It used to be you could support a family on a single income
…in the 1960s and early 1970s. Thanks to the oil crisis, inflation in the late 1970s (spurred on by the Republican-dominated congress) and then the recession throughout the Reagan years (and the skyrocketing corruption and lobbying) by the mid eighties, a family required two working adults, and young adults couldn’t get jobs in their field. By the 1990s, young adults were having to stay at home with parents until they were established.
In the aughts, adults were moving back in with parents or consolidating households.
Joe Biden is an establishment Democrat, about as right-wing as Democrats go. (The Democratic party is really right-wing compared to most systems outside the US). After Carter, who I think really intended to serve the public, the Democratic party revised its internal electoral policies to keep future public-serving candidates from winning primaries. (They changed them more after Occasio-Cortez won her primary.)
Nowadays, all you can really vote for is for or against the GOP, which is looking to neuter elections and turn the US into a one-party state. The DNC is going to preserve the status quo and fend of civil war as long as it can, but is not willing to engage in policy that will pull 80% of the US out of precarity. That will get us out of our current spiral. But they’re not willing to go there, and they’ll have to get past the US Supreme Court which is determined to preserve the corporate oligarchy.
To be fair, compared to systems outside of the us, all of it is “right wing”. To me, the us is just capitalism to the extreme which, just like socialism’s extreme ( communism ) is fucking terrible.
“I think what we’ve seen with the Bidenomics is it’s almost impossible for a family to get by on a sole source of income…”
Shit, this has been true since I was a child in the 80’s. Single-income households have been rare for decades. Currently, from my understanding, two adults with full-time jobs can’t make as much money as a single-income family made in the 50’s, after adjusting for inflation. I don’t think any politician is every going to fix this. It’s not in their best interest, it’s not in the best interest of large corporations, and it’s not in the best interest of the stock market.
Back of the envelope math, the median American income today is about $54,000. So assuming dual income, 108,000 household income the median household income is about $70,000. So we’re looking in about that range.
Adjusted for inflation in 1955 money (right in the middle), that’s about $10,000 to $15,000.
The household income in 1955 is $4,400 or $50,300 in current money.
adjusting for inflation doesn’t give you the full picture. things like car prices, college tuition, and housing prices have skyrocketed since 1955.
for example, the united states census data listing values from 1940 to 2000 (ie the cutoff was 20+ years ago and before the housing market disaster) shows that adjusted for inflation, housing prices have quadruped since 1960. there’s a link to a table containing unadjusted values. it shows that in 1950, the median household price was $7,354. in 2000, it was $119,600.
My parents were able to get in by with just my dad working as an electrician for a power plant, meanwhile I needed their help with the down payment so I could get a mortgage and currently floating with one income, if you count the continued use of a credit card to get groceries. Never mind the fact its got 20k+ on it. Aside from the basic utilities we have internet. No cable, no streaming services. Then god forbid either one of our cars needs extensive repairs or just gives up the ghost. My car is 15 yo and the wife’s car is now 10…would be sitting pretty without the credit card, roof loan and student loans my wife and i have.
I’d consider bankruptcy but that also costs money to do and would cost a lot more money in the long run. Man, I’m 40 and just tired of this grind.
“I mean, like for me, most people, they have to juggle all this just to make ends meet. That’s not a good economy for the middle class,” said DeSantis, now a millionaire who lives in state-provided housing and is insulated from economic variables like the property insurance crisis.
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