How Costs Have Surged For Middle-Class American Families

[Purveyor]

09/24/2014 11:22 AM

The picture painted by a report from the Center for American Progress released Wednesday is a gloomy one.

For a typical married couple with two children, the combined cost of health care, day care, housing and savings for college and retirement jumped 32 percent from 2000 to 2012 – after adjusting for inflation. Average income barely rose in that time once you factor in inflation.

The figures marked a sharp change from the preceding 12 years ending in 2000, when average income for a four-person family rose 20 percent, after inflation, and college and health care costs rose more slowly.

Here’s how costs have grown in some key categories:

HEALTH CARE

Premiums and deductibles are higher than they were about a decade ago. And more people are paying them. Average out-of-pocket health care costs for a family of four with an employer-provided health plan jumped 85 percent to $8,600 a year from 2002 to 2012, according to the CAP report. The figures are adjusted for inflation and are for preferred-provider organization plans, which restrict coverage to certain doctors.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/business/article2227824.html#storylink=cpy

[abelenkpe]

1. K&R

[cyberswede]

2. Good article,

and if you factor in the cost of everyday goods and services (groceries, clothing, etc), it's even worse, I reckon.

Depressing.

[Lifelong Protester]

3. K & R

Read the article-depressing!

[Sherman A1]

4. K&R

Thanks for posting!

[840high]

5. k/r

[InkAddict]

6. Unaffordable living and dying the slow death of poverty

We saved childcare costs in the 80s by raising our own children. Hah, big deal. Health care costs via ACA are still unaffordable even if accessible; my annual premiums equaled 50% of my SS for the tax-subsidized silver plan at age 63 (barely eligible). What should I live on? DH has Medicare but is afraid to get a diagnosis by using it. So much for striving for a balanced life in the golden years before my own Medicare. I opted for early retirement when job #1 was shipped to the smarter people in Connecticut (LOL, er....India) and the next job concocted reasons to let me go after THEIR backlog was cleaned up in my first 90 days (or when they noticed I was approaching 62). Someone else can help that 1% stay rich; I'm opting out of a workforce that hates workers; thanks, but no thanks. I should be taking medicines, but can't afford them or my out-of-network doctor. She took all Anthem policies EXCEPT the Marketplace Obamacare silver plan. The less expensive plans have only "clinic" doctors that are not close to my place. I've left a mortgaged home to follow DH's job; I've left and lost a 2nd mortgaged (Countrywide) home so DH's elderly dad could have assisted living and kids could have college educations; I've downsized my rented townhouse twice during periods of everyone's unemployment post 9/11, and now we're facing a search for a new less expensive studio/1 bdrm place that accepts beloved pets? It feels like cleaning out the "stuff" of a lifetime after your relative dies, been there done that, all over again and most of it the kids don't want...No cable tv; no travel, no garden; no hobbies -all too expensive - someone in the neighborhood has an unsecured network thank goodness. All I want to do is cry in the night.

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. ...

[JDPriestly]

20. And you are not alone.

Lots of people living in senior housing are telling your story.

Could you qualify for subsidized housing in your community? Might be something better than a one-room apartment.

[blkmusclmachine]

7. Reaganomics. Trickle Down. The White House says it's all good, though.

[Rozlee]

8. Those child care costs are killer.

My daughter's child care bills run her almost $1,500 a month for my granddaughter and my twin grandsons. That's slightly more than her home mortgage bill. Watching them struggle with all their payments to keep the American Dream, I almost think I had it made when I was a poor single mother. Things were tough then, but at least there was government assistance for daycare and I didn't worry about car payments and insurance. I rode the bus. Many European nations have it right. Their governments helps couples with child care costs and provide mass transit. Our government has gotten rid of so many of the programs that allowed me to go to school and help obtain my degree.

[geretogo]

9. 34 years and still destroying peoples lives , Reagan's sick trickle down policies continue on

being enforced by his zombie brain dead followers to the rapid decline of this country.
When will the up rising come and end this tyranny ?

[InkAddict]

14. Most Excellent Statement

Yup - hit nail straight on head.

[davidthegnome]

10. Couldn't do it.

8.50 an hour, 32 hours a week, after taxes, I bring home roughly 220 bucks a week. If I was very, very frugal and knew how to fix my own car, how to grow my own food, maybe hunted or fished as well... I suppose it's possible that I might survive on that income by myself. I could not, however, support a family with it. Not even close. 140 a week for child care... there goes any hope of paying rent, mortgage, car payments, and so on.

Let's see... monthly, 200 for the car, 175 for student loan payments, 200 for food/drink etc. 100 for car insurance. There's almost seven hundred. Roughly 150 for gas puts it at 825. So I've got a little over fifty bucks to play around with every month, as long as nothing else happens, like my car's transmission giving out a few months ago.

If I stopped paying on the student loans, managed to get rid of my car for what I owe against it, and the car insurance... there's four hundred a month that I could put towards either a mortgage/rent or child care. It wouldn't be enough.

The only furniture I could get due to credit issues would be from a rent-to-own place, and we know how much fun those are. I can't even imagine trying to make it on my own today, especially with a family to support.

My parents are middle class, which is why they can afford to let me with live with them for free. My generation though, and the ones coming after... are making less money and likely to make even less as time goes on. I really need to learn how to live off the land or something, buy some cheap land and build myself a small farm. Or maybe join the circus. Haven't decided yet.

[adirondacker]

11. Kick and Arghhh!

but thanks for posting!

[loudsue]

12. The government at every level, corporations (esp. oil & health-related) have SUCKED THE LIFE

out of Americans since GW and his gang of thieves arrived in 2000. Now we have another Bush waiting in the wings. The fascists/corporatists WILL NOT QUIT until ALL the money is drained from the American people.

[JDPriestly]

21. Actually the problems started during the Nixon administratoin and before.

We opted for oil although with not too much investment we could have produced solar energy for far less than oil costs us. Remember. When you think of the price of oil over the past 50-60 years, you have to think of the cost of our foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.

You have to include in the cost of your tank of gasoline the cost of all our military forces ready to go into the Middle East, the cost of bringing down Ghaddafi, the cost of supporting the Saudi Arabian and other potentates in countries we call "allies" in the Middle East. The sickness in our society that has resulted from our addiction to oil makes heroin addicts look healthy.

You talk about the government sucking the life out of America. It's our dependency on oil. And right now, fracking and oil exploration in the US are taking a toll on our environment that will cost us big time in the future.

We bet on oil. It was not a smart bet. We need to wise up.

Read Endless Enemies by Kwitny. He was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and wrote that book in the 1980s. It tells the story of our involvement in the internal affairs of many countries and how our mistakes in that regard have come back and will continue to come back to haunt us.

[4dsc]

13. 30 years of failed conservative economics

I cannot repeat that phrase enough. The damage done to the middle class and poor couldn't be better documented. Yet there are still millions of people who will vote against their own economic interests. It boggles the mind.

[Marthe48]

15. Ground beef is $3.79/lb

During the oil crisis in the 70's, ground beef went from .39/lb. to .79/lb and gas went from .33/gal to .78/gal. The economy went into the toilet. Everyone I knew was out of work. Ford put the WIN (Whip Inflation Now) program in place and there were price freezes on food and some other products. Our local grocery had a soy/beef mix that we bought instead of ground beef and it saved us some money. My husband was out of work for 26 months, so were most of our relatives. Did anyone learn anything? No

Now bread is $1-3/loaf, milk is $3-4 gallon. Other costs? Land lines were about $30/month, if you didn't make long distance calls, now cell phone plans are $50/60 month. Cable service prices itself as an essential utility, but wants to take in even more with the plan to slow down sites that can't pay for fast access. Gasoline? Around here, the price is totally unconnected to oil, and the gas stations raise it .10/gal for weekends, paydays, holidays and then drop it .03/gallon, so we are always paying at least .10/gal more than people right up the road. Health insurance is a joke. It is so like buying the cow and then buying the milk.

It really sucks to know what we overcame back in the 70's, and that we recovered enough to go on and raise 2 kids, put them through college, buy a house, take vacations. We expected a secure retirement, but like everyone else, we lost our retirement health benefits, and that pretty much screwed the pooch on carefree golden years. I think the generations after us are going to be reduced to having a cell phone and living under bridges, or when the bridges fail, out in the weather. Our country has failed us, failed the Constitution by ignoring the 'promote the general welfare' of the citizens. Welfare is well-being, not a handout. And yes, the people who are worse off than we are who still vote Republican, have their heads elsewhere.

[azurnoir]

16. Trickle down economic have been a smashing success

they are doing/have done exactly what the designers wanted to do and that is bring back the good old days of the robber baron, ya know like St Ronnie said "a kinder simpler time" and some people are still being fooled by that scat or the mindset of as long as their neighbors are more miserable than them things don't seem so bad

[mb999]

17. Wages need to go up with inflation.

Funny how everything increased except wages. it's welfare for the rich.

[Sam1]

19. Well Lizzy has it right:

If you don't have a seat at the table you are probably on the menu. So I guess the middle class is on the menu.