Copernican

LOL, what rhetoric? I'm generally of the opinion that voting is an end in itself in democracies, and wish we had mandatory/compulsory voting laws. If you live in a democracy there should be obligation to vote, and the citizens should feel confident that we are accounting for the will of the people. But with the electoral college and first past the post system, there are realities of outcomes. There are really only 2 possible outcomes of a presidential race. And if you live in a swing state your vote does a lot more to tip realize one of those 2 outcomes. So the motivation to vote should be to help achieve one of those 2 outcomes that you find more preferable. If you live in a state that is not even close, that is when you don't have to worry much about your vote impacting the outcome and therefore have more latitude. I've voted 3rd party in multiple elections, but I did so in good conscious knowing I wasn't impacting the outcome of actual leadership due to the area I vote in. In pure rational choice model, sure, your individual vote likely won't matter (how often is a race decided by 1 vote?), but if the level of effort to vote is low, might as well do it just in case and for a sense of moral civic duty to a democracy.

It really depends on which state you live in whether or not you have the luxury of a protest vote. If you live in NY state that has a 20% lead for Harris, sure, some people can vote Jill Stein or something. But if you live in a state that actually might be close or not an obvious blowout, you can't vote that way. You actually have to be tactical with your vote, not idealistic or symbolic.

There are individual salary stats. And those may align with households as some households only have 1 income. https://www.usatoday.com/money/blueprint/business/hr-payroll/average-salary-us/

I'm not making an argument about the current state of wages. I'm just saying 4.4 million isn't as unattainable as people think. And household income gets murky when you include single income households. And the definition for this article of American Dream includes 2 kids, so if kids aren't in your planning the 4.4 million mark is probably 1 million less if you still want to attain those other things. I think some folks see that number and think "OMG I'm never going to have that much money." You are right, you will never have that much money all at once, but over a lifetime you may have earned and/or spent that much without ever leaving the sort of "middle" income range in America.

I agree. All I'm saying is if 50% of salaries are above that 60k mark and as a dual income you are probably getting close to hitting the dream at that level. That's not as dire as thinking only 10% of the population can afford it. 4.4 million is a scary number, but no one is expected to have that as liquidity or even net worth. That value of spend is actually more attainable over time than it looks when seeing it as raw sticker price.

And again, "American Dream" means family with 2 kids. Not everyone wants that or needs that. If you are a single person and happy living with just a partner or without kids (DINK lifestyle is fun), this is not saying you need 4.4 million to have a decent living standard.

The inflation piece is confusing to me to, but I think it does talk about investment. It says retirement is 1.6 million based on expected annual withdraw rate. So I'm guessing that is not the contribution amount but final amount including return on investment. So does that 4.4 million number actually somehow translate into a sub 4 million dollar contribution value? Same with college. If you start investing in college funds at child birth that have 18 years of growth, is that child cost the cost basis, or accrued value at time of spend? On the other hand the home cost includes mortgage interest, but the value of the house will hopefully exceed the cost you put into it.

I disagree. Workers in trades like electricians will make that much. I think entry level electricians make like 55k. So after 5 years in that work, you will likely be earning above median salary. But for professions like teachers in school districts that don't pay well.... It sucks. Not ideal, but not as dire as some might think. And when you throw in the number of people these days choosing not to have kids, that shaves 1 million dollars off the cost of the American Dream life (but hard to say how much of that decision is based on expected income vs lifestyle values).

Tech workers I assume are making starting around 75k and getting into 100k fairly easily depending on geographic location. And depending on company and trajectory you could be getting into 200 to 300k territory in tech.

I'm seeing median salary listed around 65. Is the median household income reflecting the number of single income families out there or just single people generally?

American dream implies nuclear family life. Retirement, home ownership, and owning new cars are factored in that math. It includes the cost of having 2 kids.

If you read the article...

Here’s the breakdown. We’ll explain the math below.

Retirement: $1.6 million

Homeownership: $930,000

Raising two kids: $832,000

Owning new cars: $811,000

Annual vacations: $179,000

Wedding: $44,000

Pets: $37,000

Funeral: $8,000

I think people underestimate lifetime earnings. Let's assume 35 years of salary work to retire at 65 (it takes a while to get a career going an maybe a layoff and parental leave...) That would be about 125k a year. Make that a dual income family and that's 2 people making 63k a year. It's a bit hard to understand pre and post tax though because some of the calculations like retirement are pretax. And then factor in gains from investment...

So isn't this calculation saying a 2 family income making median salaries can live the dream? That's not great for 50% of Americans and probably means a lesser proportion of Americans can attain the dream than before. But that number 4.4 million actually is not crazy high. In a more just work though, dual income families making above the lowest 25 to 30% salaries should be able to afford the American Dream with some caveats around used cars instead of new, and maybe more frugal wedding and college expense due to financial aid and what not.

"can" vs "do" are different things. The meme quote describes hypothetical use, not actual use, as being something that should be taxable.

I guess that's whats lost in the meme. Just because you "can" use something as collateral doesn't mean you "are" using something as collateral. The language should be more accurate to describe actual use vs hypothetical.