Posted on 11/19/2011 10:55:44 AM PST by radioone
They drive cars, but seldom new ones. They earn paychecks, but not big ones. Many own homes. Most pay taxes. Half are married, and nearly half live in the suburbs. None are poor, but many describe themselves as barely scraping by.
snip
She has one BlackBerry and two cars (both Buicks from the 1990s), and a $230,000 house that she, her husband and two daughters will move into next week.
Combined, she and her husband, a janitor, make about $51,000 a year, more than 200 percent of the official poverty line. But they lose about a fifth to taxes, medical care and transportation to work giving them a disposable income of about $40,000 a year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Well, now they will have a tax deduction to reduce their tax burden.
Exactly.
They are over mortgaged.
Wondering if they will soon be writing articles on the “near beautiful,” “near smart,” or “near sighted.”
Go to your nearest democrat representative, cry, and demand it as a human right.
That's less than 5x yearly earnings. NOT unaffordable, but they won't have much room in the budget for anything else. A mortgage of $150k, or less would have been FAR more responsible. They should have rented and worked on boosting their income before buying a house. Sucks for them now, because they won't be able to easily move and get better jobs in other places if they should find any.
They own a home, have two vehicles, one blackberry, have two jobs, get medical care. I am sure they eat. What’s the problem? Our grandparents would feel blessed.
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
Even if you mortgaged the entire $230,000 your payment would be about $1400 p/m. That’s $16,800 p/y.
So here are some folks with no skills living good, and they are complaining.
Here ia my favorite line. They seem to be trying to attach people to the stupid occupy movement whether they agree or not:
“the findings can be thought of as putting numbers to the bleak national mood quantifying the expressions of unease erupting in protests and political swings.”
If they had bene smart and paid for a $75,000 house they could easily afford more in life instead of barely getting by. They would then owe nothing and then be able to enjoy the fruits of their work a lot more easily. They would have more security too and for the life of me, they do not need a $230,000 dollar house.
Wow...That mortgage aint gonna end well.
Why does she work a 40 hour week and her employer gets to claim her as part-time? I’m curious as to who she is working for.
I’ll bet we are paying for that social workers blackberry and a lot more.
Damn right. These folks are "near poor" only in that they're in the same boat an awful lot of people were in throughout the fifties and sixties while they were raising their children and putting decent housing ahead of other things. Only when everyone started looking at their house as a sort of slot machine they could milk for cash to live beyond their income did most people begin to think that middle class folks were supposed to have an abundance of disposable income. Until the equity loan craze came along, everyone expected to have to budget and save for things like birthdays, vacations, and Christmas.
I always thought it was so funny when after the democrat fascist preached the "decade of greed" bunk throughout the eighties that they bragged about prosperity during the nineties while people were borrowing every cent they could to live beyond their means.
My guess is she is trying to buy her way into a better neighborhood for her children.
Then there is PMI, escrow on property taxes and home owners insurance, few other misc items in there. By the time that is done, you are talking closer to 2000, maybe 2100 a month and I bet my figure is still low.. They would have to be receiving interest rates you and I are not privy to in order to make this work long term.
You are correct. Bottom line is there’s no wiggle room. They are one hiccup away from default or worse.
30 year sub-prime mortgage?
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