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The problem with this narrative is that the job of the father isn't specified. He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the cur

The problem with this narrative is that the job of the father isn't specified. He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. These jobs pay well above the minimum wage. The world has changed - simple labor that requires a few days of training doesn't pay much. Most jobs, with few exceptions, that require a decade of training, do pay well. That's why there's such a huge gap between Amazon packers and electricians, and an even bigger gap with surgeons. If you want to do well in the modern economy, you have to choose your specialization wisely. Most simple labor will be automated very soon anyway.

deleted 4y ago
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rco8786 4y ago
It seems like you’re just confirming the narrative
skulk 4y ago
> He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. False. A plumber making $80k (US median seems to be around $60k) isn't going to be able to save up for a down payment if they're paying a typical mid-sized city's rent (~$1.2k a month). Not to mention housing costs going up during this period of saving up.
- midislack 4y ago
  Are you joking? In this example rent is only a small fraction of income.
  - skulk 4y ago
    As another commenter pointed out, a 3.5% down FHA loan would make it feasible to buy a house with those numbers. But in any case, $80k is up there in terms of typical trades salaries, at least if cursory Googling can be trusted. Your median tradesman makes far less.
    - garciasn 4y ago
      Where I live (Mpls), tradespeople make six figure salaries and are well above the median HHI for the area. I lead a team that includes Zoomers and they are making six-figure salaries and are way ahead of where I was (accounting for inflation) when I was at their age. This is more generational comparison garbage like the claims that Millennials were the downfall of our civilization. Just ignore it and move on.
- woojoo666 4y ago
  I found a website that says average cost of living in New York (for 1 person) is $3200/month. That's around 40,000 per year. If the electrician is making 80k, that would mean they could save 25k/year after taxes and living expenses. 8 years of work and they would have 200k, enough for a down payment right? And this is assuming they live in new york, one of the most expensive places in the world [1]: https://livingcost.org/cost/united-states/ny/new-york https://livingcost.org/cost/united-states/ny/new-york
  - wonnage 4y ago
    Sure, if you save every cent and commit to being single without children for 8 years. But if you go to the dentist, drop your phone on accident, find an S/O, go to the gym, eat out every once in a while, buy some new clothes, pay off student loans, ... It's just very silly to find a website, grab a number, and then conclude that saving 200k in 8 years is realistic
    - woojoo666 4y ago
      I think the living expenses include health expenses, but other expenses like phones and travel probably not
      - rtlfe 4y ago
        I doubt this hypothetical person making $80k has a Cadillac health plan. They could definitely be looking at costs like $1500 for a dental crown and $1000 for an MRI before they hit their deductible.
  - slg 4y ago
    These numbers don't add up. Someone making $80k in NY will be paying at least 15-20% in taxes. This hypothetical person would have a max of like $400 a month for all their non-housing living expenses. That isn't happening in a high COL state like NY.
    - woojoo666 4y ago
- zdragnar 4y ago
  Growing, but still rural city in the Midwest I visited a few weeks back has decent homes for sale in the 50-80k range. This is not an outlier. Roughly 2/3 of Americans own homes. If you live in an area where homes are priced like luxury investments, then yes, you'll have a hard time buying when you also cannot afford other luxuries. If you live in an area where they are not, it isn't unattainable at all, especially if you combine income with a marriage partner.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Many people would consider a suggestion to live in the Midwest as about the same as a suggestion that they spend the rest of their life living in a decrepit sewer system.
    - skulk 4y ago
      Maybe you should try to understand why certain kinds of people (of, perhaps the non-white kind) would not want to move into an insular community?
      - zdragnar 4y ago
        Maybe if they visited, they'd find their assumptions to be unwarranted racism. It isn't as diverse as some other parts of the country, but there's groups of people from all over the world. Within a 2 hour drive from me, you'll find enclaves from Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Mexico and others.
        skulk 4y ago
        If not wanting to live in an enclave as a nominally second-class citizen is racist, then I don't know what to say. Let's not deny reality here, that's really what you end up being if you try to interact with the main racial group in a rural area, or at least the vast majority of them. It doesn't matter what race this happens to be, it's how people work. I know an Englishman who lives in an Indonesian village (not an enclave). He is constantly reminded that while his presence is cherished, he isn't, and never will be "one of them." He still loves it, though, so there's that.
- stolenmerch 4y ago
  I honestly don't understand. When I bought a home I was literally making the US median income and bought an average priced house. My rent at the time was about a thousand a month. I had normal student loans and regular bills too. It wasn't easy but it didn't feel like a miracle either. Not saying someone making minimum can do this by any means, but there's a huge demand for labor in decent paying areas right now. I genuinely feel like I'm missing a big piece of this puzzle.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    People post what they feel like, not what they’ve actually tried. Even if you ignore first time homeowner benefits and such, the usual thing necessary is not living in the middle of California. Often if you actually dig into it you find abject refusals to consider locations outside of a particular one, or the famous “spend less on candles. no” type of thing. https://mobile.twitter.com/dril/status/384408932061417472 https://mobile.twitter.com/dril/status/384408932061417472
  - rtlfe 4y ago
    > My rent at the time was about a thousand a month. Sounds like this was either a long time ago or in city/town where not many people want to live.
  - boplicity 4y ago
    The cost of a house has spiked to over 7x median income in the US, in a very short time. That's put buying a house out of reach for many people. Hopefully the bubble will burst -- but who knows? It could drag on for a very long time. Historically, the cost of a house has hovered around 4.5 to 5.5x annual median income. It's currently at the highest level it's ever been, at least according to this graph: https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/#:~:text=Historically%2C%20an%20average%20house%20in%20the%20U.S.%20cost,7%20times%20the%20U.S.%20median%20annual%20household%20income https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco....
    - gruez 4y ago
      What about factoring in interest rates? After all, people ultimately care about the monthly payments than about the sticker price.
- karaterobot 4y ago
  I don't agree. I made under $80k in household income when I bought my first home in 2014. This was in (well, just outside) Seattle, which was and remains one of the more expensive markets in the country. I saved up for a down payment; it took years. It wasn't my dream home, but it allowed me to build equity and continue saving for the one that was. I am not ready to say "kids these days want everything handed to them," but I will say that if you can't commit to a decade-long, multi-step process, then it may seem impossible, when it's just rather hard.
  - heavyset_go 4y ago
    It isn't 2014 anymore and rents have doubled around here since then, cost of living has gone way up, while wages have stayed relatively stagnant.
    - beej71 4y ago
      This. My house has more than doubled since 2014. There's a huge gap between those who can afford a $300k house and those who can afford an $800K house.
    - Copernicron 4y ago
      Doubled if you're lucky. I checked the price history on the condo I bought last year. It has doubled in price since the pandemic started and more like tripled since 2014. Of course I'm living in a booming area but my salary sure hasn't increased that quickly.
  - bb88 4y ago
    The traditional rule for a mortgage was 20% down and the house itself was no more than 2.5 times salary. Where I live, Boise, housing prices have shot up dramatically, over twice. Median house prices in Boise is $536k. So you would really need to make $214K/year to afford the mortgage under the old rules. And nobody makes that kind of money here.
    - hackerfromthefu 4y ago
- ceeplusplus 4y ago
  At 80k your post-tax takehome is $5000/mo even filing single in a high tax state. Take out $400 for health insurance, $800 for car+insurance, $1200 for rent, and you've still got $2500 for food, miscellaneous spending, Roth IRA, etc. Even if all those costs come to $2000 - unlikely, since the Roth contribution limit is $6k / year - you're still left with $500/month in savings. And that's assuming your partner doesn't bring in _any_ income, which is exceedingly unlikely. If your typical rent is $1200, that means property values in your area are almost certainly low enough to qualify for FHA loans, which only require 3.5% down due to government subsidies. 3.5% of $450k is $16k - so it only takes about 3 years to save for that down payment. Home prices are high _because_ FHA loans allow people to have greater purchasing power (among many other reasons like NIMBYism).
  - rtlfe 4y ago
    I hope this person never has a kid. Enjoy your rent doubling to get enough space and either losing your partner's income or spending $3k a month on day care. Plus whatever crappy insurance you're getting for $400 a month is going to leave with $10k+ in bills for just birthing the kid.
    - ceeplusplus 4y ago
      From Kaiser's 2020 survey on healthcare plans, the average worker contribution for HMO/PPO plans for a family was $5000-6000/yr [1]. These are not high deductible plans (those are specifically broken out) so they're going to be pretty good insurance, especially PPO. So $400/mo is only underestimating the true cost by about $100/mo. You can't use ACA marketplace prices to judge what your average worker is paying. > spending $3k a month on day care It costs $3200/mo to pay someone $20/h for 40 hours a week, in what world does day care (where one caretaker takes care of multiple children!) cost $3000/mo? The average cost of child care in California, which has _the_ highest cost of labor in the US, is $956/mo [2]. If you use the infant care cost it's $1400/mo, still nowhere near $3000. Maybe in the middle of New York City it costs $3000, but that's not a realistic living scenario for a plumber. If your spouse makes $3000/mo then the rent increase (call it an extra $800/mo to get to $2k/mo) and childcare cost ($1000/mo) are more than covered by their extra income. Please just look at the data and take a moment to understand what expenses outside of SF/NYC/LA look like. [1]: https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2020-summary-of-findings/ https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2020-summary-of-find... [2]: https://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/#/CA https://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/#/...
- StevePerkins 4y ago
  Not to mention that plumber probably doesn't have health coverage. The people who love to talk about what a fine profession that would be (for other people's kids, of course, never their own kids) are the same people who fight tooth and nail against any kind of health care policy that might make a non-white collar career more viable.
  - erosenbe0 4y ago
    Plumbers and pipefitters have a union that has plenty of power in current market. No health insurance and they won't work. Plumbing pays more than 80k in major cities. Plumbing contractors have to carry workers comp insurance.
    - StevePerkins 4y ago
      Having grown up in a rural area, I assure you that any unions or health coverage is a strictly urban phenomenon. And $80k isn't all that great of a top-end, for people living in major cities with their cost of living.
      - kortilla 4y ago
        This thread is about saving up to buy a house in a city though.
      - pinot 4y ago
        jman plumber in my town earns $47/hr+$32/hr in benefits. Not bad total comp especially if you add in OT.
      - the_only_law 4y ago
        I did some quick lookups from BLS and other salary sources for my (mid sized southern US MSA) sometime back and yeah the median and mean wages for a lot of skilled labor and trade positions are pretty damn close to what a lot of clerical type office jobs were paying. I.E. not great, probably livable. I’ll see if I can go back through and find my comment.
  - 4y ago
- thethethethe 4y ago
  Us median _household_ income is 60k
- smsm42 4y ago
  The trick here is that you compare overall earning over the US (including rural Arkansas and such) with "mid-city" rent - i.e. only select places. According to https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-rent-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-ren... at least half the states have median rent below $1000. And yes, you can't live in San Francisco on Arkansas salary, but if you ever tried to hire a plumber in Bay Area, especially for a job beyond "my faucet is leaking", you know very well it costs a real lot.
- marcusverus 4y ago
  Sorry to be so blunt, but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The median household income = 67K[0]. >60% of US households own a home.[1] Clearly 80K is more than enough to safe up for a down payment. [0]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S...
  - polygamous_bat 4y ago
    That is a logical fallacy: owning a home != buying a home, inheritance is a thing.
    - sidewndr46 4y ago
      To reinforce this, if you follow the links it states > The term "home-ownership rate" can also be misleading because it includes households that owe on a mortgage. Depending on your credit score and your down payment, you can wind up functionally renting a home for many years even if you "own" it on paper. It isn't until the final years of a 30 year mortgage that you actually significantly pay down the principal. As long as interest rates remain low and the credit requirements are lax, most of America can in fact "own" a home. Expect prices to skyrocket, as buyers become more and more decoupled from the cost.
      - marcusverus 4y ago
        This doesn't really contradict my point. How do these people have mortgages if they're incapable of affording a down payment?
    - marcusverus 4y ago
      Only ~30% of people receive an inheritance, at an average age of ~50. But folks in their 50s already have a homeownership rate of >60%. I doubt inheritance has much of an impact.
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
  Perhaps you would find most plumbers wouldn't live in a city with a rent of 1.2k/mo? Is that really all your definitive "false" relies on? Hell I know tradesmen that make well over that and live in more rural areas.
- sershe 4y ago
  1) 80k/3 is 26.7k, 1.2k*12 = 14.4k. So, yeah, you can save for a downpayment by merely putting away your "comfortable housing spend" income, even before you move to a 1br apartment (1.2k median rent is for all units, even then I can only find 2019 numbers <1.1k), or save from the other parts of income. 2) Median house (not a Bay Area house) in 2019 was like 320k. Crazy house valuations are only from the last 1.5-2 years and wouldn't have affected generational norms (and we all know why the suddenly exploded). Even then, the median house is 410k, so all you needed/need you need to save is 65-80k in the /worst/ case. 3) Most people buying houses are/should be dual income, given the size of the median house. And given that you're competing against double income people (don't like it? you'd have to roll back the drive for emancipation/equality :)). If you double the income above you can save for a downpayment in like 3 years. I know families where neither partner probably makes 80k buying houses in boring cities e.g. in Texas - and not a starter house either... How? Dual income + non-coastal prices. And yeah, there are tons of jobs in the area.
droobles 4y ago
All the more reason to adopt the bohemian philosophy and pursue other pleasures if one finds working these modern jobs unfulfilling, only so much time on this earth.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  - watwut 4y ago
    Why do you assume the poster ever cared about git, naming or racism? Even among Americans, these are minority. Moreover, HN is more of actively hostile tonideas like that. You don't even know whether OP is American. You are doing literally what you complain about why you complain about it. Moreover, bohemian literally means "a socially unconventional person, especially one who is involved in the arts". I am guessing you probably misread it as "gypsy" or "roma" where such stereotype might exist (tho negative stereotypes about them are much different nowdays afaik, but were be like that in past)
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      Bohemia is a place and a people within what is now the Czech republic. "Bohemian" got that meaning because French aristocratic youth saw Roma gypsy immegrants and just called them whatever the closest east European neighbors they thought of. The fact that you think it is a lifestyle and not a people shows just how much history is lost. Somehow king Wenceslas got turned into a Christmas carol, but that's about it.
      - watwut 4y ago
        Czechs are not referred to as bohemians. Gypsies are not referred to as bohemians. And I don't just "think" it is lifestyle. I checked multiple dictionaries and they all refer to it as lifestyle. And the way it was used, it was always used as lifestyle. I never even seen it being used for either czechs or gypsies.
ThePrankster 4y ago
Anecdote: I am Gen Z. This story holds true for my parents and I. My dad was a solider in Latin America, my mom, a nurse. Their job required, at most, 2 years of education beyond High School. I am a data analyst, with a Bachelor's and a Master's. I earn more than they both did together, adjusted for inflation. My friends are in "specialized jobs" as well -- some even being doctors and lawyers. We still have zero hope of affording a house, let alone retirement. Edit: for anyone wondering, my education was completely free as in my country college is free and I took my Master's in a Nordic country, where education is also free (I worked there to support myself too).
- raunak 4y ago
  How much do you earn? Sorry if it’s rude, I’m genuinely just curious, I figured you’d make enough as a data analyst in any decent-COL living city to be fine
  - rtlfe 4y ago
    In the US many data analysis jobs are at tech companies, so they require living in expensive cities and competing with software engineers for homes, but pay only like 1/3-1/2 of what software engineers make.
- recursive4 4y ago
  Affording a house in which geographic market?
- syshum 4y ago
  I am late late GenX, and I have no higher education, own my car out right (late model pretty nice), I will pay off my home in the next 5 years, and I financially support one of my parents. I make less than 6 figures so I would not consider myself to be "rich" I think the key for me is the fact I choose not to incur educational debt getting a BS and/or MS, I also choose to live in a non-coastal region that does not have crazy housing prices. I also had lots of support from my parents* when I was younger so establish myself financially (like enabling me to be able to save for the down payment on this home) I worked very hard and now make a pretty decent wage after decades of working lower wage jobs. * To be clear this is just basic support like a stable roof over my head, the were lower middle class as well, their combined income was less than 6 figures, we had a basic home, food, etc but no luxuries, no vacations, one of the reasons I did not go to college was I did not want debt, and the family had no money for tuition
rtlfe 4y ago
> you have to choose your specialization wisely The problem is that most people don't get to choose. There are few of these high paying jobs, so by definition most people are excluded. Either because they're not "smart" enough to get into elite training programs (e.g. medical school) or because they don't have enough money to spend years in training with zero or negative income.
- ushakov 4y ago
  that's in the US though in Germany even if you're poor you can go to the University and succeed my friends all studied and they were from normal working-class families everyone gets a chance and all you need is put some effort
  - barbecue_sauce 4y ago
    I thought that in Germany you were essentially hand-picked by age 10 what educational track you would wind up on.
    - ushakov 4y ago
      if you didn't get picked you can still unlock the University track you'd need to study 3 years to get your Abitur, however (which is only 1 year more than Gymnasium folks would) ps. this may be different by state
    - imtringued 4y ago
      Literally everyone goes to the gymnasium nowadays.
  - erosenbe0 4y ago
    The US isn't different for 'regular' poor people. Two years of community college to be a nurse and you're good to go with a job in any city. Except in the US there are enclaves of destitute poverty, generational poverty, extreme levels of incarceration, job prohibitions for low-level convicts (which can be 1/2 the men in some areas), high crime, schools with low graduation rates, weak access to things like dental care, poor transit options for medical care, pollution, insufficient care for the elderly, lack of mental health care, opioid addiction, children with high rates of lead poisoning, etc. Those people have the deck stacked against them.
scythe 4y ago
>Most simple labor will be automated very soon anyway. It's not clear if there's a simple correlation between "training required" and "automation ready". For example, people have been talking about automating radiology for years, although I'm currently finishing up a study on one such system and we certainly aren't there yet. Meanwhile, the relatively "low skill" job of construction is considered very difficult to automate due to the high variability in environments and materials. This uncertainty means that reluctance to join professions that "may" be automated in the coming years might be interpreted as a result of risk-aversion, and that risk is higher when the job training is longer.
throwawayboise 4y ago
Yes. You've never been able to buy a house or raise "a family of four" on minimum wage. Minimum wage was never intended to provide that level of income.
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  Here's what FDR said about the minimum wage: > It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. > By business I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
- beeboop 4y ago
  Minimum wage, as part of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, was described as a means to prevent "economic slavery". If you aren't capable of raising four children on it then it's not living up to it's original intention
Fnoord 4y ago
Guess it depends on where you live. I live in Amsterdam Area and there is a shortage of plumbers in my city. The family owned business always have their agenda full, and they do well (even after taxes). You don't learn such a trait in a day or week. These guys are professionals, learned it via trait school. Its a different league compared to stuff like package or food delivery (though even for package delivery you need a drivers license). They are self employed family business while the food and package deliverers also have their 'own business'; in reality its to pay them less, have no severence package, no insurance, arrange their own tooling and vehicle, etc (ie. all the shit from gig economy). The problem is the government allows it while they could easily say if you don't get twice or triple minimum wage plus a top-down hierarchy you are not self employed. This clearly excludes the real consultant business as they earn more and also don't fall under top-down hierarchy. Another thing these deliverers should be allowed to is deliver for multiple companies. A self employed consultant picks their own clients, not the other way around unless there is things like confidentiality / conflict of interest.
tonfreed 4y ago
Even jobs that pay horribly expect you to subject yourself to 10s of thousands of dollars in debt to have a degree now. It's ridiculous.
NoThisIsMe 4y ago
Yes, obviously there are still _some_ jobs with decent pay that do not require extensive higher ed. The point is there are far fewer. Demand for plumbers, etc has not grown to fill in the massive gaps left by deindustrialization.
probIs8 4y ago
The problem is that life isn’t a nice linear distribution of truth the way data heads think. Continuing to play the “optimize myself based upon some meta game as see it” is not a viable strategy. There is no science that says Musk is certainly on the right path to human longevity. None of the rich are infallibly and unassailably correct; pointing at them as correct is an appeal to authority which is ludicrous when we have plenty of evidence to show politics is corrupted such that elites are “too big to fail.” I’m not obligated to make choices based upon your view of the problem and your solution is more of the same “boot straps”. This culture is a joke. Moral relativism it is; if my choices screw any of you, oh well. Free market.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rco8786 4y ago

It seems like you’re just confirming the narrative

skulk 4y ago

> He could've been a plumber/electrician/welder who would do really well in the current market. False. A plumber making $80k (US median seems to be around $60k) isn't going to be able to save up for a down payment if they're paying a typical mid-sized city's rent (~$1.2k a month). Not to mention housing costs going up during this period of saving up.

midislack 4y ago
Are you joking? In this example rent is only a small fraction of income.
- skulk 4y ago
  As another commenter pointed out, a 3.5% down FHA loan would make it feasible to buy a house with those numbers. But in any case, $80k is up there in terms of typical trades salaries, at least if cursory Googling can be trusted. Your median tradesman makes far less.
  - garciasn 4y ago
    Where I live (Mpls), tradespeople make six figure salaries and are well above the median HHI for the area. I lead a team that includes Zoomers and they are making six-figure salaries and are way ahead of where I was (accounting for inflation) when I was at their age. This is more generational comparison garbage like the claims that Millennials were the downfall of our civilization. Just ignore it and move on.
woojoo666 4y ago
I found a website that says average cost of living in New York (for 1 person) is $3200/month. That's around 40,000 per year. If the electrician is making 80k, that would mean they could save 25k/year after taxes and living expenses. 8 years of work and they would have 200k, enough for a down payment right? And this is assuming they live in new york, one of the most expensive places in the world [1]: https://livingcost.org/cost/united-states/ny/new-york https://livingcost.org/cost/united-states/ny/new-york
- wonnage 4y ago
  Sure, if you save every cent and commit to being single without children for 8 years. But if you go to the dentist, drop your phone on accident, find an S/O, go to the gym, eat out every once in a while, buy some new clothes, pay off student loans, ... It's just very silly to find a website, grab a number, and then conclude that saving 200k in 8 years is realistic
  - woojoo666 4y ago
    I think the living expenses include health expenses, but other expenses like phones and travel probably not
    - rtlfe 4y ago
      I doubt this hypothetical person making $80k has a Cadillac health plan. They could definitely be looking at costs like $1500 for a dental crown and $1000 for an MRI before they hit their deductible.
- slg 4y ago
  These numbers don't add up. Someone making $80k in NY will be paying at least 15-20% in taxes. This hypothetical person would have a max of like $400 a month for all their non-housing living expenses. That isn't happening in a high COL state like NY.
  - woojoo666 4y ago
zdragnar 4y ago
Growing, but still rural city in the Midwest I visited a few weeks back has decent homes for sale in the 50-80k range. This is not an outlier. Roughly 2/3 of Americans own homes. If you live in an area where homes are priced like luxury investments, then yes, you'll have a hard time buying when you also cannot afford other luxuries. If you live in an area where they are not, it isn't unattainable at all, especially if you combine income with a marriage partner.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Many people would consider a suggestion to live in the Midwest as about the same as a suggestion that they spend the rest of their life living in a decrepit sewer system.
  - skulk 4y ago
    Maybe you should try to understand why certain kinds of people (of, perhaps the non-white kind) would not want to move into an insular community?
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      Maybe if they visited, they'd find their assumptions to be unwarranted racism. It isn't as diverse as some other parts of the country, but there's groups of people from all over the world. Within a 2 hour drive from me, you'll find enclaves from Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Mexico and others.
      - skulk 4y ago
        If not wanting to live in an enclave as a nominally second-class citizen is racist, then I don't know what to say. Let's not deny reality here, that's really what you end up being if you try to interact with the main racial group in a rural area, or at least the vast majority of them. It doesn't matter what race this happens to be, it's how people work. I know an Englishman who lives in an Indonesian village (not an enclave). He is constantly reminded that while his presence is cherished, he isn't, and never will be "one of them." He still loves it, though, so there's that.
stolenmerch 4y ago
I honestly don't understand. When I bought a home I was literally making the US median income and bought an average priced house. My rent at the time was about a thousand a month. I had normal student loans and regular bills too. It wasn't easy but it didn't feel like a miracle either. Not saying someone making minimum can do this by any means, but there's a huge demand for labor in decent paying areas right now. I genuinely feel like I'm missing a big piece of this puzzle.
- bombcar 4y ago
  People post what they feel like, not what they’ve actually tried. Even if you ignore first time homeowner benefits and such, the usual thing necessary is not living in the middle of California. Often if you actually dig into it you find abject refusals to consider locations outside of a particular one, or the famous “spend less on candles. no” type of thing. https://mobile.twitter.com/dril/status/384408932061417472 https://mobile.twitter.com/dril/status/384408932061417472
- rtlfe 4y ago
  > My rent at the time was about a thousand a month. Sounds like this was either a long time ago or in city/town where not many people want to live.
- boplicity 4y ago
  The cost of a house has spiked to over 7x median income in the US, in a very short time. That's put buying a house out of reach for many people. Hopefully the bubble will burst -- but who knows? It could drag on for a very long time. Historically, the cost of a house has hovered around 4.5 to 5.5x annual median income. It's currently at the highest level it's ever been, at least according to this graph: https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/#:~:text=Historically%2C%20an%20average%20house%20in%20the%20U.S.%20cost,7%20times%20the%20U.S.%20median%20annual%20household%20income https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco....
  - gruez 4y ago
    What about factoring in interest rates? After all, people ultimately care about the monthly payments than about the sticker price.
karaterobot 4y ago
I don't agree. I made under $80k in household income when I bought my first home in 2014. This was in (well, just outside) Seattle, which was and remains one of the more expensive markets in the country. I saved up for a down payment; it took years. It wasn't my dream home, but it allowed me to build equity and continue saving for the one that was. I am not ready to say "kids these days want everything handed to them," but I will say that if you can't commit to a decade-long, multi-step process, then it may seem impossible, when it's just rather hard.
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  It isn't 2014 anymore and rents have doubled around here since then, cost of living has gone way up, while wages have stayed relatively stagnant.
  - beej71 4y ago
    This. My house has more than doubled since 2014. There's a huge gap between those who can afford a $300k house and those who can afford an $800K house.
  - Copernicron 4y ago
    Doubled if you're lucky. I checked the price history on the condo I bought last year. It has doubled in price since the pandemic started and more like tripled since 2014. Of course I'm living in a booming area but my salary sure hasn't increased that quickly.
- bb88 4y ago
  The traditional rule for a mortgage was 20% down and the house itself was no more than 2.5 times salary. Where I live, Boise, housing prices have shot up dramatically, over twice. Median house prices in Boise is $536k. So you would really need to make $214K/year to afford the mortgage under the old rules. And nobody makes that kind of money here.
  - hackerfromthefu 4y ago
ceeplusplus 4y ago
At 80k your post-tax takehome is $5000/mo even filing single in a high tax state. Take out $400 for health insurance, $800 for car+insurance, $1200 for rent, and you've still got $2500 for food, miscellaneous spending, Roth IRA, etc. Even if all those costs come to $2000 - unlikely, since the Roth contribution limit is $6k / year - you're still left with $500/month in savings. And that's assuming your partner doesn't bring in _any_ income, which is exceedingly unlikely. If your typical rent is $1200, that means property values in your area are almost certainly low enough to qualify for FHA loans, which only require 3.5% down due to government subsidies. 3.5% of $450k is $16k - so it only takes about 3 years to save for that down payment. Home prices are high _because_ FHA loans allow people to have greater purchasing power (among many other reasons like NIMBYism).
- rtlfe 4y ago
  I hope this person never has a kid. Enjoy your rent doubling to get enough space and either losing your partner's income or spending $3k a month on day care. Plus whatever crappy insurance you're getting for $400 a month is going to leave with $10k+ in bills for just birthing the kid.
  - ceeplusplus 4y ago
    From Kaiser's 2020 survey on healthcare plans, the average worker contribution for HMO/PPO plans for a family was $5000-6000/yr [1]. These are not high deductible plans (those are specifically broken out) so they're going to be pretty good insurance, especially PPO. So $400/mo is only underestimating the true cost by about $100/mo. You can't use ACA marketplace prices to judge what your average worker is paying. > spending $3k a month on day care It costs $3200/mo to pay someone $20/h for 40 hours a week, in what world does day care (where one caretaker takes care of multiple children!) cost $3000/mo? The average cost of child care in California, which has _the_ highest cost of labor in the US, is $956/mo [2]. If you use the infant care cost it's $1400/mo, still nowhere near $3000. Maybe in the middle of New York City it costs $3000, but that's not a realistic living scenario for a plumber. If your spouse makes $3000/mo then the rent increase (call it an extra $800/mo to get to $2k/mo) and childcare cost ($1000/mo) are more than covered by their extra income. Please just look at the data and take a moment to understand what expenses outside of SF/NYC/LA look like. [1]: https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2020-summary-of-findings/ https://www.kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2020-summary-of-find... [2]: https://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/#/CA https://www.epi.org/child-care-costs-in-the-united-states/#/...
StevePerkins 4y ago
Not to mention that plumber probably doesn't have health coverage. The people who love to talk about what a fine profession that would be (for other people's kids, of course, never their own kids) are the same people who fight tooth and nail against any kind of health care policy that might make a non-white collar career more viable.
- erosenbe0 4y ago
  Plumbers and pipefitters have a union that has plenty of power in current market. No health insurance and they won't work. Plumbing pays more than 80k in major cities. Plumbing contractors have to carry workers comp insurance.
  - StevePerkins 4y ago
    Having grown up in a rural area, I assure you that any unions or health coverage is a strictly urban phenomenon. And $80k isn't all that great of a top-end, for people living in major cities with their cost of living.
    - kortilla 4y ago
      This thread is about saving up to buy a house in a city though.
    - pinot 4y ago
      jman plumber in my town earns $47/hr+$32/hr in benefits. Not bad total comp especially if you add in OT.
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      I did some quick lookups from BLS and other salary sources for my (mid sized southern US MSA) sometime back and yeah the median and mean wages for a lot of skilled labor and trade positions are pretty damn close to what a lot of clerical type office jobs were paying. I.E. not great, probably livable. I’ll see if I can go back through and find my comment.
- 4y ago
thethethethe 4y ago
Us median _household_ income is 60k
smsm42 4y ago
The trick here is that you compare overall earning over the US (including rural Arkansas and such) with "mid-city" rent - i.e. only select places. According to https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-rent-by-state https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/average-ren... at least half the states have median rent below $1000. And yes, you can't live in San Francisco on Arkansas salary, but if you ever tried to hire a plumber in Bay Area, especially for a job beyond "my faucet is leaking", you know very well it costs a real lot.
marcusverus 4y ago
Sorry to be so blunt, but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The median household income = 67K[0]. >60% of US households own a home.[1] Clearly 80K is more than enough to safe up for a down payment. [0]https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S...
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  That is a logical fallacy: owning a home != buying a home, inheritance is a thing.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    To reinforce this, if you follow the links it states > The term "home-ownership rate" can also be misleading because it includes households that owe on a mortgage. Depending on your credit score and your down payment, you can wind up functionally renting a home for many years even if you "own" it on paper. It isn't until the final years of a 30 year mortgage that you actually significantly pay down the principal. As long as interest rates remain low and the credit requirements are lax, most of America can in fact "own" a home. Expect prices to skyrocket, as buyers become more and more decoupled from the cost.
    - marcusverus 4y ago
      This doesn't really contradict my point. How do these people have mortgages if they're incapable of affording a down payment?
  - marcusverus 4y ago
    Only ~30% of people receive an inheritance, at an average age of ~50. But folks in their 50s already have a homeownership rate of >60%. I doubt inheritance has much of an impact.
sieabahlpark 4y ago
Perhaps you would find most plumbers wouldn't live in a city with a rent of 1.2k/mo? Is that really all your definitive "false" relies on? Hell I know tradesmen that make well over that and live in more rural areas.
sershe 4y ago
1) 80k/3 is 26.7k, 1.2k*12 = 14.4k. So, yeah, you can save for a downpayment by merely putting away your "comfortable housing spend" income, even before you move to a 1br apartment (1.2k median rent is for all units, even then I can only find 2019 numbers <1.1k), or save from the other parts of income. 2) Median house (not a Bay Area house) in 2019 was like 320k. Crazy house valuations are only from the last 1.5-2 years and wouldn't have affected generational norms (and we all know why the suddenly exploded). Even then, the median house is 410k, so all you needed/need you need to save is 65-80k in the /worst/ case. 3) Most people buying houses are/should be dual income, given the size of the median house. And given that you're competing against double income people (don't like it? you'd have to roll back the drive for emancipation/equality :)). If you double the income above you can save for a downpayment in like 3 years. I know families where neither partner probably makes 80k buying houses in boring cities e.g. in Texas - and not a starter house either... How? Dual income + non-coastal prices. And yeah, there are tons of jobs in the area.

droobles 4y ago

All the more reason to adopt the bohemian philosophy and pursue other pleasures if one finds working these modern jobs unfulfilling, only so much time on this earth.

zdragnar 4y ago
- watwut 4y ago
  Why do you assume the poster ever cared about git, naming or racism? Even among Americans, these are minority. Moreover, HN is more of actively hostile tonideas like that. You don't even know whether OP is American. You are doing literally what you complain about why you complain about it. Moreover, bohemian literally means "a socially unconventional person, especially one who is involved in the arts". I am guessing you probably misread it as "gypsy" or "roma" where such stereotype might exist (tho negative stereotypes about them are much different nowdays afaik, but were be like that in past)
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    Bohemia is a place and a people within what is now the Czech republic. "Bohemian" got that meaning because French aristocratic youth saw Roma gypsy immegrants and just called them whatever the closest east European neighbors they thought of. The fact that you think it is a lifestyle and not a people shows just how much history is lost. Somehow king Wenceslas got turned into a Christmas carol, but that's about it.
    - watwut 4y ago
      Czechs are not referred to as bohemians. Gypsies are not referred to as bohemians. And I don't just "think" it is lifestyle. I checked multiple dictionaries and they all refer to it as lifestyle. And the way it was used, it was always used as lifestyle. I never even seen it being used for either czechs or gypsies.

ThePrankster 4y ago

Anecdote: I am Gen Z. This story holds true for my parents and I. My dad was a solider in Latin America, my mom, a nurse. Their job required, at most, 2 years of education beyond High School. I am a data analyst, with a Bachelor's and a Master's. I earn more than they both did together, adjusted for inflation. My friends are in "specialized jobs" as well -- some even being doctors and lawyers. We still have zero hope of affording a house, let alone retirement. Edit: for anyone wondering, my education was completely free as in my country college is free and I took my Master's in a Nordic country, where education is also free (I worked there to support myself too).

raunak 4y ago
How much do you earn? Sorry if it’s rude, I’m genuinely just curious, I figured you’d make enough as a data analyst in any decent-COL living city to be fine
- rtlfe 4y ago
  In the US many data analysis jobs are at tech companies, so they require living in expensive cities and competing with software engineers for homes, but pay only like 1/3-1/2 of what software engineers make.
recursive4 4y ago
Affording a house in which geographic market?
syshum 4y ago
I am late late GenX, and I have no higher education, own my car out right (late model pretty nice), I will pay off my home in the next 5 years, and I financially support one of my parents. I make less than 6 figures so I would not consider myself to be "rich" I think the key for me is the fact I choose not to incur educational debt getting a BS and/or MS, I also choose to live in a non-coastal region that does not have crazy housing prices. I also had lots of support from my parents* when I was younger so establish myself financially (like enabling me to be able to save for the down payment on this home) I worked very hard and now make a pretty decent wage after decades of working lower wage jobs. * To be clear this is just basic support like a stable roof over my head, the were lower middle class as well, their combined income was less than 6 figures, we had a basic home, food, etc but no luxuries, no vacations, one of the reasons I did not go to college was I did not want debt, and the family had no money for tuition

rtlfe 4y ago

> you have to choose your specialization wisely The problem is that most people don't get to choose. There are few of these high paying jobs, so by definition most people are excluded. Either because they're not "smart" enough to get into elite training programs (e.g. medical school) or because they don't have enough money to spend years in training with zero or negative income.

ushakov 4y ago
that's in the US though in Germany even if you're poor you can go to the University and succeed my friends all studied and they were from normal working-class families everyone gets a chance and all you need is put some effort
- barbecue_sauce 4y ago
  I thought that in Germany you were essentially hand-picked by age 10 what educational track you would wind up on.
  - ushakov 4y ago
    if you didn't get picked you can still unlock the University track you'd need to study 3 years to get your Abitur, however (which is only 1 year more than Gymnasium folks would) ps. this may be different by state
  - imtringued 4y ago
    Literally everyone goes to the gymnasium nowadays.
- erosenbe0 4y ago
  The US isn't different for 'regular' poor people. Two years of community college to be a nurse and you're good to go with a job in any city. Except in the US there are enclaves of destitute poverty, generational poverty, extreme levels of incarceration, job prohibitions for low-level convicts (which can be 1/2 the men in some areas), high crime, schools with low graduation rates, weak access to things like dental care, poor transit options for medical care, pollution, insufficient care for the elderly, lack of mental health care, opioid addiction, children with high rates of lead poisoning, etc. Those people have the deck stacked against them.

scythe 4y ago

>Most simple labor will be automated very soon anyway. It's not clear if there's a simple correlation between "training required" and "automation ready". For example, people have been talking about automating radiology for years, although I'm currently finishing up a study on one such system and we certainly aren't there yet. Meanwhile, the relatively "low skill" job of construction is considered very difficult to automate due to the high variability in environments and materials. This uncertainty means that reluctance to join professions that "may" be automated in the coming years might be interpreted as a result of risk-aversion, and that risk is higher when the job training is longer.

throwawayboise 4y ago

Yes. You've never been able to buy a house or raise "a family of four" on minimum wage. Minimum wage was never intended to provide that level of income.

heavyset_go 4y ago
Here's what FDR said about the minimum wage: > It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. > By business I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.
beeboop 4y ago
Minimum wage, as part of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, was described as a means to prevent "economic slavery". If you aren't capable of raising four children on it then it's not living up to it's original intention

Fnoord 4y ago

Guess it depends on where you live. I live in Amsterdam Area and there is a shortage of plumbers in my city. The family owned business always have their agenda full, and they do well (even after taxes). You don't learn such a trait in a day or week. These guys are professionals, learned it via trait school. Its a different league compared to stuff like package or food delivery (though even for package delivery you need a drivers license). They are self employed family business while the food and package deliverers also have their 'own business'; in reality its to pay them less, have no severence package, no insurance, arrange their own tooling and vehicle, etc (ie. all the shit from gig economy). The problem is the government allows it while they could easily say if you don't get twice or triple minimum wage plus a top-down hierarchy you are not self employed. This clearly excludes the real consultant business as they earn more and also don't fall under top-down hierarchy. Another thing these deliverers should be allowed to is deliver for multiple companies. A self employed consultant picks their own clients, not the other way around unless there is things like confidentiality / conflict of interest.

tonfreed 4y ago

Even jobs that pay horribly expect you to subject yourself to 10s of thousands of dollars in debt to have a degree now. It's ridiculous.

NoThisIsMe 4y ago

Yes, obviously there are still _some_ jobs with decent pay that do not require extensive higher ed. The point is there are far fewer. Demand for plumbers, etc has not grown to fill in the massive gaps left by deindustrialization.

probIs8 4y ago

The problem is that life isn’t a nice linear distribution of truth the way data heads think. Continuing to play the “optimize myself based upon some meta game as see it” is not a viable strategy. There is no science that says Musk is certainly on the right path to human longevity. None of the rich are infallibly and unassailably correct; pointing at them as correct is an appeal to authority which is ludicrous when we have plenty of evidence to show politics is corrupted such that elites are “too big to fail.” I’m not obligated to make choices based upon your view of the problem and your solution is more of the same “boot straps”. This culture is a joke. Moral relativism it is; if my choices screw any of you, oh well. Free market.