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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What the heck is a donut hole family? Where do these terms come from?! [/quote]

Rich people pretending to be poor and expecting entitlements.  [/quote]

It is a term used in many contexts to describe people who earn too much to qualify for a program (medicare drug coverage) but don't earn enough to actually pay for the product themselves.  This isn't a new term.

It is relatively new to apply it to college attendance.

It is only recently that people began to think they were somehow entitled to an expensive elite education.  But different people save different amounts because circumstances and preferences differ.  Then they get all bent out of shape when a poor kid gets a large amount of financial aid.[/quote]
Most of the people I know who would consider themselves as a donut hole family [b]are couples who went to top colleges themselves, spent years in graduate school, spent many years paying off their student debt and find themselves in their 50s faced with having to deal with college tuition bills and adequately funding their own retirement. [/b] The schools they went to are now priced north of $70k and these schools typically only offer need based aid not merit based aid.  It is a little tough to accept because most parents hope their kids will have at least the same opportunities they were able to experience.  We had saved enough to send our child to a state school for four years when he was in middle school and that is a great feeling.  The gap between UMD and a top 30 private school is around $50K a year and these schools don't offer merit based aid for the most part.  We have tried very hard to save enough but it is really hard to save this much even with a six figure income especially since we have only enjoyed a six figure income for the last ten years.  We are far from alone.  I know lots of UMC families in a similar situation.  It is a relatively new phenomenon and I don't think it is wrong to draw attention to this.

[/quote]

And income and purchasing power for most Americans have not increased in decades. This affects families, and also adds to the fear and pressure parents are feeling to try and ensure their kids have a shot of a decent financial future.

From the Pew Research Center Aug 2018:  https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades
BY DREW DESILVER

On the face of it, these should be heady times for American workers. U.S. unemployment is as low as it’s been in nearly two decades (3.9% as of July) and the nation’s private-sector employers have been adding jobs for 101 straight months – 19.5 million since the Great Recession-related cuts finally abated in early 2010, and 1.5 million just since the beginning of the year.

But despite the strong labor market, wage growth has lagged economists’ expectations. In fact, despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. [b]And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.[/b]

The disconnect between the job market and workers’ paychecks has fueled much of the recent activism in states and cities around raising minimum wages, and it also has become a factor in at least some of this year’s congressional campaigns.

Average hourly earnings for non-management private-sector workers in July were $22.65, up 3 cents from June and 2.7% above the average wage from a year earlier, according to data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s in line with average wage growth over the past five years: Year-over-year growth has mostly ranged between 2% and 3% since the beginning of 2013. But in the years just before the 2007-08 financial collapse, average hourly earnings often increased by around 4% year-over-year. And during the high-inflation years of the 1970s and early 1980s, average wages commonly jumped 7%, 8% or even 9% year-over-year.

[b]After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today.[/b][/quote]

This post has very little to do with this discussion.  We aren't talking about "average workers."  Average workers get financial aid.  We're talking about people who make $200,000 a year.  Your own study says that "what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers."  Only 1.5% of Americans make over $200,000 per year.  These are "the donut hole."  [/quote]

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