To be fair, committing to never having children is not uncommon among people in my age group (mid-twenties). And I agree - it's a shit plan, but there are a set

To be fair, committing to never having children is not uncommon among people in my age group (mid-twenties). And I agree - it's a shit plan, but there are a set of relatively pessimistic assumptions embedded in the shit plan as well: - No raises throughout the entire career lifetime - No economy of scale through marriage - Significant SS benefits cut - Never earning another cent in earned income after retiring at the full retirement age of 67 - Living for thirty years after retirement (which is the baseline for the 4% rule; average life expectancy at birth in America in 2021 is an atrocious 76.1 years) - No "extreme" frugality measures - relatively frequent eating out and going to concerts/basketball games - Low real returns on any accrued savings Note that none of this - absolutely none of it - is an argument that America should not expand the safety net, or that we shouldn't fix the housing market. I'm just saying that people with average incomes still have options, even in New York City