U.S. Middle Class nearly gone

[RolloTheGreat]

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. 

OK but that adds other factors into the equation that don't necessarily exist, and could be a factor for ANYONE. "Poor Joe, he makes $125K a year, but uncovered medical bills are taking $3K a month of his income now."

2)  LOL, some women just want to rule with their own career, ha.  Maybe she makes more $ than you?  

No, but close enough it doesn't matter. I only noted it because you made it sound like no woman would want to have a career. More women go to college these days than men, and as my wife once said,"I invested a lot of time and money in my career. I don't want to throw that away to watch daytime tv when I enjoy my work.". She hasn't missed any of the parenting experience since he started school due to school being the same hours she works, and her job flexibility and time off.

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.

Daycare is too costly to make a split of income in the 70K range pay. No point bringing home $25K and having expenses of working (clothes, transportation, lunches) if you're paying $20K in daycare.

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. 

Sounds like you have a really nice house, but again, I posted those two houses as illustrative of the reality you know being much different than the rest of the country and thus the people in the rest of the country need far less money to live on. You house would probably cost half what it cost you here. Yes WalMart and McDs are the same everywhere, but here you can get a very nice meal for $25.. And like I said, the kids living in places like Plover, WI aren't shopping at designer stores. Their parents don't say,"The iPhone 6+ is out, you must have it". They don't ride $800 bikes and $300 skate boards. Yet they survive fine wearing American Eagle clothes, riding $200 bikes, and texting on last gen phones. They don't have music and sports tutors, and yet play sports and in the band. They get along without karate lessons. Their lives aren't significantly diminished by this.

What is normal for you and for me because we have more disposable income isn't necessarily "better", it's just different.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/20...tates.aspx
HOWEVER-
This one shines some insight:

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

I don't begrudge anyone for finding a way to make more money than me, we all have the same chances.

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.  [/Quote]

Sorry, just don't like urban areas. I live to be in woods and on water.

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.

You disagree with capitalism?