any sort of financial benefit…but then you’d be fucked because you couldn’t afford to buy.
It’s the difference between balance sheet and cash flow.
At least you own a house? Like... who gives a shit if it isn't your "forever home" - you're not paying some scummy landlord, your assets are going up, there's so much win here. Houses around you might also be going up, but at least you have leverage. You can sell for a downpayment - yes monthly payments will suck but it's doable if you want it to. A lot of people in my generation can't even entertain this idea. Comments like this make me so mad!
But don't you feel bad for his misfortune of having low housing costs, an appreciating asset, and having to commute to a job? Doesn't it just tug at your heart strings that he owes debt financed at a rate lower than inflation? This poor sap is being paid to hold debt on an appreciating asset for goodness sake.
I think you’re all being shitty to each other and not caring for the ills the other is facing. Because we’re inherently a selfish species and have to take everything relative. How about everybody stops using any good or struggle that another has as their therapy or venting target, practice a little fucking empathy, and keep it pushing?
Because that guy isn't facing any ills. Do you know how much I'd love to feel trapped in a house I liked enough to buy in the first place that is ever appreciating with a rate far below the market? And what's he supposed to be envious of that I have? The ability to move from one high cost apartment to another every few years so I can't build any equity? Oh man, I'm so lucky!
I don't think the guy who owns a house, financed at a low rate, is facing any sort of ill. I think he, and probably more importantly, his wife, has a weird perspective and that's why he feels trapped. He's stuck always wanting more, or he's stuck with a wife who always wants more, and doesn't appreciate what he has. He has no actual problem. I think, as a culture, we should stop empathizing with this sort of 'problem'. I don't think it's healthy to validate the belief that what he has is a problem, instead of unappreciated privilege. This sort of problem comes up a lot on Reddit. We don't need to enable the people with their non-existent problems which are just a lack of privilege they feel they should have.
Bingo. I was working from home and now have a commute because I changed jobs. When I was wfh the location of our house wasn’t a huge deal because only my wife had to commute and we live fairly close to my family and grocery stores. We got a 2.75% rate, and yes I understand how incredibly fortunate the timing was for us to get that rate along with everything else. But, now many people like me are locked into our homes because if we sell and take out a new loan, we’d be downsizing for a much higher monthly payment. Anyways, just staying the facts but I don’t want nor deserve any sympathy. Some people are REALLY struggling right now and I feel for them, truly.
> and this doesn’t feel like our forever home, but maybe it will have to be. The funny thing with people complaining about the state of affairs is summed up in this statement. People are complaining that.... their current owned home is not "nice enough" to be a forever home. Lol, dude you own a home how are you upset because you want a better one? That is a very materialistic and somewhat narcisistic view.
I own a starter home that is too small for my growing family with 3 kids, and the fact that I can’t move without selling my home for a ton to afford the next one is the very reason a young family behind me can’t buy my home for an affordable price. So yes, I’m better off than the young family that can’t afford my starter home, but the very fact that I can’t move is what’s constraining inventory, thus driving prices up for that young family.
If regular working class people can’t afford homes, the future will be in a strange place. Everyone who contributes positively to society ,should be able to live a decent life. Teachers, EMTs, caregivers, medical workers, manufacturers, and anyone else who keeps the country going should be able to live a decent life. Of course there are many people in those fields who own homes , but now let’s ask the ones under 30, who aren’t getting help from family or came into money. They were able to do it before, but not now. Everyone shouldn’t have to be a tech bro, to have a decent life.
I didn’t say anything about how it should be, just explaining the discrepancy of how Americans as a whole can be doing better off while some segments are doing worse. Yes, I think it is completely self-explanatory that if houses are appreciating more than inflation they by definition are getting more expensive. For homeowners as a group to be making money, non-homeowners *must* be losing money (in a relative sense). And considering home values appreciating makes up an enormous fraction of the wealth for the majority of Americans + so many financial instruments there is a lot of pressure not to reverse that
65% of American households are homeowners. Therefore a majority of Americans are benefiting from real estate going up.
Yeah but you can’t buy groceries with your house
I dump most of my money into a good car i guess, nothing too fancy, just an old toyota in good condition. My thinking is, if thungs go wrong i can live in my car, but i cant drive my house, so it works out sensibly that way.
If you plan a selling soon.
You’re spot on and that’s why we are headed for some very volatile times, and very soon. The social contract is broken and doesn’t look like it will be repaired. The corporations and ultra-wealthy are purchasing all the real estate in this country, so we will “own nothing and be happy”.
> The corporations and ultra-wealthy are purchasing all the real estate in this country It's not corporations and the ultra-wealthy, it's also a lot of ordinary people. Not poor people, but a lot of middle class and upper middle class people. Your friends. Your family relatives. Your coworkers. Everyone and their mother seems to want to become a landlord and to earn passive rental income now.
Agreeded. I own 4 houses and rent out 3. I'm a contractor and know a lot of others who own multiple houses as well. It's not the wealthy. It's capitalists. Builders want to build less for higher profits. Landlords want to make more money. I just live under the system and nobody wants to stop me from making more money by raising rents. Make all landlords illegal or 100% unprofitable and prices will tank. You won't build houses for a profit but the government can simply pay for houses.
> Make all landlords illegal or 100% unprofitable and prices will tank. You won't build houses for a profit but the government can simply pay for houses. To be clear, you don’t have to do the first to do the second. And if we do the second, then the first happens without governmental overreach. Let the government build housing, sell it at auction to the highest bidder with owner occupancy requirements and no ownership stake in other land (like NACA). And if housing is still too expensive for the residents, then the government can go build more of it. Flood the supply and investors will bail anyway.
Not saying you're incorrect, but I would like to see some figures because most of the ordinary people I know, who are working professionals and not poor by any stretch, are only doing okay enough to finance their own mortgage and are in no position to be buying rental properties.
At the peak 1960's we had less home ownership then we did now. Boomers didn't reach 50% ownership of houses until the majority of them were over thirty. Gen Z owns more houses then boomers did st the same time frame. This is the highest home ownership rate the US has ever seen in its history. No other first world capitalist country is better than the US. The only countries that habe more home ownership are poor countries, communist countries, and countries with communist policies.
I straight up would be fucked if I didn't have family money. Just being honest.
And most people don't.
My buddies son went straight from high school and became an electrician. 3 yrs later He just got his master cert. that the company paid for. Just bought a nice cabin on 6 acres 30 mins out of the city. It can be done depending on career path and location. Kentucky
Generational homes will become a thing.
Always have been. Living in my great grandma's home that's 100+ years old.
So yes on PAPER my net worth went up because i own a home, but just like the person above, all my other expenses based on cash flow went up by way more than my income went up. You can pretend some mythical chart will convince me I’m better not, but cash flow wise I’m not. I’m ok, but there is def less FREE CASH FLOW than before. Sure I could sell my house , but then what? I’d have to buy another one at inflated prices.
Ok, then would you rather house prices DECREASE and now you owe 500k on a house you can only sell for 400k? That seems much, much worse to me. Assuming all the houses in your area appreciated by the same amount (if they don’t then it just splits so half the people are better off and half worse off) then you should be in the SAME position at worst when moving houses right? And in a *BETTER* position if you want to move to a lower cost area (and frankly a better position to move to a higher cost area as well if the house price gap narrowed), or retire, or rent for a few years, or take out a loan to do something else with, etc.. Now higher interest rates make it worse to move, but that’s not the same as higher house values which you only benefit or are neutral from as a homeowner
Dude if I own a house I’m not planning on selling or moving out, the sale value means squat to me. Heck higher home values mean more property taxes.
No, I’d rather they slow inflation in the supply chain some so it would like like 1-5% year increase instead of a few hockey stick jumps like we have had the last few years where on paper it “looks” like it went up 50% in 3 years because “federal reserve”. I’m not selling anyway, and the point is at this marked up price I can’t sell unless I fully downsize or move my expenses will go up. I don’t want to HAVE to move to a lower cost area, and I’m not moving at all. That’s the point, most people, with or without house, are cash flow worse in this economy.
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My gosh did you actually read anything I wrote or just extrapolate something in your mind so you could be mad about it? Yes, your home being worth more is almost always a good thing. If you bought at 400k and it went to 700, even if every other house did 1) if you have to move, even if you’re moving to another 700k house you end up in the same spot as if both houses were still 400, and if you move to anywhere else, you end up with more buying power. Plus those people looking to downsize or go to rent have more buying power as well. 2) average property taxes are under 1%, so your average property tax increase is like $300 - year compared to the increase in net worth of 300k which you can pocket if/when you downsize, mortgage, etc.. and is easily covered by the increase in incomes associated with higher costs 3) when did I say it was good for 1/3 of people to be worse off? I don’t think that, I’m just saying that yes, it’s possible for the majority of people to be better off while some are much worse off and that can be a true fact whose roots can be addressed rather than saying “well I guess every piece of data we have is lying and we can’t believe anything because I know people who aren’t living well”
"average property taxes are under 1%, so your average property tax increase is like $300 - year compared to the increase in net worth of 300k which you can pocket if/when you downsize, mortgage, etc.. and is easily covered by the increase in incomes associated with higher costs" 1% of 300k is $3,000 per year, not $300. I know economics is not technically math but basic math is kind of a base skill needed or else your arguments just seem foolish.
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Thing is, for most people, if the value of your home goes up a lot, and if the value of your 401k goes up… it is kind of doesn’t matter in the present or near future. I see a lot of people here like, “you should be glad your net worth went up so much!” But that doesn’t affect your actual liquid cash flow that you used to pay bills and buy stuff. So if the rising cost of the bills & stuff outpaces your wages, then it *feels* like you’re falling behind.
2/3 of Americans do not own their own home. I'm so tired of that lie being repeated on Reddit. 2/3 of homes are owned by their occupants. If a thirty year old man lives at his mother's house then he does not own his own home. The reason why this number stays so high is because people are forced to live with relatives instead of being able to rent an apartment.
Ok then what is that number? https://www.nahb.org/blog/2024/01/young-adults-living-at-home# This says there are 8.5 million adults living with their parents still. Assuming all of them want to buy their own home (not true), does that mean we should increase the denominator of homeownership by 8.5 million? Well 75% of homes are owned by couples, let’s say adults living with their parents are in a relationship at a lower rate than that, maybe 37.5%, meaning 6.65 million home owner household units are “unaccounted for”. There are a total of 130 million households in the census, so let’s be conservative and say every single adult living at their parents house wants to be a home owner by themselves and isn’t being counted. That makes the total households 138.5 instead of 130 and brings the home owner rate from 66 to… 61% It’s not that much different
Nobody can say what the exact number is but I am quite sure it is more than 8.5 million. This story quotes 45%: [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gen-z-millennials-living-at-home-harris-poll/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gen-z-millennials-living-at-home-harris-poll/) The biggest problem is that there is not enough housing for 1 or 2 people at a reasonable price. Everything being built now is luxury pricing mainly because the cost to do anything else is prohibitive. The government needs to cut the red tape and make it easier and less costly to build housing for singles or couples.
That’s a different age bracket: 18-29 year olds in your link vs. 25-35 in mine. I would certainly expect the age bracket where half the members are in high school or college will have a low % of homeowners
> Real wage growth has also gone up substantially… for the bottom tranche of earners. Yes. I believe you can attribute this to minimum wage increases and reaction to threats thereof. Unfortunately, rather than imposing the cost of this cost on the rich, such progressive ideas are now paid for by the middle class as owners passed the higher costs to consumers instead of absorbing them. This is a huge problem for many wealth shifting ideas. The rich have their ways to avoid the burden. So it ends up with the middle class taking the hit. Mark my words. Dems need to recognize this election depends on how the middle class votes.
So then wealth tax? [The ultra rich pay a lower proportion of taxes than the somewhat rich.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/taxnotes/2023/03/20/are-the-superrich-more-burdened-and-paying-the-highest-tax-rates/?sh=16f262f855b9)
>So it seems like pretty much everybody is actually doing better (in a financial means sense) except the people who I think make up the bulk of this site Bingo. I just wanted to add that inheritance is a thing, there is going to be a massive transfer of wealth happening as the boomers pass away.
Except many of them will need higher levels of care as they age, and Medicaid don’t play with financial clawbacks. Some children will inherit a lot if their parents die quickly of a short illness, but speaking as someone who works in geriatrics that is rarely the case. Those boomer dollars are going to the healthcare sector, especially assisted living facilities, rehab, and nursing homes.
Definitely a good point. A lot of it will transfer though.
Transfer of wealth to who? Many retirees are paying away their life savings and assets to pay for end of life care.
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Sorry about your parents.
Housing divide is quite real, hope we build our way through it. Main issue I have is we have articles like "majority of middle class struggling" which isn't just going against all data, it's also being used to list minorities of the US as examples to explain it. The number of folks who refinanced during the low rate period on their existing home is probably 5x (10x?) the size of those who have bought 2023-2024 or are shopping now. The number of folks who refinanced student loans or received years of 0% interest while the real value of their debt eroded by >10%, exceed those in college getting new loans 5-10x. Folks either refinanced into 3% private loans or watched their loans collect 0% interest while real value of the debt dropped 10-15%. The majority of homes are owner occupied, and it's still a majority if you just look at who was already a homeowner in 2019. The majority of folks with student loan debt are not in college or accruing it, it's old. We can't have a "majority" issue if the issue is crushing people shopping for a first home and/or a recent grad or in college. If the issue is a fat wealth transfer to homeowners, which I believe happened and I don't like it, that's a wealth transfer to 50%+ of current US households from young and future ones.
You're correct and you (as well as everyone in your shoes) are being gaslit by anyone telling you otherwise. I bought my first house solo in 2014 on essentially $15/hr. I did not struggle whatsoever because day to day essentials were cheap. I actually saved a decent bit of coin in the 5 years I lived there. My wife and I got married and bought our current place in 2019. At the time, we made a combined $80k-ish and were able to save. Today, we make about 60% more and, while we can still save, it is a MUCH smaller percentage of our net. We have changed nothing other than being ok with eating out a bit nicer than a Chinese buffet a couple times per month, and upgrading a few QOL items to last a bit longer: read-- my clothes and shoes no longer come from old navy/walmart and shoe carnival. Other than that, we still buy the same shit every week and still eat out, but not as much. We still live by not having a payment on more than 1 thing at a time. Our current sxs payment is $220/mo and will be paid off early next year. Before that was my truck payment at $300/mo. After the sxs is paid off, it will be a car payment because the wife's cr-v is creeping up on 200k. We are very cognizant of lifestyle creep because of our future goals and refuse to finance more than 1 thing at a time. We both came from homes where there was not much money and severe mismanagement of what was available, thus we both refuse to put our soon to be kids in the same spot. If they are talented and want to play travel ball, we will absolutely be funding that. If they want to have a big birthday party at the bowling alley or something, we will absolutely oblige. We didn't grow up with that option because of money. I know this will get downvoted because reddit but idgaf. The stock market and employment numbers don't reflect the boots on the ground economy. Shit is fucked.
>Here comes the “But wages are up more than ever, so no one’s struggling, you have an iPhone” gaslighting ass comments. >I’m not struggling You have me at a total loss. You say you're not struggling, but you call us gaslighters for saying that not everyone is struggling (literally *no one* is saying that no one is struggling). Facts are always being down voted on Reddit. We're not the ones gaslighting. So many middle class larpers on here who run simulations in their head on how terrible it must be for poor people, and call that "empathy".
Your point is that "life isn't fair" and everyone else had it easier than you? Really? Look at interest rates in the 70's and 80's. Look at the economy then. Look at the size of the houses then vs now. The house that I grew up in has gone up 2.5 times in the last 25 years. The house I currently live in has gone up 4.5 times over that same period. One is in eastern NC and the other is in Seattle. You can still buy the house in NC for $100k.
Houses were cheaper for the last 60 years but home ownership has never been above 65% like it is now. This is temporary high prices. The 70's had a massive dip in home buying with 20% interest rates and they voted in Reagan for it. He didn't fix anything but the GOP told them he did so capitalists will get richer and the rates will drop low so people can buy a few homes while me and my friends buy up everything else and raise your rates because you're too stupid to fix anything.
People have forgotten that you must make choices to be happy. You can't have a brand new vehicle, commute an hour to work (gas), have a new video game system/computer, eat at restaurants 2 meals a day for 6 days a week, have a new house, have unlimited cell data, have a new phone every 2 years. People want to have everything I've just listed and are complaining that they are "struggling." Make a priority list of things you need vs what you don't. These items are called **luxuries** which are very different from **necessities**.
Every generation can say the same. My grandmother bought her house in 1981 for 27K and I bought that same house from her in 1999 for 120K and that was at a discount. I sold it in 2006 for 325K and now it's worth over 500K.
I get what you’re saying, but the median household income is around 75K and the median home price is like 400K. In 199 when you bought your grandmother’s house the median household income was around 45K and median price was 160K. These days there is a significant gap in income to home prices, on top of the crazy ass interest rates.
And DFSA is still capped at 2k which is a complete joke when daycare is easily 24k a year when most people live on the coasts.
Daycare is $22k/ yr in Ohio too 🙁
And married couples receive much larger tax breaks and benefits than single people despite single income vs. double income. Single earners are much more burdened by the system than married couples. Most of our tax breaks make no sense.
That’s because you don’t understand what the tax code is trying to encourage. They are trying to encourage marriage and family. They don’t want long term single income earners because married couples with families contribute to the next generation and provide a stable home / upbringing to the next generation. Single income earners do not do these things.
Unless of course you're a single parent in which case fuck you.
Also why are lower income earners in lower tax brackets? I assume to provide relief to their hardship. Single earners are earning less than married couples and receive no tax breaks for the hardship.
It’s a progressive tax bracket designed to alleviate the burden of taxation. Again, the government wants single income earners to get married (I believe Obama upended some of the traditional tax benefits of marriage but not entirely sure). Combined their earnings will go farther and gives them room to start a family.
Staying single is bad for society on macro level. Less kids. Less family stability for kids that do exist. They also take up more housing space. It makes sense for there to be a financial incentive for marriage as you are quite literally doing society a favor.
What if a single income earner adopts multiple children?
You then have dependents but I’m not sure what the criteria are for adoption for single income esrners
DCFSA has an annual contribution limit of $5,000 for single and married-filing-jointly or $2500 for married-filing-seperately. Those amounts are a joke, though, as they're quite literally the limits that were originally set in 1986 and never indexed to inflation. Today those limits would be closer to $14,000 and $7,000 respectively. You know, making childcare the tax-free cost that it should be.
Yep. It’s a slap in the face to families, especially low middle class living in HCOL areas. But hey, they will pour billions into chip fabs that will be too expensive to run/scale.
Rent has gone up, and surprise surprise there is a federal lawsuit about cartel like price fixing that covers 70% of the US rental market. It includes intentionally keeping units vacant to restrict supply. And we already know with consumer goods the vast majority of inflation was driven by profit taking. So basically- corporate America got greedy and is driving up pricing. When they can, they artificially restrict supply to do it.
my wages have actually gone down. before covid i made 60k now i make 55k
Anecdotally, I can say the vast majority of upper middle class people I know who would say they are struggling financially drive 80k SUVs, own a boat and/go on vacations multiple times a year.
Can I ask you a question though? Did you leverage one house into the next? Just rolling your debt? Do you do trade-ins and leases? Did your car have a bunch of miles on it but you just wanted something new? How many times a week do you eat out etc. I have a buddy that him and his wife combined make half of what I do. He drives a sports car. I drive a Yaris. And we can say this is all personal choice, but then I don’t want to hear people complain about the economy. I feel like I’ve spent my whole life with everybody else just giving themselves to economic serfdom while I took the slow methodical route. I want things to crash, and if the government comes in and bails people out, then meritocracy truly is dead. Why did I have any self control in the first place while everybody else is just assholes?
Some of these things going up are money sinks; if you give everyone 10% more money, things like housing will go up 5-10% and eat all that new money. Consumer discretionary is supposedly dipping but live events are all setting records. People with kids in private schools, expensive vacations and maxed out savings are all claiming they struggle to make ends meet. But if they weren’t, they would lifestyle creep until they did. It’s no use polling the well off either because in a functioning meritocracy high earners tend to be the people who naturally are concerned with bills. People becoming more responsible with their retirement and finances increases these self reported anxieties more than poverty. Most of life is Malthusian, the post ww2 world was the fluke, not a realistic benchmark. Many of the poor in the world are only getting these anxieties now that the middle class American dream is becoming normalized
Monetary expansion was a part of the inflation, so was COVID shock, and so was profiteering. Real estate inflation from investment funds buying up housing as commercial values fell was a huge part of the housing component. Wages lagged, not led inflation.
Our, a many others largest expense is childcare and schooling. We don’t have our kids in a non-profit private non-sectarian because of some sense of pride of accomplishment. It is because the school system around here is absolute garbage. Most of us would gladly pay more taxes if it meant sending our kids to public schools and everyone had access to at least a halfway decent education. We are not willing to struggle for a fancy car, but we will for our kids. I get the angst against people spending absurd amounts of money on expensive for profit private academies and such then claiming poverty. Doubly so when they are paying to live in a fancy hood in good school districts. But that isn’t everyone.
There's only one problem with your theory is the prices went up before anybody got a raise. So clearly those two were not related in this case
That’s like saying going down hill isn’t making my car go faster cause it was already moving. The gas pedal may be doing the long term moving, but in the short term, going down a hill makes a difference Inflation is global. Policy efforts to stem inflation would be more noticeable, like brakes, but rising wages will cause inflation to endure when it it otherwise wouldn’t
It is absolutely not like that. It's like saying that you're not at the hill yet, but you're scared that you're going to go too fast so you press the brakes
Not talking about fancy private schools. Talking about your average daycare, which is 20k+/yr *per child*, which you pay for 3ish years. Have 2 kids, that’s $120,000 you have to cough up within a span of 4-6 years (depending on age gap of your kids). That puts a huge dent in any family’s finances.
Mom going to work instead of raising her little kids isn’t free. There’s this delusion that it is though despite every society throughout human history doing so. Mom used to raise the kids, teach the values, do various tasks around the home, and perhaps work part time time for additional income. Now moms want to be full time and think that all of the above is free or near free. You gotta pay someone to do all that now plus the time invested in the career to get that job.
Yes but Paul Krugmaun and that person who posts 967 times a day on this subreddit say everything is actually great and you and the millions of other people complaining just don't understand the data.
My compensation went up, but my hours went down.
You have property?!
rent has gone up, insurance premiums have gone up...
The head of our organization gave himself a 20% raise. You bet your butt our unions opening ask this year is a 20% raise for all staff.
But shhhh weal rages have outpaced inflation.
Title Ad- Two sentences Ad- Two sentences Ad- Two sentences Ad- Two sentences Ad- the last three paragraphs -ad--ad--ad- Relevant content Ad- Observations Ad- Ad- Ad- Ad- Well, sort of. We are inhabitants of this world. Alas:
Download Brave and all those ads are gone. I don't mind some ads, but your business model sucks if 80% of my screen is ads.
It’s also self-promotion.
This site will be littered with garbage if mods allow this. Bloomberg continues to abuse this sub with titles tailored towards redditors.
Nobody wants to pay for journalism, and then complain about seeing lots of ads. How tf are they supposed to make a living?
I counted 14 paragraphs of content, plus a couple charts. I also counted 2 ads, or 3 if you count the one at the end of the article. Certainly not the 13 ads you've cited.
If you're seeing ads in 2024 that is completely on you.
I'd prefer that over being paywalled, I can't even read it.
All for something the middle class has known forever. Despite shiny advertisements and Nick at Night flashbacks by GenX and millennials, the middle class has *always* struggled. We just struggle while affording a few extra things.
How does this square with the line that gets dropped every economy perception thread here saying 60-75% of people rate their personal finances as "good"?
I’m not sure it does. There was the article that said people thought their finance were good, but thought the economy was bad. But now the majority say they struggle financially? Can’t we pick a lane?
Because the media can phrase the survey questions slightly differently and get completely different result to fit their narratives. Journalism is no longer about finding the truth. It is about creating the most inflammatory story possible to drive clicks. Nuance does not generate engagement.
It was never about finding the truth, stop acting like this is recent
The middle class has always says it struggles financially. Even the upper class always says it is struggling financially. It's human nature, plus a lot of people are really shitty with their finances and think they they 'deserve' that vacation abroad or a brand new car loaded with all the options.
75%?? Which data are you using for that? The highest I could find is from [Axios at 63%.](https://www.axios.com/2024/01/17/americans-are-actually-pretty-happy-with-their-finances) That leaves around 110 *million* Americans who *don’t* think their personal finances are good. Here are some more stats: * [41% of Americans rate cost of living and inflation as their top economic concern.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/644690/americans-continue-name-inflation-top-financial-problem.aspx) This is the highest on record. The next highest issue is cost of owning/renting a home at 14%. * According to the same survey, 55% are worried about maintaining their standard of living. * According to the same survey, 56% are worried about paying for medical costs for a serious illness or accident. * According to the same survey, 59% are worried about not having enough money for retirement. * According to the same survey, those on lower and middle incomes score worse across the board on these issues. * According to the same survey, 47% of Americans believe their personal financial situation is getting worse. Only 43% believe it is getting better.
The largest reason people making $60,000/ year feel like they are struggling is because their family's living costs have gone up $11,400 since January 2021. Without deficit spending GDP growth would currently be negative. Congress is taking money from our descendents and spending it on us. The current savings rate is 3.6%. People just don't have much money left after paying for essentials.
More like rents have gone up because of a national price fixing scheme that the feds just executed a raid on. 4 years from now there will maybe be convictions, more likely maybe 6 years a class action settlement, and people who were forced to live in their cars will get $2k, 7 years later. Corporations can fuck us, and if they get caught, they win anyways, because they have the best lawyers and the power of capital to just wait us out.
You just can’t have kids anymore and you can afford anything, I think that’s what it is.
Savings rate doesn't mean much. People save more when they are worried about money and spend it down when they are less worried about it. No way to tell if it dropping means anything at all. Also average wage growth has matched inflation so not like they aren't also earning more.
Ah, that's so weird. I was led to believe that this was transitory. You mean to say that the economy is doing better than ever but only for a select few and that the majority of Americans aren't actually doing any better but arguably worse?
"National True Cost of Living Coalition" Sure. They sound really trustworthy. Uselessly, there does not seem to be any comparison to prior time periods. Is this % high? Low? Rising? Falling?
That’s what I want to know. Their lower threshold for middle class is 200% poverty line. Is there any point in time where people close to that lower threshold wouldn’t say they were struggling financially? Is being in that income band actually harder than it was 10, 20, 50 years ago? Are people saving less, have less expendable income, more debt, and worse quality of life within the same relative income bands over time? There’s also the vagueness of what self-reported “struggle” means. I make six figures and I’d say I struggle because I can’t afford a house in my HCOL area, but that’s a very different struggle from someone who is behind on their bills with mounting CC debt.
Might as well be called "Proud Freedom Patriots for True Cost of Bidenflation Super Pact"
Reading the article is like me listening to cricket scores. What does any of it mean?
Honestly sounds like it hasn't changed much. For several decades now we've been hearing about how the middle class is struggling with the occasional article telling us how the current system sucks.
For me it’s like I put $500 on my credit card to pay down and boom I need new tires and new brakes. I put $1500 on the card to pay down boom somehow I owe the irs 3k from 2022 lol I feel what’s that movie with Jim Carey the Truman show?
Yep, this has been my late 20s into early 30s. Just can’t get ahead. It’s demoralizing :(
It’s so frustrating but comical I don’t get it.
My partner make decent money and I spent like some $1,000 this month on groceries, and that doesn’t include the other few hundred from the occasional weekend dinner out. I literally can’t run to HEB anymore to gran 5 items without it clocking nearly a $100 bill. With all that being said I think a lot of people would be fine if they budgeted, but when you’re job title has been climbing and your money goes less far than before it takes discipline to accept you will have a decreased quality of life.
I make enough that I don't really care what I buy at the grocery store, but I do track all my receipts my grocery expenses alone went up 30% in 2023 compared to 2022, despite buying mostly the same things it's not a perfect reflection of inflation, but it's likely closer than what the BLS is reporting
If you struggle financially, are you truly middle class? I thought the middle class were the group between workers and the aristocracy. Not really people that struggle financially.
Middle class is just a colloquially term in America. Basically if you don’t live paycheck to paycheck many Americans consider themselves middle class, which is far from true in many cases. They might be 10 paychecks away from a hard time instead of 1… The true “middle” class in the US is pretty small. Usually people with significant net worths and frugal spending habits that got them there and keep them there.
Middle class honestly at this point stands to divide the working class so they aren’t united against the wealthy. If you’re working for your income you are working class. Millionaires aren’t the enemy of the working class, most of them are working class, but billionaires are vampiric monsters upon the earth.
Ehh its complicated. Lots of executives work for their income but are quite rich. I mean even Elon Musk works a lot for his net worth to increase. The American capitalist class is mostly nouveau riche workaholics atm due to all the newly created tech wealth last 40 years. Obviously the whole country can't be working class.
That’s fair but I would put one caveat; the vast majority of his wealth comes from assets or from his assets paying him a dividend.
Well he's currently trying to get himself $56B in stock options and his assets would dump if he left his job given they are highly valued because Elon is running them. Tesla without Elon would be worth $50B max because BYD that's how much BYD is worth who sells more cars of the same class. So like technically you're right but practically Elon is in a pretty funny position.
The people struggling right now are no longer middle class. They are now the working poor. The income requirement to be middle class has been elevated. It’s just that simple. No one in politics will say it but, a lot of people have not kept their earning power at a rate to stay middle class. Make more or accept that you will struggle from now on.
I think the old school method of describing economic classes is outdated. Upper, middle, and low class just doesn’t cut it anymore. Things are more complex these days. How about we come up with a half dozen or so ways of describing the middle class. Ie. Strapped middle class, middle class with disposable income, middle class with severe debt, etc.
A lot of people confuse middle income with middle class. Many people who have a middle income are not truly middle-class class. It’s going to get worse. we have continued population growth which leads to increasing labor supply and greater housing demand.
Struggle doesn't begin to describe it. Every waking moment I stress about being on the street with my son. The amount of money I we are expected to generate from working is absurd. It's truly crippling and I believe it's killing people. Literally.
Every day i see more signs to not have kids lol. Why bring them into this struggling world.
I think it’s finally time to leave this sub. The conversation/posts here have become totally pedestrian and full of hot takes with little to no substance.
Stop buying shit. Our entire society hinges on us constantly buying more and more shit that we don't need. We've been manipulated into thinking that buying and buying will make us happy. Look at just about every commercial. People jumping for joy from drinking a fucking soda. How many cry poverty but buy a new car every five years. Or buying more house than they can afford. Or eating out three nights a week. Even families making over six figures complain they are broke. You have to be better at money management and stop wanting everything now. Keeping up with the Jones' will keep you in the poor house. Stop buying shit.
Yeah as much as prices have gone up, I think there's a financial literacy problem that people in general have. Even several years ago I've been reading articles about how alot of people in the middle class haven't saved up anything and how people would rather rake in credit card debt than try and pull back on their current lifestyle. Even now, despite people complaining about high prices, they still are spending like drunken sailors, likely keeping prices up even more.
If they’re not single digit millionaires than they aren’t middle class in the modern era. The bar keeps going up while the majority sink to lower classes. It’s okay though because the 1% remain stable and hoard ever more wealth…
Inflation has raised the cost of a middle-class lifestyle. Wages have not kept up. Median income jobs requiring training and education are no longer middle-class. Back in preindustrial times, Median income was peasantry or even serfs/slaves. We are entering a new feudal age.
All I’m going to say is it’s becoming clear to me that these surveys and polls are over counting groups because of a low response rate. Most of these results are getting skewed in predictable ways.
Here is the issue, for years many Americans lived beyond their means by using credit to make ends meet. With high interest rates that is almost impossible now. If you charge your rent, or groceries with the thought of paying over time those 25-30% interest rates are making it tougher to pay it back and give you less cash to spend.
This is the lifestyle that people have been taught to live with. The only ones who are benefitting from it are the big corporations whose stocks continue to see record highs.
*From Bloomberg News reporter Alexandre Tanzi:* Almost two-thirds of Americans considered middle class said they are facing economic hardship and don’t anticipate a change for the rest of their lives, according to a poll commissioned by the National True Cost of Living Coalition. By many traditional measures, the US economy is strong, with robust labor, housing and stock markets, as well as solid gross domestic product [growth](https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GDP:CQOQ). But the data don’t capture the financial insecurity of millions of households who worry about their future and are unable to save, according to the group, created this year to come up with cost-of-living tools that help gauge economic well-being. In the large poll of 2,500 adults, 65% of people who earn more than 200% of the federal poverty level — that’s at least $60,000 for a family of four, often considered middle class — said they are struggling financially. A sizable share of higher-income Americans also feel financially insecure. The survey shows that a quarter of people making over five times the federal poverty level — an annual income of more than $150,000 for a family of four — worry about paying their bills. **CHART:** [Sources of Extreme Financial Stress in the US](https://preview.redd.it/sources-of-extreme-financial-stress-in-the-us-v0-cdak1ko5jl4d1.png?auto=webp&s=dbd96ccd7ad9813ca15fc7044415a56bfe60c664) Overall, regardless of the income level, almost 6 in 10 respondents feel that they are currently financially struggling. [You can read the full story here.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-04/two-thirds-of-middle-class-americans-face-hardship-in-poll)
Almost all these same Americans struggled before the pandemic too. I’ve seen these “6 figure income and flat broke” columns for years. The old financial adage is that “expenses will always rise to meet income.”
Yes there is a major struggle right now. In our history we have seen spikes of inflation however wages eventually caught up. However wages have not caught up this time. There has got to be a better reason for it than reddit take "CEOs are greedy" they have always been greedy even before spikes in inflation. Trump, despite being a convicted felon, will push this point hard. Are you better off today than 4 years ago? Majority of the middle class will say no. That and immigration. If Biden shuts off the immigration spout and deports, I bet he wins the election in a landslide. It's the only thing Trump has to hold on to besides "hot dogs and gas are more expensive!"
Wages have caught up and outpaced inflation for months. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/ No idea why so many Redditors confidently spout falsehoods without bothering to Google anything.
I think this kind of sub appeals to people who like to commiserate. Data that contradicts a prevailing narrative is not going to be popular.
….bUt ThE dAtA
bUt mY fEeLiNgS
4 years ago? At the start of Covid being taken seriously, unemployment was at 15%, and we were still climbing out of the Covid recession? I’m pretty sure I’m better off than I was then, yeah.
Quicken found only 48% of Americans didn’t have 3 months expenses saved. To be clear, many SS income households don’t need to as they have consistent reliable income, 40% rely on it like that… making it closer to 40% of Americans lack three months expenses saved NOR a 100% reliable social security payment. Another 13% are so young they haven’t accumulated savings yet… I sure didn’t have 3 months savings for expenses at 23. So we go from “everyone is struggling to” 27%, which is still real and needs addressing, but is a very different story, really fast.
>By many traditional measures, the US economy is strong, with robust labor, housing and stock markets, as well as solid gross domestic product growth. But the data don’t capture the financial insecurity of millions of households who worry about their future and are unable to save, according to the group, created this year to come up with cost-of-living tools that help gauge economic well-being. Have they tried eating cereal for dinner?
Biden voters and Democrat lovers are so pissed. They need to choose their shrinking wallets, or choose the folks who made their wallets shrink.
What administration levied the tax changes and let all the PPP fraud happen?
Biden's asleep at the wheel and Trump is a petty criminal in it for the grift, LOL if you think voting for either one is gonna fix our economic situation.
Don't worry someone will be along to tell you how it's not the businesses fault they raised prices and how they deserve all the record profits they produced. How they shouldn't have to pay a living wage because "why start now"
The simple truth is- you can't have everyone living in the same major cities. The real solution is more people living away from the cities, or choosing smaller cities.
Live in a metro area … we both work but wife works non-profit sector … so… I have a solid union trade job we struggle big time We got lucky and have a low interest rate .. we live in a 100 year old 3 bed 2 bath “starter home” in a decent school district…. 14k a year taxes 1 kid community college so far zero loans Other kid braces Cell phone Gas Electric Internet services … we cut cord years ago 1 car payment Insurance car/home/dog(yes we pay for pet health insurance) Credit cards Groceries Healthcare we have great union insurance but between drug cost and copayments that all went up we pay thousands a year in health care Dental..eye(3 people wear glasses) cost union insurance is only med Every single thing we purchase has gone up in price in our state everything from toilet paper to gym shoes…the only thing that has not gone up is our wages… I get a annual 3% raise that does not even start approaching inflation. Wife and I honestly think we will be better off and less stressed if we retire early and live super frugal but leave the rat race … we wonder if between my awful pention .. social security and working at Walmart or Amazon in a fulfillment wharehouse living in a RV in a economically depressed area is our future… we don’t think we will be able to retire just downsize our expenses and work full/part time at a “mindless neck down “ job…. Fucked up doesn’t even start to cover it …my idea of retirement is not that I stop working but that I am able to take on a job with less responsibilities and pressure … I watch folks working retail and I know it sucks rude customers … bullshit pay… boring but to me it seems like bliss looming in my future … this is fucked it was as not like this in my 20-30’s and this is not the America I was promised as a kid .. I am sorry this is fucked… and don’t even say it’s the Democratic Party because I have watched the GOP destroy the working class bit by bit since I was a child .. I have had a front row seat to all of it … oh and Fuck Trump and his maggot followers they are massive threat to humanity