"So we looked at the data for two-income families today earning an average income. What we found was that, while those families certainly make more money than a one-income family did a generation ago, by the time they pay for the basics -- an average home, a health insurance policy, a second car to get Mom to work, child care, and taxes -- that family actually has less money left over at the end of the month to show for it."
"...[A] big part of the two-income trap is that families have basically bid up the cost of living. Housing is a big example. A generation ago, an average family could buy an average home on one income. Today you can't do that in three-quarters of American cities. We all know that housing prices are going up, but what most people don't realize is that this has become a family problem. Housing prices are rising twice as fast for families with kids. ... Average mortgage expenses have gone 70 times faster than the average father's income, and the only way families are keeping up is by bringing in two incomes."
"The point is that families today are spending their money no more foolishly than their parents did. And yet they're five times more likely to go bankrupt, and three times more likely to lose their homes. Families are going broke on the basics --housing, health insurance, and education. These are the kind of bills that you can't just trim around the edges in the event of a downturn."
See my response to masterj. She presents the numbers in a rather confusing manner, sometimes listing percentage increases, sometimes a percentage of income. Virtually everyone who reads her book/watches her talks is confused.
I presented the raw data in a homogeneous manner in my response to masterj, which will hopefully reduce the confusion.
Or maybe you are just the one that doesn't actually understand it.
It is like inflation not counting energy prices - it doesn't matter what happens to prices on some things, it matters what happens to the prices of things you actually spend your money on.
So if housing prices went down per square foot compared to income but the size of the houses increased by a larger percentage than the decrease in price per square foot, the net result is more money out of your wallet.
A good example of this: I tried to get a small place, I don't need the space, but when I looked I couldn't get any smaller than where I'm living. I'd love to lop off 400 sq ft and get that percentage of my money back, but I just can't. That is what exists in the market today where I'm living. The end result is more money out of my paycheck than I'd like and an empty bedroom in my house. (Luckily we can afford the place off one income at least)
There are a lot of reasons why this happens, but the biggest one is that the cost difference to the builder of making a small house compare to a big one is a lot less than the price difference they get for building them. The same goes for boats, and today you can hardly buy a small boat anymore, they've all figured out the fatter margins are on the bigger ones.
A similar question applies to her numbers for income. Income averages have increased, but that is a result of increasing income disparity more than an average increase. So what is the change for someone in the 1st percentile? The 25th? The 75th? the 100th? It is an impossibility for those numbers to be the same because the income disparity has increased so somebody is white washing the data here.
She's being directly quoted by the grandparent. How can you get a direct quote wrong? In any case, I think we generally agree with her data.
The 2 income trap is real, and the US seems to have fallen for the ridiculous trap that is expensive housing. The sad thing is that it will take a societal shift away from obsessing with McMansions in order to affect any meaningful change, and it's unlikely to happen in our lifetimes because the realtors are the #3 top donor to government (See opensecrets.org - the NAR is #3)
I didn't get a direct quote wrong. I simply referred to a post where I give the data rather than her opinion. I even explained why in that post - I think her data is correct, but her analysis and presentation are misleading.
Choice quotes:
"So we looked at the data for two-income families today earning an average income. What we found was that, while those families certainly make more money than a one-income family did a generation ago, by the time they pay for the basics -- an average home, a health insurance policy, a second car to get Mom to work, child care, and taxes -- that family actually has less money left over at the end of the month to show for it."
"...[A] big part of the two-income trap is that families have basically bid up the cost of living. Housing is a big example. A generation ago, an average family could buy an average home on one income. Today you can't do that in three-quarters of American cities. We all know that housing prices are going up, but what most people don't realize is that this has become a family problem. Housing prices are rising twice as fast for families with kids. ... Average mortgage expenses have gone 70 times faster than the average father's income, and the only way families are keeping up is by bringing in two incomes."
"The point is that families today are spending their money no more foolishly than their parents did. And yet they're five times more likely to go bankrupt, and three times more likely to lose their homes. Families are going broke on the basics --housing, health insurance, and education. These are the kind of bills that you can't just trim around the edges in the event of a downturn."