The Plight of the Middle Class: Would You Like Some Whine With That?

Parent Aside--No, Diatribe--#4:

Stay home with your kids? Better be upper class or upper middle class. You can't buy a house on one income anymore--incomes having stagnated while housing prices, inflation, cost of education, food, gas, insurance and property taxes rise.

"I don't like when you're not here," the Bean says to me today. Given my current light teaching load, I am gone one night a week for two hours--three including walking/public transit time. At least three times daily I am asked, "Is she in school?" She is two and a half. My mother didn't put us in school until we were four. Everything is accelerated these days. I should start saying, "We are working on her emotional education now."

We try to BE HERE and that leaves us scheming to find an affordable house. The search has taken a long time. Then the house falls through. Time to look again. Why is such squirreling necessary? True, the market. True, it probably makes more sense right now to continue renting. Buy now and risk a home not increasing in value for a long time. Buy later and risk that prices continue--past all reason--to rise.

The young, prospective homeowner now is also a Bean: a bean counter. The American Dream is just out of reach for us. We all think we are doing something wrong--that we are not saving enough, not making enough bean dinners. But with some northern NJ taxes at a cost of 500 a month, you'd have to find a mortgage for $1000/month to make it competitive with renting, and trust me: they are nowhere near that. (Despite the tax breaks. If you don't believe me, see the recent NY Times article that pronounced that renting in the Northeast is currently more cost-effective than homeownership, all factors considered.)

I believe housing will continue to get more expensive. Density issues, competition for jobs and school anxiety will ensure it. So great if you can get in. If not, well, work a little harder. C'mon. I mean, this is America.