Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking • Hacker News Board

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#131

Post by monknomo » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:13 PM UTC

tostitos1979 wrote: post #104

dragonwriter wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, $75K is nearly 1.5 times median household income. So its substantially more than most households make.

Well .. 18.5K goes into the 401K, leaving 57K. Even if we saved 50% of what we earn, we'll barely be able to save 250K over a decade. Given the pace of house price increases, it seems like a hopeless situation :(

At the end of your 40 year career, with your numbers, not accounting for inflation, raises or the potential for investing, you would have $1.14 million in cash and $740k in 401k principal. At the end of most people's career they have social security... I'd call it pretty well off for having done nothing with the money.

Retire to Nebraska, live like a king.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#132

Post by stanmancan » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:13 PM UTC

tostitos1979 wrote: post #85

stanmancan wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I live about a 45 minute drive from Vancouver BC. It's still part of the "Greater Vancouver" area, but it's not like we're living right downtown. The area I live is pretty much all residential. We're not exactly living a fast paced fancy high life. Yes, living here is a choice we make. I could move to the middle of nowhere , buy a house, and have lower expenses. Heck, I could move to a third world country and l…

Curious what part of BC you are in? My wife and I had dreams to move to Vancouver one day but seems impossible given that we just had a baby, and housing prices. We looked at Surry but seems a bit gritty and at the border of affordability. We're sick of Toronto. The traffic, the cost of houses and the weather all suck (TO has fantastic ethnic diversity and all our family lives there). We have friends buying run-down…

Real close to Surrey actually, a few blocks from the border. Anywhere in the Lower Mainland is a really beautiful place to live, and lots to do outdoors if you're into that. Surrey had a bad reputation but it's mostly deserved. As usual, the vast majority of people are totally normal citizens, but there's plenty of gang violence. Last I read there had been 36 gang shootings in 2016 alone (Here's a map: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/2016-surrey-shootings). It's not somewhere I would ever want to live personally, but I know many people who have spent their whole lives there without any incidence.

If you're trying to escape expensive house prices though, you're looking in the wrong place. Housing prices have been on the rise for years now. I love the weather here, but you have to be prepared for lots of rain and grey winters. Traffic can be pretty terrible too depending on where you're going and when. Because of the geography of the area, there's lots of bridges that people like to get in accidents on during rush hour. If you can avoid having to cross a bridge in rush hour, or drive in the downtown core, you'll be fine.

FWIW I grew up in Victoria, spent a year in TO, and have been in the lower mainland for the last 5 years and it's been my favourite place to live by far.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#133

Post by pasquinelli » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:20 PM UTC

tostitos1979 wrote: post #77

pasquinelli wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think it's pretty typical for people to appraise their own relative income level lower than it actually is.

Housing is a good equalizer. The average detached home in Toronto is 1.2 million dollars. The middle class should be able to afford a home, I think. Therefore, the parent is correct in his/her observation. The inflation numbers we have are grossly inaccurate. If we take the price of housing into account as we adjust incomes, the cut off for the middle class is probably 250-300K.

i disagree that the middle class should be able to afford to buy a home, necessarily. that's completely dependent on the housing market in their area. is there a crisis of homeless middle class people? if not, then they aren't being priced out of a place to live, but out of owning a house. i've never considered the middle class as excluding renters.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#134

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #92

ones_and_zeros wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn't be down voted. Context matters an incredible amount in the English language. Plus, the US doesn't really have classes the way the OP is concerned "middle class" will be interpreted. I'd be surprised if anyone misses the point of this analysis either way.

As Wittgenstein might put it, there are two language games at play here. The first one takes 'class' as defined in the (legitimate) Marxist way, used to represent the relationship to the means of production (Edit: we don't produce all that much anymore, making that definition harder to parse). The second takes it to be specifically defined as a range of income distribution. That second one is what most people typical…

[deleted]

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#135

Post by rhino369 » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

vox_mollis wrote: post #29

stanmancan wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. We live in Canada. Our household income for a family of 3 is just over $125K and I certainly don't feel like we're "upper class". We can't even afford to buy a house where we live.

I live in a town in the US where the median household income is roughly $36k and the median household size is 3.9. Most adults own their home here. I know most HN people tend to see urban/suburban areas as the only habitable zones, but come on - you are definitely living high on the hog, it's just hard to see because you choose a location and lifestyle with very high expenses.

Sure they could reduce expenses by moving but they would also see a drop in income too. You can't compare a SF dollar with an Appleton Wi dollar. They aren't the same

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#136

Post by refurb » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:31 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #98

qsymmachus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a grain of truth to this, but it's a frankly smug attitude. It's a bit of a hand wave ("because racism") that allows urban elites like you and me to avoid asking what it is about _us_ and our politics that many white working class people find so repulsive.

So let's ask the question, then. What makes progressive social policies (ignoring loaded issues like reproductive options and gun control) so distasteful to some of those who would most benefit? I'll provide a starting hypothesis for discussion's sake: maybe urban disdain for the suburban and rural lifestyles (exemplified by complaints about "subsidizing" rural areas) turns people off before they hear the good ideas?…

Is it really that hard to figure out for some issues? Take gun control.

Violent gun crimes are nearly non-existent in rural settings. Plus, gun plays an important role for rural folks including: hunting, pest control on farms, self-defense when the police are 30 minutes away, etc.

Is it that surprising that rural folks say "Hey, that sucks you have a lot of gun crime, but why do I have to give something up that has value to me?"

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#137

Post by mason240 » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:33 PM UTC

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #32

nugget wrote: post #18

I used to think that science fiction's popular predictions of a dominant, out of touch urban ruling class casually oppressing subsistence level, serf-like rural populations was just a dystopian fantasy. But the older I get and the more I think about the future and human nature the more I think that may be the way we are headed.

The joke is that the rural people are oppressing themselves. "Urban elites" have long advocated for policies that would benefit the rural poor but the white rural poor are dead set against any policy that would also benefit black people. http://www.nber.org/papers/w17234 and http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-Amer... for more on that.

After (falsely) calling them all racists who would cut off their nose to spite their face, I can't imagine why dislike the ideas of their "urban betters."

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#138

Post by johnohara » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:33 PM UTC

ericssmith wrote: post #54

Elizabeth Warren makes similar observations in presentation at UC Berkeley in 2007 http://www.uctv.tv/shows/The-Coming-Collapse-of-the-Middle-C...

Not sure why you've been down voted. I found the talk you cited to be interesting and insightful, somewhat narrow in perspective, but nevertheless prescient, given the problems that occurred a year later.

She has become more controversial of course since then, and more well known politically, which may account for your negative votes. I don't know.

But her observations about the use of revolving credit to counteract the effects of stagnant wage growth (in real terms) is still relevant today. The narrow emphasis on wages however, ignores the wealth creation made using other means, for example, by small business and entrepreneurship.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#139

Post by mason240 » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:36 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #98

qsymmachus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a grain of truth to this, but it's a frankly smug attitude. It's a bit of a hand wave ("because racism") that allows urban elites like you and me to avoid asking what it is about _us_ and our politics that many white working class people find so repulsive.

So let's ask the question, then. What makes progressive social policies (ignoring loaded issues like reproductive options and gun control) so distasteful to some of those who would most benefit? I'll provide a starting hypothesis for discussion's sake: maybe urban disdain for the suburban and rural lifestyles (exemplified by complaints about "subsidizing" rural areas) turns people off before they hear the good ideas?…

>What makes progressive social policies (ignoring loaded issues like reproductive options and gun control) so distasteful to some of those who would most benefit?

The unsupported assumption here is that those policies would be beneficial.

Re: Where the Middle Class Is Shrinking

#140

Post by mason240 » Fri, May 13, 2016, 6:41 PM UTC

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #130

twoodfin wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think ramping up to a $15 minimum wage is going to be a practical or effective economic stimulus for small family businesses in rural upstate NY, but that's what they're going to get thanks to their urban compatriots who know better[1]. [1] http://www.syracuse.com/state/index.ssf/2016/02/poll_two-thi...

In fact this is the perfect illustration of how the non-rich are manipulated into supporting the policies of the rich. Lots of people oppose the minimum wage increase on the basis of its impact on small businesses, but the reality is that small businesses have their margins squeezed to zero by their landlords, who raise rents as high as the market can bear. When the government sets a minimum wage they are effectively…

This is a perfect example of how a smug person simply hand waves away any counter arguments by using personal attacks (in this case claiming that OP is being manipulated), followed by the smug person declaring "Why won't these stupid people just realize that I am smarter than them and have it all figured out!"