How many um, how many lifetimes do I get again?
I think people underestimate lifetime earnings. Let’s assume 35 years of salary work to retire at 65 (it takes a while to get a career going an maybe a layoff and parental leave…) That would be about 125k a year. Make that a dual income family and that’s 2 people making 63k a year. It’s a bit hard to understand pre and post tax though because some of the calculations like retirement are pretax. And then factor in gains from investment…
So isn’t this calculation saying a 2 family income making median salaries can live the dream? That’s not great for 50% of Americans and probably means a lesser proportion of Americans can attain the dream than before. But that number 4.4 million actually is not crazy high. In a more just work though, dual income families making above the lowest 25 to 30% salaries should be able to afford the American Dream with some caveats around used cars instead of new, and maybe more frugal wedding and college expense due to financial aid and what not.
Add the expense of having kids.
Add the expense of looking after parents.
Add the expense of healthcare costs.
American dream implies nuclear family life. Retirement, home ownership, and owning new cars are factored in that math. It includes the cost of having 2 kids.
If you read the article…
Here’s the breakdown. We’ll explain the math below.
Retirement: $1.6 million
Homeownership: $930,000
Raising two kids: $832,000
Owning new cars: $811,000
Annual vacations: $179,000
Wedding: $44,000
Pets: $37,000
Funeral: $8,000
Median income is 76k per household, so no, a 2 job family making median cannot live the dream.
I’m seeing median salary listed around 65. Is the median household income reflecting the number of single income families out there or just single people generally?
While that’s more than reasonable to expect for techies, for example, in todays world, that’s CEO pay 35 years ago.
While I’m too lazy to do the math, I’d like to see
- what does median pay look like for 35 years?
- what would that need for an inflation adjusted constant pay?
- how about a typical career progression for a field where that could be done?
I disagree. Workers in trades like electricians will make that much. I think entry level electricians make like 55k. So after 5 years in that work, you will likely be earning above median salary. But for professions like teachers in school districts that don’t pay well… It sucks. Not ideal, but not as dire as some might think. And when you throw in the number of people these days choosing not to have kids, that shaves 1 million dollars off the cost of the American Dream life (but hard to say how much of that decision is based on expected income vs lifestyle values).
Tech workers I assume are making starting around 75k and getting into 100k fairly easily depending on geographic location. And depending on company and trajectory you could be getting into 200 to 300k territory in tech.
Tech workers I assume are making starting around 75k and getting into 100k fairly easily
Now. But not 35 years ago. The article doesn’t cover inflation but since they want to end at a specific dollar amount, that matters. Since they’re not talking about savings or investing, it’s not like you can just disregard it.
63k a year is a little more than $30/hr. That’s a wage completely beyond the reach of some skilled career professions even if a person pursued advancement in that field.
I agree. All I’m saying is if 50% of salaries are above that 60k mark and as a dual income you are probably getting close to hitting the dream at that level. That’s not as dire as thinking only 10% of the population can afford it. 4.4 million is a scary number, but no one is expected to have that as liquidity or even net worth. That value of spend is actually more attainable over time than it looks when seeing it as raw sticker price.
And again, “American Dream” means family with 2 kids. Not everyone wants that or needs that. If you are a single person and happy living with just a partner or without kids (DINK lifestyle is fun), this is not saying you need 4.4 million to have a decent living standard.
i’m not sure i’m following your points. My point was to argue that even the long-term prospect of grossing 63k per year by any metric is beyond the reach of a lot of specialized workers. Add to that, the fact that that’s an evenly divided number. It would be more realistic that the income would need to be even higher closer to retirement if the initial young professional started out grossing less than 63k per year.
I don’t think anybody should be arguing that it should be acceptable to pay people less simply because they don’t want to have kids. Family planning decisions are often guided by household economics.
They’re forgetting shoes.
But seriously, somehow I finally have a little leftover to save for retirement and build my emergency fund, now that I’m fully supporting my kids and paying a crap load of child support. I have no idea where all that money went when I was married, except possibly her shopping habits
Rules are made to be broken, but dreams are made to be crushed.
I miss Dream On. Brian Benben is very likeable and so is Wendy Malik. And the kid was in that Star Trek episode where he was Riker’s fake son but was actually an alien in a giant holodeck…
Sorry, I was trying to distract myself from living in the broken, impoverished supposedly light of the Western world.
