There's still over $63,000 per family to be fleeced.

Ah.... we did already.

Jobs from offshoring. Heard it right here on DU. A fine example of right wing revisionist history talking point repeated here. Let the fleecing continue. We'll blame lost jobs on failing education and use that excuse to finish handing over our public education system to private companies. Screw over those teachers in unions and blame our children for under achieving instead.

suffered. FDR lowered tariffs, the middle class prospered. Obviously there was much more to it than that but FDR did not view tariffs as the friend of the middle class.

We need countervailing tariffs to counter subsidies offered by other countries that lure good paying jobs away from the US. Or serious tax penalties for companies that offshore. Without them we will continue to lose jobs in today's economy. Ask steel workers. Ask VFX workers. Ask any other industry who has seen their work leave within the past twenty years. If it hasn't happened to your industry yet consider yourself fortunate.

FDR understood how this works. Germany and Sweden are just following FDR's prescription.

defining "family." Just curious. Two parents, two kids?

(Survey of Consumer Finances) data. That survey uses a specific definition of a household as the unit of measure -- IOW, it's not a family definition, it's a household definition where one person may be a household or a family grouping.. Wolff may have normalized the data to a specific household size, but I can't tell.

or garnishment - which was a rider attached to the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill (not sure if Roth IRA's or exempt, but I think 401(k) are). So unlike a house, a retirement account is kind of a super-asset. The average balance, on the other hand, is really low. Not sure where that would leave us in the chart, but just wanted to throw that out there.

In other words 80 or more hours of labor is providing for less than what 40 hours did for our parents or grandparents.

Way to go America.

They were sold a myth that a house could be a retirement investment.

investment IF you are planning on living in it the rest of your life. It is when you think that it is going to rise in value and you are going to be able to sell it for a fortune so you can live in luxury that the problem exists.

I was born in 1941 and that is the definition that was used back then. My grandmother sold the farm after her husband died and lived the next 40 years in the little house she bought with the money. There was enough money left over for her and my aunt to live on. A farm was a good investment to be sold. A house was better used for what it was meant for.

I would be much better off if I had remembered that.

But as a cash-out proposition, well, supply, demand, demographics...

People always seem to use the median like it is a measure that shows EVERYTHING.

Like if the median goes up, we ALL are better off, or, in this case, if the median goes down, we are ALL worse off.

I don't buy it.

Thanks to the census, I have some detailed information about 2002 and 2011. According to this graph, median was $30,000 higher in 2002 than it was in 2011. That's what the graph says. What do the censuses say, with much greater detail?

2002
zero or negative - 16.9%
less than $5,000 - 9.3
less than $10,000 - 4.8
less than $25,000 - 7.6
less than $50,000 - 8.5
less than $100,000 - 12.9
less than $250,000 - 20.3
less than $500,000 - 11.1
more than $500,000 - 8.5

2011

zero or negative - 18.1%
less than $5,000 - 9.1
less than $10,000 - 4.8
less than $25,000 - 6.6
less than $50,000 - 6.9
less than $100,000 - 10.4
less than $250,000 - 17.9
less than $500,000 - 12.6
more than $500,000 - 13.5

then add inflation $100 in 2002 = $125.04 in 2011

Just looking at the nominal figures, in 2002 39.8% had more than $100,000 in net worth versus 44% having that much in 2011. On the other side, for both years 38.6% had less than $25,000 in net worth.

Just for fun, because it looks interesting, let me include 1993

zero or negative - 12.6%
less than $5,000 - 14.2
less than $10,000 - 6.5
less than $25,000 - 11.2
less than $50,000 - 12.2
less than $100,000 - 15.1
less than $250,000 - 17.6
less than $500,000 - 7.0
more than $500,000 - 3.5

Of course inflation becomes more of a problem, because $100 in 1993 = $155.67 in 2011. So $250,000 in 1993 becomes $389,175 in 2011 and $50,000 becomes $77,835.

The interesting part is that the middle is being vacated. In 1993, 38.5% of all households were in the $10,000 to $100,000 range. In 2011 than number had dropped to 23.9%. Some of that may be inflation since $64,238 in 2002 translates to $100,000 in 2011.

Some of that would seem to be - good as the percentage over $250,000 has grown from 10.5% to 19.6% to 26.1%.

But that prosperity is not shared with those at the bottom. In fact, those underwater has steadily grown from 12.6% to 16.9% to 18.1%. And those under $10,000 has held pretty steady at 33.3 to 31 to 32% (even while the value of $10,000 has gone down to $6,424.