There have been a lot of diaries about the 2016 election, and what happened. I know I’ve written a lot about TX politics and elections - and I'll get into what happened at least near Houston...but not yet. It's still a bit raw to me. However, there's another topic I've been meaning to write about for a while now. We’ve also seen a jump in the ‘race or class’ issues: or in a broader sense, economic human rights versus social human rights. As another diarist pointed out, Trump did remarkably better with people making under $30K...and better with those making between $30-50K a year. Not the poor...but the lower class. ‘Working class’ is a term that likes to get thrown around. Along with a LOT of assumptions.
Please take a look at some of Chris Reeves’ diaries for a much more eloquent discussion of all of this...including the Democrats writing off large swaths of the population and talking to rather than talking with folks.
We don’t like to hear that. It's easy to say all Trump supporters are racist - and some are. Or misogynistic - which some are. But there's a lot more to it, and the diaries and comments of 'fuck them, they're all morons. I'm not going to listen to them, they deserve what they get' is...not helpful. Even worse are the ‘well, they didn’t come out and vote, so fuck them.’ And we see some, but not much, against those commenters. Anger is understandable, but we can't afford to misunderstand what's happening. Unfortunately, as Kos has pointed out, we are simply not representative of the US population…and that leads to problems when we look at this. As we know, everyone likes to throw out the term ‘middle class’ — but no one seems to have the same ideas. One monetary one that gets thrown around is that ‘middle class’ is anywhere from 2/3 to 2 times the median income. Let’s take a look at all of this, JUST from a money standpoint.
First, what is a ‘median’ household? Whatever is exactly in the middle when you rank everything. Not an average, just ‘out of 100, what is the average of number 50 and 51?’ What this means is, in 2014 (last time I found REALLY good numbers), any household with incomes ranging from about $42,000 to $125,000 was officially middle class. Which is bullshit. H/T to Hoipolli for encouraging the idea of this diary.
Lots of math and details
Median household: 2.63 members. Median owner costs (w/mortgage): $1,522/month Median gross rent: $920 2014 median household income: 56,895
Let’s take a look at this. Using a basic tax calculator: if this is a 2-adult household, then about $3,838 will go to federal taxes. Another $4,267 will go to social security/medicare.
That leaves $48,790 for the year – or just over $4,000 a month.
What are monthly expenses? Housing: $920-1522 Car (payment/insurance): $100/month (assuming car is owned) Groceries/food: $600-650
Utilities: $150-250
Phone: $80 Child Care: $500-1000, depending on age of child Retirement: $711 (assuming 15%: recommended amount) Misc (clothing, books, hair, diapers, etc): $200
So, what all does this come out to?
$3,261-$4,433 per month. Compared to our total of $4,000 available. Now, this is not including: second child (if it’s single-parent household), saving for kids to go to college, paying off student loans, or anything like that. Notice: there’s a good chance that the median family is paying $400 a month more than median income…if they try save for retirement. And there are a LOT of assumptions (like never eating out) that are probably not reasonable.
Let’s take a look at what a lot of us consider the ‘typical’ or ‘ideal’ middle class family.
2 adults, 2 kids. One adult has student loans. They eat out at least occasionally. For this purpose, let’s assume 1 child is in school, and the other is still in daycare.
Groceries jumps to 800-900/month Misc jumpt to at least $300/month Student loans are $150/month
Now, all of a sudden, they’re at their monthly expenses…or over by up to $833, if you’re looking at median income - which remember, is part of 'middle class'. Every month. So yeah, there goes retirement savings. And this is assuming no savings for an emergency fund, no college savings, no travel to see family, no vacations…NOTHING. Not exactly what we expect when we think ‘middle class’.
These are people who have seen wages stagnate, can’t afford a new car, can’t afford to get new job skills/certifications, have crappy roads/infrastructure, no public transportation…30% of adults have no retirement savings. Most adults can’t afford an unexpected $400 bill without selling something. Saying ‘things have been getting better’ means SHIT to these people (median income, remember – so at the halfway point!).
Beyond that, take a look at actual distribution in 2014. 28% made less than $25k/year. Another $23% made between 25-50K. I have no idea how this wound up with a median household income GREATER than half the households, but somehow it did. In 2014, the median income was %53,482.
What do we REALLY think of as a middle class family, in our mythology?
2 adults, 2 kids, 1 pet. They’re in their own home, saving for retirement, new(er) car, at least one college-educated. Depending on your views, both adults are working or one is staying at home with the kids. They take SOME kind of summer vacation every year, and travel to visit family/parents another couple times a year (if they’re distant), or quarterly if they’re a few hours away. You can save for retirement, have some emergency fund available.
What would it take to get to this level? I’ll still assume one kid is in school, to make math easier (and kinder)
Housing: $1522 Car payment: $300 Car insurance: $100 Groceries/food: $800-900
Utilities: $200
Phone: $80
Child Care: $500-1000, depending on age of child
Student loans: $150 Misc (clothing, books, hair, diapers, etc): $400 Savings: $100 Eating out: $200
Vacation/travel: $5000/year
Retirement: 15% So what would you need for income? The total costs here are $4,352-$4,952/month, plus vacation and retirement. That means an annual take-home income of $57,224-$59,424, AFTER retirement and taxes have already come out.
Analysis returns — and the last of math!
Which means the total income you need to live a middle class life is actually somewhere in the realm of $80-90,000 (lots of back-of-the-napkin math here)…or at least 40% more than the median income. Which means, looking at 2014 numbers (and inflation hasn’t changed much), we’re talking about only 30% of American households are able to achieve this standard. Yes, our ‘American Dream’ middle class: 70% of America isn’t there, and hasn’t been for a long time.
To make matters worse, the ‘high’ for median income (prior to this year) was in 1999, when the median income was $56,895. What is that in 2016 dollars? $81,545. Does that number look familiar, from the math above? It should. In 1999, you could achieve a middle class life on a median income. Now, you can’t. By a lot. Once again, does anyone still wonder why ‘we’re getting better’ didn’t go over well? BECAUSE MOST OF THE COUNTRY ISN’T. They’re getting better than 2008, when we hit the Great Recession…but they’re NOT better off than their parents. And there’s no sign that under the existing policies, their children will be. College is getting more expensive, everything is getting more expensive, and there’s simply no way to pay for it.
Let’s add to the complications: rural areas don’t have lots of jobs. In fact, most of the well-paying jobs are located in or around big cities (where there are people/infrastructure). Some can be done through telework? Sure: tech jobs, usually. That’s where we hit a new problem: rural areas as a rule don’t have access to computer classes, at any level.
This means lots of unpleasant things. We have large chunks of the country that have seen jobs vanish, have seen their incomes worth less and less, and have seen the ‘good, new’ jobs all in far away places, requiring training they can’t get. They CAN’T live a decent life any longer — and can’t afford to stop working, or go to school, or move (even assuming they’d want to move — it’s HARD to pick up and go once you have kids). They feel they don’t have any good choices...and are being asked to keep voting Blue when the Dems are saying ‘let’s keep doing what we’ve been doing’. Yes, I know the GOP are rotten human beings, and have contributed to all this disaster. But not all voters know, because Dems haven’t been good about listening, getting that message out and coming up with an economic message that resonates. In fact, these are the voters the Democratic party (and DKos) has been writing off as hopeless, as privileged, as backwater ignorant know-nothings who aren’t worth the effort unless they’ve voted Blue...and are then frequently ignored again. ‘Just move’ doesn’t work if you can’t sell your house, can’t afford to live near a city and can’t afford the job training to get any of the new, fancy jobs anyhow. ‘Just learn’ isn’t any good when there is NOWHERE around to learn the job skills...and no way to pay for it. ‘Save for retirement’ is a joke. There’s no money. There’s no hope. There’s no point in doing the same thing you’ve been doing, because it’s not working. That applies to voting, too. And in fact, no pensions now, either.
What messages do we have for the ‘forgotten’ people of the country? If we can’t figure out how to answer their real needs, then maybe we don’t deserve their votes. If we have answers, then we need to get those out there — but we also have to listen. And that’s hard.
www.census.gov/...
en.wikipedia.org/...
www.in2013dollars.com/...
money.cnn.com/...
**Note: I am only addressing the economic side of things. I know there’s a lot more to everything — religion, abortion, same-sex marriage, the ‘other’. I’ve lived it. I’ve had the opportunity to ‘grow up’ in everywhere from Hawai’i to Colorado to North Dakota and Southern Illinois. But THIS is a real issue, and one we can figure out how to recognize and address without anyone talking about compromising our principles.