Unless you live in Manhattan or San Francisco, I'd like to see who exactly has a full-time job and pays 90% of their income on housing and transport.
Unless you live in Manhattan or San Francisco, I'd like to see who exactly has a full-time job and pays 90% of their income on housing and transport.
Hope is the denial of reality
Why do you assume that only 'right or left coast' folks pay a premium for housing and transportation?Originally Posted by Loki
Seriously? Suburban sprawl is what is working.
All over it is the inner cities or extremely rural that struggle, the suburban sprawl works. It has the best of both worlds, space of your own to breathe and connections to work and live.
Because of facts. I doubt even in Manhattan 90% goes on housing and transportation.
Tax alone typically takes up 10%+ but even if you exclude tax (which you shouldn't) then you're saying you've got 10% of your budget to cover food, gas, electricity, water, clothes, TV and all other general expenditure? I don't think so.
Minimum wage in most of the country works out to about $16k a year. Let's say a person needs 4 gallons to get to and from work each day. That works out to a bit over $3k a year. Add your insurance and car depreciation, and we get $6k max (using public transport, you'd pay under $2k even in NYC). Are you seriously suggesting that housing in most of the country works out to over $700 a month?
If you're earning the minimum wage, you're getting everything (in taxes) back and then some.
Hope is the denial of reality
4 gallons is incredibly generous too, at 25mpg you're talking 50 miles each way. Given that the average American commute is 25 minutes (and only 8% of Americans have a commute of 50 miles or more) I think its safe to say that anything over 4 gallons is the exception not the rule. Also I suspect safe to say that those commuting said distances aren't doing so for minimum wage.
Source found from Google for the figures
I was trying to make the more generous estimates possible. I also don't get the obsession with workers making the minimum wage. This applies to about 2% of the American work force...
Hope is the denial of reality
25mpg is a rather high claim for low income car owners. For the most part the rest of the argument holds true, with some reservations considering single parents and $700 rent, but for all the other factors to be true, you're not going to be driving a car that gets 25mpg.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
Citation? And does that citation put things into context?
I think the issue is more often a lack of public transportation rather than the price of it. Other than that, I think you're being very generous with transportation expenses. Now I do imagine that if you're on low wages, and have to pay a few hundred a month on transportation, that's going to hurt, but 90% seems like a real exaggeration. GGT, do you actually have a reason you posted 90%, or did you just think of a number that sounds high?
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
Funny, my car is 35 mpg and that's at the low end here. Plus in general small (ie cheap) cars here have a higher fuel efficiency than bigger cars, all other things equal. I got the 25mpg figure from a headline of that being the average for new cars in the USA. My fuel efficiency dropped when I got this car as despite being newer so more efficient, its a bigger car than my budget model I'd had before.
I understand that those on a budget won't be driving new cars, but I'd have expected those on a budget in the USA would (like here) choose the (relatively) smaller and more fuel efficient cars. I don't imagine anyone choosing to buy a big beast of a gas guzzler if they're spending an implausible 90% of their income on transport and housing. If housing and transport were so expensive people would get the most economical and cheapest model they could - Especially since food isn't counted in that 90%.
They'd buy a 10-year-old used car. Though that would save them money on the car depreciation (from my equation).
Hope is the denial of reality
The 90% number came from multiple sources sussing out relative Costs of Living. People living in ex-urban or suburban areas pay a premium for transportation that urban (inner city) residents don't. On many job applications, having a car weighs heavily --- if you rely on public transportation it's not as "good" as having your own car. But having your own car can be very expensive when it includes price of gas and insurance.
I.E. You made it up.
Hope is the denial of reality
Please provide those multiple sources that show 90%
That 10 yr old car guzzles gas. And it means more maintenance costs when manufacturers stop making replacement parts for older vehicles, and "older" means anything beyond ten years.
Care to share any of those multiple source?
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
Especially since the places with the highest poverty rates are also places where a one-bedroom apartment goes for $400 a month and buying a beat-up vehicle for $2k isn't a problem.
Hope is the denial of reality
Wow, excuse me for suggesting that COL is relative. Pardon me for reminding everyone that transportation and property 'ownership' are related to employment and income.
$400 a month spent sub-letting an apartment in Manhattan with rent control and public transit isn't the same as spending $400 a month anywhere else.
Last edited by GGT; 05-20-2015 at 02:31 AM.
Well excuse us for asking a source which you claim to have multiple of. How dare we wanting to see facts! I can only apologise.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
See the US Census, the OMB, or any other agency collecting employment/labor statistics.
edit: I'm not aware of any one way to figure the true costs of living
They buy what they can get their hands on. Predatory car loans are a big problem in the US, especially for low income families. My 2007 Saturn Ion 3 is rated at 24/32 and after 8 years I'm squeaking by with 20mpg in the city, and thats with full dealership maintenance. According to kbb my car is still worth over $6k, and its from a defunct brand. Minivans are very popular modes of transportation for lower incomes because they've been abused to hell and back and have a steep depreciation curve as the years wear on, and my 2013 Town and Country is only rated at 17/25 mpg.
And don't forget to factor in as the age of the car increases, so does the cost of maintenance. You get to a point where it would be a better bet to junk your car and wear down another instead of getting something like a transmission replaced. Not to mention the risk that unreliable or problematic transportation can have on employment for this class of people.
Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 05-20-2015 at 03:26 AM.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
It's pretty simple. It makes sense to meet supply with demand. If a significant urban area (like my city) can't get to the demand (Boston), it will wilt. And it has been.
GGT: in failed inner cities, there's little opportunity because of a compounding of poverty and crime rate. Therefore, what does it matter if the job is close? The only job available is going to be joining a gang, or worse.
GGT, I think you are taking my inner city mention a bit too literally. It's obviously not a problem if there is already low crime and a wealth of opportunities. But we are talking about the other end of the scale. Urban areas can be either.
Then why not explore the reasons behind inner-city successes, and try to replicate them?
Success breeds success. Failure breeds failure. Politics has a lot to do with it. The poorest cities in a particular state, by and large, keep voting in populist politicians, who keep proposing *and implementing* failed policies. If you look at the latest poll data, my city was voting for huge Democratic majorities -- much bigger than even Boston. And yet it's one of the poorest cities in the state on a per capita basis.
Sometimes you have to drain the swamp and demolish the inner cities. But, since we're not China, it won't happen.
Suburban sprawl is NOT working. It's pretty easy to romanticize life in the US, since we've bought into the same propaganda ourselves. But "space to breathe and connections to work and live" only applies to people with means/assets, which includes/indights most politicians.
What do you say about urban living that's attractive to millions of people....because they can walk or bike or take a train to the nearest farmer's market, or restaurant?
Provide a valid source for that claim please.Suburban sprawl is NOT working. It's pretty easy to romanticize life in the US, since we've bought into the same propaganda ourselves. But "space to breathe and connections to work and live" only applies to people with means/assets, which includes/indights most politicians.
This is going to be difficult without some sources. If you have objections to the methodology used in the following sources then obv you are free to give a qualified guess as to what the true numbers are likely to be. ps. obv single mothers should hook up with dudes for financial reasons
Housing Affordability in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area
http://cra.gmu.edu/pdfs/CRA_census_r...ordability.pdf
(does not include transportation costs, the second greatest expense. Does not seem to include food, insurance etc either. Consider differences between low- and median-income households)“In the period following the economic downturn (2009-2011), nearly half of renters and a third of homeowners in the Washington DC metropolitan area spent 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs.”
2012 report on housing and transportation costs in the 25 largest metropolitan areas (Center for Housing Policy and Center for Neighborhood Technology)
http://www.nhc.org/media/files/LosingGround_10_2012.pdf
http://www.nhc.org/media/Losing-Grou...2-Release.html
“Housing and transportation costs rose faster than income during the 2000s, increasing the burden that these costs placed on already stretched budgets. This held true for each of the 25 largest metropolitan areas, though the disparity was greater in some areas than others. For all households, including homeowners who have paid off their mortgage, housing and transportation together consumed an average of 48 percent of the median household’s income by decade’s end.
Moderate-income households pay a disproportionate share. For households earning 50 to 100 percent of the median income of their metropolitan area, nearly three-fifths (59 percent) of income goes to housing and transportation costs. For these households, the growing costs of place are particularly burdensome, leaving relatively little left over for expenses such as food, education, and health care, not to mention savings.
The combined burden of housing and transportation costs is greatest where costs are out of sync with local incomes; these are not always the places with the highest absolute costs. In some metro areas, such as Washington, DC, Boston, and San Francisco, high costs are matched by relatively high incomes, helping moderate-income households better afford their housing and transportation costs. But other regions, such as Riverside-San Bernardino, CA, Miami, and Los
Angeles, have moderate or even high housing and transportation costs in spite of relatively low median incomes. In these metro areas, combined cost burdens for moderate-income households are very high, with average burdens ranging from 65 to 72 percent of household income.
¨
Transportation costs still shape differences in the overall affordability of metro areas. Six years later, it remains as important as ever to consider transportation costs along with housing prices in measuring overall affordability. The inclusion of transportation costs affects the relative affordability of many metro areas. For example, housing costs in the Houston region are comparatively affordable as a share of income, ranking eighth out of the 25 regions examined. When transportation costs are included, however, Houston drops into 17th place, as one of the less affordable regions for the combined costs of housing and transportation.
In contrast, metro areas such as San Francisco, Boston, and New York are some of the least affordable regions for local moderate-income households when just housing is considered, but are among the most affordable when housing and transportation costs are considered together.
Moderate-income homeowners carry heavier cost burdens than renters.
For the typical moderate-income renter, housing and transportation costs consume an average of 55 percent of income. Moderate-income homeowners carrying a mortgage face average costs of nearly 72 percent of income.
Cost burdens for moderate-income households vary substantially within metro areas. Even in metro areas where average cost burdens are relatively affordable, there are many neighborhoods that are out of reach for moderate-income households. In the Philadelphia region, for example, moderate-income households are faced with average housing and transportation costs exceeding 90 percent of their income in some neighborhoods.
[…]
The Philadelphia metro area is a good example of the degree
to which combined cost burdens can vary within a region.
The average cost burden for moderate-income households in
the metro area is 52 percent — the second lowest of the 25
metro areas studied. But in some of the region’s neighbor
-
hoods, moderate-income households are faced with average
housing and transportation costs exceeding 90 percent of
their income, while in other neighborhoods, combined cost
burdens are less than 25 percent of income”
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
ps. I haven't gone through the reports in detail but I imagine they haven't really looked at whether or not someone works "full time" even though they've looked at annual income etc.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
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