Two is Worse than One

Elizabeth Warren, writing in Harvard magazine, shows that the median American family had only one wage earner in the early 1970s, who earned $41,670, in today's money. Out of this, he or she paid the family's regular, more or less fixed, expenses: taxes, mortgage payments, health insurance, car and gas payments, etc. Typically, these costs rose to 55% of monthly income. This left the family $1,630 to spend on food, clothes, entertainment and so forth.

Now, 30 years later, the median family has two wage earners who, between the two of them, working nearly twice as much as before, earn around $73,770. But fixed costs have risen to 75% of income, leaving only $1,509 in "discretionary" spending.


I hope they like the house.

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