Price tag for the American dream: $130K a year

[JDPriestly]

94. Makes sense. The article is pretty accurate about estimating the costs of life.

Your income is above the amount it says is necessary to achieve the American Dream. Do you feel you live it?


Not many do regardless of their income. But there is an objective measure of a lifestyle that allows a person to meet the standard described in the article.

Note. This is not about being happy. Millionaires can be miserable. It's about being able to pay for a house or a livable apartment, put your children in decent day care where they at least learn to talk if they are very young, replace your car when you have to, send your children to college if they want to go and eat healthy food, etc. That's what a person needs to live in dignity. Health care is a big item, and Obamacare is great but it still leaves many uninsured.

People live well in Sweden, Germany and Austria. We no longer have the highest living standard in the world although so many Americans think we do.

I could tell you lots of stories of people who earned good money and enjoyed a high living standard pre-2008. And now they have it really tough. The recovery has picked its winners and losers. A lot of the losers fell out of the middle class in that recession. Many of them are in their 50s and 60s and 70s and will never live a middle-class lifestyle again.

We are doing something wrong.