4 ms·

I would absolutely give up my career to be a househusband, but increasingly, one income isn’t sufficient to support a family. I work in tech and even my salary

I would absolutely give up my career to be a househusband, but increasingly, one income isn’t sufficient to support a family. I work in tech and even my salary (or my wife’s) cannot support the two of us + children. Yes we’d save some childcare costs, but that’s about it. If anything, your other expenses on an average remain the same but your standard of living drops because there’s less income.

cjohnson318 3y ago
Yeah, a single income household isn't realistic for most Americans.
gustavus 3y ago
Where are you living that it is that hard? I am the sole breadwinner for our family, have been our whole marriage, and we have 4 little kids and live a fairly comfortable middle class lifestyle. Although if food keeps going this way we may need to cut back on some things.
- Apocryphon 3y ago
  You must not live in a tech hub
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  Pretty much anywhere. I know individual data points can be tricky to argue, but I was talking about an average person. BLS data supports the thesis on how going from 2 earners to 1 can significantly reduce the net household income, but the expenses don’t go down significantly. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characteristics-and-selected-expenditures-of-dual-and-single-income-households-with-children.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characte...
jcarrano 3y ago
Turns out that "women can work" quickly devolved into "women must work". The curious part is that if you go further back in history, to when most of the population were peasant farmers, it was more the case of "everyone must work" (children too), and house work was nothing like today's. The average 1950's housewife did not have to kill chickens to make soup. Couple this with the fact that nowadays couples have less children in average and you start to get the picture. If now two people work (vs 1) to have one child (vs 5) that will get the same (vs better) quality of life than their parents then you have on average become poorer. I can't help but feel we have been duped.
- dingnuts 3y ago
  A lot of it is about lifestyle. The lifestyle you could have with one income in the 1950s would be a house that was tiny by today's standards, built shabbily, no HVAC, etc etc Anecdotally I know a family of five that survived on one income that is half of a common tech salary, while in a fairly high cost of living area. You know how they did it? Frugality, and sacrifice, of anything unnecessary. The mother keeps up the home and homeschools the kids. The dad learned to maintain cars by watching YouTube every time their old car broke down. Mom could've gotten a job, but they made a choice to sacrifice a more luxurious lifestyle for the ability to keep the kids out of public schools. It is a choice. It's just a choice most people don't want to make. They want the lifestyle that comes with two incomes, and the benefits of being a stay at home spouse, and it's just not realistic.
  - darth_avocado 3y ago
    > It's just a choice most people don't want to make Buddy, in California, you need $208K of income to just QUALIFY for a mortgage for a median house. [1] No matter how much frugality people live in, most people won’t even come close to that number on a single income. Average car payments are $700+ a month and $500+ on used one. [2] Average cost of a 4 year attendance in a public college is $100k and for a private college it is $200k [3]. Average monthly premium for non subsidized health insurance for a family of 4 is around $1700, which drops to $500-$800/month with employer or state sponsored subsidies. [4] It’s very convenient to blame things on lifestyle, but the reality is that even the basics are way out of reach of a median household on single income. It ain’t the 50s anymore for a reason. [1] https://www.ocregister.com/2023/08/11/only-16-of-californians-can-afford-to-buy-home-as-mortgage-rates-rise/amp/ https://www.ocregister.com/2023/08/11/only-16-of-californian... [2] https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/average-monthly-car-payment#:~:text=The%20average%20monthly%20car%20loan,to%20credit%20reporting%20agency%20Experian https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/average-.... [3] https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college [4] https://www.anthem.com/individual-and-family/insurance-basics/health-insurance/cost-of-family-health-insurance#:~:text=Average%20Cost%20Of%20Family%20Health,four%20was%20%241%2C437%20per%20month https://www.anthem.com/individual-and-family/insurance-basic....

cjohnson318 3y ago

Yeah, a single income household isn't realistic for most Americans.

gustavus 3y ago

Where are you living that it is that hard? I am the sole breadwinner for our family, have been our whole marriage, and we have 4 little kids and live a fairly comfortable middle class lifestyle. Although if food keeps going this way we may need to cut back on some things.

Apocryphon 3y ago
You must not live in a tech hub
darth_avocado 3y ago
Pretty much anywhere. I know individual data points can be tricky to argue, but I was talking about an average person. BLS data supports the thesis on how going from 2 earners to 1 can significantly reduce the net household income, but the expenses don’t go down significantly. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characteristics-and-selected-expenditures-of-dual-and-single-income-households-with-children.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characte...

jcarrano 3y ago

Turns out that "women can work" quickly devolved into "women must work". The curious part is that if you go further back in history, to when most of the population were peasant farmers, it was more the case of "everyone must work" (children too), and house work was nothing like today's. The average 1950's housewife did not have to kill chickens to make soup. Couple this with the fact that nowadays couples have less children in average and you start to get the picture. If now two people work (vs 1) to have one child (vs 5) that will get the same (vs better) quality of life than their parents then you have on average become poorer. I can't help but feel we have been duped.

dingnuts 3y ago
A lot of it is about lifestyle. The lifestyle you could have with one income in the 1950s would be a house that was tiny by today's standards, built shabbily, no HVAC, etc etc Anecdotally I know a family of five that survived on one income that is half of a common tech salary, while in a fairly high cost of living area. You know how they did it? Frugality, and sacrifice, of anything unnecessary. The mother keeps up the home and homeschools the kids. The dad learned to maintain cars by watching YouTube every time their old car broke down. Mom could've gotten a job, but they made a choice to sacrifice a more luxurious lifestyle for the ability to keep the kids out of public schools. It is a choice. It's just a choice most people don't want to make. They want the lifestyle that comes with two incomes, and the benefits of being a stay at home spouse, and it's just not realistic.
- darth_avocado 3y ago
  > It's just a choice most people don't want to make Buddy, in California, you need $208K of income to just QUALIFY for a mortgage for a median house. [1] No matter how much frugality people live in, most people won’t even come close to that number on a single income. Average car payments are $700+ a month and $500+ on used one. [2] Average cost of a 4 year attendance in a public college is $100k and for a private college it is $200k [3]. Average monthly premium for non subsidized health insurance for a family of 4 is around $1700, which drops to $500-$800/month with employer or state sponsored subsidies. [4] It’s very convenient to blame things on lifestyle, but the reality is that even the basics are way out of reach of a median household on single income. It ain’t the 50s anymore for a reason. [1] https://www.ocregister.com/2023/08/11/only-16-of-californians-can-afford-to-buy-home-as-mortgage-rates-rise/amp/ https://www.ocregister.com/2023/08/11/only-16-of-californian... [2] https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/average-monthly-car-payment#:~:text=The%20average%20monthly%20car%20loan,to%20credit%20reporting%20agency%20Experian https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/auto-loans/average-.... [3] https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college [4] https://www.anthem.com/individual-and-family/insurance-basics/health-insurance/cost-of-family-health-insurance#:~:text=Average%20Cost%20Of%20Family%20Health,four%20was%20%241%2C437%20per%20month https://www.anthem.com/individual-and-family/insurance-basic....