your trend #2 is changing now - more and more, I see households with more then two wage earners. extended families are making a comeback, because it takes 3,4,5 workers in the service industries to make ends meet. I see the new families moving into long island - forget two working parents, that was already the norm years ago. now its working parents, plus an adult child that works, a sister/aunt or brother/uncle in the household, a grandparent bringing in social security or pension money.
sure, there is a "bubble" out there of americans entering retirement now, who worked when wages and pensions were "fat" in the US, and those well heeled seniors are living it up. but right behind them, we have a demographic time bomb headed towards retirement. a time bomb of corporate workers who are seeing pension and retirement benefits stripped away by US corporations at an alarming rate (I am one of them), and who are not going to have anywhere near the retirement experience of americans who are current 60+ years of age. I'll be lucky to avoid working at McDonalds in my "golden years" at the rate I'm going.
Long Island is one of the few places on the planet where you'll find two dozen illegal immigrants living in a $600,000 home. The economic forces at work here are probably the same.