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Middle class Americans can absolutely afford to have kids. People in certain metros maybe can't afford it, but living there is often a choice they explicitly ma

Middle class Americans can absolutely afford to have kids. People in certain metros maybe can't afford it, but living there is often a choice they explicitly make, or at the very least talk themselves into. Sure you make half as much working somewhere else, but the cost of living is also a quarter as much.

brightball 7y ago
Yep. That. Every time I read something about the cost of having kids I'm looking for some idea of where these people live. The single largest expense for kids is day care and that's only necessary if you have 2 working parents...and if one of those parents income doesn't more than justify the cost of daycare it's usually a better idea to have a stay at home. People seriously take for granted the financial value that a stay at home parent brings to a home in overall cost savings. Expenses go up based on lack of time, more so than anything else. It affects your shopping, cooking, home maintenance, yard maintenance, eating out, fuel costs and long term child care costs (after school activities, day care, summer day camps, etc) that you have to worry about when you keep needing to free up time so that you can get to work. And all of those expenses are higher in densely populate areas where there's more demand for all of the "good" activities. But it often comes down to a matter of pride to have a stay at home parent.
- nostrebored 7y ago
  Current income justifying day care is a short term and fallacious comparison. You need to look at long term potential. Leaving the labor force does more than just set you back the years you were gone.
  - war1025 7y ago
    Also really depends what you are chasing, both as an individual and a family unit. It's an optimization problem where there are more variables than income. Edit: Personally, I think the whole financial independence movement is pretty interesting, and sometimes I get myself through the day by viewing it as my wife being financially independent. Which is halfway there as far as things go.
  - brightball 7y ago
    You do of course...but you also have to determine long term cost potential of all of the other expenses and savings besides day care. It compounds in both directions and gets amplified by the continued lack of time due to balancing home and work commitments. Usually it takes a couple of years of exhaustion before people come face to face with the realization that things would be much easier of one person was a stay at home. The formula is trickiest in the middle. At the higher end, a lot of couples will hire a nanny that can provide many of the same benefits as a stay at home. At the lower end, the decision is fairly easy. It's in the middle where it's toughest to come to grips with it.
sdfsaf 7y ago
A quarter? Dream on. We're living in the Midwest with an East coast salary (remote). I have no idea how other ppl here afford kids and manage to save. We spend $30k on day care and another $12k on health premiums alone.
- war1025 7y ago
  Living in the Midwest on a Midwest salary ($85k/yr), currently 30 years old, have 3 kids, a stay at home wife, and a net worth that just peeked over $250k. Also, our work health insurance is shit, so $200 gets taken out of my paycheck each week for that, which puts it right around the $12k you mentioned. Daycare is stupid expensive. Healthcare is stupid expensive. We handle the former by having my wife stay home. The latter is just an unfortunate fact of life. I really don't know how much it costs to live on the coasts, but on a developer salary you can live very comfortably in the Midwest (Ames, Iowa here).
  - papln 7y ago
    A single-income family with children and a stay-at-home parent isn't an unfortunate fact of life, it's a stable economic and social arrangement that promotes health and welfare of children, giving them a strong prospect for future success.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      war1025 said that the healthcare being stupid expensive is an unfortunate fact of life, not the single-income family.
  - jrobn 7y ago
    So you are saying if you have a non-fatal health incident then you are in serious financial trouble? My wife and I are in the same position. We pay $209 a month for “healthcare” coverage that has a $700 yearly deductible. If either of us got sick or injuries we would be totally screwed. The US system is broken. We have massive wealth inequality, an educational system in crisis, and a toxic political system.
michaelbrave 7y ago
A lot of American's grew up middle class but aren't anymore, they still think of themselves as such but truly aren't. This is how most Millenials live, they are too broke to have kids, think of themselves as middle class because they grew up that way, even if in reality they aren't.
- war1025 7y ago
  What do you consider middle class? That term is notoriously ill-defined.
  - ryanSrich 7y ago
    - $50-$99 is lower middle - $100-$199 is middle - $200-$499 is upper middle - $500-$999 is lower upper Etc. That’s the scale I’ve always used (household income). Most millennials fall in the lower middle or middle bucket.
    - war1025 7y ago
      On that scale, pretty much everyone I know / grew up around is lower middle class. Not a bad life.
    - athenot 7y ago
      This is probably accurate given how our society really is structured. But following your thresholds: - 61% of incomes are below lower middle - 26% of incomes are lower middle (median being $61,822) - 10% of incomes are middle - 3% (nearly) of incomes are upper-middle - <1% is remaining… Data from https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ Caveat, this is individual income, and you're talking about household income, so not quite the same for couples where both work.
    - mcguire 7y ago
      The real median household income was $61,372 in 2017. I think your scale may be incorrect. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N Your lower-upper class is a subset of the top 1% of incomes. https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets-percentiles/ https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets-pe...
ikeyany 7y ago
I should have clarified. Middle class Americans cannot afford to have kids if they want the type of lifestyle they grew up with. Someone who grew up in Boston will need to move further out; someone who grew up with a single mom in Austin can no longer afford to raise a kid there without a spouse.

brightball 7y ago

Yep. That. Every time I read something about the cost of having kids I'm looking for some idea of where these people live. The single largest expense for kids is day care and that's only necessary if you have 2 working parents...and if one of those parents income doesn't more than justify the cost of daycare it's usually a better idea to have a stay at home. People seriously take for granted the financial value that a stay at home parent brings to a home in overall cost savings. Expenses go up based on lack of time, more so than anything else. It affects your shopping, cooking, home maintenance, yard maintenance, eating out, fuel costs and long term child care costs (after school activities, day care, summer day camps, etc) that you have to worry about when you keep needing to free up time so that you can get to work. And all of those expenses are higher in densely populate areas where there's more demand for all of the "good" activities. But it often comes down to a matter of pride to have a stay at home parent.

nostrebored 7y ago
Current income justifying day care is a short term and fallacious comparison. You need to look at long term potential. Leaving the labor force does more than just set you back the years you were gone.
- war1025 7y ago
  Also really depends what you are chasing, both as an individual and a family unit. It's an optimization problem where there are more variables than income. Edit: Personally, I think the whole financial independence movement is pretty interesting, and sometimes I get myself through the day by viewing it as my wife being financially independent. Which is halfway there as far as things go.
- brightball 7y ago
  You do of course...but you also have to determine long term cost potential of all of the other expenses and savings besides day care. It compounds in both directions and gets amplified by the continued lack of time due to balancing home and work commitments. Usually it takes a couple of years of exhaustion before people come face to face with the realization that things would be much easier of one person was a stay at home. The formula is trickiest in the middle. At the higher end, a lot of couples will hire a nanny that can provide many of the same benefits as a stay at home. At the lower end, the decision is fairly easy. It's in the middle where it's toughest to come to grips with it.

sdfsaf 7y ago

A quarter? Dream on. We're living in the Midwest with an East coast salary (remote). I have no idea how other ppl here afford kids and manage to save. We spend $30k on day care and another $12k on health premiums alone.

war1025 7y ago
Living in the Midwest on a Midwest salary ($85k/yr), currently 30 years old, have 3 kids, a stay at home wife, and a net worth that just peeked over $250k. Also, our work health insurance is shit, so $200 gets taken out of my paycheck each week for that, which puts it right around the $12k you mentioned. Daycare is stupid expensive. Healthcare is stupid expensive. We handle the former by having my wife stay home. The latter is just an unfortunate fact of life. I really don't know how much it costs to live on the coasts, but on a developer salary you can live very comfortably in the Midwest (Ames, Iowa here).
- papln 7y ago
  A single-income family with children and a stay-at-home parent isn't an unfortunate fact of life, it's a stable economic and social arrangement that promotes health and welfare of children, giving them a strong prospect for future success.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    war1025 said that the healthcare being stupid expensive is an unfortunate fact of life, not the single-income family.
- jrobn 7y ago
  So you are saying if you have a non-fatal health incident then you are in serious financial trouble? My wife and I are in the same position. We pay $209 a month for “healthcare” coverage that has a $700 yearly deductible. If either of us got sick or injuries we would be totally screwed. The US system is broken. We have massive wealth inequality, an educational system in crisis, and a toxic political system.

michaelbrave 7y ago

A lot of American's grew up middle class but aren't anymore, they still think of themselves as such but truly aren't. This is how most Millenials live, they are too broke to have kids, think of themselves as middle class because they grew up that way, even if in reality they aren't.

war1025 7y ago
What do you consider middle class? That term is notoriously ill-defined.
- ryanSrich 7y ago
  - $50-$99 is lower middle - $100-$199 is middle - $200-$499 is upper middle - $500-$999 is lower upper Etc. That’s the scale I’ve always used (household income). Most millennials fall in the lower middle or middle bucket.
  - war1025 7y ago
    On that scale, pretty much everyone I know / grew up around is lower middle class. Not a bad life.
  - athenot 7y ago
    This is probably accurate given how our society really is structured. But following your thresholds: - 61% of incomes are below lower middle - 26% of incomes are lower middle (median being $61,822) - 10% of incomes are middle - 3% (nearly) of incomes are upper-middle - <1% is remaining… Data from https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/ Caveat, this is individual income, and you're talking about household income, so not quite the same for couples where both work.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    The real median household income was $61,372 in 2017. I think your scale may be incorrect. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N Your lower-upper class is a subset of the top 1% of incomes. https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets-percentiles/ https://dqydj.com/united-states-household-income-brackets-pe...

ikeyany 7y ago

I should have clarified. Middle class Americans cannot afford to have kids if they want the type of lifestyle they grew up with. Someone who grew up in Boston will need to move further out; someone who grew up with a single mom in Austin can no longer afford to raise a kid there without a spouse.