435
A millennial couple who make $250,000 say they can't find a home in their budget: 'We refuse to become house-poor'
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
435 points (93.1% liked)
A Boring Dystopia
9724 readers
530 users here now
Pictures, Videos, Articles showing just how boring it is to live in a dystopic society, or with signs of a dystopic society.
Rules (Subject to Change)
--Be a Decent Human Being
--Posting news articles: include the source name and exact title from article in your post title
--Posts must have something to do with the topic
--Zero tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Ableism/etc.
--No NSFW content
--Abide by the rules of lemmy.world
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I'm not sure I understand the math in this article. At current interest rates, a $550000 is closer to a 3.5k mortgage, not 5k.
At 250k a year, they're making roughly 20k per month. If they're willing to pay 30% of their income to a mortgage, that's 6k. Even post-tax, that's still more than 3.5k.
I agree that the cost of housing is ridiculous. This sounds more like they have exceptionally bad credit or they're looking at homes that are way above their budget.
Also, lots of people will jump to say that a $250k household income is middle class and I've seen a few in this thread, but I personally don't know how anyone could arrive at that conclusion. Median household income in the US is more like $105k. A household income of $155k is enough to put you in the top 20%. $200k will put you in the top 12%. $250k gets you to the top 8%. When 92% of people are able to make do with less, it really just seems like people such as the ones in the article don't understand what it is to live within their means and don't understand how much better off they are than most everyone else.
Middle class is a very arbitrary term. But if you expect it to be defined by something close to median income as the starting point, then that's setting the bar very low. The lifestyle of a household making gross 250k and 100k isn't drastically different. The big differences would be that the higher income household will have a little more options for children, daycare, education, retirement, or a couple more vacations per year. The lower income family would be doing any of those tasks at the expense of another. And even the 250k household will not effectively be able to check all the boxes off. One is going to be much more comfortable, but they will likely be working comparable hours to do it. Nothing about that screams rich. Instead of saying that people making that much aren't middle class, we should steer the focus to how low the median income is.
Assuming your numbers are correct, if going from 155k to 250k moves you from top 20% to top 8%, that really just shows off how income is heavily skewed towards that top 0.001% more than anything since the slope beyond 1% is nearly a straight line up. I've more than doubled my income over the last 10 years and am making over $150k now, but I live the same life I have 10 years ago with a little more breathing room and realization I can actually retire. To me, it's less about what I gained making more money. It's about how little I had when I started around $40k. I have friends who make about half of my salary but arguably have a more lavish lifestyle and own nicer things. They sacrifice retirement for that choice. I still sacrifice living in a home at my income because I'm choosing saving for retirement over raising a family. My coworkers who make more than me have families and a house and their math doesn't have a comfortable retirement on the table. It's just that expensive.
All this middle class labelling serves is to drive this artificial resentment towards people of similar financial working class against relatively small margins. The couple in the article listed out very simple goals for what their housing costs should be and have struggles to stay in that budget. It speaks volumes to the housing issue we have today but also the expectations for what housing is. It's going to be difficult to visualize a world where everyone can get that picturesque house with property and a coupe cars without some serious growth in development. But the only way to do that is through making terrible choices in city planning.
Housing should be affordable, but the idea that every family can own a big house just feels like a carrot on a stick that isn't attainable within today's parameters.