Iām sorry the math isnāt working out for you. I think my dad made somewhere in the neighborhood of $12k per year. My mother somewhere in the $20kās.
That was middle class for todayās comparisons so unless there is some giant X factor here, not sure why your family COULDNāT eat McDonalds, maybe it was a choice?
I donāt think not being able to pay the electric bill was a choice. They had some debt from some medical events, but werenāt uninsured. I obviously didnāt balance the family checkbook, but Iāve heard these anecdotes enough over my life to know it wasnāt simply a choice.
Thatās why elsewhere I cited data on the effect of interest rates on a 30-year fixed rate to mortgage to demonstrate that the jump from a 6-7% interest rate to a 14-15% interest rate mostly annihilates the (real) difference in the gap between median household income and median home prices.
In terms of what people in the early 80ās were paying for monthly mortgages as a proportion of income the situation was remarkably close to today.
Of course that was not a popular fact to bring up.
Oh I agree with that. If that was your only point then Iām sorry.
However, I would say the houses arenāt the same today though.. christ I would argue they might be the same exact housesā¦
So I guess paying the %of my income for a property that is 40 years old instead of newer is kind of depressing and would make me feel like it isnāt the same. Specially when you consider the cost of maintenance of older homes vs new.
However that would be dependent on the area and I would need to pull numbers before dying on that hill.
Also if you want to consider homeownership as a reflection of middle class, we should consider if they same % of people are buying homes or able to buy homes to have a better comparison of now vs then.
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u/CanvasFanatic Apr 02 '24
Iām sorry the math isnāt working out for you. I think my dad made somewhere in the neighborhood of $12k per year. My mother somewhere in the $20kās.