And kind of going back to my 2x$100k w/2 kids example, if this is too personal feel free to ignore, but if you took a pay cut to $100k it would be pretty significant right? I’ve felt like I could barely keep my head above water at $75k a few years back and it was only once you started to creep above that point (what I think is $100k now) that you had a little breathing room and could start emergency fund planning and having a little slack…
(that being said I am NOT frugal, I am sure many could do more with less than I, if similarly situated. And I admit it, my daughter ate artisinal cheese for lunch on Sunday when i brought her to work with me for my 7 day work week)
As for where I grew up in suburban socal. The folks I know from my generation who are teachers and “own” homes in the communities they teach…those are their parent’s houses. They know and lament that they can’t own on their own in these same communities (upper middle class Socal).
I was just tallying my budget. If I dropped below six figures living in the bay area I would declare bankruptcy in November of this year. Which isn’t the end of the world, but my posh lifestyle of rice with nori for lunch and dinner would come to an end (you can pry the kimchi from my cold, dead, weird smelling hands)
The problem in practice is similar to the issue that makes this so hard to talk about in this thread: there are some regions were middle class is $60k/Y. There are some where it’s $200k/Y. There are some where it approaches $400k/Y. New York dollars and California dollars just buy less than Texas dollars, and Texas dollars by less than South Carolina dollars.
You can argue that the difference is essentially a tax on vague services that are available to you in one location over another – access to good barbeque, music, and paintball in Austin, or access to whatever people are supposed to find interesting about Hollywood in LA – but the fact is that most of the difference is tied up in things like the high cost of property, the similarly high price of rent, the markup at stores that have to pay that rent, the higher income that has to pay for that, the higher taxes that are tied to that property and income, and so on. The cost of everything from bags of Cheetos to suburban houses rise together.
And that’s fine, as long as everyone stays at home. You can charge a fair tax. You can pass those taxes on to a fair price. You can set a minimum wage to cover those prices. But a US dollar is the same everywhere, so eventually those people keep their city wages and move out to the suburbs, and people from the suburbs take their nest egg move to other states, and the rising cost of living spreads like a slime mold.
Now, if we actually had DC-metro-basin dollars and west-of-the-Rockies dollars and Texas dollars, you could suck out some of that difference in an exchange rate, and at least partially cushion the invasion of new, rich neighbors. But of course, that will never happen. Free trade makes it cheaper to import both luxuries and miseries.
Don’t forget about how much teachers pay out of pocket for everything in their classrooms.
Last summer session, we were limited to making copies just for the one summative test. I went out and bought notebooks for students and had students pay 1/2 the cost (25¢) or none if they couldn’t come up with a quarter (they could). I made my own copies and I supplied everything (pens, highlighters, pencils, etc.) for them to borrow just so I could limit the barriers for success. And you know what? They did great!
It’s amazing how much teachers spend on their job. One teacher we know was even asking for supplies/funding for he last birthday.
Here in Texas, they never want to pay for anything, just shift money around. The latest overhaul – “Robin Hood”, take from rich districts and give to poor – was ruled unconstitutional a decade ago, but it’s still around for lack of better ideas. And since a school district’s real property counts towards wealth, all the major cities end up exporting money they don’t have to start with. Honestly, it would be simpler and more honest just to legalize highway robbery and let us all fend for ourselves.
Of course your plea assumes that there are people who aren’t actively trying to destroy our public education system.
Unfortunately conservatives of both the fiscal (bottom bitches of the wealthy) and social (Theocratic nutjobs) variety both have a vested interest in destroying the one system which permits upward social class movement for the working and middle class, public education.
The fiscal types want more exploitable labor so they can keep wages low, keep executive compensation high, and have a pool of people who are easily led. The social types hate the idea of secular education in general because they can’t interject their sectarian bullshit into the government run system.
That would be me. I spent 10 years trying to get a full-time teaching gig so I willingly took long term positions thinking it would help. Nope. After last summer’s session, another semester +, and timing out of my credential, I decided no more. I’m finishing my “sabbatical” and then I go job hunting again.
I made ~$15/hour long-term subbing and since we rent, I couldn’t even write off expenses.
Well, I hesitate to compare anyone to myself, because I am absurdly, legendarily cheap. My parents grew up in the depression, in poor communities, and they trained me to be an utter cheapskate, although they called it being “Scotch” and considered it a virtue.
I’ll wear clothes until the patches on the patches wear out, then I’ll cut them up and use the cloth. I own no cell phone and I do not purchase computers. I do my own automotive, plumbing, masonry, electrical and agricultural work, despite having little or no training in any of that. I literally cut the mold off food and eat it, and I forage food from the property and anyplace else clean food is available. I’d never pay more than $2 for a cup of coffee outside of a fancy, sit-down restaurant; I’d pull chicory root and chew it first.
Heh… you most likely don’t, it’s a former late 18th or early 19th century factory converted to a house in the 1920s. It did not originally have heat, electricity, gas, sewer, etc. etc. etc… and while I actually do pretty good work (far above legal requirements) the former owners, well, let’s be kind and just say there was a high variation in skill levels. Some of them considered grounding to be strictly optional, and others didn’t see any reason why gas fittings and pipe shouldn’t be used for drinking water. I’ve been replacing all the plumbing with soldered copper and threaded bronze, and all the wiring with armored flex.
It does have character, though. The stream used to flow through the basement to feed the (long gone) waterwheel. (And when it rains enough, sometimes you’d think it still does.)
My wife and I are both engineers and ten years ago we moved to the Bay area. We couldn’t afford a place in San Francisco then based on our combined income. That’s before the current wave of increases.
No one but the heads of banks, firms, etc. can buy a house in SF these days.
So, by the standards of the original post, apparently “middle class” extends to more than double the average income of one of the wealthiest regions in the world.
I’m not arguing that the SF housing situation isn’t fucked up. But listening to the Barons complain about how they’re being exploited by the King while they ignore the starving peasants around them does not fill me with sympathy.
(you can pry the kimchi from my cold, dead, weird smelling hands)
