Re:Economic Termites Are Everywhere: stats hide the experien...
by ebiester on Sunday June 09, 2024 @01:51PM
(#40626173)
This seems weird to me. What is your savings rate versus theirs? I say this because on the surface, the same feels true for me, but on closer inspection I spend money like water in ways they had tightly controlled. And yet, I have a higher savings rate than they did.
(However, I don't have a pension.)
Re:Economic Termites Are Everywhere: stats hide the experien...
by Spooky23 on Monday June 10, 2024 @12:10PM
(#40635110)
Probably similar, I’m an aggressive saver.
The biggest difference is housing and healthcare. My healthcare expense is equivalent to their mortgage. My dad family healthcare coverage was $0 until I was in high school. The total cost of my, excellent health insurance is about $35k, which is 90% of the salary of my first professional job in 1999!
Our policy with respect to healthcare is essentially a regressive tax on the working public. Rich people have a limited cost exposure, poor people get limited access to poor care, and everyone else gets increasingly expensive, lower quality care.
So if your $16/hr job pops by 30%, the net impact on the household is much lower in many cases. For teen workers, it’s beer money. For single moms, it’s a net loss as costs for daycare and healthcare have increased 50%.
All of this stuff is relative. I’m a tech exec in a large organization, and essentially live the same lifestyle as my parents, who were in “lower end” jobs relatively speaking in the 80s when I was little.