f/u article on Middle Class Shame piece

[ttt]

www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/american-financial-hell/481107/?google_editors_picks=true


More than a half-century ago, Betty Friedan set out to call attention to “the problem that has no name,” by which she meant the dissatisfaction of millions of American housewives.

Today, many are suffering from another problem that has no name, and it’s manifested in the bleak financial situations of millions of middle-class—and even upper-middle-class—American households.

Poverty doesn’t describe the situation of middle-class Americans, who by definition earn decent incomes and live in relative material comfort. Yet they are in financial distress. For people earning between $40,000 and $100,000 (i.e. not the very poorest), 44 percent said they could not come up with $400 in an emergency (either with cash or with a credit card whose bill they could pay off within a month). Even more astonishing, 27 percent of those making more than $100,000 also could not. This is not poverty. So what is it?

As people move up the income ladder, they escape material shortages and consume more. They have “things”—goods, houses, and, most importantly, education—to show for their higher earnings, but they do not have healthy finances. Having those “things” is of course an improvement over not having them, but only for the very, very rich (or the very, very unusual) is there any real escape from the pressure-cooker of American household finances.
  

At its core, this relentless drive to spend any money available comes not from a desire to consume more lattes and own nicer cars, but, largely, from the pressure people feel to provide their kids with access to the best schools they can afford (purchased, in most cases, not via tuition but via real estate in a specific public-school district). Breaking the bank for your kids’ education is, to an extent, perfectly reasonable: In a deeply unequal society, the gains to be made by being among the elite are enormous, and the consequences of not being among them are dire. When understood mainly as a consequence of this rush to provide for one’s children, the drive to maximize spending is not some bizarre mystery, nor a sign of massive irresponsibility, but a predictable consequence of severe inequality.

There’s not a great term for this phenomenon and its consequences. Often, scholars and writers will use some variant of the phrase “financial insecurity” or “fragility” to describe it, but this does a disservice, implying that living paycheck-to-paycheck carries risks, that something bad could happen. But where would that show up in this measure? For millions of people without savings, those bad things have already come—they’ve had to make an emergency car repair or pay an unforeseen medical bill. They’d still answer a survey question about whether they had $400 on hand in the negative, and the survey would miss entirely that they had already experienced such a need. Risk is certainly part of the problem, but lots families are facing issues that aren’t hypothetical and in the future—they are real and immediate.

Other existing terms fall short too. More colloquially, many refer to the speed of American life as a rat race, but that’s more of a reference to the hard and fast pace of work than it is to the broken finances many face at home (though surely the two are related, as the need for more money at least partially motivates that pace). Another, separate, phenomenon that people discuss is the “hollowing out” of the middle class, but that refers to the distribution of incomes becoming more polarized, leaving fewer in the middle, not the struggles faced by those still there.

Neal Gabler, the author of The Atlantic’s story on this problem, decides to go with the phrase “financial impotence,” which succeeds in capturing the powerlessness that many feel when confronting a financial abyss. There are ways in which this is apropos—men, in particular, have seen their earning power diminish in recent decades, and Gabler isn’t the first to draw a connection between financial power and sexual power. But this is an unfortunately narrow framing of a financial crisis whose casualties are so often women.

The failure to put a proper name on this dynamic is a part of a broader failure to understand it—and to see it as a problem at all. (Cognitive scientists have a great term for this—“hypocognition”—which refers to when, as linguist George Lakoff puts it, “the words or language that need to exist to frame an idea in a way which can lead to persuasive communication is either non-existent or ineffective.”) The most common and straightforward measures of households’ financial health look at income: Are incomes rising? How many people are earning less than $40,000? How many are earning more? But a measure of income alone completely misses the fact that few are getting off this earn-and-consume hamster wheel, even as they earn more. Wealth statistics do a better job capturing just how much trouble Americans have building up real assets and savings (and the answer is: a lot of trouble), but don’t capture at a week-to-week, month-to-month level how hard it can be to cover one’s bills.

Why can’t people live below their means, save up some money, and kick up their feet?
In the absence of a good understanding of what is going on, people frequently disparage those who are suffering. There are two common reactions to The Atlantic’s May cover story. On the left there seems to be a lot of, “Boohoo, a rich person who spends too much. We have real poverty to worry about.” On the right there was more of, “He made bad decisions and blames the system, our glorious system, for it!”

Yes, it’s not real poverty, and, yes, Gabler made bad decisions. But Gabler’s straits, and the straits of millions like him, demonstrate gross dysfunction at the core of the American system. If millions of people with healthy incomes are in Gabler’s situation, something is very wrong.

What is that something that is preventing people from turning their earnings into prosperity? Many have pointed to wage stagnation as the culprit, arguing that of course Americans can’t get ahead—they don’t have enough money to get ahead! And making more money would certainly help Americans afford better quality goods, housing, services, and so on—all of which are incredibly important. But there is little reason to think that higher wages would enable families to build up a financial cushion that would allow them to sleep easy at night. In fact, even the very richest largely do not put away what economists would consider a healthy retirement savings. For the vast majority of people, higher wages do not seem to translate into financial security.

So it stands to reason that the problem—insofar as it is in any real sense a definable, single problem—is driven by something that is happening on the spending side of the equation. Why can’t people live below their means, save up some money, and kick up their feet?

The place to start is by looking at what they are spending their money—and particularly their loans—on. The biggest expenditure? Housing, by far. (Transportation is next, but a good portion of that—gas—is in some ways a housing cost as well, since it’s a function of one’s commute.) And the biggest sources of debt? Housing and education. The average loan burdens for mortgages and student loans dwarf auto loans or credit-card debt, the other major types of debt that Americans tend to carry.

Housing and education appear to be two distinct categories of spending, but for many families they are one and the same: For the most part, where a family lives determines where their kids go to school, and, as a result, where schools are better, houses are more costly. This is both cause and effect: Where houses are expensive, the tax base is bigger and schools have better resources, and where schools are better, there is more demand for housing. Zoning restrictions exacerbate this dynamic, because many rich municipalities with excellent public schools oppose the density that would allow more people to access their schools, which in turn drives housing prices up further. So in a sense, for many people, housing debt is education debt.

It’s all too clear why parents will spend down their last dollar (and their last borrowed dollar) on their kids’ education: In a society with dramatic income inequality and dramatic educational inequality, the cost of missing out on the best society has to offer (or, really, at the individual scale, the best any person can afford) is unfathomable. So parents spend at the brink of what they can afford. By contrast, non-parents are far more likely to actually build up savings. (In cases where parents do manage to find affordable housing in a district with good-quality schools, it can make all the difference.)

It’s possible to imagine a country where the schools are good everywhere and prosperity is widespread. In such a country, parents don’t pour their resources into maximizing their kids’ educational quality, because their kids will have basically the same outcome anywhere. That’s not the country America is.

Gabler, for his part, sent his daughters to private school—an enormous expenditure, but one that many families prioritize at the expense of financial well-being for fear of missing out on the winnings in a winner-take-all system. As Gabler writes, “We resolved to sacrifice our own comforts to give our daughters theirs.” Considering the stakes, this is not a mistake (despite what many commenters have insisted) but a rational response to the unequal distribution of America’s good schools and its prosperity more generally. And there’s reason to think this may yet pay off for Gabler. True, he has no savings. True, he lives very meagerly. But he has two very well-educated and successful daughters. They are, in a sense, his retirement plan: Barring extenuating circumstances, they will be in a position to care for him and his wife in their later years. We should all be so lucky.
 
In a sense, the people who say rising wages would help are on to something, but the key is not getting households more money—it’s about building a different system, one in which the upside to getting ahead isn’t so high, and the downside to falling behind isn’t so low. Better wages are a symptom of such a system, but they don’t themselves bring one about. That would require systemic changes—changes to the tax code, changes to corporate-governance practices, changes to anti-trust law, changes to how schools are funded, to name a few. Such reforms are far off, or may never come at all. So for the foreseeable future, Gabler’s problem may be yet unnamed, but millions will know it all too well.

[Deleted]

While it only touches one part in Gabler's financial background, I think this author makes a really good point.

I wonder what year would be considered the "high water mark" for school funding? Did we ever really do it well?

[thatgirl2478]

... is it a good idea to make your kids your retirement plan? that feels icky to me...

[ttt]

May 6, 2016 9:02:00 GMT -5 thatgirl2478 said:

... is it a good idea to make your kids your retirement plan? that feels icky to me...

Good idea, I don't think so. I don't think anyone would ever recommend that. But given a choice between investing in your children's future and investing in your retirement, it's hard for lots of parents to choose themselves over their kids. 

Then again, children as your retirement plan is essentially the way it has worked for most of human history. Maybe we're reverting back to that. 

[WanderingWinoZ]

i think it's a weird mix of american consumerism/capitalism/manifest destiny/greed/materialism/obsession with celebrity & status.

I get that we all buy into the rat race at some level...I don't know how to quit either

[simpsongal]

This reminds me of an article I read like a year or so ago - I think it was on MM. It was about how people think once you've "made it" or start earning more income it means you should trade up your lifestyle. So clothes shopping at Walmart --> Gap --> Anthropologie --> Neiman's. The article was basically saying that for real wealth accumulation and in reality you need to maintain a similar lifestyle and just save and invest the extra income. I always wonder if the concept of a "starter house" is this type of consumerism trap too. Not for all obviously, but trading up to a much larger, nicer house in a good school district better come w/a substantial pay bump and savings.

[kadams767]

May 6, 2016 9:15:20 GMT -5 1234FIF! said:

May 6, 2016 9:12:41 GMT -5 WanderingWinoZ said:

i think it's a weird mix of american consumerism/capitalism/manifest destiny/greed/materialism/obsession with celebrity & status.

I get that we all buy into the rat race at some level...I don't know how to quit either

I agree and disagree. We have told people for years that a good education is the key to success and happiness, and, the 'Murican Dream! So people are hocking themselves in debt up to their eyeballs to make that happen for their kids. Then those kids hock themselves in debt up to the eyeballs to make it happen for their kids. And so on. 

Though, at least part of the increase in "education" costs and school loans is directly related to the escalation in consumerism.  Fancy suite-style campus housing and campus amenities (better food courts and full-service eateries, gym facilities that rival places like Equinox) don't pay for themselves.  I feel very "get off my lawn" about it, but there seems to be a very high level of expectation as to lifestyle of college students noticeably different than when I was in school.  And since that expectation started so early on, it only continues and escalates further after college.  While wage stagflation is definitely a big problem, as is student loan debt, unrealistic expectations are also a  factor.  I think someone in the last thread about this said it, but the expectation at 30 seems to be that we are where our parents were at 50.     

[fumbalina]

The cost of food goes up as well. If you are barely making it ramen seems reasonable but if you are earning 40k a year, you feel like you deserve better. People also start visiting the doctor and spend money there.

Those higher income jobs also come with expenses like a professional wardrobe, travel expenses (have to be available), and sometimes professional dues.

The problem is not that these are unreasonable expenses, but that those earning less have no chance of attaining what should be reasonable for any working person in an industrialized country.

[CheeringCharm]

This is an interesting take on it. The part at the bottom about people stretching their finances to buy a house in the "good" school district stuck out to me. I think part of the problem is the way we measure school success. We *know* that ESL and minority students often struggle more on standardized tests. There is so much research that backs that up. And yet we continually use them as one of the sole tools to evaluate schools. If there was more awareness that lower test scores often don't mean anything other than greater diversity, perhaps this trend of people going in to too much debt to buy a house would lessen a bit.

[CheeringCharm]

May 6, 2016 9:52:13 GMT -5 1234FIF! said:

May 6, 2016 9:47:07 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

This is an interesting take on it. The part at the bottom about people stretching their finances to buy a house in the "good" school district stuck out to me. I think part of the problem is the way we measure school success. We *know* that ESL and minority students often struggle more on standardized tests. There is so much research that backs that up. And yet we continually use them as one of the sole tools to evaluate schools. If there was more awareness that lower test scores often don't mean anything other than greater diversity, perhaps this trend of people going in to too much debt to buy a house would lessen a bit.

Well, now, dig deeper. Because some of this is people not wanting their kids to sit next to poor brown and black kids. The illegals and baby mama babies. 

Some yes. But we see questions like this even on these boards by people who I don't think are racist. They just want their kids to go to the best school possible but are hesitant about lower test scores and what they mean about the quality of teaching. 

[CheeringCharm]

May 6, 2016 9:57:47 GMT -5 1234FIF! said:

May 6, 2016 9:54:16 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

Some yes. But we see questions like this even on these boards by people who I don't think are racist. They just want their kids to go to the best school possible but are hesitant about lower test scores and what they mean about the quality of teaching. 

And maybe they aren't racist, however, that is still coded language to some degree. Because the perception is those kids, especially, are dumb PLUS they are poor and the dumb and poor will rub off. Where is NitaX I think she has talked about this before in detail. 

That's definitely possible. I will defer to your judgement on this issue. I'm just saying that things like Great Schools and US News and Newsweek which attempt to "rank" and grade schools using test scores as one of their primary tools don't help matters.

[NitaX]

May 6, 2016 9:23:14 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

This reminds me of an article I read like a year or so ago - I think it was on MM. It was about how people think once you've "made it" or start earning more income it means you should trade up your lifestyle. So clothes shopping at Walmart --> Gap --> Anthropologie --> Neiman's. The article was basically saying that for real wealth accumulation and in reality you need to maintain a similar lifestyle and just save and invest the extra income. I always wonder if the concept of a "starter house" is this type of consumerism trap too. Not for all obviously, but trading up to a much larger, nicer house in a good school district better come w/a substantial pay bump and savings.

Personally, I always felt that it was. I bought my first house with the thought that we could "grow" into it. And that's what happened. I found a 3 BR, 2ba house with a bonus room over the garage. We eventually finished out the bonus room and put the new baby (now 5) in what was the guest room. We don't have a huge house, but it works fine for the four of us. A lot of this starter house stuff was a big boom for the construction and real estate industry IMHO.

[NitaX]

May 6, 2016 9:54:16 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

May 6, 2016 9:52:13 GMT -5 1234FIF! said:

Well, now, dig deeper. Because some of this is people not wanting their kids to sit next to poor brown and black kids. The illegals and baby mama babies. 

Some yes. But we see questions like this even on these boards by people who I don't think are racist. They just want their kids to go to the best school possible but are hesitant about lower test scores and what they mean about the quality of teaching. 

But Best School Possible = Schools where the Black and Brown Kids are Fewer or Those Kids have Parents with "Good Jobs."

What we have is an educational system that is the outgrowth of decades of white flight because nobody wanted their kid going to a school with black folks. That was old skool racism. NOW, it's we want the best for our kids and if there are too many black folks it signals the neighborhood is going down and the we need to move to a better neighborhood. It's basically solidified an old pattern that changed the language and doesn't recognize its old roots.

[kadams767]

May 6, 2016 9:57:47 GMT -5 1234FIF! said:

May 6, 2016 9:54:16 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

Some yes. But we see questions like this even on these boards by people who I don't think are racist. They just want their kids to go to the best school possible but are hesitant about lower test scores and what they mean about the quality of teaching. 

And maybe they aren't racist, however, that is still coded language to some degree. Because the perception is those kids, especially, are dumb PLUS they are poor and the dumb and poor will rub off. Where is NitaX I think she has talked about this before in detail. 

It's absolutely coded language and I don't buy for one minute that if we could somehow convey that the discrepancy on test scores is meaningless that more (white) people would buy into other areas.  And I say this as a white woman. 

I live in an urban neighborhood, in particular on a lesser-desired street in a desirable neighborhood.  The schools are notoriously bad, typical of large urban districts in poor cities.  I love my house and my neighborhood and have no plans to move.  The schools are irrelevant to me, because I don't have kids.  Yet despite that, the number of people who don't understand and actually make comments about why I live where I live are kind of staggering.  I can afford to live on a "better" street in this neighborhood, I can afford any of the posher suburbs, so why don't I move?  The comments I get are basically thinly veiled versions of "you aren't a minority, there's no reason for you to stay there now."

[andwhat]

May 6, 2016 9:11:59 GMT -5 1234FIF! said:

Well for a good long while the advice was save for retirement first because your kids can get loans for school if they need to. How is that working out?

ETA: Not advocating that people use their kids as their retirement plan just throwing out another piece of financial advice that has been pushed over the past few years

We still follow this advice. We will help DD with college as much as we can, but we will not save for it at the expense of retirement. Hopefully by the time she is college age the whole idea of it will be different. And I am all for going to community college for the general classes and then transferring. 

Hopefully we will be able to do both or at least set DD up in the best possible situation. But there are limited funds to go around and we have to prioritize. This is how we have chosen to do so.

[NitaX]

May 6, 2016 10:01:14 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

May 6, 2016 9:57:47 GMT -5 1234FIF! said:

And maybe they aren't racist, however, that is still coded language to some degree. Because the perception is those kids, especially, are dumb PLUS they are poor and the dumb and poor will rub off. Where is NitaX I think she has talked about this before in detail. 

That's definitely possible. I will defer to your judgement on this issue. I'm just saying that things like Great Schools and US News and Newsweek which attempt to "rank" and grade schools using test scores as one of their primary tools don't help matters.

I don't disagree that the rankings don't help, but the other factor of it not helping is that when you dig into demographic data for the schools, you'll find the higher schools are likely to be schools with more white folks. Let's take a look at some Memphis examples:

Top rated Elem School on Great Schools (GS)
Richland Elem - Scores on GS - 10
Demographic: 67% White

Rozelle Elem - Scores on GS - 3
Demographic - 98% Black

Both of these schools are in the local school district's Optional School Program which means that they both have access to dynamic teachers, newer materials, and expanded academic course offerings.

The difference is that while Rozelle's academic performance isn't way high - it's not that bad either. It sits in one of the poorer areas of town, but with B's (1) and C's (2) on its state report card, it's not a bad school at all. It is actually serving students in the area pretty well. Richland has 3 A's on it's state performance report card so while yes it does better, you also go back to the demographics and well expect that school to do well because you have kids that come more prepared to school. The Great Schools rating does a disservice to Rozelle, not just because of test scores, but also because of demographics. 

[cookiemdough]

May 6, 2016 9:54:16 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

May 6, 2016 9:52:13 GMT -5 1234FIF! said:

Well, now, dig deeper. Because some of this is people not wanting their kids to sit next to poor brown and black kids. The illegals and baby mama babies. 

Some yes. But we see questions like this even on these boards by people who I don't think are racist. They just want their kids to go to the best school possible but are hesitant about lower test scores and what they mean about the quality of teaching. 

So how does that work in the private school setting where many don't provide that data at all and some don't have the same teaching requirements?

[CheeringCharm]

May 6, 2016 10:41:57 GMT -5 NitaX said:

May 6, 2016 10:01:14 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

That's definitely possible. I will defer to your judgement on this issue. I'm just saying that things like Great Schools and US News and Newsweek which attempt to "rank" and grade schools using test scores as one of their primary tools don't help matters.

I don't disagree that the rankings don't help, but the other factor of it not helping is that when you dig into demographic data for the schools, you'll find the higher schools are likely to be schools with more white folks. Let's take a look at some Memphis examples:

Top rated Elem School on Great Schools (GS)
Richland Elem - Scores on GS - 10
Demographic: 67% White

Rozelle Elem - Scores on GS - 3
Demographic - 98% Black

Both of these schools are in the local school district's Optional School Program which means that they both have access to dynamic teachers, newer materials, and expanded academic course offerings.

The difference is that while Rozelle's academic performance isn't way high - it's not that bad either. It sits in one of the poorer areas of town, but with B's (1) and C's (2) on its state report card, it's not a bad school at all. It is actually serving students in the area pretty well. Richland has 3 A's on it's state performance report card so while yes it does better, you also go back to the demographics and well expect that school to do well because you have kids that come more prepared to school. The Great Schools rating does a disservice to Rozelle, not just because of test scores, but also because of demographics. 

Fwiw, that's kind of what I was trying to say. I think there are probably people who say to their realtor "we want a house in a school district with a 9 or a 10 on GS" because they think that means the school is necessarily better, which research shows is not the case. So they end up only looking at houses that are zoned for Richland. But if more people understood that test scores don't really reveal that much about the quality of education on offer at a particular school, perhaps more would feel comfortable buying in areas that are zoned for Rozelle. But I definitely understand what you and Fif were saying about coded language and that some people are hiding the reasons for buying in a white area behind the higher test scores and supposedly better schools. 

[ringstrue]

What about the sheer quantity of ways an unexpected $400 bill could come into your life? As soon as I saw that question, I immediately thought, "yes, ONE $400 cost, fine, but that better be it until next paycheck." But its just not that simple.

I think people don't realize just how costly normal lives are. How many months do i unexpectedly drop $50 for school, parties, or some other kid-need. How many times is my visit to the car place $50 - $200 more than expected. How many times does someone get sick or dinner is ruined and all of a sudden we are out more and more. Sure I can plan, but I also need to live. Our lawn mower is on the fritz - how much time/money/woah is that going to incur?

We are at the point soon where I could have more financial ability than I do PTO - which means paying probably $60/day for the DD to go to daycare during school vacation days - do you know how much freaking money that is for all these days off? We had no snow days, which means now I have to cough up $180 for the 3 built-in days.

/rant

[NitaX]

May 6, 2016 10:53:27 GMT -5 cookiemdough said:

May 6, 2016 9:54:16 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

Some yes. But we see questions like this even on these boards by people who I don't think are racist. They just want their kids to go to the best school possible but are hesitant about lower test scores and what they mean about the quality of teaching. 

So how does that work in the private school setting where many don't provide that data at all and some don't have the same teaching requirements?

Silly cookie! Private schools are inherently better! No data needed to support it.

[pinkdutchtulips]

May 6, 2016 9:11:59 GMT -5 1234FIF! said:

Well for a good long while the advice was save for retirement first because your kids can get loans for school if they need to. How is that working out?

ETA: Not advocating that people use their kids as their retirement plan just throwing out another piece of financial advice that has been pushed over the past few years

speaking as someone whose parents adhered to this advice (then thypoon divorce happened) the goal was to save for retirement first then cash flow w moms teacher salary in state college tuition. Ha ! The divorce split the retirement and created 2 households - bye college money. Instead us kids ended up with SL up to our eyeballs (even by going in state) delaying adulthood for quite a bit. I'm STILL paying on my SL - 20 years later at the expense of a lot of things I should be doing instead #MMFailure

[hocus2]

May 6, 2016 8:40:55 GMT -5 @idaholakelady said:

While it only touches one part in Gabler's financial background, I think this author makes a really good point.

I wonder what year would be considered the "high water mark" for school funding? Did we ever really do it well?

Even distribution of funds or even a progressive distribution of funds will not solve all school issues. NYC doesn't have local school fundraising -- school funds go into a  common pot and go back out on a per student level for the most part. Title 1 funds means that several schools in low income area in NYC receive more per student than schools in more affluent areas. NYC also has very large spending per students compared to other cities even after you account for cost of living. We still have schools that run the gamut  from world class to really bad in terms of quality of education, % who finish the school at or above city standards etc.

Because of the "virtuous" cycle where good schools draw families the schools with the highest scores are often the most over crowded so the differences between schools is not necessarily because poor schools are over crowded or have poor student/teacher ratios. 

Universal access to high quality education is very challenging, even in a relatively blue/progressive city like New York.

[thatgirl2478]

May 6, 2016 9:07:21 GMT -5 ttt said:

May 6, 2016 9:02:00 GMT -5 thatgirl2478 said:

... is it a good idea to make your kids your retirement plan? that feels icky to me...

Good idea, I don't think so. I don't think anyone would ever recommend that. But given a choice between investing in your children's future and investing in your retirement, it's hard for lots of parents to choose themselves over their kids. 

Then again, children as your retirement plan is essentially the way it has worked for most of human history. Maybe we're reverting back to that. 

very true.

[leeba25]

What else does Greatschools look at in determining those school grades / scores? I thought it was test scores and also graduation rates? I need to look this up. We are struggling with this now, as we consider moving, because we're trying to figure out if we want to pay more for the nicer school district a few miles away (9-10 on GS). And by more, I mean, I'll be spending at least 100k - 150k more for a similar house (and won't get a pool goddammit), plus 6k extra a year in property taxes. We like our schools fine (4-6 on GS), but the nicer district has a fancy robotics lab, arts options that are absolutely insane (whereas we'd have to pay outside for some of the stuff this other district would include for free), more robust sports options, etc, etc.

IDK, man. This shit is tough.

[fumbalina]

It comes down to wages nit keeping up with inflation. For a time people got by on credit, but now even that does not work.

People are paying back loans, responsible for more healthcare costs, subject to the rising price of food and power, in addition to the decreasing value of money.

People prefer to argue for bootstraps instead of realizing the problem is stagnating wages at all levels. If the bootstrap contigent would fight for a higher minimum wage, then all incomes would rise through simple supply and demand. Other wages would also go up because the high stress nature of most jobs would make retail look appealing if the pay were the same.

[fangoriagurkel]

kadams767

Oh my goodness, yes! I was neighborhood shamed recently and it was very uncomfortable. I was chit chatting with the usual 4-6 people I see at my Sbux. My blouse was complimented and I said where I'd purchased it. Then got asked what I was doing down there "in that area".

Ummm I live there with my family, assface. Rude!

[cookiemdough]

May 6, 2016 13:20:48 GMT -5 leeba25 said:

What else does Greatschools look at in determining those school grades / scores? I thought it was test scores and also graduation rates? I need to look this up. We are struggling with this now, as we consider moving, because we're trying to figure out if we want to pay more for the nicer school district a few miles away (9-10 on GS). And by more, I mean, I'll be spending at least 100k - 150k more for a similar house (and won't get a pool goddammit), plus 6k extra a year in property taxes. We like our schools fine (4-6 on GS), but the nicer district has a fancy robotics lab, arts options that are absolutely insane (whereas we'd have to pay outside for some of the stuff this other district would include for free), more robust sports options, etc, etc.

IDK, man. This shit is tough.

I don't understand this argument. The higher continued cost of housing for the next 30 years and increased property taxes is far more than the cost with just getting access to options and extracurriculars a outside of school.

[was5]

May 6, 2016 13:20:48 GMT -5 leeba25 said:

What else does Greatschools look at in determining those school grades / scores? I thought it was test scores and also graduation rates? I need to look this up. We are struggling with this now, as we consider moving, because we're trying to figure out if we want to pay more for the nicer school district a few miles away (9-10 on GS). And by more, I mean, I'll be spending at least 100k - 150k more for a similar house (and won't get a pool goddammit), plus 6k extra a year in property taxes. We like our schools fine (4-6 on GS), but the nicer district has a fancy robotics lab, arts options that are absolutely insane (whereas we'd have to pay outside for some of the stuff this other district would include for free), more robust sports options, etc, etc.

IDK, man. This shit is tough.

The explanation Realtor.com gives for GS is that they compare a school's performance on standardized tests to state-wide results. I can't find a simple/clear explanation on the GS website about what exactly they take into consideration but I didn't look that hard. There is also a separate community rating using the 5 star system. I think the comments are very revealing.

DD's elem school is a 6 on GS but the community rating is 5 stars. The school is fairly diverse racially (I think much more diverse than many schools in the highly segregated mid-west) and also diverse from an economic/educational level of the parents. Parents run the professional spectrum from attorney, engineer and college professor to skilled trades to minimum wage jobs. Parents are really invested in the school (lots of volunteer time from parents) and there is a really good music (both band and orchestra) and robotics program. However, sometimes I worry if my kids don't fit into one of those highly performing niches (music or robotics) then they won't get the most out of their educational experience. Maybe a larger school with more options gives kids more opportunities? It is a hard choice.

Sometimes I think about moving in 3 or 4 years to a bigger house (when we no longer have to pay for preschool/daycare for our 3 year old twins), but then I think I would be much happier knowing all my bills are paid and there is money in the bank for an emergency. If we did move, any of the money we save in child care costs would go to mortgage and upkeep of a larger house. I keep telling myself that our house is just fine and there's not need for anything bigger with the hope that I will completely convince myself of that before moving is a realistic option. We've also thought about adding on to our  house, but I worry about overinvesting in the house, especially when it's not a sought after neighborhood. We would just have to hope that if we stay here 20-25 more years, we'd eventually break even.

[leeba25]

May 6, 2016 13:51:01 GMT -5 cookiemdough said:

May 6, 2016 13:20:48 GMT -5 leeba25 said:

What else does Greatschools look at in determining those school grades / scores? I thought it was test scores and also graduation rates? I need to look this up. We are struggling with this now, as we consider moving, because we're trying to figure out if we want to pay more for the nicer school district a few miles away (9-10 on GS). And by more, I mean, I'll be spending at least 100k - 150k more for a similar house (and won't get a pool goddammit), plus 6k extra a year in property taxes. We like our schools fine (4-6 on GS), but the nicer district has a fancy robotics lab, arts options that are absolutely insane (whereas we'd have to pay outside for some of the stuff this other district would include for free), more robust sports options, etc, etc.

IDK, man. This shit is tough.

I don't understand this argument. The higher continued cost of housing for the next 30 years and increased property taxes is far more than the cost with just getting access to options and extracurriculars a outside of school.

It wasn't an argument. It was a series of questions. I also for sure wouldn't be there for 30 years. And, of course I have access to that stuff now, with paying for it. It's not just about the money for that stuff, it's having it all onsite, and incorporated into the daily curriculum. They're already there 8 hours a day anyway, you know? 

Also, I didn't say anything about diversity; I'm not trying to get out of a less-white area and into a more white one. I just looked at the demographics, and they're really similar. Actually the higher-rated school district has higher diversity than the one I'm in now. 

[leeba25]

May 6, 2016 14:20:44 GMT -5 @tooshort said:

The bigger house struggle is real. H keeps wanting to upgrade and im not having it. We have a 15 year mortgage and I'm counting down until we are done. I refuse to start over. We have 4 beds, 4 baths, and 2200 sq feet for 4 people. We apparently need to get rid of some crap if we don't have enough room. I'm not chasing a bigger home. I love that we can live off H's income and mine goes on fun stuff. Not giving up that freedom for a McMansion in the burbs.

going back to the real point of the article, YES so much on this. I really wish we had started out with a slightly bigger home, but who knew we'd have two kids. 

I still want just like 400 more sf though. Lol. I am a hypocrite. (Our house is 1300 sf, with a really nice yard of .25 acres.)