The Insane, True Costs of Raising a Family in America's Major Metros

[steve2470]

(yes original headline)

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/07/insane-true-costs-raising-family-americas-major-metros/6172/?google_editors_picks=true



Poverty – or, more generally speaking, deprivation – is a notoriously difficult thing to define. Whether or not you experience it has to do with how many mouths you have to feed, where your family lives, whether you pay for child care, what your daily transportation options look like, even how society philosophically defines a family's minimum needs to get by. The federal poverty line, on the other hand, doesn't take into account most of these nuances. It is, by definition, a stark line, not a geographically sophisticated matrix.

And for a family of four, right now, it's $23,550.

In an effort to address the concerns of advocates and researchers, the federal government came out two years ago with a Supplemental Poverty Measure (although it isn't used to determine any federal benefits). But even that effort misses dramatic regional variation in costs like child care (the monthly cost for a one-child household in rural Mississippi is $334; in Washington, D.C., it's $1,318).

How, then, do you calculate what it really costs for a family to have some minimum level of security? The Economic Policy Institute offers a more comprehensive calculator, one that was recently updated for 2013 and that now includes 600 communities across the country and six family types. The EPI Family Budget Calculator includes geographically adjusted costs for housing, food, child care, transportation, health care, other necessities, and taxes, in search of what it takes to achieve a "secure yet modest living standard."

*end of excerpt*

[liberal_at_heart]

1. This has to change. This is not sustainable. It will come crashing down on us eventually.

Last edited Sat Jul 13, 2013, 02:08 PM - Edit history (1)

[SheilaT]

2. I realize that costs vary greatly from one place to another, but these totals seem

a bit much. A total of $93,502 per year? Where in the world are they figuring those totals?

I am often quite astonished at the numbers I see for the cost of living, or the typical median wage, since I've always been well below those numbers. Granted, we never lived in any of the high cost of living places, but still . . . .

I am very aware that even with a very modest budget, the dollar amount that it takes to live a modest life style is horrifyingly high. Part of the problem is that what it takes for a basic standard of living includes lots of things that simply weren't on the table in the past. Cable. Internet access Cell phones. Computers. Getting your nails done, for women. And I'm probably leaving out all sorts of things that I'm just not thinking about.

I'll focus on nails, since I am a woman. I am constantly astonished when I see some program showing me how bad things are for average people, and the woman has fancy, expensive fingernails. About 15 or so years ago I got my nails done for a six month period. I know how much it cost then. And I could afford it. But I decided it was an expense I could really do without. So how is it that women who aren't working, or who have a crappy job, are spending all that money on their fingernails? It boggles the mind.

Clothing. Okay, so a person can do quite well shopping second hand, but I'm not convinced that all of those poor people are always and only shopping in the thrift stores. Maybe I'm wrong.

The cost of working is often understated. In 1983 a friend who was a financial adviser said that a woman, whose husband was working, needed to be making something like twenty grand a year to take home more than the additional costs connected to working, including child care. And I think he was only figuring one child. That was thirty years ago. Several times over the next decade or so, I'd get into conversations with working mothers, who basically said that after paying for child care they were at best breaking even. Every time I suggested that they consider staying home, they'd look at me as if I'd suddenly started speaking Martian. And I'm not talking women with good careers. In 1984 or so I met a woman who was an attorney, who said that after paying for childcare she was making may twenty five dollars a week, but since she was looking at the long term, it was worth it. Two years later she as divorced, and in her case working made sense.

I must be an anomaly. I did stay home to raise my two kids. Every time my husband got a bonus, we saved it. I am now divorced, and because of all that savings I'm doing okay. I'm not rich, but I can get along.

I honestly think that a huge part of the problem is TV. If you watch TV, you get the impression that you absolutely must have a certain level of living, which is actually well above the median. Movies are equally bad, because they show people whose jobs would provide a very modest life style, living quite well. No wonder we all think there's something wrong, and we're not doing as well as we should be.

[Maximumnegro]

3. "Granted, we never lived in any of the high cost of living places, but still . . . ."

There you go. The title says 'Major Metros'.

Here in California, those numbers look right on the money. Not part of California, just about all of California. And you'd better believe those numbers are low estimates for New York. New York City and adjacent is I.N.S.A.N.E.L.Y. expensive. 1BRs are what $2.5k and higher in Manhattan. Do a Craiglist search for NYC for apartments and look at the prices.

[liberal_at_heart]

7. right on the money in Seattle too. My husband made a good living, but between the cost of

rent, groceries, electricity, and healthcare costs we are always broke. I never do my nails or even buy myself clothes for that matter. The only time I ever buy clothes are when the wholes in my pants are too big to continue wearing them in public. Same goes for my shoes. And living in lower cost of living areas isn't any better. I grew up in Texas. The cost of living is lower but so is the pay. My dad and I lived in a mobile home. There were times when the electricity or gas would get cut off because he couldn't pay the bill. I remember eating toast as snacks because bread was about all we could afford. The truth of the matter is, is that wages haven't kept up with the cost of living for decades now. It is getting to an unsustainable level. We simply cannot keep going on like this forever. The whole thing will come crashing down at some point.

[tabbycat31]

6. I'm a woman who never gets her nails done

I just don't get the phenomenon. I hate the smell of nail salons too. A friend of mine who makes $10/hour (with a Master's) and lives with her parents gets her nails done all the time, as do her co-workers. Her reason is that they have to wear uniforms in her field (health care) and nails are the only individuality they're allowed to show. Still, I can buy a bottle of nail polish and do it myself for a lot cheaper.

As for today's necessities. Many of them are necessary for finding a job (good luck applying without a valid email that you are expected to respond to quickly). The only people I know personally who do not have computers are senior citizens who have no desire to get one. If you don't have a computer (or the necessary skills), it will hurt you in the job market. In my field, you will not be hired if you do not have a laptop and you are expected to use your own computer for work (I just landed a position where they gave us computers and I was about to die of shock).

Cell phones have replaced landlines for younger people (I'm 33 and the last time I had a landline was when I lived with my parents). I don't see myself having one again in the near or distant future. When I was away at college (only 1 year) and had a shared landline with my roommates, I frequently spent $50+ a month on long distance calls. Now with cell phones, I never have to worry about a bill like that again on top of local calls. A call is a call period.

[liberal_at_heart]

8. We just moved and did not renew our landline.

[SheilaT]

11. These days landlines can come with

unlimited long distance, which is nice. It certainly took long enough to happen.

[jtuck004]

4. And in this months job totals, a GOOD month so far with 195,000 jobs, the biggest chunk,

about 75,000, was in leisure and hospitality, with average hourly wages of $13.46, and 26.1 hours per week, leaving people with an annual salary of roughly $15,000, according to the BLS report. Don't forget that we lost about 300,000 full-time jobs that month, replaced with not as many, and many of those part-time, a growing trend. The very best estimate I can find of more normal unemployment approaching that of 2008 is at least 5 years, and with jobs like that, it's going to be a far different country than it could be.

Unsustainable may be understating the rot we are learning to live with.

[woo me with science]

9. +1

[steve2470]

5. kick for pm crowd nt

[woo me with science]

10. K&R