LogFAQs > #976318826

In many cases, 150K is the minimum you can make to consider owning a stand-alone home realistically. For example where I live, a 1200 sq. foot house (what used to be considered a "starter" home") start at roughly $580,000.

So with that, a mortgage of around $2,800 / mo, then tack on another $300 / mo for homeowners insurance, and there's a big chunk of money gone. Add to that, yearly property taxes (roughly $5,000 per year here), break that down into another $400 per month to budget. That $42k of take-home pay gone right away.

Just owning that home, assuming nothing goes wrong (which it does) eats up $3,500 / mo - or about 1 two week paycheck, if you account for a 401k or other voluntary deductions.

Now, of course, you could live somewhere like West Virginia or Alabama where home prices are incredibly low but... then you're living in West Virginia or Alabama, states with a lot of shortcomings in education, health services, and so on. If you want good schools, access to health care (i.e., non-red states), good police and civic services, you'll likely have to move into a more expensive area.

So I can very realistically see $150k being a paycheck-to-paycheck existence. As someone else already said, the system is working exactly how it's designed. It's keeping most of the wealth out of the middle class, even those who look to be high earners on paper.