Want to roll your workplace rights backwards? Keep voting for the same assholes.

The issue is larger than just voting blue. All of the most expensive areas in the country are blue due to more robust economies.

I think that the problem is that striations in earning power has created a small segment of highly compensated people at or near the top, and a much larger group of people that live paycheck to paycheck with no room for error. I don't know how to fix that problem because any fix opens up a set of new problems. I think one potential solution is to flatten the income profile by either raising salaries from below, or lowering salaries at the top, but I am sure that would end up in court, especially with CEOs and bigwigs not getting obscene salaries.

and right down there in cost-of-living hell. The basics of housing, health care, education and retirement have been monetized to the hilt since Reagan and real incomes outside the top tranche have stagnated. Party schmarty, the private sector has had its way.

But that would probably create an economic nightmare the way the 70s gas cap did, so I would consider that wishful thinking at this point.

needs to be reclaimed as an issue for our side. We've been running scared on tax cuts for four decades and it is stupid, destructive and wrong.

It's pretty much sure-fire, it's just politically unpopular because it causes existing home prices to fall.

Places that were $1250 a month are climbing to $1800 a month and in some places over $3000 a month. 4 bedroom condos? $680,000 a month. Actual houses? Forget about it!

Build M+1 units and the rents fall. It even worked in San Francisco.

In 1962, my dad bought a house at 667 Jennings Dr., just around the corner from Andrew Hill High School there on Singleton Rd. for $12,500. In 1970, he sold it for $22,000. That was a lot of money back then. He worked at Lockheed Missles and Space in Sunnyvale as a Design Engineer.
The 2nd house at 914 Lanewood Court in Willow Glen, cost $28,500. He sold it in December of 1991 for $300,000.

I was just in San Jose in 2014 and again last October. I could not get over the change, even seeing the houses where I lived prior to leaving California for good in January of 1973. The traffic and cost of living skyrocketed. I did not even recognize my old stomping grounds.

If anyone here who lives in San Jose, check out these addresses and send me a DU Email with pictures. I neglected to get photos last year. On our way back from Australia, we plan to stop in California and the San Jose area once again to see family my husband still has in the area. I hope to get photos then.

My daughter just bought a house in SoCal, but before that she lived in Los Gatos. Paid $2,600 a month for 600 sq. ft. In a subdivided Victorian.

Something doesn't add up here

The mean of the middle quintile (which would be the overall median) was $59,149 in 2016.

In 1980, it was $21,800. Adjusting at the average inflation rate since 1980 (Peak of 12.52% in 1980 to a floor of 0.09% in 2009) averages 4.19%.

Taking 1.0419^35 gives 4.206, which would push the median (inflation adjusted) to $91,699.

That would put 2016 about $32k behind an inflation adjusted basis vs. 1980.

Salaries have not kept pace with costs of living.

There are a lot of numbers out there. When you just focus on wages, this is what you get, per Elizabeth Warren:

I can do compound interest in my head
You, not so much

Integrative functions don't average like that

They do the calculations for you, in the data tables

But, you should be used to that!
Pathetic, that you're supporting the wage surpressors!
BTW: I'm not jealous. I'm a millionaire
Unlike you, I'm worried about others!

Two teachers where I live, would do quite well and could easily afford a larger house on an income, likely 30% or so less than that. As an aside, teachers are definitely underpaid.

Yes, the middle-class is being squeezed, no doubt. But I'm not sure that's our best example of that. Some of the other points in the article are better, however.

I just have a hard time worrying about the middle-class, when those with even lower -- or no -- income can't even think about a house or trailer.

In any event, someone soon better come along who doesn't just promise prosperity, but is honest with the people -- folks with greater income (which is a whole lot less than the 1%ers, 10%ers, or even 20%ers, we hear about most often) are going to have to pay more in taxes so that those with lower incomes do better in terms of healthcare, education, childcare, housing, etc.

Unfortunately, that honesty is not a prescription for getting elected in America.

Eventhough republicans have attacked such programs for several decades, really poor people still get some type of assistance. The middleclass largely does not get assistance that is significant.

I had my first attempt at business ownership fail several years ago, I went from being well compensated to pretty much financial ruin. I was a poor as when I was a boy, even worse because I had adult bills with no way to pay them. What I found was that my previously well off status (earned in the top 15%) made me completely ineligible for assistance unless I went something like 2 years at the bottom. Lots of middleclass people face the dilemma that I was in, there is just no safety net for them. I am creative and relentless, so with time I fixed my problems, but I still remember the dynamics that I faced and understand that middleclass people facing them have no real recourse until they completely bottom out and that takes time. I am not trying to divert from what poor people face, but for someone that had no issue with purchases being in a situation where even buying a sandwich for lunch or dinner was not possible and having to rely on the charity of family, can be spirit crushing if a person doesn't fight hard against that end.

I'm having a very hard time garnering sympathy for a married couple earning 140k a year complaining because they choose to live in an area with houses costing $700k and up.

That income is far beyond what most families in the country earn.(including myself)

Doubt that the UBI mentioned in the link is going to make their mortgage payment affordable

Is cheaper places likely pay horrible salaries. So their struggles will not end, they just move to another place. Lots of middleclass couples are a few lost pay checks from losing all that they have, that is the reality of modern life in America.

In Boise, two teachers will be taking home 20% less, but right now, the median cost for a family sized home is still $350K and the median rents for a family sized house or apartment is still around $1500 a month - still "out of reach" for 75% of the people who live and work there, unless they were able to save up 30% of the cost of the house or decide to f** their retirement just to be able to live without sharing their family home with renters just to make ends meet.
This according to today's NPR report.

And in Demopolis, Alabama, in Marengo County - where my SIL works for an SSI lawyer and my BIL is a regional local bank manager (so they're pretty much upper middle class there) - the median household income is around $26K and additional jobs just at the minimum wage level are few, the median cost of a family sized home is $150K and the subsidized apartments - of which over half in the town are subsidized, the average around $475. If your household makes too much for subsidized housing, you're still paying in rent between $900 and $1200 for a two bedroom/one bath home or apartment. It's actually cheaper to buy about 1/4 to 1/2 acre of land just outside town or off someone's existing parcel, move a cheap (around $30K to install) one bedroom, one bath 42x10 singlewide and get your friends together every weekend for a few months to put in utilities, a driveway, and an insulated"built on" to add in two or three bedrooms. Homeowners regularly split and develop their older, larger house lots to put in a cheap "mother in law" type or mobile home to rent out off their backyard.

BIL - a staunch Reagan Republican type - is constantly complaining that no one is buying homes the way they used to anymore.
All his bank loans now are typically for signature loans, vehicles and mobile homes, 2nds or home equity on existing homes, or commercial improvements. New construction or new home/new building loans are still seriously are on the decline; they haven't recovered since 2009 - and those types of loans used to be what maintained the capital for that small regional bank.
Now, they're looking at cutting staff, and closing branches...

The claim that that "just move" to a location where the cost of a home is lower is unrealistic. "Just move" implies that at any time, anyone can get an equivalent job in that new location, instead of the typical starting over at the bottom rung of whatever jobs are around because the last job doesn't exist in your new location - and the wages you will be able to command in those locations will also be lower.

***********************

Here's the nasty secret. "Just Move" only works when a location that has been depressed is in that one or three year window of economic expansion; after the first big organization decides to build a research facility, or a factory, or headquarters - or any other large business that is going to need the higher skilled labor to support it. After the first couple thousand new, higher wage employees settle, housing prices shoot up to meet the new median income, pretty much freezing out the locals - the teachers, the municipal workers, the retail and service workers - who are working for the same wages the local economy could support. And since those new large organizations are always getting the tax breaks that keep the local government and service economy from raising local wages, services start to decline and local wages keep falling - and those "lucrative wages" that brought high skilled workers in start to stagnate.

I've seen it happen in the tech and other scientific fields over four decades. Back in the 1990's, you could get out with a BS in Software Engineering or IT from a good program and walk into a $120K a year job. E-5/E-6 techs that worked on newer DoD programs could walk into $70K to $90K a year jobs as contractors right out of a first or second enlistment with little actual college or having gone through a commercial certification process.
Now, you're lucky to walk into a $80K a year job with a Masters degree and all of the latest certs.

Unless you're a "superstar" consultant or can depend on bonuses and company stock to prop up what you're getting, your comparison wages are going to be stagnant - or lower than what the previous generation was able to command.

A full-time high school teacher in somewhere like San Francisco can make around $70K a year salary after 5 years while the same skillset, time in the district, and status will get them only $30K in a place like Demopolis, Alabama.
The price of a nice home that his or her parents could have bought in the 1970's on a teacher's salary is still the same amount of "out of reach" no matter where they live now days. Wages just have not maintained the same inflation as housing has.

Haele

I think they should move to somewhere more affordable. Good teachers are needed all over.

They can move, but it would have to be way, way south of SJ. So they get commutes of several hours each day. I would like to see political leaders in down and out cities show some vision and buy up decaying or abandoned housing.

San Jose was down and out around 20 years ago, places like Mountain View, Santa Clara or south of SJ was where the people with money were moving. Then brash, innovative companies set up shop in SJ because it was the cheapest place around. They succeeded and others followed, so now instead of gang violence and abandoned houses, San Jose has postage stamp size houses going for $700-800k, like Santa Clara was about two decades ago.

I was thinking more like finding other teaching jobs in a different place. I know that might be easier said than done but what they are doing now seems even more difficult.

I would like to see cities step in an buy homes for teachers that teach in their schools, that would be a twofer, help the city and the teacher.

I like your idea. That would be wonderful. It really is a shame our teachers have to struggle so much financially.

To those in this thread on Democratic friggin' Underground who buy it. These are teachers. Not bankers. San Jose is hardly the only place in this country with high housing costs.

We sat back and watched while the wealthy managed to virtually eliminate collective bargaining. There is no one left to negotiate on behalf of the working class any longer.

...which average about $250,000 each to raise through adult-hood.

given the title of the OP, but as I read, I realized that the linked article was commentary on a newly released book, rather than a news story. Here's a NYT article on the same book,

Damn there is no hope for me then LOL

Of course wages stay the same and costs of life never stops going up.

That's what happens when you elect damn republicans to run your country...into the ground!

I hear billionaires are getting along fine though....

They gross $11, 500 per month and a mortgage on a 700K home is approx. $3500/month


Leaves them nearly $100K for taxes, food, transportaion and other living expenses. Yet the article acts like they are living paycheck to paycheck. Unbelievable

It's in Morgan Hill, about 25 miles south. The average home price in Morgan Hill is $967,600.