why is DCUM so obsessed with social class/status?
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Anonymous
| If you’re not in The Green Book there’s no use discussing class with you. |
Anonymous
It has been my experience that a lot of upper class white people like to think of themselves as royalty. Not knowing that their ancestors were Irish potato farmers. It’s really pathetic. I gotta do better then my neighbor. |
Anonymous
The question I’m more concerned with is this: I know it’s toxic so why can’t I quit? |
Anonymous
How does a household making $350K pre tax ($200-$250K after tax) feel like they're treading water? Well, because the things that truly matter (and the ticket into the MC/UMC) since many of us were kids have increased significantly beyond wage growth. Those being housing, childcare, healthcare and education. With housing, living in a SFH in DC area has become a luxury good relative to to what many of us grew up with. Let's say you're a nuclear family with 2-3 kids. That 3-4 BR home in middle class northern Virginia or Bethesda from 30 years ago is now $800K to upwards of $2.0 million versus $200-$300K (https://www.insidenova.com/news/arlington/1975-2017-n-va-real-estate-market-ebbs-and-flows-but-trend-is-upward/article_5a867294-e248-11e6-804c-b3124640c2f3.html). Some of this is obviously lower interest rates but it's also significant real estate appreciation beyond inflation and beyond increases in salaries. It has increasingly priced out families with two professional salaries and a conservative down payment of $160K to $400K for an 80% LTV. For a 3.0% interest, 30-year mortgage, that's $3K to $6K per month or $35K-$75K per year. You could rent for about the same as the lower end of this. The cost of childcare since 1990 has tripled (https://www.in2013dollars.com/Child-care-and-nursery-school/price-inflation) and that's before considering quality of options and the premium of DC costs. You're now consistently paying $25K per year per kid ($125K total for decent childcare (or a nanny for more) and that's before getting to elementary school). Those 2-3 kids now cost $250K-$375K combined before entering elementary school. Kids are now a luxury good. Americans spend nearly twice as much on healthcare today since the 1980s after adjusting for inflation: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/09/americans-spend-twice-as-much-on-health-care-today-as-in-the-1980s.html. This probably less of an issue for many of the $300K earners who are probably still relatively young. However, those that are underinsured can be one medical emergency away from crippling medical debt. One of our kids had an emergency that required a 3 day stay at Children's. The bill was $60K. Thank god we had good insurance. Post-secondary education at highly selective private universities and prestigious out of state publics? Well, those are expected to reach $400-500K per kid in the next 10-15 years. That's $25K per year (before appreciation) per kid in savings that needs to be funded from the time they're born if they don't want crippling student loan debt. That's before considering grad school, which is increasingly the new college and potential student loans that many of these couples are still digging out of more than decade later. And those spots at highly selective colleges are becoming harder and harder to attain. So, families pile on extracurriculars and start cultivating their kids from birth with the hope that they will be the ones to keep their kids in the same increasingly precarious professional class. This is before considering self-funding of retirement since pensions as well as stable employment through retirement are increasingly remote. Many of these high paying professional jobs are pyramids with a few highly lucrative executive and senior partners at the top and "dog eat dog" in the middle and "churn and burn" at the bottom. Take law firms. It's much harder to make partner today and the competition is fierce and the billables/hours are ridiculous. You're one bad recession or downsizing from dropping down the social hierarchy. And because many of these household work such long hours, many non-work activities are outsourced (lawn, cleaning, childcare, etc.). So, you save as much as you can after considering all of these other costs and it's nowhere near enough to fund a stable retirement and a good future for your kids. I'm not shedding tears for these folks. I'm one of them. But I can see how many of these things that were trappings of a certain lifestyle 30-40 years ago are increasingly out of reach for 95%+ of households out there. And each year, it's getting more expensive and harder to attain. So each generation runs that much faster to try to stay in the same place as their parents or as their peers. |
Anonymous
I don’t think it’s usually just the posters who mention they have a lot of money. It’s the ones who seem clueless and live in a bubble/are oblivious to the struggles of others who get called on… |
Anonymous
I’ve been on DCUM For nearly 20 years, I’ve never posted about any of that stuff, but I do believe it’s more than a couple of people posting. The anonymity here allows people to ask questions they would never ever ask in real life. Also, this phenomenon is not a DC thing, it’s a capitalism thing. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
They feel they should be able to have it all. It's a HCOL area, one has to make choices. |
Anonymous
| The people who live in this area are Type A and hyper competitive and successful. Many are from humble beginnings or the middle class. When they attain success in their professional life in 30s amd 40s they’re confused and are trying to navigate the social dynamics. Que the class anxiety. |
Anonymous
+1 I know one of them. To say "it ain't pretty" is an understatement. |
Anonymous
Highly disagree |