I think people underestimate lifetime earnings. Let’s assume 35 years of salary work to retire at 65 (it takes a while to get a career going an maybe a layoff and parental leave…) That would be about 125k a year. Make that a dual income family and that’s 2 people making 63k a year. It’s a bit hard to understand pre and post tax though because some of the calculations like retirement are pretax. And then factor in gains from investment…
So isn’t this calculation saying a 2 family income making median salaries can live the dream? That’s not great for 50% of Americans and probably means a lesser proportion of Americans can attain the dream than before. But that number 4.4 million actually is not crazy high. In a more just work though, dual income families making above the lowest 25 to 30% salaries should be able to afford the American Dream with some caveats around used cars instead of new, and maybe more frugal wedding and college expense due to financial aid and what not.
American dream implies nuclear family life. Retirement, home ownership, and owning new cars are factored in that math. It includes the cost of having 2 kids.
If you read the article…
Here’s the breakdown. We’ll explain the math below.
I’m seeing median salary listed around 65. Is the median household income reflecting the number of single income families out there or just single people generally?
Average salary there is misrepresented, look at median income. That uses the total income of a household, and you can see there that it’s ~70k a year in 2021 per that article. Updated numbers are 76k, for a whole household.
I disagree. Workers in trades like electricians will make that much. I think entry level electricians make like 55k. So after 5 years in that work, you will likely be earning above median salary. But for professions like teachers in school districts that don’t pay well… It sucks. Not ideal, but not as dire as some might think. And when you throw in the number of people these days choosing not to have kids, that shaves 1 million dollars off the cost of the American Dream life (but hard to say how much of that decision is based on expected income vs lifestyle values).
Tech workers I assume are making starting around 75k and getting into 100k fairly easily depending on geographic location. And depending on company and trajectory you could be getting into 200 to 300k territory in tech.
Tech workers I assume are making starting around 75k and getting into 100k fairly easily
Now. But not 35 years ago. The article doesn’t cover inflation but since they want to end at a specific dollar amount, that matters. Since they’re not talking about savings or investing, it’s not like you can just disregard it.
The inflation piece is confusing to me to, but I think it does talk about investment. It says retirement is 1.6 million based on expected annual withdraw rate. So I’m guessing that is not the contribution amount but final amount including return on investment. So does that 4.4 million number actually somehow translate into a sub 4 million dollar contribution value? Same with college. If you start investing in college funds at child birth that have 18 years of growth, is that child cost the cost basis, or accrued value at time of spend? On the other hand the home cost includes mortgage interest, but the value of the house will hopefully exceed the cost you put into it.
63k a year is a little more than $30/hr. That’s a wage completely beyond the reach of some skilled career professions even if a person pursued advancement in that field.
I agree. All I’m saying is if 50% of salaries are above that 60k mark and as a dual income you are probably getting close to hitting the dream at that level. That’s not as dire as thinking only 10% of the population can afford it. 4.4 million is a scary number, but no one is expected to have that as liquidity or even net worth. That value of spend is actually more attainable over time than it looks when seeing it as raw sticker price.
And again, “American Dream” means family with 2 kids. Not everyone wants that or needs that. If you are a single person and happy living with just a partner or without kids (DINK lifestyle is fun), this is not saying you need 4.4 million to have a decent living standard.
i’m not sure i’m following your points. My point was to argue that even the long-term prospect of grossing 63k per year by any metric is beyond the reach of a lot of specialized workers. Add to that, the fact that that’s an evenly divided number. It would be more realistic that the income would need to be even higher closer to retirement if the initial young professional started out grossing less than 63k per year.
I don’t think anybody should be arguing that it should be acceptable to pay people less simply because they don’t want to have kids. Family planning decisions are often guided by household economics.
I’m not making an argument about the current state of wages. I’m just saying 4.4 million isn’t as unattainable as people think. And household income gets murky when you include single income households. And the definition for this article of American Dream includes 2 kids, so if kids aren’t in your planning the 4.4 million mark is probably 1 million less if you still want to attain those other things. I think some folks see that number and think “OMG I’m never going to have that much money.” You are right, you will never have that much money all at once, but over a lifetime you may have earned and/or spent that much without ever leaving the sort of “middle” income range in America.
I think people underestimate lifetime earnings. Let’s assume 35 years of salary work to retire at 65 (it takes a while to get a career going an maybe a layoff and parental leave…) That would be about 125k a year. Make that a dual income family and that’s 2 people making 63k a year. It’s a bit hard to understand pre and post tax though because some of the calculations like retirement are pretax. And then factor in gains from investment…
So isn’t this calculation saying a 2 family income making median salaries can live the dream? That’s not great for 50% of Americans and probably means a lesser proportion of Americans can attain the dream than before. But that number 4.4 million actually is not crazy high. In a more just work though, dual income families making above the lowest 25 to 30% salaries should be able to afford the American Dream with some caveats around used cars instead of new, and maybe more frugal wedding and college expense due to financial aid and what not.
Add the expense of having kids.
Add the expense of looking after parents.
Add the expense of healthcare costs.
I would guess all of these are included in the 4.4 million
American dream implies nuclear family life. Retirement, home ownership, and owning new cars are factored in that math. It includes the cost of having 2 kids.
If you read the article…
I didn’t read it but, does it include student loans, medical bills, groceries and other basic needs?
Median income is 76k per household, so no, a 2 job family making median cannot live the dream.
I’m seeing median salary listed around 65. Is the median household income reflecting the number of single income families out there or just single people generally?
That’s for a household with dual incomes.
There are individual salary stats. And those may align with households as some households only have 1 income. https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll/average-salary-us/
Average salary there is misrepresented, look at median income. That uses the total income of a household, and you can see there that it’s ~70k a year in 2021 per that article. Updated numbers are 76k, for a whole household.
While that’s more than reasonable to expect for techies, for example, in todays world, that’s CEO pay 35 years ago.
While I’m too lazy to do the math, I’d like to see
I disagree. Workers in trades like electricians will make that much. I think entry level electricians make like 55k. So after 5 years in that work, you will likely be earning above median salary. But for professions like teachers in school districts that don’t pay well… It sucks. Not ideal, but not as dire as some might think. And when you throw in the number of people these days choosing not to have kids, that shaves 1 million dollars off the cost of the American Dream life (but hard to say how much of that decision is based on expected income vs lifestyle values).
Tech workers I assume are making starting around 75k and getting into 100k fairly easily depending on geographic location. And depending on company and trajectory you could be getting into 200 to 300k territory in tech.
Now. But not 35 years ago. The article doesn’t cover inflation but since they want to end at a specific dollar amount, that matters. Since they’re not talking about savings or investing, it’s not like you can just disregard it.
The inflation piece is confusing to me to, but I think it does talk about investment. It says retirement is 1.6 million based on expected annual withdraw rate. So I’m guessing that is not the contribution amount but final amount including return on investment. So does that 4.4 million number actually somehow translate into a sub 4 million dollar contribution value? Same with college. If you start investing in college funds at child birth that have 18 years of growth, is that child cost the cost basis, or accrued value at time of spend? On the other hand the home cost includes mortgage interest, but the value of the house will hopefully exceed the cost you put into it.
63k a year is a little more than $30/hr. That’s a wage completely beyond the reach of some skilled career professions even if a person pursued advancement in that field.
I agree. All I’m saying is if 50% of salaries are above that 60k mark and as a dual income you are probably getting close to hitting the dream at that level. That’s not as dire as thinking only 10% of the population can afford it. 4.4 million is a scary number, but no one is expected to have that as liquidity or even net worth. That value of spend is actually more attainable over time than it looks when seeing it as raw sticker price.
And again, “American Dream” means family with 2 kids. Not everyone wants that or needs that. If you are a single person and happy living with just a partner or without kids (DINK lifestyle is fun), this is not saying you need 4.4 million to have a decent living standard.
i’m not sure i’m following your points. My point was to argue that even the long-term prospect of grossing 63k per year by any metric is beyond the reach of a lot of specialized workers. Add to that, the fact that that’s an evenly divided number. It would be more realistic that the income would need to be even higher closer to retirement if the initial young professional started out grossing less than 63k per year.
I don’t think anybody should be arguing that it should be acceptable to pay people less simply because they don’t want to have kids. Family planning decisions are often guided by household economics.
I’m not making an argument about the current state of wages. I’m just saying 4.4 million isn’t as unattainable as people think. And household income gets murky when you include single income households. And the definition for this article of American Dream includes 2 kids, so if kids aren’t in your planning the 4.4 million mark is probably 1 million less if you still want to attain those other things. I think some folks see that number and think “OMG I’m never going to have that much money.” You are right, you will never have that much money all at once, but over a lifetime you may have earned and/or spent that much without ever leaving the sort of “middle” income range in America.