Posted on 02/06/2008 2:51:01 AM PST by LowCountryJoe
To hear the Lou Dobbses and Bill O'Reillys of the world--not to mention politicians ranging from Ron Paul to Hillary Clinton--the middle class of America (however you define that term) has never had it so tough. Between credit squeezes, out-of-control immigration, rising costs of education and health care and everything else, it's all darkness out there for those of us who are neither millionaires nor welfare cases, right?
In "Living Large," Drew Carey and reason.tv examine the plight of the American middle class. What do they find?
http://reason.tv/video/show/61.html
I agree. Although I love technology and much of what it brings, I would give it up in a heartbeat for the reasons you stated.
Am amazed at how few others are inlcined to agree.
Considering how much sacrafice you have to make at triple the average household income, how do you think families on 50K a year survive?
the variables involved with healthcare costs are the worst for my family. its become a luxury item.
the entitlement mentality is the issue everywhere else. Keeping up with the Jones' is the standard now.
It really sickens me that I must pay more for MANDATORY car insurance than the damn car is worth EVERY year, just to cover the pos car that my neighbor proudly paid 10x too much for [probably more than my fixer up farmhouse] just to be 'trendy'.
College is another waste and a black hole to throw money into for plenty of families. I went and realized that it wasnt where I needed to be only after flushing a couple years worth of potential income and using up a couple future yrs of income in repayment. It IS a luxury.
The world needs ditch diggers and garbage men too, we cant all be CEO of the company OR live like we are...
Ive had more than a few 'successful' friends that have made good bucks... ALL have crushing debt loads or been wiped out and started over because they were supposed to have all that 'stuff' that their 6 figures could buy. more $$$ equals more load is the lesson I learned from them.
Im a human by nature, Ill never have all I want, but Ive got all I really need, including a helluva debt load earned from the same wants. that load is being painfully reduced but the reality is that it will take a very long time to undo the damage of a few short years of misguided priorities...
BTW... ‘welcome’ to FR...
i enjoyed that clip. It is always nice to hear doom n’ gloom debunked.
My father was a leadman at Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach. He worked there 38 years and was a member of the United Auto Workers before retiring in 1979. We lived in a three bedroom, one bath house of eleven hundred square feet, with no central heating or air. Our AC was a window unit from Sears installed around 1967. My mother was a child of the Depression and never bought a dishwasher or a dryer.
Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner
We lived in North Texas in the 60s without A/C, in a lower middle class neighborhood, with a stay at home mom, 5 kids, 900 sq. ft. home. Crowded 3 bedroom 1 bath house. We didn’t get a window unit until the late 60s. We had an attic fan that was used a lot.
The humidity was less back then for some strange reason, I guess Algore would know why.
For later
Good post.
I grew up in a family of five, 1200 square foot house. Heated with wood. The TV was VHF only, two channels. No A/C. We had two cars (one a truck), both over 10 years old. We raised our own beef, chickens and had a garden. A clothesline instead of a dryer.
Our telephone was on a party line. We shared one bathroom with a tub. We wore our clothes twice between washing in the winter. No dishwasher. We wore hand me downs from our cousins and traded clothes with the neighbors.
In our area, we were middle class. And I grew up in the late ‘60s and ‘70s. Gas lines. 15 percent interest rates. Stagflation.
Families are hurting today? We are responsible for ourselves. Live within your means. If you want more, earn more.
I’m amazed how populism even affects conservatives.
Great post!
You are right that most families used to have one earner, while the wife would stay home with the kids. I grew up in that era.
I grew up in that era too and the statistics tell us something important. The majority of married women with children did not work outside the home than yet the unemployment rates were usually much higher than today. In the 50s, unemployment was very much different and jobs very much harder to find for the unemployed.
Today, the vast majority of women with children work outside the home which means a far higher percentage of the population are in the workforce, yet over the last 25 years, unemployment has been lower than in the 50s or 60s. Even the nature of unemployment is different today. Some people now treat it as an extended vacation because they are two income families and are in no big hurry to find another job. Others will take the time to find the job they really want rather than taking the first one offered. When my dad was unemployed in the late 50s, he did not have the luxury of waiting for his ideal job. He had to take whatever he could get and he had to do it before his benefits ran out.
The education level on healthcare has risen dramatically since the 1980’s. Based on my friends and myself that going to the gym as a preventative method for better health is a hell of a lot cheaper then taking prescription drugs and doctor visits. Healthcare was a lot cheaper in the 1980’s then it is today. The middle class is way in over there heads in debt with vastly increased healthcare, energy and other raw commodities. While the US middle class used their homes as ATM’s and easy credit to sustain a quality of life, these things are now gone. People are grumpy and will vote Democrat thinking it will make things better. The news doesn’t have to try anymore to say how bad the economy is, it sucks right now for the middle class.
Those are excellent points. I hate to sound like an old fuddy duddy (just using that word probably makes me one), but these kids today just don’t know how different life was back in the late 50s and early 60s (just like I don’t know how hard it was back in the 30s and 40s).
Our standard of living has risen amazingly even since I was young. Even those who are supposed to be poor seem to live better than many did 30 or 40 years ago. On the other hand, families are much less coherent than in days gone by. Therefore, when problems arise, many people have no family to turn to. This has affected the black community disproportionately because so many “families” start out without any father in the home, often without any identifiable father anywhere to be found. In that community it seems that either no one is related or everyone is. In any event, there is no place to go when bad financial or medical situations arise.
This may be why so many look to government to come to the rescue. Maybe we ARE doomed.
You posted: Considering how much sacrafice you have to make at triple the average household income, how do you think families on 50K a year survive?
***
Many of us were families earning less than $50K/year not all that long ago. The way we survived was we lived in a house that cost about $50K, we had used cars, we cooked at home, and we didn’t have kids until later. Our clothes and other belongings reflected the fact that we were relatively low wage earners. We didn’t bemoan the fact that we weren’t as well off as others. We worked, scrimped for me to go to grad school, saved and little by little made it a ways up the ladder.
Where can you buy a house for 50K?
Sanford North Carolina, 1985. It was 3 bedrooms, 2 baths about 1300 square feet on a 1/3 acre lot. Had a wood stove in the living room. First home I ever owned.
I now live in the second home we have ever owned (and probably the last, unless we downsize when the kids move away). We bought it in 1988 for $116K, when we earned $70K between us, and didn’t yet have kids. It was 2200 square feet. We replaced the deck with a large screened in porch a few years ago, and finished half of the basement last year. We paid the mortage off about 4 years ago.
We could have “moved up” serveral times, but when we thought about increasing our debt we decided to stay where we were and have the comfort of knowing that even if one of us lost our job we wouldn’t have to move. My wife has worked only part time since the kids were born in 1992. She may soon start working more, but the taxes we would pay and the limited deductions we have left (mostly charitable donations) may make it not worth it.
Maybe this was TMI.
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