
Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America - petethomas
https://nytimes.com/2018/06/27/books/review-squeezed-alissa-quart.html
======
rio517
This. I was lucky enough to fall for a German woman who was studying in the
states. We married and moved to Berlin when we realized having a family in the
US would be a struggle. We could have moved to the suburbs, but we really hate
car culture and wanted to live in a biking city. I worked in tech - didn't
have to learn German or jump through hoops to get a job.

Now, on a single high 5 figure salary, I'm 15 minutes biking to work and live
in one of the nicest parts of the city. We have two kids in free day care. My
wife works part time, and she is finishing a year off of 60% paid maternity
leave. She really doesn't earn much after taxes, but we save all her income -
more than 15k per year.

Salaries are lower here and things are getting more expensive for sure. But
for 400k+ EUR, we should be able to buy a place for a family of four and bet
set for a long time.

~~~
pmorici
I'm not sure what you consider the suburbs but I'm confident you could find
that same situation or better so long as you looked at medium size and smaller
cities or towns in the US.

~~~
cribbles
You can't. US cities are uniformly car-centric. The exceptions to the rule are
too expensive to buy property in anywhere close to city center.

Aside: I lived (and grew up) in several small-to-medium sized US cities prior
to settling in Berlin. None come close to offering a similar range of cultural
infrastructure to the typical medium-size European city, and quality of life
is totally incomparable - again in Europe's favor.

~~~
Spooky23
Sure you can. I live in such a place. Housing around $200k for 4br, 2ba,
decent salary, etc.

I don’t know what your vision of cultural infrastructure is, but I feel
culturally satiated.

~~~
germinalphrase
Where do you live that a decent 4br/2ba goes for 200k? I’m in the Midwest and
that’s at least 100-150k lower than I’d expect in an urban area (rural
communities, sure - but not the city).

~~~
tomkinstinch
Rochester and Buffalo are this affordable, and have the added benefit of being
in New York State.

~~~
driverdan
I can't tell if this is sarcasm. Being in NY is a negative, not a positive. NY
has some of the highest taxes in the country and much of the money gets
funneled to NYC.

------
speeder
I am Brazillian

Still, sadly that stuff also applies here...

Me and my friends around my age, that were born in solid middle-class families
(of the sort that could own only one car, a cheap house or apartment and so
on), were taught that the path of life was: go to college, get a job or public
sector job (here in Brazil those are popular), marry, have a boring life.

Instead we went to college paid with crazy loans, found no jobs, jumped around
from gig to gig trying to repay the loans, people don't want seriosu
relationships, only flings, and now I am 30, living back in my parents house,
still with no job.

A 30 year old college friend of mine that is excellent designer and know some
coding, is living on his parents home with his kid (no wife), to pay the kid
bills he found a illegal-ish gig as construction worker, and after he lost
that job, he can't find a new one.

My grandparents used to tell me what was their "poor life", where they had to
walk to school, work their asses off early, date in front of dad of the bride,
eat eggs because other food was expensive...

Now we have a "rich" life, with cars (that belong to parents, I never could
afford my own, neither my friends), computer, internet... but can't afford our
own house, we can't "work our ass off" because there is no work, eating enough
protein in some months have been hard, as food prices inflated way beyond the
wage growth and what is affordable now is basically cereals and starchy foods
(like potatoes), and your food choice become: eat enough nutrients and baloon
in size wildly as all food availble has too much calories comapred to other
nutrients, or control your calories, have nutrient deficit...

To me is no surprise people live in slums or invaded areas, one time I rented
a apartment with cracked walls, non-working fire alarm, elevator that often
had issues (like operating with doors open and stopping 20 centimeters off-
level), no garage, and the rent was 4 times the mininum wage, I could only
afford living there when my income due to some coding contracts landed me in
the top 3% highest earners of the country... made me wonder, where everyone
else was living. (or one time I shared a normal 3 bedroom house, with
literally 35 persons, most of them already had bachelor degrees, several in
STEM, and were there to train in a nearby police academy, hoping such
dangerous work was better than having no work at all in their own field)

~~~
somethingsimple
Wow, things have gotten really bad since I left the country. Mind if I ask in
what state you live? I never had trouble finding a full time programming job
in Rio Grande do Sul.

~~~
speeder
I am in São Paulo

I never got full time job offer, only contracts, some that were joblike (ie:
company treated me as actual contractor but expected me to be present 9-5
every day in the office).

When I was fresh out of college I did got some offers for part time work, but
with wage so small it wouldn't cover any of my costs at all (for example wages
were smaller than my monthly debt repayments of student debt alone).

~~~
mtw
It sounds like you have good programming experience and can write decent
English. I would look for remote work with a North American or European
startup, send them your GitHub account and recent work. That would be better
than trying to find a local opportunity

------
pmorici
Is it just me or do these articles about economic hardship always seem to use
the most unsurprising examples for their prototypical struggling subject. The
example they use here is freelance writer. Hasn't that job title always had
poor prospects? I remember a similar article posted here about people
struggling to find work after the 2008 crash and their example was a person
who had been laid off but instead of trying to find a new job they purposely
blew through their savings for a couple years and were then surprised when
they went to look for work and something didn't immediately materialize.

~~~
ForHackernews
One of the other examples in the same article is a middle-aged aerospace
engineer, so maybe that's more to your liking.

~~~
troupe
An aerospace engineer who decided to become a personal chef and went into deep
dept at a culinary school. I'm guessing this individual is a bit different
than the engineers I know.

~~~
bittercynic
If you're an in-demand engineer, you're likely surrounded by in-demand
engineers, and that might seem like the norm to you, but that path might not
be available to everyone.

I think it's worth thinking about the conditions that could lead to a person
seemingly torpedoing herself with an expensive, debt-ridden culinary
certificate. Things really have gotten tougher for many Americans over the
past few decades. Some people make it extra tough on themselves by refusing to
handle downward mobility gracefully and taking the best options available to
them. On the surface, borrowing money for culinary school seems like an
objectively (very) bad choice, but people are complicated, and I'd be
interested in understanding what brought her to this.

~~~
troupe
> On the surface, borrowing money for culinary school seems like an
> objectively (very) bad choice

Well that is kind of my point. I don't know any engineer that would go to an
expensive culinary school as a way to enter another career. I have yet to meet
a competent engineer that wouldn't look at the return on investment of
something like that. I'm not saying they aren't out there, but the things that
make you a good engineer are the very things that keep you from going into
debt at an expensive culinary school.

I'm not trying to insult the person who is looking for a new career, but too
often I hear these stories about how hard life is for someone, but when you
look at the entire story it doesn't add up. In this case, I think there is a
reasonable chance that calling her an "aerospace engineer" is an overstatement
of her engineering skills. It is possible she is an exception is actually a
skilled aerospace engineer, but it seems unlikely or that there is something
being left out.

------
dalbasal
There are all sorts of aspects to this. In terms of the bigger, longer term
trends, I think the dynamic described by Thomas Picketty is the most important
aspect. Long term trends towards increased wealth disparity.

On the other hand, at the micro level people actually experience, I think the
cultural dynamic is more important. It determines how people feel about the
economy.

 _The people she talks to believed their educations and backgrounds (most of
them grew up in middle-class homes) would guarantee some financial stability_

Upward mobility is ideologically important to any major, modern political
camp. Few deal with downward mobility in any way. Individuals will have a much
tougher time politically tolerating being poorer than their parents (or their
cohort) than just being poor. Losing is more emotional than winning and the
grudge lasts longer than the opposite.

Ideologically, I think most of us would say that social class should not be
inherited. Emotionally, few of us can live with downward moves in the economic
hierarchy. It creates an unmistakable feeling of having been robbed of one's
birthright.

~~~
branchless
Nope this guy has a good job. Not about mobility. This is about rentiers.
People need to read "Progress and poverty" by Henry George. Land prices are
the issue.

~~~
dalbasal
Not having a job isn't the only way to move down a tier. I think what a lot of
cohorts are feeling (the economy is broken) comes down to (1) middle class
upbringing (2) did the things middle class kids are supposed to do, like
college, "professional white collar job" (3) results are worse than expected.

People's expectations can be set all sorts of ways, but the most obvious is
comparatively to the group they believe they are or shoybe part of. Ie,
parents, friends...

This is all at the personal level. There are also macro trends and dynamics in
the economy overall. Haven't read George, but Picketty (recent Nobel laureate)
has a very good theory for this. I don't know how George uses "rentier" but
"returns to capital" probably encompasses.

------
mrfredward
A lot of things in America are really cheap, but there are a few areas where
we are denied cost effective options. I like colleges as an example because
you don't need any domain specific knowledge to see the excess.

I went to a cheap state school. The buildings were made of red brick, the
paths were paved with brick and replaced every 3 years, and the gardens were
meticulously maintained...the place was meant to look like a palace, and this
was one of the most cost effective options I could find. If I don't strike it
rich, I'll probably never live or work in a place as fancy as where I went to
school.

Of course there are ugly colleges too, but the point is that the price of
tuition includes a lot that has nothing to do with education, and a lot of
this is stuff people wouldn't pay for if given the choice.

Does it make sense to pay for an upper middle class lifestyle when you're a
broke 19 year old? Don't worry, the government will give you a loan...

~~~
troupe
> the price of tuition includes a lot that has nothing to do with education,
> and a lot of this is stuff people wouldn't pay for if given the choice.

This is a very good point. There are colleges that are quite a bit less
expensive, but as a whole the fact you can get a loan for pretty much any
amount without needing to justify the return on investment guarantees that
colleges will keep increasing their expenses to get students to spend their
debt at their school.

~~~
downrightmike
On undergrad, there is a life time limit of $60k, so expect the average cost
to go up to that. And then the limit will be increased.

------
mathiasben
It's the concentration of wealth causing this as the economy is being bled
dry. the fix is to restore the progressive tax code, income in excess of
$5M/yr taxed at 99%. not rocket science, but nearly impossible because
politics, so get used to being poor America. currently half of jobs in usa pay
less than $18/hr. only going to get worse unless the root cause is addressed.

~~~
gok
Extremely progressive taxation isn't effective. The very rich have ways of
hiding or deferring income.

There's also the problem that there simply isn't very much money at that
level. Just to put it into perspective, the top 1% of tax payers only had an
AGI of about $2 trillion. Let me get even more extreme than what you propose.
If you taxed at 100% over $1M/year, you'd only get $431 billion. So that would
only add about $200 billion (about 15%) of Federal revenue per year since
they're already paying about half of that on earnings over $1M/yr. Oh yeah,
BTW, how would they pay local and state taxes out of that?

~~~
softawre
The problem isn't the tax rate, it's the growing wealth inequality. Since you
seem to have thought much about this already - do you agree it's a problem,
and how would you fix it, if not for progressive taxation?

~~~
gok
Growing wealth/income inequality is bad. Transfers can be effective for
reducing wealth inequality. We'd need more revenue for that, however.

Progressive taxation is good. Progressive taxation that only targets the top
0.1% isn't effective unless income inequality were much worse than it is.

To make a meaningful amount of more revenue via income tax without hurting the
bottom 90% too much, we'd need to target the top 10%. That probably means the
top tax bracket should kick in around $130K. Much lower than where it is now,
but high by the standards of many other rich countries (in the Netherlands 52%
kicks in at $63k/yr, in Denmark it's 60% at $55/yr).

We should add a VAT too. Possibly with a simple UBI-style system to offset its
impact on the poor (since they consume more of their earnings than the rich)

------
jaggederest
All the explanation you need in two graphs:

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=ki8y](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=ki8y)

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=ki8A](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=ki8A)

Cost of education over real median household income, and house price index
over real median household income. Education is more than twice as expensive
as the start of the century, and houses are almost twice as expensive as the
start of the century.

~~~
coliveira
You're forgetting health care costs, which have skyrocketed since the 80s.
Interestingly, all of these costs are not part of official inflation numbers,
so real inflation for middle class is much higher than the reports say.

~~~
arethuza
Why _wouldn 't_ you include health care costs in inflation figures? Seems to
be something that most people have to pay one way or another?

~~~
coliveira
It is a game played by the American government so the economy seems better
than it really is. Another example is that large part of the GDP growth in the
US is related to health care, so you get here a double effect: higher economy
growth compared to other countries with socialized medicine, and lower
inflation numbers when in fact it is the opposite.

------
rdlecler1
High housing prices are a massive tax on both middle class and investment. It
all flows to landlords and lenders. Cut housing prices by 1/2 - 2/3 and the
middle class has money for other things. We need an Elon Musk for housing.

~~~
dangjc
I'm in the bay area, and the main thing that is expensive is housing.
Groceries are cheap. Eating and drinking out are the same as other cities. To
help the middle class, remove restrictive zoning policies. It's a uniquely
American problem because these policies were the product of racism. Requiring
single family homes kept out poorer, usually black, renters.

~~~
frockington
How is it a product of racism? I always assumed it was due to the city's
constituents wanting to protect their real estate invesments

~~~
abhinavkulkarni
A simple Google search on Redlining
([https://www.google.com/search?q=new+york+times+redlining](https://www.google.com/search?q=new+york+times+redlining))
will reveal how current housing laws and massive wealth transfer that interest
mortgage deduction is from less fortunate to the wealthy. There is a near
unanimity among economists that housing subsidies are a bad policy and
exacerbate rent seeking behavior. If not racist, those policies are downright
classist (the line can be very blurry), designed to keep a small minority of
homeowners (akin to landed gentry) in power.

~~~
frockington
I agree that the motivations are primarily driven by investment
protection/greed. I am failing to see the racist aspect to it.

------
tracer4201
My total comp this year is ballpark $240K. I'm still paying student loans. I'd
like to buy a home, but in my area, there's nothing in a reasonable commmute
from work under $750-$800K and anything less is getting bought in cash for
some ridiculous amount over asking price.

You might argue that $800K is justified on a $240K income. I have anxiety from
the thought that I could lose my job, and the barrier to entry in my field at
other companies is so high that I would burn through my savings/investments
and not be able to pay mortgage, taxes, + insurance.

~~~
cylinder
You can easily afford that mortgage. It's $4100/mo. Aren't you netting
$12-$14k/mo after income tax? Not sure what the property taxes are where you
are.

Everyone faces the same anxiety when buying, but what's the alternative? Is
your rent that much cheaper? If you lose your job, you still have to rent a
place to live.

You're also missing out on a big capital gains tax exemption.

If you do lose your job, you can rent it out.

$800k is nothing in a city with $240k jobs. You should see other big cities in
the world!

~~~
jacquesm
> If you do lose your job, you can rent it out.

Will you pay him back the difference if he can't? If not then why such
definitive statements about what someone else should be comfortable with.

I could easily borrow a million or more from the bank to buy a house, but that
wouldn't make it a wise decision. Instead I live in a house far smaller and
more modest than what I could be living in and I feel better for it knowing
that in a downturn (when most likely more people are experiencing a downturn)
I will not have to change my life-style one bit.

------
teekert
Honestly as a Dutch man with a family but only one income (the norm about 40
years ago), we are are also really at the edge. And I have a relatively decent
income (1.5-2 times modal as we call it). And where does all that money go?
Well, more than 25% goes to interest on our mortgage. We get some of that back
but from tax money so it's a cigar from our own box.

Whatever we earn more as a family is taken away by the banks by allowing us to
loan more, which increases housing prices, which increases the interest they
receive. Our economy is very much rigged to keep everybody working near full
time to be able to live.

~~~
lifty
Do you have an opinion about what caused this situation where people are in a
constant chase to keep up with their expenses, especially in Netherlands? I
have my opinions but I am really curious what is the perception of a middle
class western person. Thanks!

~~~
teekert
I think it is housing prices. Banks sign money into existence as your debt.
And then you work to pay it off plus interest. We bought our house from a
single old lady for about 195.000 euros (plus 40.000 for restructuring and
then some for taxes), this woman bought this house in the sixties for 19.500
guilders (8.850 euros), she got about 186.000 euros just for living there for
50 years.

Meanwhile we pay the bank 4.85% of 245.000 yearly for 30 years (ok, it's less
now for sure) but that 4.85% would amount to 349.000 euro's for the banking
system, just for signing my debt into existence. In this way they constantly
squeeze society.

If you do the math you see that you pay over 300 a month to decrease the debt
while paying about 1000 in interest. If housing prices rise more than wages at
some point both parents have to work full time and can afford less and less
luxury items. Then we are at "maximum squeeze".

Can you imaging that my parents once payed 12% mortgage interest! of course
houses were cheaper then (this was early 80's) but still.

People with 2 incomes by the way can save a full income (although I know some
people that really can't afford to have one parent at home), they really don't
feel anything, but banks are eating away are our wealth people, wake up. And
when the banks fall because they took to much risk, they require our money
again, to be saved!

~~~
cableshaft
> Can you imaging that my parents once payed 12% mortgage interest!

Yeah, it got up to around 17% in the US back in the 80s. It sounds crazy, but
I've actually been told that it doesn't matter too much because the house
prices would be lower to compensate for it (because people don't magically
have more money to buy stuff, so if the rate goes up the house prices have to
go down).

I've actually read that it's better to get a high percentage mortgage,
especially if you know that mortgage rates are about to go on a downturn,
because you can buy a house at a much cheaper sticker price than you would
normally, and then you can refinance your mortgage once the percent goes down
and get the lower mortgage rate on top of that!

It's actually supposed to be a lot worse to get a house with a low mortgage
rate when they're about to start shooting up (which is right when we bought a
house, four months ago, yay), because a) you won't want to refinance to a
higher mortgage rate, and b) if you do decide to sell in a higher mortgage
rate market, then the sticker price of your house is going to have to go down
quite a bit to reflect that in order for the house to sell, so you might end
up losing money on your house, or at least see much more reduced gains.

~~~
zippy5
My real estate philosophy is "how much more can the next person borrow"? I
think that once you adjust for inflation and borrowing power of interest rate
changes, housing is a lot less attractive as an investment.

~~~
cableshaft
Yeah I don't personally see houses as investments, myself. We bought the house
to live in, although I don't know if this house will last us for 30+ years
(we've done a pretty good job filling it up already and we don't even have
kids yet). So it would be nice if it at least kept its value for when we do
end up selling it.

------
dbatten
This raises two questions in my mind:

I admittedly come from a very privileged background (in terms of both an
upper-middle-class family and genetics), but how have so many people found
themselves in places where it's so hard to make ends meet? My parents paid for
college (like I said, admittedly privileged) and the State of North Carolina
actually gave me free tuition and paid me a stipend to get my Master's degree
(free/cheap government education is a benefit which you don't have to be
privileged to get, at least not as privileged). I chose the "wrong" programs
from a job prospects / earnings perspective - Sociology and Public
Administration. I still managed to fall into a career as a data scientist. I'm
not paid a bay-area salary, but then the suburbs of Raleigh/Durham don't have
a bay-area cost of living either. My wife and I have a bigger house than we
need, drive two old (2005 & 2009) but functional cars, have two kids, take a
reasonably nice week-long vacation each year, and give quite a bit away, all
on one salary. We've both made sacrifices to be debt free other than the
mortgage, which helps. Most of my close friends went to very reasonably-priced
state schools (e.g., NC State University), got the "right" degrees, and are
now gainfully employed and able to support a family. Do I just live in that
much of a bubble? Are my and my friends' experiences really that out of the
ordinary in America in 2018?

Second, is it just because I'm young? This article suggests a lot of
programmers/engineers end up being un-hireable by middle age, and struggle to
find another career to make ends meet. Does that match the experience of a lot
of folks here? From my perspective, most of the middle aged
programmers/engineers I know have just moved on to become software architects,
managers of development teams, CTOs, consultants, etc. - in other words,
they're doing even more lucrative work facilitated by their years of
experience.

~~~
RubenSandwich
I'm sorry but you do live in a bubble. Here is a UN report on poverty and
rising inequality in the USA:
[https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1629536/files/A_HRC_38_...](https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1629536/files/A_HRC_38_33_Add-1-EN.pdf).

Here are a few notes from the report:

* In September 2017, more than one in every eight Americans were living in poverty (40 million, equal to 12.7% of the population). And almost half of those (18.5 million) were living in deep poverty, with reported family income below one-half of the poverty threshold.

* In the OECD the US ranks 35th out of 37 in terms of poverty and inequality.

* The youth poverty rate in the United States is the highest across the OECD with one quarter of youth living in poverty compared to less than 14% across the OECD.

* US healthcare expenditures per capita are double the OECD average and much higher than in all other countries. But there are many fewer doctors and hospital beds per person than the OECD average.

* The Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks the most well-off countries in terms of labor markets, poverty, safety net, wealth inequality, and economic mobility. The US comes in last of the top 10 most well-off countries, and 18th amongst the top 21.

* According to the World Income Inequality Database, the US has the highest Gini rate (measuring inequality) of all Western Countries

The truth is poverty and inequality is uncomfortable and pushed to the edges
of society.

~~~
frockington
I don't understand the inclusion of wealth inequality stats. How do rich
people making more money affect the "average" American? The idea of forcing an
upper limit on wealth is the exact opposite of the American system.

~~~
petermcneeley
"How do rich people making more money affect the "average" American" Because
we live in a world where some things are effectively finite. So the relative
wealth of other people does indeed have an affect on what you can afford. This
is like an econ 101 idea.

~~~
frockington
Most of Jeff Bezos (and other rich people) money will be invested. These
investments include government bonds, stocks, corporate debt etc. These
investments will likely lower costs by providing liquidity to markets and
funding for future innovations

~~~
petermcneeley
That is effectively the growing pie argument which is great however if the
inequality grows faster than the pie you are left with a smaller relative
wealth which means you will be at a loss when it comes to any finite resource.

------
downrightmike
A large part of the problem is the psychology of being middle class. No one
wants to be poor, or to think that they are poor, they affiliate themselves
with the middle class. The social definition of what is middle class has been
broadened to include people who would otherwise fit in the poor definition.
Thinking themselves to be middle class, they try to act it and over spend and
never save. A more stringent definition used to be something along the line of
being a professional that would allow you to be able to afford to retire early
and have the funds to get into politics or some other service. Poor people
will continue to be bled dry, while the middle class shrinks and everyone
refuses to accept they are technically poor and they need to act with purpose
to improve their situations.

~~~
itchyouch
Isn't it just percentiles? I recall 30-80th percentiles being considered the
middle class. 50th percentile household income is around 55-60k. 30th-80th is
somewhere around 40-160k/year ish in income.

The problem is that "incomes have stayed relatively flat" aka, people were
still making the same 40-160k/yr 20-50 years ago, thus they have lost earning
power.

------
metalliqaz
> some sharp points about how workers are expected to “deny their biology” and
> “how little American businesses and legislators care about care,”

These are two wonderful, succinct statements that perfectly describe the
American experience.

------
notacoward
People often lump freelance/contingent work and the "gig economy" together,
but they're actually two different things. Yes, both are often used to avoid
the cost of taxes and benefits, or to gain flexibility and not have to lay off
regular workers if the business doesn't thrive. However, freelance and
contingent work has generally been about hiring people who _chose_ to work
under those terms, to accept the uncertainty and some of the costs in return
for gaining their own kind of flexibility or a higher hourly wage. The gig
economy to a large degree seems to rely on a pool of _involuntarily_
unemployed (or under-employed) people who would very much prefer to have a
more regular job with a more regular paycheck if only they could find one. If
the economy, or economic policy, changed so that there were more _decent_ jobs
available, the freelancers and contractors would go on as they always have but
the gig workers would all bail and the gig-economy companies would have to
make some serious adjustments to stay in business (if that would even be
possible in such a different labor environment).

------
projectramo
I can tell the ages of people posting on here from their comments.

I love Berlin because of the nightlife and culture. 20s.

I love Berlin because of the free schooling. 30s and 40s.

I love Berlin because of the free healthcare. 50s+

------
golergka
> Quart describes her own experience of slipping into the “falling middle-
> class vortex” after the birth of her daughter seven years ago, a time when
> she and her husband were freelance writers facing new child care costs and
> hospital bills.

TBH, couple of "freelance writers" deciding to have a child sounds like recipe
for financial disaster right from the bat. I understand that "freelance
writer" is a broad term, but most of the writers I know are very far from
affording a child or two.

I understand that having a child, unlike, say, buying a sports car, is a
luxury a __lot __of people around the world decide to indulge in even if they
don 't really afford it. But if you spend money and resources on something you
can't really afford, at least be honest with yourself about it.

~~~
z0r
Raising children being relegated to luxury status is a symptom of an
oppressive and/or failing economic system.

~~~
golergka
Not at all - it's a sign of an economic system that finally accounts for
ecological externalities. If we want to save the planet, human population
needs to stop growing. So, on average, a person should only be able afford one
child. And when you remember that wealth inevitably follows a pareto
distribution, it's obvious that most families won't be able to afford any
children at all.

~~~
z0r
That's not what happens. Population growth is outsourced to the third world
(immigration, manufacturing, etc.) The planet (biosphere) will be hollowed out
beyond repair by our ever growing economy. "Wealth inevitably follows a pareto
distribution" is just an excuse for terminating your thinking.

------
dqpb
> _They are people on the brink who did everything 'right'_

One of my favorite lessons of software engineering: it doesn't matter how
right you think you are.

------
jiveturkey
TFA is a rather thin "review" of the book, almost completely unsubstantive.

> _“It’s not your fault.” Based on the diligent people she meets, it’s hard to
> disagree._

Sorry, but one can be diligent and still have made wrong choices. And the
irony is thick. The author found herself in this boat through years of being a
freelance writer, and now in heavy debt from culinary school.

I haven't read the book but I very much doubt I would find it compelling. I do
agree, some and maybe most of the blame doesn't lie on the middle class's
shoulders (except for lack of civic engagement), but it doesn't seem like this
book is going to get to the heart of it.

I also laugh at this quote from TFA:

> _Even lawyers, a traditionally risk-averse bunch who tend to choose their
> profession for its stability, are getting caught in the vise between
> increasing law school tuitions and decreasing job prospects. Precarity,
> Quart suggests, can translate into solidarity._

 _Even_ lawyers? It is well known that law schools are pumping out too many
and too low qualified grads. The information about job prospects is available.
Those who went into tier 3 law schools thinking that they would come out the
other end successfully have made their own bed. Yes indeed much fault lies
with the law schools themselves, but let's not absolve the students of blame
here.

------
mruniverse
Is it worth reading or is it just about how things are more expensive and we
don't make enough?

~~~
throwaway7312
It's that, + "middle class going broke after being conned by Trump University
& the gig economy."

~~~
mruniverse
I like the writing from Paul Krugman. He tries to explain systemic reasons for
inequality.

------
cyberpunk0
Death of the American dream was a decent doc about this subject. All of this
has been engineered into place over a long period of time.

~~~
skrebbel
> has been engineered into place

You're conveying an image of handwringing illuminati in a room who are out to
get us. Is that what you mean? If not, _who_ has been engineering this and
why?

~~~
rectang
Corporate entities evolve and adapt akin to biological organisms competing for
survival. Rather than a group of individuals (the illuminati) winning out
through elaborate conspiracy over other individuals, it seems to me more
likely that the diminishing power of individuals is coming as a result of non-
directed evolutionary improvement by corporations.

~~~
Applejinx
Absolutely. This is a significant point. People, being anthropomorphic, are
looking for some Big Evil Person who is personally doing all this, when it's
an epiphenomenon of the systems we accept/tolerate.

~~~
slimshady94
Is there any (succinct, easy-to-understand) research on the lifecycle/birth &
death/power & influence of these entities? This seems a major point to be
aware of, which is not taught anywhere in school/college.

~~~
rectang
What got me thinking about corporate evolution was Richard Dawkins, who
applied concepts from evolutionary biology to non-biological spheres with
"meme". You might consider his book "The Selfish Gene".

This is a popular line of thought (try googling "corporation evolutionary
biology", which gets you to pages like [https://hbr.org/2016/01/the-biology-
of-corporate-survival](https://hbr.org/2016/01/the-biology-of-corporate-
survival) ), but it has a weakness: it's hard to be rigorous. In the field of
evolutionary biology, experiments are hard to design and hypotheses are hard
to falsify, so a lot of the writing is deeply infected by the author's
prejudices.

I'm sure there's _something_ there, and I'm confident that whatever it is is
more plausible than fragile conspiracy theories like the Illuminati. But
_exactly_ how non-biological entities compete and evolve is hard to say.

------
yosito
Stretched would be more accurate.

------
exabrial
Should have been entitled, why people on the coasts can't afford America.

------
EZ-E
Where did the money go?

------
eulers__number
thats why we need anarcho-capitalism

------
timwaagh
i would love to participate in this discussion. unfortunately i cannot,
because although i do not have to complain about money, unfortunately my
financial situation is not so amazing it would be smart to throw away money on
a NYT subscription.

~~~
chrisseaton
There is a rule in this site against complaining about pay walls.

~~~
timwaagh
my bad. i thought the rule was against pay walls itself. maybe something
changed.

edit: cannot find any rule on this in the guidelines. perhaps you could give
me a reference.

~~~
chrisseaton
> ... please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

------
jk_danson
There is opportunity everywhere. The middle class is fading more from a lack
of individual drive to succeed. My parent went from middle class to absolute
broke. They lost their home and lived with their parent for several years
while rebuilding what they lost. Now they own a better home and are doing very
well. They are a one income family (my father works and has no college
degrees) with 5 kids still living with them.

------
User23
Funny how the word "immigration" never appears in these articles. Any
intellectually honest assessment of the waning American middle class needs to
consider the overwhelming post 1965 demographic changes.

Regardless of your personal feelings on the matter, adding tens of millions of
very poor people to a population over the course of decades is, as a
mathematical certainty, going to reduce the median wealth of the population.

Then add to that dynamic effects such as increased demand for housing and
other necessities, higher taxes to cover increased costs of health, education,
welfare, and so on, and it's no wonder the fading middle class is getting
squeezed.

~~~
kylehotchkiss
[https://www.recode.net/2018/1/12/16883260/trump-
immigration-...](https://www.recode.net/2018/1/12/16883260/trump-immigration-
us-america-tech-companies-immigrants)

"Immigrants and their children have helped found 60 percent of the most highly
valued tech companies in the U.S"

~~~
User23
I was very careful not to make any value judgments or even prescriptions. I'm
simply looking at facts and reasonable inferences from them. Some people will
prefer to conclude that immigration is bad and should be reduced. Some people
will prefer to conclude that immigration is great and should be increased. In
the vast majority of cases people's preferences appear to align with their own
perceived self interest. The people down-voting this post and my original one
are assuredly members of the latter class.

Immigration isn't a binary issue. One can reasonably conclude that tens of
millions of poor uneducated foreigners are bad for the US population median
wealth distribution, but tens of thousands of educated entrepreneurial
foreigners are good for it. One can also do so without succumbing to the
puerile some's good more's better pseudo-reasoning that dominates the Overton
approved discourse on the subject.

Also, supporting my original post, that massive influx of affluent foreigners
has observably greatly increased the cost of living in the bay area. A person
can make 6 figures and still be considered in poverty. This is clearly germane
to any discussion of the middle class withering away.

