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Most Americans can’t afford even a ‘minimal quality of life’ anymore, depressing new study finds
NY Post ^ | 7/05/25 | Andrew Court

Posted on 07/06/2025 4:47:09 AM PDT by Libloather

The American dream is slipping away.

Most US citizens no longer enjoy “a minimal quality of life” due to skyrocketing costs, a depressing new study has uncovered.

Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity conducted research into the economic well-being of the country’s residents, defining “minimal quality of life” as the ability to pay for a “basket of American dream essentials”: housing, food, transportation, clothing, medical costs and basic leisure expenses.

The leisure expenses included access to cable TV and streaming services, as well as the ability to pay for six movie tickets and two baseball tickets per year.

The Minimal Quality of Life index goes “beyond traditional cost-of-living measures to provide a more comprehensive understanding of what it takes to secure a foothold on the bottom rung of the American dream ladder and have a real opportunity to climb it over time,” the authors wrote.

The bottom 60% of American households by income fell well short of that threshold, the researchers damningly determined.

“The MQL reveals the harsh reality that the American dream, with its promises of well-being, social connection, and advancement, is out of reach for many,” the authors concluded. “Rising costs in essential areas like housing, healthcare, and education significantly outpace wage growth, leaving millions struggling to attain even a minimal quality of life.”

An average American couple with two children would need to spend $120,302 per year to cover the minimum quality of life expenses, the researchers determined.

Skyrocketing costs over the past two decades are to blame...

**SNIP**

“I get tired of the ‘Stop your Starbucks latte habit’ [advice], because in reality it’s not people’s fault,” financial planner Laura Lynch told CNBC in relation to the study. “The structures around us have created an expectation of a lifestyle that is increasingly becoming unreachable for folks.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: afford; americans; life; saveustrump; study

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To: Brian Griffin

Yes, the friend had an offer at a clinic at the border of Mexico and California - a good salary ($90k for a resident, usually it’s more like $70k) - and paying off of her student loans if she stayed for nine years. I thought she should take it. They said they had grant money to pay for this - wondering if it will be cut in the Trump era.

She chose a far more prestigious university in California to do her residency, making $70 - with the student loan intact and looming.


201 posted on 07/06/2025 10:34:54 AM PDT by Bon of Babble (You Say You Want a Revolutioan?)
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To: Danie_2023

Uh, I wasn’t talking about myself so no need to make it personal. But, it’s clear you don’t know about a lot about human physiology so I shouldn’t expect much other than a superior attitude from uou


202 posted on 07/06/2025 11:22:10 AM PDT by vivenne (7Come to think of it. Fact)
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To: Libloather
"“I get tired of the ‘Stop your Starbucks latte habit’ [advice], because in reality it’s not people’s fault,” financial planner Laura Lynch told CNBC in relation to the study. “The structures around us have created an expectation of a lifestyle that is increasingly becoming unreachable for folks.”"

Therein lies the problem. Exercise discipline and ignore how friends and neighbors are spending their money. Live within your means, save and invest and you can retire comfortably later.

203 posted on 07/06/2025 11:27:57 AM PDT by plain talk
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To: vivenne

“”Uh, I wasn’t talking about myself so no need to make it personal. But, it’s clear you don’t know about a lot about human physiology so I shouldn’t expect much other than a superior attitude from uou””

I wasn’t talking about you and didn’t make anything personal. Just wondering why you took it that way.


204 posted on 07/06/2025 11:33:27 AM PDT by Danie_2023
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Multi. Family. Housing.

The charts don't lie.

An intention to build multi-family over the past 10 years (and the only construction that accelerated during the Plandemic) at the expense of allowing young people to own their own home, because that makes every other homeowner a conservative, at least fiscally.

Go on Reddit for 10 minutes and drill down to your nearest metro's sub-reddit. Every other post is a complaint about not being able to afford a starter home, and the other ones are the perpetual slum dwelling wannabe antifa who will never own real property in their entire lives and would rather game themselves to death while bullets ricochet around their ghetto. Schadenfreude.

"This room cost $2,000 a month
You can believe it, man, it's true
Somewhere there's a landlord's laughing till he wets his pants"
- Lou Reed, Dirty Boulevard

205 posted on 07/06/2025 11:36:43 AM PDT by StAnDeliver (TrumpII)
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To: Danie_2023

You might want to re-read your post for the answer.


206 posted on 07/06/2025 11:37:29 AM PDT by vivenne (7Come to think of it. Fact)
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To: Georgia Girl 2

I’ll have to check out haircut video. I did some basic cutting watching videos during Covid. It got me by and I didn’t do a half-bad job of it.

Cost of groceries is horrendous, as you said. With both of us pushing 80, medical costs is our biggest expenditure.

When we bought this house, we were told we’d have Xfinity internet. All our neighbors had it. Once we we closed on the house and moved in, Xfinity said they didn’t want to run the line to our house from the road but if we wanted to pay for it the cost would be $7K-$10K.

Until we straightened that out, our ONLY option for getting news was DirecTV so we reluctantly signed a 2-year contract.

Finally got Xfinity internet (at no cost to us), but it took intercession by TN Attorney General’s office.


207 posted on 07/06/2025 11:45:56 AM PDT by MayflowerMadam (It's hard not to celebrate the fall of bad people. - Bongino)
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To: Libloather

Sounds dated. How recent is the data?


208 posted on 07/06/2025 11:48:03 AM PDT by Eleutheria5 (Every Goliath has his David. Child in need ofand thhere we CGM system. https://gofund.me/6452dbf1. )
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To: vivenne

“”You might want to re-read your post for the answer.””

I did. You apparently chose to make it personal as if it applied to you. I was actually thinking about a neighbor of mine... who, a week after triple bypass heart surgery, was eating hot dogs when I visited her. I’m pretty sure that hot dogs were not on her list of doctor-approved foods to eat right after that surgery. And yes, she does have a weight problem. But one that I suspect is due to total lack of activity or exercise.

Sorry you took it as if I was referring to you... but I don’t know you and have no reason to have applied that ‘TO’ you.


209 posted on 07/06/2025 11:59:57 AM PDT by Danie_2023
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To: Libloather

I don’t see hiw Elon’s new America H-1B Party solves this problem


210 posted on 07/06/2025 12:09:01 PM PDT by Mozzafiato
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To: ansel12

Wow, you’ve really boiled it down.
Nice job of drilling down to the basics.


211 posted on 07/06/2025 1:26:01 PM PDT by Reynoldo (BurnLootMurder)
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To: Libloather

“Skyrocketing costs over the past two decades are to blame”

Let’s see a graphic.
Skyrocketing cost of US Debt.
Skyrocketing cost of Appropriations.
Skyrocketing cost of Entitlements, especially Medicaid.

Then compare that with the alleged Skyrocketing cost of gas, fresh meat, fresh veggies, MB of computer, anything in the private sector.


212 posted on 07/06/2025 1:31:06 PM PDT by spintreebob
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To: ClearCase_guy
I think an employed person in his mid-20s would easily be able to afford a lifestyle comparable to what the U.S. had in the mid-1970s.

The first problem is that you’d have to eliminate at least 90% of the things we have come to expect as part of a “minimal” standard of living these days.

The second problem is that you can’t even buy most of the things people owned back then — like a rotary phone, black & white TV, a home with no AC, a 1970s-vintage car, etc. And for most people, no travel to anywhere you can’t reach in a car.

213 posted on 07/06/2025 1:55:46 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("The gallows wait for martyrs whose papers are in order.")
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To: 9YearLurker

Eisenhower added 0%.

That’s fascinating when you think of post war spending


214 posted on 07/06/2025 5:01:17 PM PDT by xzins (Retired US Army chaplain. Support our troops by praying for their victory. )
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To: xzins

And of course his famous warning.


215 posted on 07/06/2025 5:04:20 PM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: 9YearLurker

Exactly.


216 posted on 07/06/2025 5:05:11 PM PDT by xzins (Retired US Army chaplain. Support our troops by praying for their victory. )
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To: Libloather

MOST?


217 posted on 07/06/2025 5:33:36 PM PDT by Elsie
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To: MayflowerMadam

Its always something.


218 posted on 07/06/2025 8:18:00 PM PDT by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped)
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To: vivenne

Yeah, I have to admit that we kept our landline for a few years after we got our first cell phone. We got it because my wife did most of the driving with our (at the time very young) kids, it was very handy for us to talk with each other when she was away. We eventually got one for myself as well. We were concerned about giving up that landline for 911 purposes, as we live out of town and weren’t sure about police or EMS locating us via cell towers in case of any emergency. Anyway, after a couple of years of this I talked to the sheriff’s department about their accuracy locating us with cell phone and learned how accurate is had become. We already had gotten off of dial up for internet service so we finally dropped the landline.


219 posted on 07/07/2025 8:10:19 AM PDT by MRadtke (Light a candle or curse the darkness?)
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