False.
A plumber making $80k (US median seems to be around $60k) isn't going to be able to save up for a down payment if they're paying a typical mid-sized city's rent (~$1.2k a month). Not to mention housing costs going up during this period of saving up.
You have farfetched dreams that government run anything would somehow be not shit. You'd hardly get any coverage and I doubt the deductible would be anywhere sufficient.
I'm not sure everyone knows there's a no free healthcare, we may move in different cicles.
Having lived with socialized healthcare and still paying private insurance in order to access expedient, competent, comfortable care is especially frustrating.
In the US, you won't get the chance to have a bill, because you will be denied care if you're unable to pay for the care or are uninsured. The one exception to this is that emergency rooms are obligated to stabilize patients in crisis, but that type of care is limited. For example, they'll patch you up if you get stabbed and then send you a bill for it, but nobody is getting treatment for non-acute emergencies, like chronic conditions, or the insulin they need to survive diabetes, or life-saving chemo or radiation therapy for cancer.
Your creditors might feel differently about bills not costing you anything when they take you to court to collect on your debt. Those bills might cost you your savings, income and/or assets.
On the private insurer side, if you're prescribed an on-patent medication that has no generics, every insurer I've had has fought me every step of the way for coverage, and some plans just don't cover brand name medication at all. Even when you work with your doctor and insurer to get coverage for specific medications, insurers will decide 4 months later that they don't want to cover it anymore and you have to jump through those hoops all over again.
My "favorite" experience was having to cycle through several medications that I had been prescribed in the past that weren't effective in order to make my insurer happy so that they'd cover the medication that does work. Apparently the private insurer knows how to treat patients better than doctors do. Then I moved and had to switch insurers, and the insurer wanted me to go through the process of taking drugs that don't work all over again. I gave up and just pay for the actually-efficacious prescription out of pocket, and none of those costs go towards my deductible. I now pay $18 per pill for something that costs $34 total for a 30-day supply, which is about a dollar per pill, in other first world countries.
If it was possible, I'd drop my own coverage instantly for Medicaid. Doing so would make my life immeasurably better.
> Doesn't seem like the rest of the world's universal healthcare did any better than ours?
On every metric, other countries' healthcare systems outperform the healthcare system in the US, resulting in higher quality care and patient outcomes, all for much less than the US spends[1].
[1] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality...
I also care for a family member on Medicaid and, while it’s very far from perfect, I agree that in many every-day scenarios it’s remarkably superior to my employer-provided coverage.
Most of the downsides I’ve experienced are issues with getting specialist appointments in a timely fashion and providers creating unexpected reimbursement loopholes - which are thankfully rare, but remarkably abusive when they have occurred.
Eg: Medicaid will get you booked with an allergy clinic four months out and during the appointment they tell you “Oh by the way, Medicaid only covers ~5 basic allergen tests; if you want the standard regional allergen test that’s $150 up front and if you want the full spectrum test that’ll be $300.”
Meanwhile, half a year prior, I went to the same clinic, got my appointment booked for 2-3 weeks out, and wasn’t even asked about the test type - they hit me with the full spectrum and I just had to toss a minor copay on the way out the door.
I guess the overall moral of the story is that our healthcare system is broken and jammed up with perverse incentives at every rung of the ladder.
Where I live, Boise, housing prices have shot up dramatically, over twice. Median house prices in Boise is $536k. So you would really need to make $214K/year to afford the mortgage under the old rules. And nobody makes that kind of money here.
The prices are based on the ability to repay based on the income - with lower interest rates the same income and service a much larger loan, hence the increased prices.
The world has changed, from very high rates to current very low rates, and seems like it might be changing back to middle rates.
You got lucky and bought when it was cheap. Don't act like anyone can do what you did.
Roughly 2/3 of Americans own homes.
If you live in an area where homes are priced like luxury investments, then yes, you'll have a hard time buying when you also cannot afford other luxuries. If you live in an area where they are not, it isn't unattainable at all, especially if you combine income with a marriage partner.
Rural areas also tend not to be great places for LGBT people, either.
That may be true in some areas. I can only speak anecdotally. I brought a couple members of the LGBT community with me to a very rural area that is about as cowboy-midwest as it gets. Everyone has been very civil and even the "Good ol boys" have been very respectful with them to my pleasant surprise. There are plenty of openly LGBT working in the local stores.
All of that said I have advised them against hanging out in the local bars after listening to the scanner a bit. There are a few regular angry drunks. Perhaps I am too overly cautious.
Speaking from experience, they're going to be on good behavior around you and others. It's what happens when they think no one will notice or no one will hold them to account when real discrimination occurs.
I've met plenty of people who claim to be LGBT supporters in public, but have no problem harassing LGBT people, discriminating against them and calling them slurs when they think no one else is looking. Same thing goes for people in power, like bosses and owners, or police and judges. Discrimination doesn't always look like American History X or the Westboro Baptist Church, the vast majority of it is low key and insidious.
That's the very reason I suggested staying away from the bars. When people are drunk their inhibitions are gone and judgement is very poor. The LGBT hate crime that I know of happened about 23 years ago outside a bar.
People who pick just what’s attractive at the moment are pretty short-sighted and I have no sympathy for them.
What's attractive and what's viable are often two separate things. NYC is not viable for someone making $40k a year, but neither is moving to the Rust Belt where their "options" are working part-time in department stores or literal crime.
Something tells me that this is a situation that can't be won in some people's minds. If someone makes the rational decision to not move somewhere that is not economically viable, in an area that's projected to become even more unviable with time, that's not good enough for some. If someone lives in a shitty area and moves elsewhere for better career prospects, but still can't make ends meet, well, according to posts like this, they should just have moved somewhere shitty instead.
If we applied the same to degrees, I doubt you'd feel the same about all of the "short-sighted" people who chose to study trades or liberal arts at a state school and now have poor economic prospects, instead of choosing what's attractive at the moment like STEM.
Remote work would also have a cascading effect. Say 20 people move to a rural area, well they need food, and their vehicles fixed, and their house maintained, etc. They need to fund their hobbies and generally would bring more money to those areas. Big cities with a lot of power don't want that to happen because they will lose their tax base. I suspect some city governments are incentivizing businesses to bring employees back to the office because of this.
People who chose to study trades would be doing well off, that’s a terrible analogy.
> liberal arts
Liberal arts has pretty much always had terrible prospects. That’s not short sighted, that’s just straight up blind.
In the last year or two a locally-famous lighthouse went up for sale and was bought for cash by some guy from silicon valley. Instead of being turned into an attraction, or a house, or hell even an Airbnb spot, it remains untouched much to the chagrin of the locals. I guess the new owner can't be bothered to come out here and just liked the idea of bragging that he owned it.
Every time the Midwest comes up on this site, you get these laughably stupid takes that it's some bombed-out shithole with no jobs other than crime, and where people kill minorities on sight. At least once every couple weeks, there will be a decently sized comment thread about how it's economically desolate and morally evil, and that no sane person would ever move here.
My only response to that is please don't ever stop believing that. Stay away. Don't come crush the housing market with your $200k+ FAANG salary so you can tut-tut the people that live here about how racist, sexist, classist, etc. they are despite having never actually talked to one of them in your life. For those that got dealt a bad hand in life, there is at least a chance for them in the Midwest. If keeping that chance alive means that somebody living in a coastal city thinks my community is human garbage, so be it.
It isn't as diverse as some other parts of the country, but there's groups of people from all over the world. Within a 2 hour drive from me, you'll find enclaves from Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Mexico and others.
I know an Englishman who lives in an Indonesian village (not an enclave). He is constantly reminded that while his presence is cherished, he isn't, and never will be "one of them." He still loves it, though, so there's that.
What on earth makes you think they are second class citizens? They vote, attend school board meetings, own homes and live just like anyone else.
In my neighborhood I would say at minimum 25% of the home owners are non-white families, if not more.
Bunch of representative bias anecdotes, mostly be people who don’t live there, or haven’t in 20 years.
And yet, if the same environment were to be encountered in another country, it would be “culture”.
There's a few islands of sanity here in the midwest, primarily around college towns. But... prices have doubled since 2016, at least in my area.
We're closing on a house. $375k. I'm one of the lucky ones. Like, super lucky. But it sold back in 2016 for $170k.
For all the cultural likes and dislikes, mass of people is generally moving when they have pragmatic reason to do so.
I lead a team that includes Zoomers and they are making six-figure salaries and are way ahead of where I was (accounting for inflation) when I was at their age.
This is more generational comparison garbage like the claims that Millennials were the downfall of our civilization. Just ignore it and move on.
2) Median house (not a Bay Area house) in 2019 was like 320k. Crazy house valuations are only from the last 1.5-2 years and wouldn't have affected generational norms (and we all know why the suddenly exploded). Even then, the median house is 410k, so all you needed/need you need to save is 65-80k in the /worst/ case.
3) Most people buying houses are/should be dual income, given the size of the median house. And given that you're competing against double income people (don't like it? you'd have to roll back the drive for emancipation/equality :)). If you double the income above you can save for a downpayment in like 3 years. I know families where neither partner probably makes 80k buying houses in boring cities e.g. in Texas - and not a starter house either... How? Dual income + non-coastal prices. And yeah, there are tons of jobs in the area.
Historically, the cost of a house has hovered around 4.5 to 5.5x annual median income. It's currently at the highest level it's ever been, at least according to this graph:
https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco....
For example, when I bought my first home the price was around 4.5x my income. But the interest rate on that first mortgage was 8.25%
In places like the UK we have the same phenomenon but most people are on 2-5 year fixed rates.
The median home price in Canada is $800k and rising, while in the US it is $400k and rising. Housing prices in the US could easily double.
Actually the latest quarter median prices fell in the US, which may continue as interest rates increase.
Broadly speaking though, prices certainly are up over the last couple years.
Even if you ignore first time homeowner benefits and such, the usual thing necessary is not living in the middle of California.
Often if you actually dig into it you find abject refusals to consider locations outside of a particular one, or the famous “spend less on candles. no” type of thing.
Sounds like this was either a long time ago or in city/town where not many people want to live.
If your typical rent is $1200, that means property values in your area are almost certainly low enough to qualify for FHA loans, which only require 3.5% down due to government subsidies. 3.5% of $450k is $16k - so it only takes about 3 years to save for that down payment.
Home prices are high _because_ FHA loans allow people to have greater purchasing power (among many other reasons like NIMBYism).
> spending $3k a month on day care
It costs $3200/mo to pay someone $20/h for 40 hours a week, in what world does day care (where one caretaker takes care of multiple children!) cost $3000/mo? The average cost of child care in California, which has _the_ highest cost of labor in the US, is $956/mo [2]. If you use the infant care cost it's $1400/mo, still nowhere near $3000. Maybe in the middle of New York City it costs $3000, but that's not a realistic living scenario for a plumber.
If your spouse makes $3000/mo then the rent increase (call it an extra $800/mo to get to $2k/mo) and childcare cost ($1000/mo) are more than covered by their extra income.
Please just look at the data and take a moment to understand what expenses outside of SF/NYC/LA look like.
[1]: https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2020-summary-of-find...
[2]: https://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/#/...
Tell me you have no children without telling me you have no children?
The daycare my child went to is $2500/month. Not quite $3K but I'm not in the most expensive areas. I have no doubt it can go over $3K in SF/Palo Alto/etc.
Not only an ad hominen, but changing topics?
> I just looked and a Platinum plan in CA for a family costs $1400.
I don't know where you looked but it's wrong.
I literally just went to https://www.coveredca.com/ and filled in details for a quote.
A platinum plan with Blue Shield is $2530.04/month.
With Kaiser, it is $2637.23/month.
i'm not a parent and don't want to be one but know enough parents to know that daycare is bloody fucking expensive, usually thousands/mo, unless the parents have a support system, but even then it's a trade-off.
the silver lining of course is that it's a temporary expense.
The link you provided says $1,412. And this shows roughly $2500 in LA County and $3300 in SF County.
https://insightcced.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/INSIGHT_C...
> The average annual cost of infant care in California is $16,945—that’s $1,412 per month. Child care for a 4-year-old costs $11,475, or $956 each month.
$1400 for an infant, $950 for a 4 year old. And that's in _the_ highest cost of living state in the country. If you put Michigan it drops to $905/741.
> And this shows roughly $2500 in LA County and $3300 in SF County
Your link comes off as incredibly biased. In literally the second sentence it says "Black and brown people and women of color experienced profound losses of health, community, income, and business at rates far more severe than white households" There's a clear ultra-left political lean to it.
I also literally said that SF/LA/NYC are not representative of costs in the rest of the country. If you're a plumber in SF you make over 6 figures, easily. A plumber makes $80k in a random Midwest city, not in SF/LA. The state of California reported median plumbers in the East Bay made $115k in 2021 [1]. You are fundamentally trying to mislead by using Midwest wages and San Francisco costs. Not to mention that the inflated cost of living is caused by a housing shortage which subsidizing healthcare and childcare doesn't fix.
[1]: https://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/OccGuides/Summary.asp...
also assumes that you are mentally strong enough to live like a pauper to hopefully afford the bare minimum required to scrounge up a downpayment.
doesn't assume building a maintenance fund (2% of home value per year), closing costs (2% of home value, one-time cost), purchasing stuff to fill the home (like furniture/appliances), etc.
Is that really all your definitive "false" relies on? Hell I know tradesmen that make well over that and live in more rural areas.
The median household income = 67K[0]. >60% of US households own a home.[1] Clearly 80K is more than enough to safe up for a down payment.
[0]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S...
> The term "home-ownership rate" can also be misleading because it includes households that owe on a mortgage.
Depending on your credit score and your down payment, you can wind up functionally renting a home for many years even if you "own" it on paper. It isn't until the final years of a 30 year mortgage that you actually significantly pay down the principal.
As long as interest rates remain low and the credit requirements are lax, most of America can in fact "own" a home. Expect prices to skyrocket, as buyers become more and more decoupled from the cost.
It's just very silly to find a website, grab a number, and then conclude that saving 200k in 8 years is realistic
My dad was a solider in Latin America, my mom, a nurse. Their job required, at most, 2 years of education beyond High School.
I am a data analyst, with a Bachelor's and a Master's. I earn more than they both did together, adjusted for inflation. My friends are in "specialized jobs" as well -- some even being doctors and lawyers. We still have zero hope of affording a house, let alone retirement.
Edit: for anyone wondering, my education was completely free as in my country college is free and I took my Master's in a Nordic country, where education is also free (I worked there to support myself too).
This is ridiculous. If that’s actually true, move. Lower your expenses. Figure out something else.
Apparently moving countries is good enough for his dad but another city in the US I asking too much?
Manhattan used to be very cheap, but it hasn't been that way for at least 30 years. Too many people want to live there now. Basic economic rules of supply and demand dictate the prices.
The only solution is to not play the game. You want a house, buy it where you can afford. There's no magic fairy that will sell you a standalone house in Manhatten on a cashier's salary.
Rent in my town is one of the cheapest among bigger cities and I already live very frugally (public transit, only shop for groceries on sale and healthy food, don't go out to parties, don't drink, no addictions, no online subscriptions, only free hobbies + gym). GenXers and Boomers left a shitty world for Gen Z and, for some, life is just not the fairy tale you are used to - sorry mate.
It's not so much a solution as it is a sneering dismissal of real problems that they don't want to hear about anymore.
How, exactly, are we going to supply all of that to the firehose of people graduating with mostly-useless degrees and job skills?
All the fruits are going to small number of people in the top. You say mostly useless degrees… what about all the mostly useless things - the lamborghinis? the never ending houses? the gimmicks, gadgets, iphones every 6 months…
Why do we supply that and dont supply basic living conditions to everyone?
Why? Because the medium of exchange function stops the moment economic growth stops growing at the rate of productivity. This is because the richest individuals are hoarding employment opportunities and get to save money against the will of the rest of the population. If one guy is doing the work of two, then one person has nothing to do. We grow the economy two fold, so there is enough to do for everyone, even though there are enough products and services for everyone. It's that stupid.
You’re not forced to live in a bigger city.
You weren’t forced to uselessly over-educate yourself.
You aren’t forced to stay where you are, in a dead-end, complaining about how it’s everyone’s fault but your own.
Either way, telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstrap when a house costs over a million dollars and wages have stagnated for decades is very uncharitable.
I live in Canada, at this rate owning a house is a dream long gone for many people include me.
Go on Zillow and do some basic research.
My education is none of your concern, especially because I actually got paid both for my Bachelors and Masters, due to academic performance scholarships. It cost me nothing and still paid better than most jobs.
I’m not in a deadend, I do very well, I just have zero prospects of retiring or owning a house. I’m not complaining though, I got it better than many people. I’m grateful for that, and especially even more grateful for not having to be someone so bitter like you. Have fun dying soon of old age in your rich life, with no friends or family bc none can stand your boomer personality :)
I think the key for me is the fact I choose not to incur educational debt getting a BS and/or MS, I also choose to live in a non-coastal region that does not have crazy housing prices. I also had lots of support from my parents* when I was younger so establish myself financially (like enabling me to be able to save for the down payment on this home)
I worked very hard and now make a pretty decent wage after decades of working lower wage jobs.
* To be clear this is just basic support like a stable roof over my head, the were lower middle class as well, their combined income was less than 6 figures, we had a basic home, food, etc but no luxuries, no vacations, one of the reasons I did not go to college was I did not want debt, and the family had no money for tuition
Over the course of a few years that's well into 6 figures of support
We are a "normal" midwest 2 parent household, in the 50th percentile of income band for the region.
My over arching point is there has to be some personal accountability. it is easy to be a victim, blame the system, blame rich people, blame everyone but yourself for your own circumstances.
Life is hard and often unfair, and I freely admit I am one serious illness away from bankruptcy, there are things we need to do change the system in many ways
However alot of the talk I see about "solutions" will in reality just make things worse and further push victim culture that i see today.
I don't have all the answer, but "woe is me, life is soo hard and unfair" attitude I see I can assure people is not a solution
When you are one major accident or illness away from losing everything you have saved is kind of makes sense to blame those who have fought so hard to make sure typical people don't have access to effective health care at a reasonable cost.
Medical costs however would not the cause of my problems as even in the worst case I would be protected by bankruptcy laws would would allow me to discharge my medical debt while keeping my primary home, and a significant chunk of my personal possessions.
The problem is that most people don't get to choose. There are few of these high paying jobs, so by definition most people are excluded. Either because they're not "smart" enough to get into elite training programs (e.g. medical school) or because they don't have enough money to spend years in training with zero or negative income.
What doesn't pay well is zero-effort required jobs like Starbucks barista or social media influencer (is this even a job?). If anyone can do it with no pain required to pass some sort of schooling then it's not going to pay well. Nursing pays well because people are too lazy to make it through 4 years of schooling.
If you're going to come in and claim life circumstances prevent people from getting a 4 year degree, a public school costs at most $120k including living expenses for 4 years. Even if you get _no_ financial aid - which doesn't happen as FAFSA exists - $120k is an entirely manageable sum to pay off over the course of 20 years. And that calculation assumes you don't work at all during summers or during the school year.
Where are you getting this number, that is not even remotely close to any of the nurses and lower level health practitioners I know
in Germany even if you're poor you can go to the University and succeed
my friends all studied and they were from normal working-class families
everyone gets a chance and all you need is put some effort
Except in the US there are enclaves of destitute poverty, generational poverty, extreme levels of incarceration, job prohibitions for low-level convicts (which can be 1/2 the men in some areas), high crime, schools with low graduation rates, weak access to things like dental care, poor transit options for medical care, pollution, insufficient care for the elderly, lack of mental health care, opioid addiction, children with high rates of lead poisoning, etc. Those people have the deck stacked against them.
you'd need to study 3 years to get your Abitur, however (which is only 1 year more than Gymnasium folks would)
ps. this may be different by state
Moreover, bohemian literally means "a socially unconventional person, especially one who is involved in the arts". I am guessing you probably misread it as "gypsy" or "roma" where such stereotype might exist (tho negative stereotypes about them are much different nowdays afaik, but were be like that in past)
"Bohemian" got that meaning because French aristocratic youth saw Roma gypsy immegrants and just called them whatever the closest east European neighbors they thought of.
The fact that you think it is a lifestyle and not a people shows just how much history is lost. Somehow king Wenceslas got turned into a Christmas carol, but that's about it.
And I don't just "think" it is lifestyle. I checked multiple dictionaries and they all refer to it as lifestyle. And the way it was used, it was always used as lifestyle. I never even seen it being used for either czechs or gypsies.
It just ... exists. And contains capital.
And the word in English means what I wrote and not whatever you imagine it to mean.
To be clear, I am not saying that the word bohemian is used as a slur. I am merely finding it ironic that people who have qualms about things like "master" in git or "microagressions" have no problem using a word that was used in France to make light of any genetic eastern Europeans. "bohemian" as an artsy, free living, dirt poor hippy utterly erases centuries of history of a real people (not even the people they thought it applied to).
It's not clear if there's a simple correlation between "training required" and "automation ready". For example, people have been talking about automating radiology for years, although I'm currently finishing up a study on one such system and we certainly aren't there yet. Meanwhile, the relatively "low skill" job of construction is considered very difficult to automate due to the high variability in environments and materials.
This uncertainty means that reluctance to join professions that "may" be automated in the coming years might be interpreted as a result of risk-aversion, and that risk is higher when the job training is longer.
> It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.
> By business I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
Continuing to play the “optimize myself based upon some meta game as see it” is not a viable strategy.
There is no science that says Musk is certainly on the right path to human longevity.
None of the rich are infallibly and unassailably correct; pointing at them as correct is an appeal to authority which is ludicrous when we have plenty of evidence to show politics is corrupted such that elites are “too big to fail.”
I’m not obligated to make choices based upon your view of the problem and your solution is more of the same “boot straps”.
This culture is a joke. Moral relativism it is; if my choices screw any of you, oh well. Free market.
The world has changed - simple labor that requires a few days of training doesn't pay much. Most jobs, with few exceptions, that require a decade of training, do pay well. That's why there's such a huge gap between Amazon packers and electricians, and an even bigger gap with surgeons.
If you want to do well in the modern economy, you have to choose your specialization wisely. Most simple labor will be automated very soon anyway.