Tell the truth. Economically are you really any better off?

[MichiganVote]

21 years ago, my spouse and I had one child, one income, 1 car, and we lived on $30,000 per year. We didn't take vacations, we didn't own anything extravagant, and we our debt was confined to an 11% land contract on a home at a time when rates were 18%. The company paid for the health insurance, our car insurance was low, and we were frugal.

Are we better off today?

Today, two offspring, two incomes, with some moonlighting thrown in, 4 cars that we provide partial to full support for, we each pay a portion of our health insurance, our car insurance is through the roof b/c of young drivers, property taxes are twice what they were 10 years ago and are still going up, a mortage at 6%, and assorted bills....and guess what? Nothing has changed.

We worked extra to take some vacations, replenish furniture and pay for kid cars. In short, our economic lives have not changed despite increased work and increased income.

I've come to the conclusion that pulling ahead for middle america is an impossibility.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. 21 years ago...

I was in a lot better shape. Right now, I am devastated.

The economy is, for a lot of us, a shambles.

[Roland99]

2. 21 years ago I was just about to graduate from high school

I wasn't too worried about money. ;)

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Well,

I feel better off than we were 21 years ago. I was a beginning teacher making less than $10,000 a year and hubby was in school. We had two kids and kept the bills paid but barely. Car payments? No way.

But hubby finished school, joined the workforce, I got my masters and my salary went up. We have owned two houses, numerous cars and were living a fairly comfy life in suburbia.

Then came 2000 and we have lost ground since Clinton left office. Increases in health insurance premiums have been larger than any tax cuts the current prez has given us. As we pay off our house, our tax liability increases. We have no debt other than the mortgage and car payments. We do not use credit cards. We pay cash for the things we buy. Yet we still feel that we are just barely getting by.

I still work summer school and every after school and Saturday program I can get hired to work. Hubby has a second part time job as well.

We also have two kids in their 20s who can't afford to live on their own. One of them is in school. One of them works two jobs.

Sometimes I wonder if we just don't manage our money well. But then I look at our monthly expenses and see no frills, other than cable TV and internet. I also see most of our friends struggling just as we are.

We do live comfortably in the sense that we keep a roof over our heads and keep the utilities turned on. That was not always easy for us. But I guess I expected to have more money to help my kids pay for college. I also expected to worry less about money.

So I guess we are better off but not as better off as I had always assumed we would be.

[KlatooBNikto]

4. I am a 63 year old man.In the past forty years I have done a lot but

the only thing I consider longlasting accomplishements are putting four of my children through college three of them through med schools.Now I have the happy burden of providing some funding for two of my grandchildren ( though not a lot). All the trappings of prosperity have not materially changed our lifestyle.In fact, we are planning to move out of our home and into a small apartment soon.

I agree with the other posters chasing material prosperity is a losing game.What we have is a treadmill on which going faster and faster is needed just to stand still. Better to place our faith in our family, our children and our neighbors and give up one-upmanship.

[acmejack]

5. I have been destroyed by the * economy

21 years ago, I was living the American dream. House, car, h-d, great job. Now, no home, no car, no job. Long term unemployed, no marketable skills (at least here) offshored. If not for the VA I would be dead, literally. On the plus side nothing left to lose and I have learned pride goeth before a fall. Believe me I am very humble now...

[dcfirefighter]

6. 21 years ago i was 9

but, as long as things are good for most people, most people will never get ahead . . . they'll just pay more for their house.

There's a large group of people who are on the wrong side of the housing market . . . renters. Without the equity from a previous house, current houses are too expensive to support on 2-3 salaries alone.

Commuting 1h doesn't help much, commuting 2h might find affordable housing.

The other thing that will get you is newer and more expensive medical care. Restructuring so that 1) pharma doesn't get 20 year patents 2) pharma doesn't control the training of doctors 3) customer choice inhibits insurance cost increases 4) medicare funds help the poor pay for their choice of insurers would go a long way to keeping healthcare costs in check.

[Sugarbleus]

7. I feel compassion and distress for those of you who have worked

hard to build a life for your families only to see it either vanish or not really improve your lot all that much.

Offshoring begain in the 80's. That is when life began to get harder for my family; life and living went from a nice pace to FOURTH GEAR almost overnight (Reagan?). I had to take temp jobs when my full time perm job was shut down--1984. Went back to college during the 90's but by that time the cost of living was starting to soar for we, the workaday folks.

We did manage to hang on with a little assistance here and there. We still had hope.

We are a family of working class people; no special skills. Now we are the underclass and life has become TOTALLY frightening under Bush. I have a 30 year old daughter living with her father because she cannot afford to rent a place of her own. She works full time at just a bit over minimum wage (Calif)$11.(ph ?)and she is taking nighttime College courses in law.

We have been raising our grandson since 2000; in Janurary this year his mother came home. My hubby is physically disabled, we live in 800 sq ft of space, and any helps programs are being cut right and left. YES, we are much worse off. I can't sleep, I don't know what will become of my grandson, my oldest (37) daughter living/sleeping on the floor here because she cannot find work or a cheap rental...she is attending college where hopefully she will get that degree in order to get on her feet (SOON, I hope)

I lived for over 20 years without health insurance because temp jobs don't supply them. Now I have Medicare/medicaid; we all know what is being done to those programs--and just when I thought I'd made it to safty. We can't buy property and we can't afford to rent without help. There are nearly zero places that are clean and suitable for our family in any case. We drive an 11 year old vehicle and have only one paid burial plan in the family.

HOPE is slipping from our grasp on a daily basis. We don't feel well.

My formerly flag waving, patriotic, VN vet hubby finally said one day: Let's get the hell outta here--USA!

[drkedjr]

8. Better off ....

I just had the business office at my school district reduce my deductions and withhold another $100 per month so that when it's April 15, 2006 I won't have to take another $1200 out of savings and send it to BushCo. Just can't figure out how to apply all those tax cuts to little old me ...

[kineneb]

9. Not much.

21 years ago, had been married 3 years, and living in cheap apartment, Hubby was making $16K/yr working for computer company. I am now making only slightly more. We at least own our home, but have no savings. We are getting ready to declare bankruptcy as soon as we can get Hubby on disability. For a while, in the '90s, we were "middle class," but now we qualify for low-income medical care and food give-aways.

[Warpy]

10. In the mid 60s, working a low level clerking job,

I could afford a one bedroom apartment, stylish clothing, food that I cooked for myself, and basic health care.

Try that now. The GOP and DLC Democrats have devastated working people.

[mhr]

11. Unemployed 61 Months

eom

[ArchTeryx]

12. Can't say from 21 years ago...

But I can say right now I'm in a weird nexus point. I've survived by staying in grad school six years, literally. Was three years unemployed before then, before finding a temp job (no health insurance, no bennies. okay pay) for two years.

Right now, as a virology grad student, I make enough to afford a cheap apartment in a safe neighborhood, an old car, and health care thru my university (and the occasional help from friends). I'm in better shape then many -- I have an income above zero, enough that I can keep a roof over my head, my car running, and still visit a hospital when I have to.

When I graduate, I have about equal odds of complete destitution or becoming one of the 'white, privileged elite'. It's frightening the way this country is going economically for me too.

-- ArchTeryx

[raccoon]

13. worse off then in '84,

in those days, I had a full-time job with benefits. Didn't pay a whole lot but was ok.

Now, I have a part-time job with no benefits. It's been my experience, and that of friends and co-workers, that it is very difficult to get a full-time job with benefits. Most of the time, you have to be able to pull some strings to get one.

Medical expenses, educational costs, housing costs, have gone up MUCH more than the official inflation rates. Most people's wages haven't kept up--mine certainly haven't.

Over the last few decades, many tax deductions that helped the middle class and poor have gone the way of the dodo. For instance, at one time you could deduct all your interest payments, credit card whatever. Now it's just your mortgage interest. Also, there was something called "income averaging." If you made $10k last year and then $40K this year, for several years (3 I think) you paid less taxes on the $40k then you would have if you'd been making about that much all along.

There are others, I'm sure. Maybe some here can provide some more examples.

[ArchTeryx]

14. Can't say from 21 years ago...

But I can say right now I'm in a weird nexus point. I've survived by staying in grad school six years, literally. Was three years unemployed before then, before finding a temp job (no health insurance, no bennies. okay pay) for two years.

Right now, as a virology grad student, I make enough to afford a cheap apartment in a safe neighborhood, an old car, and health care thru my university (and the occasional help from friends). I'm in better shape then many -- I have an income above zero, enough that I can keep a roof over my head, my car running, and still visit a hospital when I have to.

When I graduate, I have about equal odds of complete destitution or becoming one of the 'white, privileged elite'. It's frightening the way this country is going economically for me too.

-- ArchTeryx

[nickinSTL]

15. 21 years ago, I was 11

So, like some of the other younger people on here...money wasn't a major concern for me.

However, as to how I'm doing now...

I work 2 jobs (one full-time) plus attending grad school, 2 classes a semester. I never get enough sleep. Why?

Because my fiancee has been out of work since August of 2001.

She actually just got a job coloring an online web comic, which she expects will pay about $30/month. Yeah, great. I mean, it's something, and at least she can add something new to her portfolio, but...it sure as hell won't pay any bills.

[sadiesworld]

16. Please tell me you (at least) meant $300 per month?!

[nickinSTL]

18. nope

$30.

Coloring online comics doesn't pay well.

[sadiesworld]

19. I'm sorry, that sucks.

I hope she finds something more lucrative soon--it sounds like you're carrying too heavy a load. :hi:

[nickinSTL]

20. thanks

yep, sleep is a foreign concept.

But what are the options in the Bush economy? :shrug:

[phantom power]

17. Better than 20 years ago? Yes. Better than 5 years ago? No.

[Boomer]

21. Fingers crossed

I'm doing better now than before, but it's a situation that could change at any time.

First, my current financial buffer comes from a modest estate left to me by my mother, not through my own ability to save. I probably could have lived more frugally over the last 30 years, but my lifestyle was not extravagant. The savings would have come from not having cable TV, for instance, or only buying used clothing, never eating out, never going to movies, never buying books, and not owning any pets.

Right now, I have a wonderful job -- short commute, great benefits, comfortable hours, steady raises -- but the company has yet to make a profit and we're going up on the auction block sometime within the year in hopes that someone will buy us before our parent company simply closes the office doors.

If I lose my job now, I'll be entering the job market as a 50-year-old woman without a formal degree in computer programming. I proved my worth at my current company by teaching myself anything and everything I needed to do my job, plus what I wanted to do next. But that kind of experience doesn't translate well to a resume, so I'm somewhat apprehensive about what lies ahead.