While there's a certain amount of controversy over Obama's remarks in PA about 'bitterness' - the 'malaise' in this country extends far and wide.
I will not claim that what I see is on the same level as those who worry every day about putting food on the table but there is a level of worry and malaise even among the 'better off' - many of whom are only a few months of unemployment away from a rapid fall from their current 'comfortable' life.
I'm in 'affluent' suburbia - far from the most expensive but still damn expensive. Lucky enough to have been around for some time and to have bought in when it was cheap to do so. By census stats you've got a fair number of households here in the top 1 or 2% of income but the costs of living here are pretty steep.
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You live here because you're close to train lines and only a few stops out of Manhattan. But the price of that access is high. A half million for a 'starter house' - with local taxes of $20,000 a year. Even if you bought in long ago and paid off your mortgate, your taxes continue to go up - odds are you're paying at least $30,000 a year on a house you bought for a couple hundred thousand dollars thirty years ago.
Most families here are two income - both parents working with a 'nanny' (often the cheapest person they could find - no real training) raising their kids. There's wicked competition for daycare and even pre-school slots (legacies in pre-school?!?!?!)
Some that are 'better off' or 'worse off' financially have a parent home with kids. Doesn't seem like the best situation overall. Most people TRY to do the best they can raising kids but the 'success' rate is not what you'd expect (If Mom and Dad are out of the house from 7:30 to 7:30, what do you expect?). If this is the BEST we can do (and in theory this demographic is pretty well off) we're in trouble. Too many families seem to get to Middle School when they belatedly decide they need to pay attention to their kids (toooo late now) or figure they put in enough time and can get divorced.
The stress of two careers competing for time is NOT a good thing but two careers are almost derigeur for making it into this economic strata - at least if you're on salary. Inherited wealth is a diferent story and beyond what you see here. There's alittle here but those people are in a different league.
But even the 'successful' professionals making 6 figures are highly stressed.
There used to be a defacto contract in corporate America - with white and blue collar workers. You work hard, we'll pay you decently (not great but good enough), give you benefits and you'll have a job until retirement - which will let you have an OK end to your life.
No longer.
Now the 'successful' professionals are expected to work their tails off for 60-80 hours a week or more - and don't EVER take all the vacation time you're due. You're on call 24/7 and will do and die for the company at its whim. Still, they may replace you - with no notice - at their whim, at any time during your career, with little or no pcompensation for your service. 'Parachutes' - golden or otherwise are reserved for a very few at the top.
Even if you manage to stay with one employer for much of your career the internal competition will be cutthroat and brutal - not just to advance but to simply hold on. And for most people you'll be shown the door at 50 or so - replaced with someone younger and far cheaper - long before you are ready to retire. You'd better have saved more than your mandatory 401K contributions because you've got a long time before Social Security kicks in. You can't live off the home equity piggy bank anymore (and the number of people doing that would stagger your imagination). Odds are you're going to end up as a 'consultant' - doing whatever you can for whoever you can beg some work out of.......eventually you bite the bullet, sell the house and hope you've got enough to make it to 65.
When we bought in here - after the late 80's crash I was talking with a guy that owned one of the local fuel oil companies..... He'd lived in town forever, and seen it all. Amazing how many people had to pay before delivery.... people you'd never expect. He noted that too many people lived from paycheck to paycheck. They were paying off student loans but still bought more house than they should have (this back when you needed 20% down), were driving leased cars (a BMW and something else) for show and often had woefully underfurnished houses. Credit Card debt up to the sky. And the late 80's run up and crash was only 30% or so - the current housing run up was 200% or more.....When the wife lost her job, the cars changed - when the husband lost his - they lost the house. Fifteen years back there were people with negative equity stuck in houses they couldn't sell but had outgrown. It was ridiculous - they were taking on MORE debt to expand these small houses instead of selling and buying a larger one.
Lately you've had all the Manhattan yuppies cashing out on their one bedroom co-ops and buying houses here...... paying absurd prices - still cheaper that private school in Manhattan though.
But now that market is slowing and the foreigners buying in Manhattan now aren't going to be trading up to the suburbs in 5 years. The blood running in the streets in the financial and banking industries is going to have a real effect - one we haven't even started to see yet.
There's already a certain level of 'weakness' in employment here.
The scores of senior systems analysts whose jobs got offshored to India 7 years ago are - at best - 'underemployed' and publishing and advertising never hired back all the people THEY let go over the past decade. Doctors aren't earning what they used to make anymore - you're a fool to go into medicine now for the money - it's not there. Lawyers are finding the rules have changed there as well. You now work until you die (usually predating retirement). No coasting once you make partner today........ if you don't produce, you're gone...... used to be that the 80-120 hour weeks were offset by an easy partnership load later in life, No more.
Truth is that the 'high paying' jobs aren't all that 'high paying' when you factor in the hours worked (on straight salary), vacations not taken and the shorter career. It's a form of indentured servitude - with keys to a nicer bathroom for the time it lasts.
And the associated expenses aren't cheap. Forget the basics like commuting costs. You have to look the part - keeps the high end fashion industry going. You have to 'live the life' - or at least provide the appropriate image as well.....Have to join a 'club' you never have the time to go to - though your kids will enjoy the tennis and pool...... I remember working for a Wall Street firm and the denegrating comments made towards a practical manager NOT living beyond their measn who WASN'T leasing a Lexus or BMW.... of course things like college for the kids and such aren't cheap - and you're not getting any financial aid. Amazing how many houses used to get remortgaged for that - but now money is tight, student loans aren't happening and even mortgages are hard to do. College might be a real problem this year for many.
If you've managed to save anything, odds are it's in a mandatory 401K - and odds are that it's worth a lot less now than it was worth a year ago. If you have 'safe' savings in CD's you're losing value relative to inflation and if you had money in the stock market - well....THAT will give you ulcers. Personally I find the whole system a crock... if you get to the pooint where you HAVE money to save, you'd better have A LOT of money - like MILLIONS- if you expect anyone to care...... otherwise you're going to get fees up the wazoo and stuck in computer generated profiles where you LOSE money. I swear they make the whole process as UNTRANSPARENT as possible. Ever look at a brokerage statement and try to find out how much you put in, how much you have now and how much you made? lol........... But truth is most people have as much in credit card debt as they have in plain old savings.... usually more. Too many people get used to that income and spend accordingly......... it's easy to get into a deep hole.
Even in the years where things go REALLY well - your employer had a magnificent year and actually shared the largess. You got a really nice bonus. Well.... guess what - no more income averaging. You're paying maximum taxes. As long as you make your money via salary you're screwed (well unless we're talking millions - those people always seem to have nice loopholes). The ONLY people making out tax-wise are the uber-wealthy with income coming from investments.
Yet this is the "good life." Two parents working their tails off - spending nowhere's near enough time with their kids. People worried every day about whether or not they'll have a job tomorrow - and worried about the ton of BS at work they have to go through every day just to KEEP the job they have. Real talent is regularly trumped by scheming and politicking. Ethics and morals are SOOOOO passe.....
A friend from age 5 is a success by any measure. A national rep in his business, accomplished academically and professionally. Yet he feels trapped. "All I do is make rich people richer - people who can't spend what they make fast enough already...." He looks at his situation as 'golden handcuffs' - he's got college to pay for, a wife that spends too much......... He's made a VERY good living for a long time, has a house far out in the outer burbs (cause that's what the wife wanted - it was justifiable when she worked but since she stopped 15 years ago, all it does is prolong HIS commute)...... but I don't think he's got much in savings beyond his mandatory partnership stake and retirement fund. His wife and kids are used to a VERY nice lifestyle - though I doubt any of his kids will be able to support themselves in such a lifestyle when THEY are working. He hates his life and he's not alone.
Now you can say 'he should change it' - and I've said that too. But it's easier to say it than do it. Two kids in college, another coming up in a couple years. A wife who is 'used to' all she has and sure doesn't want any 'less'............
People get used to what they have and what they know and are terrified at losing it - asking them to voluntarily GIVE it up........that takes a lot of courage. Most try and hold onto the illusion long after they can still actually afford it.....
Personally, I can't help but wonder if all those 60-80 hour weeks and dual incomes were 'spread out' among a larger workforce..... I doubt that housing prices would EVER have gotten so high without two incomes bidding prices up (and this goes back to the late 70's with the boomers entering the market - ignore the current sub-prime mess)..... I wonder how things would be if the 'standards' of the 50's and 60's were kept?
Think about it.... we've seen median household incomes remain effectively stagnant even as 'productivity' increased dramatically. Well OF COURSE... if someone is working 50% more hours you're ahead as an employer even if you pay them 30% more... but with bogus inflation stats reality is that they have LESS buying power........
Reality is that an awful lot of people that killed themselves to achieve 'the American Dream' are finding out it's hollow.......
It takes real courage and dedication NOT to fall into the 'trap' - to live below your means and save money, to NOT 'spend, spend, spend' to prepare for a life outside this insanity....... but it's not easy to 'get out' Even if you're willing to work for far less, to 'take what you've got and run' - you still need to make enough to get by, you need HEALTH CARE (and THAT is an issue that cannot be understated - health care traps people and keeps them in jobs they'd have left long ago).
And the unstated truth is that most of these people - the 'managers' of corporate America - are NOT all that employable OUTSIDE the corporate structure..... look at all the franchise holders of "Mailboxes Etc" and those behind the 'small business growth' of the last 20 years. An awful lot of those small businesses are owned by otherwise unemployable corporate expatriates - who are making a LOT less thah they used to earn.
I wouldn't say people are 'bitter' in the sense that those living close to the edge are - they're nervous, on edge, worried..... some - a minority - really are fine - with money inherited from Mom and Dad providing a nice cushion. But the 'working class' - even the 'professional level' working class is far from 'secure.' The world has changed for these people as well.
It's only at the very top - that 1/10 of 1% - where people feel 'secure' - and they damn well should at that level with all they have......