this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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US Authoritarianism

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[–] venoft 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

A bit misleading picture. So one adult is 96k, and a family of 4 is 235k. 2 adults would be around the 160k I guess, since they hare rent/mortgage. 2 children then cost around 75k.

Still, 96k for one adult? Seems high. They must factor in the highest rent and most expensive (middle class) car and vacations.

What is the source?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, their definition of “comfort” seems to be a solidly middle class experience of going to Disney world and…other middle class stuff? I live alone in nyc and I’m plenty comfortable, but I’m not making 140k.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How much are you saving for retirement?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

What retirement?

[–] Anticorp -5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Going to Disney World is middle class? Pretty sure that taking lavish annual vacations has always been an upper class activity.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No, going to Disney world and taking yearly vacations used to be considered middle class. On one income, by the way. We’re just so beaten down these days that we consider basic life enjoyment and time off away from the house “upper class.” I’m old enough to tell you it wasn’t, and it hasn’t been this way very long.

[–] Anticorp -3 points 9 months ago

I'm middle-aged and I don't know any middle class families that took annual vacations when I was younger. My upper middle class and upper class friends did though. How long ago are you talking here? In the 50's?

[–] themeatbridge 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Two cohabiting adults get some economy of scale benefit, but then children add the entire childcare category to the expenses. Housing and Transportation costs, the largest fraction of the budget, both see only marginal increases with each additional family member.

All costs took the average for the region or metro area. It really does cost $96,000 on average to live in America.

The source is a SmartAsset report that pulled data from the MIT Living Wage calculator. It takes the average regional costs for housing, transportation, taxes, etc, and then SmartAsset used a 50/30/20 rule to estimate comfortable living wages from basic needs expenses.