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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 ...
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My cell phone bill is $35 a month.
I have to agree about skrocketing expenses, but can’t really relate to what it all actually costs a year as I am a single elderly, no longer married. I don’t have a lot of what some would consider “normal expenses”. Don’t go to movies, ball games, vacation trips, don’t have a car payment or an I-phone,stuff like that.
“”The American dream is slipping away.””
IMHO...
More like... is being chipped away. By that giant, Marxist axe hanging over all of our heads.... waiting for their next chance to destroy us from within.
As for that ridiculous claim that most US citizens no longer enjoy “a minimal quality of life”... that is patently untrue. Americans enjoy the highest quality of life, on average, around the globe... considering that:
1) everyone has a smart phone...connected to the internet, even young kids, these days... which is something that children decades ago could only dream about having.
2) American kids are the best fed around the globe, and are probably the best dressed, too... and with the exception of “public schooling”, are the best educated. More kids are getting college degrees than ever before, as well.
3) Most US families are overloaded with “leisure expenses”... just because they can (even if they shouldn’t).
In regards to the poor, literally “everything” is provided to them by American taxpayers via the every expanding, ever greedy government. The main thing that has changed for the middle class is the quality of healthcare that, thanks to the Marxist Obamaites via Obamacare, has gone way down due to “unaffordability” and skyrocketing costs... especially since the Covid pandemic/scamdemic.
As for those “skyrocketing costs”... you can thank the OBiden leftists for the past four years of allowing every illegal on the planet to invade and occupy our nation, and begin sucking on the teat of taxpayer-funded “freebies” that the left calls benefits. Benefits that were only meant for LEGAL US citizens.
This “depressing new study” has only come out because the idiots behind the study are now depressed (orange man bad is now in control in the WH). The left is depressed because costs are coming down and there is now a chance that the quality of life for legal US taxpayers is, once again, in play via the Trump administration policies. So yeah... they’re the ones that are depressed. And they, the Marxist left, are even more depressed because we’re not depressed any more. We actually have hope for the future now. Must really suck to be them right now.
The #1 complaint on personal finance sites is a car payment
You can get a workable cell phone for under $100 a month—and then there are free services out there. That’s cheaper than when we had Ma Bell.
Exactly, another item are the ugly tattoos all over arms and legs. Gotta have those.
This study included cable and streaming subscriptions, for example. Nobody needs that.
You are making my point. 30 years ago no one had that $30 monthly expense nor did they pay hundreds of dollars for the phone.
I’ve never seen a free service.
One example: textnow.com
$120,000 for a family of four per year? $10,000 A month? I guess that would put me waaay below the minimal quality of life. Thankfully, real estate is cheap around here.
Inflation over the last 20 years has been rising faster than wages. Rent has more than doubled in some cases. Historically illegal immigrants have driven down wages such as in the construction field. It used to take a single income to build a home for a family now it takes two.
Our factory jobs with middle class wages are gone.
How many people can be CEOs?
I don't believe you understand how much has changed in the job and housing markets since you were younger.
Not for the financial elites and bankers; it increased their profits and stock options.
“”This study included cable and streaming subscriptions, for example. Nobody needs that.””
Lots of things people still have that they don’t need. I still have cable TV, even though it’s over-priced and under-serving. Just haven’t gotten around to cutting that cord...
yet. But it makes the point... that people still can afford things they don’t even need (like myself). Which kinda shoots down the whole “premise” of the article.
I can’t even afford tv anymore. Cut it off last month. I’m stuck way out in the boonies and pay TV is all there is. BORING!
What a load of crap.
If you’ve got the Internet...
Put down the bong, get a J-O-B.
“”Our factory jobs with middle class wages are gone.””
You can blame the Marxist left (Democrats) for that. Their ‘war on corporations’ and rabid support of higher and higher union wages and labor rates drove manufacturing out of the US to other, cheaper labor nations (China, for instance).
You can blame the Democrats’ war on the middle class, in fact. Because every time the Democrats are ‘in power’... the middle class suffers and is decimated (along with the US Military).
So these “studies” that conveniently come out “now” are meant to blame Republicans. The opposite is actually the truth.
“””the ability to pay for six movie tickets and two baseball tickets per year. “””
Well that’s about six grand right there.
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