5 ms·

I feel like technology has led to such an efficient form of capitalism over the past 20 years, that there's no room left for any possibility of social mobility.

• joefourier 8y ago
  Where do you live, and what on earth are you spending your money on? Housing may be absurdly costly in many cities but $5.5k a month after tax (assuming you're American) is enough to do much better than "barely ok" almost anywhere. Are you significantly in debt or living above your means?
  • aphextron 8y ago
    >Where do you live, and what on earth are you spending your money on? Bay area ~$5,000 net monthly $2500 Rent/PGE $1000 Car/Insurance/Gas/Parking/Phone/Internet $500 Food/Clothing $500 IRA That leaves ~$500 monthly discretionary income, which I usually try to save as much as possible but inevitably gets eaten up by all the stupid little things in life that cost too much nowadays. I can't even imagine supporting a family on this income and it is far higher than most people will ever see.
    • WalterBright 8y ago
      I don't think the bay area housing situation is at all representative of capitalism.
    • jerf 8y ago
      That is definitely a localized phenomenon. I don't live in the Valley and my expenses are generally lower than that. (Or at least they are if I translate my expenses into single life. Though my "rent"/mortgage is just straight-up lower than that and you'd probably cry to see what I get for it.) I tend to agree with you. In your position, you need to really want to live in SV for it to be worth it; you're paying a huge premium for the benefit of paying that huge premium.
    • IncRnd 8y ago
      Living the Bay Area and paying $2,500 for rent, you have $1,000 net discretionary income. Even if you decide not to shrink your expenses or grow your income, you are still in a great position. PS One day you will realize that things you once thought important are actually unimportant. If you keep saving for that day, you will be in fine shape. There is no need for angst, today. If I might make a recommendation - run some numbers as to where you will be if you decrease your expenses, increase your income, save more, etc. Do all that, forecasting for a set period of time, and do not pay any financial advisors or ask anyone else. Just use your own efforts to investigate. If you do that, I believe you will make the best decision for what to do.
      • user5994461 8y ago
        Money is relative, $500 a month is nothing. It will take a year of savings to pay the deposit if he ever has to move out, or to cover the rent if he ever gets unemployed.
        • IncRnd 8y ago
          You're talking about things that have nothing to do with my comment. But, on your point - you did the math wrong. He has $12,000 discretionary income not $6,000. He likely already paid his last month's rent of $2,500, and he already mentioned savings. So, it makes no sense for you to infer that it will take him a year to move if he loses his job.
    • majormajor 8y ago
      I'd consider that too low a salary premium to justify Bay Area rent. There's an aspect of "because people are willing to put up with it" to "why are prices so high in some areas."
      • jessaustin 8y ago
        Lots of people in the Bay Area make less than that. If they left, there would be many difficulties.
    • scarface74 8y ago
      There are plenty of major metropolitan areas where the salary vs cost of living make a lot more sense. I live in one of the 25 most affluent counties in the US and just bought a brand new build 5 bedroom 3.5 bath house 2900 square feet for a little over 320K.
    • refurb 8y ago
      Socking away 10% of your take home income for retirement is not "barely making it". Also, do you have a 401k contribution coming out as well? I assume the $500 IRA is a Roth IRA? By that same argument I could make $200K, sock $5000 per month away in savings and say "I only have $500 in discretionary funds each month! I'm barely making it!"
      • 3pt14159 8y ago
        Eh. If he ever wants to own his own home it kinda is, yeah.
        • refurb 8y ago
          I don't think owning your own home in the most expensive markets in the US should define whether you're "barely making it" or not.
      • aphextron 8y ago
        That's basically my point though. I'm doing just OK, not getting rich or anything, just not worried about bills and able to save for a retirement. But this used to be the standard for American families. Not the 90th percentile outlier. The economy has changed so fundamentally that it's either get rich or die.
    • kcorbitt 8y ago
      Yes, housing is extremely expensive in the Bay Area. However, consider your options before deciding that there's no way to save more. I pay $500/month for your "Car/Insurance/Gas/Parking/Phone/Internet" category (old car, cheap MVNO, don't take the car to places where they charge for parking) and $300 for food/clothing. And that's for a family of 3. I do pay a bit more than you for Rent/PGE ($2750 all told) but again, family of 3 -- we need the second bedroom (and lived in a 1-bedroom for the first two years after my son was born anyway). I'm certainly not saying that my choices are the "right" ones, but I am saying that if you make saving for the future a high priority it's possible to do at your income level, even in the Bay Area.
• 3pt14159 8y ago
  Guys, downvoting aphextron isn't helpful. He's sharing his perspective. I get that some of us are poor students living off of almost nothing, but try to listen when people talk about their own personal situation. People struggle with different things and we should try to learn from them instead of dismissing them. Aphextron, I actually kinda get where you're coming from. Things like housing are appreciating so fast that you can be forced to rent, then pushed out of a neighbourhood that you helped gentrify because the rent is going up way faster than your ability to pay. The rent controls don't work because landlords can get around them, rarely get caught, and relationships can end without warning.
  • smnrchrds 8y ago
    To be clear, I haven't downvoted aphextron, but I disagree with them. Here is my objection: > The basic necessities of life have risen to perfectly match your income No, the basic quality of life has risen to perfectly match your income. Houses are more expensive compared to decades ago, but they have nice things like indoor plumbing, electricity, and fire retardant walls; all of which would have been a luxury if you go back long enough. Medical costs have ballooned, but so has the quality of care, life expectancy, and medical technology; so many incurable diseases of generations ago are now easily cured, e.g. Hepatitis C. There is an argument to be made that we should be able to afford all these things for less, that the price has risen above the rate of its utility, that we have reached the point of diminishing returns for basic necessities, and I agree with that to some extent. There is also another argument (a libertarian one) that says government has illegalized poverty by raising the floor on the quality of goods and services. For example, if you want to build a 1920-style home (with asbestos-laced walls, without plumbing and electricity, without smoke or CO detectors, etc.) at 1920-level prices, you cannot legally do that due to regulations. The minimum quality set by government regulations have made everything more expensive and one should not be forced to abide by these quality rules if they want to break them knowingly and of free will. There was an story about a (Mexican?) car which was priced at 5000$ new. But it would not pass safety regulations in the US. In that country, you would have a choice to buy a safe car and pay the higher price for it, buy an unsafe car and pay a much lower price, or don't buy a car. In the US, you lose one of these choices and you are more severely affected if you are poor. I see the point in this argument, but I don't agree with it. I like raising minimum standards to match the level the society can afford as it gets more prosperous. But in either case, let's not pretend we are paying more for getting the same or lower utility. We are living longer and better lives compared to generations past. If we are going to debate about prices across generations, we should also take quality and utility into account. Otherwise the comparison would be meaningless.
• wufufufu 8y ago
  {sum of your total monthly subscriptions/bills} = {your monthly paycheck}
• dylrich 8y ago
  You make ~$90,000 a year and are barely getting by with no debt or children? Where do you live?
  • ttul 8y ago
    In the Bay Area, $90K is not sufficient. A one bedroom might cost $3500/month - that’s $40K of your net income.
    • xtian 8y ago
      If you are making $90k and living in SF you should be looking at studios or for roommates, not at one bedrooms. A one bedroom in a city like SF is a luxury.
      • smichel17 8y ago
        Isn't that kind of the point of the original comment? That cost of living rises by location in almost perfect parallel to wages? So even though they make a relative lot of money, their standard of living doesn't actually increase much.
        • majormajor 8y ago
          Wages don't rise exactly like that. There's a threshold under which it doesn't make much sense at all. If you're making under 100K - and certainly under 50k - I wouldn't be surprised if you could be much more financially comfortable in, say, Dallas. Chop your rent budget in half, lower your tax burden, you'll probably get a bigger chunk of monthly spending money.
        • xtian 8y ago
          No, your standard of living absolutely won’t increase. I would actually say almost everyone living in that kind of city is (perhaps unknowingly?) choosing to sacrifice in that column. Depending on what you value, however, your quality of life may increase dramatically. And any efforts in frugality will likely yield a greater absolute return than they would in a less costly locale.
• mobilefriendly 8y ago
  High marginal income tax rates are designed to keep you from building wealth-- the capital-holding classes don't want the competition for assets.
  • moorhosj 8y ago
    Income tax rates are not the problem, stagnating wages are the problem.
    • WalterBright 8y ago
      High marginal tax rates create a major barrier for building wealth.
  • aphextron 8y ago
    >High marginal income tax rates are designed to keep you from building wealth-- the capital-holding classes don't want the competition for assets. This was my first thought as well when looking at the new Republican tax brackets. They're throwing peanuts at the poor in the form of a minuscule tax break, while simultaneously cutting off their ability to ever actually build wealth by raising the middle rates.
  • vkou 8y ago
    That's because income tax for workers is a tax on revenue. The rich are taxed on capital gains - which is a tax on profit. As it turns out, getting taxed on revenue is far more punishing.
  • seiferteric 8y ago
    I actually just had this thought the other day. It used to be that most people didn't even pay income tax. I realized that income tax is like "regulatory capture" for the wealthy and acts as a barrier from the poor/middle class from moving up. If we really want to touch the rich, we would have to have more capital gains tax, wealth tax, inheritance tax etc.
• gaius 8y ago
  Especially now that websites can jack up the price based on tracking data.
• scarface74 8y ago
  The median wage is $37K (https://dqydj.com/united-states-income-brackets-percentiles/ https://dqydj.com/united-states-income-brackets-percentiles/). That means you are making about $110K as a single person you can’t live off of that?