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And if you want to live anywhere close to a decent city… good fuckin’ luck lol
VHCOL area (San Francisco)
"middle class" usually means household income of 300k or so.
Try it here, you have to make over $200k a year.
Edit: and be confident you'll continue to make that much money
...for 30 years
"Afford" = go into debt for 30 years.
debt? our mortgage costs the same as my sister's rent, but we're not pissing our money away to a landlord every month. when we sell the house, we'll be getting our value back and then some. even if we only stay a couple of years and merely break even, we're essentially living rent free during this time
And who doesn't feel at ease predicting stable employment for several decades for themselves? After all in a world of "at will" employment and executives that need to hit their numbers for that quarterly stock grant, barely any unions, deliberately anemic unemployment insurance benefits, who wouldn't jump at the chance?
The house will appreciate more than the mortgage interest. It's debt, but not bad debt.
That only matters if you ever plan on selling your home. Not everyone buys houses as a financial investment.
As a homeowner - I 100% agree with this.
I absolutely hate that I paid as much as I did simply because the generation before mine decided to turn the whole concept of home ownership into a financial investment vehicle.
I hate how it changes the thought processes around the decisions I make in regards to my home.
I hate how it impacts the relationships with my neighbors and how it morphs the very conversations we have. That it has drastically changed the type of people who would otherwise have wanted to live in the community and be a part of it instead of just trying to ride the wave investment dollars.
I hate that it means my own children, once grown, will likely be unable to afford to live in this neighborhood - even if they rent. And I hate that it's going to become their problem too.
right. yeah. we know. and how many Americans have a 6-digit salary? It's not "more than half".
keep in mind that a married couple can combine incomes.
it'd be damn hard to afford a mortgage on your own but two people can make it work quite comfortably
it's possible, with the GDP we have right now, for every single american to afford a home. Americans have been propagandized into thinking that we need a billionaire class, that they need bailouts and tax cuts and no oversight, that they should be able to get away with murder in the courts, more than they need a safe place to rest their heads at night. My heart is broken for them. I wish everyone were as angry as me.
The median US salary is ~$62K.
also the average is going to lean cheap rural. cities are all going to be above this and major cities majorly more.
It would be nice to be able to review their methodology. Averages are often pointless metrics. They don't even hint at how they arrived at 'typical.'
Edit: My bad. They define typical as $418,489.
Is it more expensive or less when the neighborhood has a giant sticky note looming over it?
Yeah I don't know why it's relevant in this picture but the giant liminal cube in the background really grabbed me, the more I look at it the more I want to give my soul to Zorg, destroyer of worlds.
Do keep in mind how household income varies over time, a huge majority of the top third are going to be older couples with long established careers and empty nesters. You know, people who already have houses.
looks at pay statement
looks at $117,000 needed to "afford" a house
looks back at pay statement and realizes the income works out to very close to 10 times LESS
😐
I knew I was poor, but damn dude.
10X!!! thats like $5/hr full time. Thats illegal everywhere I know of.
There's also take home pay after taxes and expenses vs gross/net.
Im pretty sure the article is gross pay.
I wasn't clear.
The article calls out annual household income. Meaning that could be combined income.
A single person making 120k and couple making 60k x2 is not equivalent. Health insurance and living expenses creep up.
Gross income (before taxes) for US federal minimum wage is $15,080 for full-time. So, close to 10x less.
my mistake. my states is like twice that and the region I am around near the city is higher. Did not realize the federal was still so low.
Federal minimum wage was last raised to $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009.
It's a good thing that was definitely a livable wage in 2009 and that there hasn't been any inflation since then.