RolloTheGreat Wrote:(12-16-2015, 08:09 PM)BoFox Wrote: I think it's a considerate financial challenge just to manage a comfortable level of living - else, the wife/mother would feel forced to take on a full-time job as well - even if it means daycare... DAYCARE, baby, DAYCARE FOR THE POOR KIDS!!
So much wrong in all that but I'll pick a few.
1. All daycare is not equal. Mine was a college grad woman in my neighborhood who played on my volleyball team. She watched a couple kids to earn some extra bucks. My son doesn't seem scarred by it, honor roll every term, confirmed in his church, plays multiple instruments, has played all the sports, and I couldn't get him to give me Christmas ideas this year because he said he has everything he ever wanted.
2. Some women actually (gasp) choose to work. My wife enjoys her job, has two months a year paid time off, flexible hours, can work from home, is a valued manager who makes good money. Once when I was offered a job for more money she straight out told me no matter how much I make, she will continue in her career. (and she just old me that no matter when I retire or how much we have she plans to work until 65 because she finds it fulfilling and has enough free time to enjoy life as well) Not every working mom is getting told "Get me my damn coffee" over a luncheon counter, women actually succeed in these modern times.
3. The sticks are not as bad as you think. I'd note Washington DC has the highest crime rate in the country. Wouldn't live or work there for $1m a year. Something to be said for safety and not being around urban crime and expense.
4. No family living on 70K is going to be paying daycare by choice, it costs too much for 3 kids to be cost effective. They'd have to work different shifts or use family.
5. There is no $1000 car constraint. I linked to a car with 20K miles and the remainder of a 5 year/100K warranty for $200/mo- easily affordable on that level of income.
I think you're just to used to urban ways to know or understand how very much cheaper it is iin the rest of the country.
5) It all depends - if the parents already have bad credit (due to student loans, or having to depend on credit cards just to pay the bills during hard times or when moving, etc.), then they would have to settle for a used car for sale in the personal ads without any financing. Some car dealers allow for direct deduction from work paychecks, but the fees/interest rates are probably a rip-off.
2) LOL, some women just want to rule with their own career, ha. Maybe she makes more $ than you?
4) You got me there, but you're saying $70K ain't enough for daycare with 3 kids. Maybe if 1 or 2 are old enough to stay at home.. or different shifts/family help like you said.
Think DC is hard? Try NYC (anywhere on Long Island, including Queens and Brooklyn). The average median income of the US would hardly suffice for a "middle class" standard of living on that island, even if having only 1 kid. One of my friends just moved the hell out of Brooklyn, to Cincinnati, and it's night-and-day for them.
Luckly, I don't live inside of DC. I live about 19 miles from the White House, in a sweet spot that's just the right mix of city and suburb - and it's an upscale area as well. It's within walking distance of downtown of the city that rocks (in Montgomery County). There are thousands of restaurants in this county alone, it's staggering just to choose where to drool at next. Yet, so many of them are considerably more expensive than say, Madison, Wisc.
And no, LOL - my home isn't a slum like that one in DC! It has a double wooden deck in the back, with the top deck covering about 1000 sq. feet overlooking a forest preserve that runs down my back yard, with massive towering trees about 120-130 feet tall everywhere right above the deck (lots of leaves in the fall, lol). There are so many parks and forest preserves everywhere around here. There's a stream down there about 200 feet from my house and I can walk on a number of trails from there for miles in different directions - even all the way to DC down Rock Creek, from a different park, although it starts to get a bit "urban" in some places with lots of joggers and cyclists). We have 2 walk-in closets, our master bathroom has a gigantic jacuzzi tub - and the house is in a very quiet neighborhood with some of the best schools in the country.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/20...tates.aspx
HOWEVER-
This one shines some insight:
Quote:Perhaps, instead, the capital's egalitarian distribution of wealth should be admired, especially at a time when income inequality nationwide is at levels not seen since the 1920s. Or maybe we should just run the town like a corporation by paying President Obama $400 million per year, giving multi-million dollar bonuses to representatives for passing bills, and trimming government salaries accordingly. Then the region's median income would plummet, and no one would have cause to complain anymore about Washington's riches.https://newrepublic.com/article/112591/w...a-actually
The cost of living has been pushed up quite a bit in this area, thanks to the median (of millions of residents) being so high. That's why $80K feels a bit "lower class" here - there's just too many damn nice restaurants everywhere that it's depressing to have to choose from the dollar menu at McDonald's, lol.
The DC metro area is a particular one - just draw a straight vertical line down the middle of the entire metro area and you get the idea. East (about 20-25 mile radius or so) is lower-income blue-collar working class while the entire West (50+ mile radius) is largely ~$85-120K median household income.
I really like this place here. The middle class hovers around at $90+K (thanks in part to higher local wages), and many of us are happy here (despite the traffic, more of a crowded feel each year due to rapid population growth. Crime is quite low in the Western half of the DC metro (and VERY low in my area). Things cost the same at Walmart/Target/etc. (and pretty much the same at McDonald's, Taco Bell, and any other fast food restaurants) as the rest of the country, so these "standard store/restaurant prices" do not bite quite as much as they do for the poorer folks living in say, Knoxville, Tennessee with 4 kids, with an income of $45K.
New York City (Manhattan) sucks with the filthy rich snobs. Some places around here suck in the same way. When I drive just 2-3 miles down from my home to Montrose/Bethesda or west into Potomac, MD, I cannot help but notice a sudden change in the way people drive (rich people driving like selfish assholes, ALWAYS treating their own time like money in their wallet). They might be rich, driving Audi R8's and 911 Turbo's - occasionally Lamborghinis and Ferraris, but they don't LOOK like happy people. The middle class folks here LOOK happier than them.
All that aside --- a lot of it depends on the individual and the family in particular (loans to pay off, bad or no credit, wise management and budgeting - avoiding living above one's own means, ability to save/invest in a mortgage, etc.. etc...). No one individual/family is the same.
Lots of people are poor, and yet ironically happier than most of the rich people. We all know that song too well. It's just more of a financial struggle than ever to live with the financial comfort of the middle class of the 1950's, with today's national average median income (even in many of the rural areas) -- whereas Jimmy Carter said:
"Today’s middle class was my administration’s poverty level"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/08...62816.html
Yes, quality food is EXPENSIVE in America. Too many middlemen and grocery corporations and greedy farmers clawing in every penny they can, with little regard for the majority of Americans.... a lobster costs $1 at that fishing village in Maine, but costs $12 on average anywhere else, because the CEO's need up to $9 from each lobster for their own private jets.