5 ms·

The working/middle classes are getting screwed by housing, childcare, education, and healthcare costs that are a greater proportion of income than past generati

The working/middle classes are getting screwed by housing, childcare, education, and healthcare costs that are a greater proportion of income than past generations. Avacado toast is not the problem.

_carbyau_ 5y ago
In Australia, I find the Childcare is interesting. Federal government subsidises childcare significantly, like 90%. But commercial real estate hunts out childcare providers like gold mines because you can't move your childcare to just any building. At a rough guess, $20 a day of almost every child placement is going to the landlord. edit:brevity
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  > you can't move your childcare to just any building. What do you mean by this?
  - nibles_and_bits 5y ago
    Presumably, the children need to be kept in some sort of detention center. We are talking about Australia a former penal colony after all. /s
    - _carbyau_ 5y ago
      Well, the needs are similar even if the reason is different. Parents want to know their kids will not go wandering, so yeah, it very much is a "detention" centre in the sense the kids will be detained there until pickup. If you've ever been to a daycare centre... it pretty much is a prison. For little kids. With hopefully caring guardians and an exercise yard. :-P And if you've ever known a 2 year old, some of them can be little sociopaths at times.
  - _carbyau_ 5y ago
    Say you want to start a childcare business. You can't just run it in any old shopfront. Some kids match their parents 40 hours a week. So there are standards regarding kids in daycare, including the requirement for an outdoor space for play. Now this can't be achieved in all cases but you better have a good reason. And if your competitor has an outdoor space you know where parents are likely to take their kids first. https://www.education.vic.gov.au/childhood/providers/regulation/Pages/waiversoutdoor.aspx https://www.education.vic.gov.au/childhood/providers/regulat...
jjeaff 5y ago
In southern California, a starter home goes for $800k or more. Which means it will be a jumbo loan, which means you will likely need the full 20% down. So around $160k plus $3,500 a month. ($1,000 of which is for property taxes and insurance). Just for the down payment, that's 73 years worth of avacado toast at a slice a day. Millennials must be eating so much avacado toast. And that's for a house that was built in the 80s and the boomers selling it paid $75k and whose property taxes are still capped at a max growth rate of 2% a year.
- princeb 5y ago
  why can't these millenials just eat like... 70 less avocado toasts a day.
- xibalba 5y ago
  So don't live in Southern California? This is exactly the type of sacrifice people refuse to make to which I refer. "Avocado toast" is a metaphor for conspicuous consumption at the expense of savings and investment. Ex: $20 avocado toast at a brunch restaurant is absurdly unnecessary given the available options for sustenance. No one actually believes avocado toast alone is what prevents younger people from getting ahead. Show me a young person making over $40k per year and I PROMISE you I can find savings opportunities in their spending habits. This, coupled with long term compounding of returns, does make a real difference over the course of a life.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    Millennials are far more likely to change cities than their boomer or gen-x parents. Avacado toast or not, I'm not sure the data is settled on whether millennials waste more money than boomers or gen-xers. They just waste it on different things. Show me an older person making over $40k and I promise I'll find savings opportunities for them as well.
  - cheriot 5y ago
    > So don't live in Southern California? People need to live where the jobs are. When cities permit offices, but not housing they're screwing people over. > "Avocado toast" is a metaphor for conspicuous consumption at the expense of savings and investment. Here's an example from national numbers: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=FYMk https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=FYMk The price of a median house has gone from 3.6x the median salary to 5x. The ratios are worse in the cities that have added the most jobs. Framing this as a failure of personal behavior is missing the point. The current generation has to work harder than previous generations to achieve the same thing.

The working/middle classes are getting screwed by housing, childcare, education, and healthcare costs that are a greater proportion of income than past generations. Avacado toast is not the problem.

_carbyau_ 5y ago

In Australia, I find the Childcare is interesting. Federal government subsidises childcare significantly, like 90%. But commercial real estate hunts out childcare providers like gold mines because you can't move your childcare to just any building. At a rough guess, $20 a day of almost every child placement is going to the landlord. edit:brevity

actually_a_dog 5y ago
> you can't move your childcare to just any building. What do you mean by this?
- nibles_and_bits 5y ago
  Presumably, the children need to be kept in some sort of detention center. We are talking about Australia a former penal colony after all. /s
  - _carbyau_ 5y ago
    Well, the needs are similar even if the reason is different. Parents want to know their kids will not go wandering, so yeah, it very much is a "detention" centre in the sense the kids will be detained there until pickup. If you've ever been to a daycare centre... it pretty much is a prison. For little kids. With hopefully caring guardians and an exercise yard. :-P And if you've ever known a 2 year old, some of them can be little sociopaths at times.
- _carbyau_ 5y ago
  Say you want to start a childcare business. You can't just run it in any old shopfront. Some kids match their parents 40 hours a week. So there are standards regarding kids in daycare, including the requirement for an outdoor space for play. Now this can't be achieved in all cases but you better have a good reason. And if your competitor has an outdoor space you know where parents are likely to take their kids first. https://www.education.vic.gov.au/childhood/providers/regulation/Pages/waiversoutdoor.aspx https://www.education.vic.gov.au/childhood/providers/regulat...

jjeaff 5y ago

In southern California, a starter home goes for $800k or more. Which means it will be a jumbo loan, which means you will likely need the full 20% down. So around $160k plus $3,500 a month. ($1,000 of which is for property taxes and insurance). Just for the down payment, that's 73 years worth of avacado toast at a slice a day. Millennials must be eating so much avacado toast. And that's for a house that was built in the 80s and the boomers selling it paid $75k and whose property taxes are still capped at a max growth rate of 2% a year.

princeb 5y ago
why can't these millenials just eat like... 70 less avocado toasts a day.
xibalba 5y ago
So don't live in Southern California? This is exactly the type of sacrifice people refuse to make to which I refer. "Avocado toast" is a metaphor for conspicuous consumption at the expense of savings and investment. Ex: $20 avocado toast at a brunch restaurant is absurdly unnecessary given the available options for sustenance. No one actually believes avocado toast alone is what prevents younger people from getting ahead. Show me a young person making over $40k per year and I PROMISE you I can find savings opportunities in their spending habits. This, coupled with long term compounding of returns, does make a real difference over the course of a life.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  Millennials are far more likely to change cities than their boomer or gen-x parents. Avacado toast or not, I'm not sure the data is settled on whether millennials waste more money than boomers or gen-xers. They just waste it on different things. Show me an older person making over $40k and I promise I'll find savings opportunities for them as well.
- cheriot 5y ago
  > So don't live in Southern California? People need to live where the jobs are. When cities permit offices, but not housing they're screwing people over. > "Avocado toast" is a metaphor for conspicuous consumption at the expense of savings and investment. Here's an example from national numbers: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=FYMk https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=FYMk The price of a median house has gone from 3.6x the median salary to 5x. The ratios are worse in the cities that have added the most jobs. Framing this as a failure of personal behavior is missing the point. The current generation has to work harder than previous generations to achieve the same thing.