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Defining class by income seems odd. It’s also household income, which feels off if there’s potential to be hiding large childcare costs for dual income houses.
by jncfhnb 2y ago
Defining class by income seems odd. It’s also household income, which feels off if there’s potential to be hiding large childcare costs for dual income houses. Disposable income seems like the better metric ideally to me.
- nradov 2y agoIt's tough to measure disposable income in any consistent way. Like if a household pays to send their kids to private schools because the local public schools are terrible, is that included?
- jncfhnb 2y agoNo, that’s a luxury
- Newlaptop 2y agoTwo minutes ago you posted "Childcare is a necessity". Parents want their children to be safe, healthy, happy and nurtured. They will pay for services to provide that, and whether we label that service daycare, babysitting, school, summer camp, nannying, extracurriculars, etc doesn't seem like it makes much difference.
- jncfhnb 2y agoParents need their child to be safe. Parents want their child to be better educated than local peers. Childcare is a legal necessity. Private school education is not.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoPublic school is childcare. Private|charter|home school is education.
- jncfhnb 2y agoAnd sometimes it’s the opposite
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pseudocomposer 2y agoHow is money spent on childcare different from disposable income? Differentiating them artificially would fail to account for people who want children, but don’t, because they don’t feel they have the income. Which is a lot of the middle class at this point.
- jncfhnb 2y agoChildcare is a necessity. A dual income household where one person’s income is going almost entirely to childcare is effectively a single income household and NOT in the same class as a dual income household without that cost pressure. I don’t see how that difference could be seen as artificial.
- brain-tree 2y agoPeople not having kids or not buying a house because it is impossible are not more prosperous than in decades when the basics were more affordable but they have more disposable income if they realize there is no point in saving for now unrealizable expenditures.
- jncfhnb 2y agoSavings are included in disposable income
- brain-tree 2y agoRight, I assumed we were talking about discretionary income. Why is a distinction between income and disposable income relevant given that taxes sometimes provide services that would otherwise be purchased and sometimes do not?
- jncfhnb 2y agoA person who spends all of their income on necessities is not in the same social class as someone who does not