According to a recent study from Zillow, the typical "starter home" is worth at least $1 million in 237 cities, the highest number of cities ever. Plus, almost half of those cities are in California.
No. Wages have remained stagnant and actually have gone down. The median salary is $74k, and remember that half of people in the US make less than that. 62% of Americans can’t afford to buy the cheapest house in the cheapest state for housing.
To clarify, $74k is the median household income and not salary. Median salary in the US is $37k. Median salary in California, where half of the cities mentioned in the article are, is just shy of $40k.
That’s the beauty of the system, it does not matter if everybody makes more money, the orphan crushing machine will extract everything they can from bottom 60% and the government enables it.
It doesn’t take much to find plenty of people on Reddit talking about how they make 130k a year as a Walmart truck driver. Or the hordes or software engineers with 300k salaries, grads starting straight out of uni with well over 100k.
There is definitely inflation, the corresponding salary increases just don’t seem to be across all industries.
So anecdotal stories are more important to you than statistics from the US census bureau? For the record, the department does more than send out a survey every 10 years; the survey is like a recalibration for their statistics.
There are 3 primary factors contributing to the housing crisis:
Inflation
Low wages
Housing being treated as a commodity stock
These 3 issues aren’t the end of the story either, the opiate crisis, climate change, exclusionary politics, and many other factors are contributing to the housing crisis. The primary issue is that workers aren’t being paid enough.
Not to mention across demographics. Plenty of people don’t use Reddit for reasons of taste, time, or simply access.
Plus, there’s definitely a bias towards bragging about ones high salary (whether real or imagined). Not a lot of us who are struggling like to broadcast exactly how much we’re struggling. It fucking sucks, and the majority of our lives are spent dealing with that fact.
You’re operating on anecdotal evidence in a heavily biased context. This is why you’re getting the downvotes you deserve. Get your head out of your ass.
Fuck is you talkin bout? Let’s say you have a couple making $100K each, with two kids. Good salaries, maybe even a bit “mad”. You think they can afford childcare and a $1M home?
I work for a small private employer in rural America, in a field where there are no other places to work at without moving. I haven’t had a raise above inflation rate since covid, technically I’m making less money than years ago. Everyone here is fighting each other to take more of that 1% of the wealth we all have to share. Our government is complicit and backroom-contracted into keeping money in the wealthiest hands. A politicians vote isn’t even that expensive.
That works if you have negotiating power (i.e. marketable, in demand skills). It’s not an option for many people.
For instance, I live in Arkansas where Tyson Foods is a major employer. They have poultry plants in small towns all over the place. Higher paying jobs don’t exist in a lot of those places.
I offered to quit for 6 months to get out from a non compete since I am technically a contractor and that got me a new contract and a small raise… That was neat.
Salaries in the US are a bit mad though, so it’s mostly inflation surely?
No. Wages have remained stagnant and actually have gone down. The median salary is $74k, and remember that half of people in the US make less than that. 62% of Americans can’t afford to buy the cheapest house in the cheapest state for housing.
To clarify, $74k is the median household income and not salary. Median salary in the US is $37k. Median salary in California, where half of the cities mentioned in the article are, is just shy of $40k.
I am pretty sure those are pre-covid numbers.
median is now like 45k. still unlivable in most of the country tho.
My numbers were from 2022 census. Estimates put US median at $59k and California at shy of $85k for household.
Maybe for full time employed adults between ages 25-65
If you live in the cheapest state, your salary is probably correspondingly low
That’s the beauty of the system, it does not matter if everybody makes more money, the orphan crushing machine will extract everything they can from bottom 60% and the government enables it.
From the bottom like 90%, but yeah.
30% between the two is the mythical middle class and the most notorious of the bootlickers.
It doesn’t take much to find plenty of people on Reddit talking about how they make 130k a year as a Walmart truck driver. Or the hordes or software engineers with 300k salaries, grads starting straight out of uni with well over 100k.
There is definitely inflation, the corresponding salary increases just don’t seem to be across all industries.
So anecdotal stories are more important to you than statistics from the US census bureau? For the record, the department does more than send out a survey every 10 years; the survey is like a recalibration for their statistics.
There are 3 primary factors contributing to the housing crisis:
These 3 issues aren’t the end of the story either, the opiate crisis, climate change, exclusionary politics, and many other factors are contributing to the housing crisis. The primary issue is that workers aren’t being paid enough.
Not to mention across demographics. Plenty of people don’t use Reddit for reasons of taste, time, or simply access.
Plus, there’s definitely a bias towards bragging about ones high salary (whether real or imagined). Not a lot of us who are struggling like to broadcast exactly how much we’re struggling. It fucking sucks, and the majority of our lives are spent dealing with that fact.
You’re operating on anecdotal evidence in a heavily biased context. This is why you’re getting the downvotes you deserve. Get your head out of your ass.
Fuck is you talkin bout? Let’s say you have a couple making $100K each, with two kids. Good salaries, maybe even a bit “mad”. You think they can afford childcare and a $1M home?
I work for a small private employer in rural America, in a field where there are no other places to work at without moving. I haven’t had a raise above inflation rate since covid, technically I’m making less money than years ago. Everyone here is fighting each other to take more of that 1% of the wealth we all have to share. Our government is complicit and backroom-contracted into keeping money in the wealthiest hands. A politicians vote isn’t even that expensive.
For real, I remember reading that all it takes for Ted Cruz is like $10,000.
Have you had raises at inflation rate?
Only way to achieve that is to leave for a higher paying job, or threaten to do so, credibly. Worked for me.
That works if you have negotiating power (i.e. marketable, in demand skills). It’s not an option for many people. For instance, I live in Arkansas where Tyson Foods is a major employer. They have poultry plants in small towns all over the place. Higher paying jobs don’t exist in a lot of those places.
I seem to have stumbled upon an employer that actually values its employees, seeing how I keep getting raises that match inflation.
Granted, I left a different job for that initial 40% “raise” …
We’ll see how it pans out.
I offered to quit for 6 months to get out from a non compete since I am technically a contractor and that got me a new contract and a small raise… That was neat.
Mad? You mean not relative to inflation because they are LOW?