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Comment by missedthecue | Hacker News Reader

This seems... very achievable if you're a dual parent household. Which most Americans families are.

$57k per person? That's median income for full time workers.

If you're a dual income/parent household, you have to afford both the house payments and childcare; typical child care costs can be so great that it makes sense for one parent to drop out of the workforce to care for children so you're back at square one with a single income household. At a median income of $57k your options are house XOR children which does a decent job of explaining why we're seeing birth rates plummet.

You only have to pay childcare if you have kids, and if you have them, it's a temporary expense for the first few years until they are in school.

People online act like you gotta pay childcare for the rest of time once you have a baby.

It's so awesome society cares so much about kids they'll toss you in jail for leaving them in the car while you run in the gas station to pay, but they won't lift a finger to contribute to the future tax slaves until they're five. Society in its sick tragedy of the commons war against parents want to get all the tax generation rewards with none of the risk and the minority of the investment.

You might be from another country, but in the US there are very generous tax credits (better than deductions) for people with children. It doesn't make children free or profitable, but it's unfair to say "society doesn't care".

The credit barely covers the increased property taxes incurred to inhabit a larger structure, to fulfil laws such as child safety equipment, taxes on diapers, extra costs of registering and state mandated insurance of larger vehicle with additional seats for children. And other mandates imposed by law. They are at best covering cost of their own mandates and other child related taxes.

It is the single largest tax credit in the entire US tax code. My point is that it's unfair to say "society doesn't care". I'm not necessarily arguing that it's currently at the perfect amount.

It's interesting you put that in quote form when it isn't a quote from what I've said.

"It's so awesome society cares so much about kids they'll toss you in jail for leaving them in the car while you run in the gas station to pay, but they won't lift a finger to contribute to the future tax slaves until they're five"

This is your quote, there's a lot of sarcasm which makes it awkward to directly quote but we can all see the point your trying to get across. Society "won't lift a finger" for parents with young children.

But they do the child tax credit, and not only that, it's even more generous for children age 5 and under! So they do "lift a finger to contribute to the future tax slaves until they're five" in your direct words.

They lift the finger in the sense they yank it down and then lift it almost to the same place. As I've just explained, additional other child related taxes and state mandates counterbalance that credit to the point they're lifting the finger they smacked down to about where it started. It is like bragging about applying a bandaid after a punch to the face.

Median household income in my city of 40K is $70K. Household. The median home price is over $400K.

It's that high because a toll lane was built to the nearest metropolitan city so the urbanites priced out of living close to their jobs could flood surrounding areas without the city needing to expand housing.

Meanwhile, our young graduates and public servants can't afford a mortgage in the town they work for, and the wealthy families either vote their enclaves to be exclusive receivers of local taxes, or else they carve themselves out to merge with the county of the metro area so they can siphon off their services, instead.

You think $57K is trivial, but wealth inequality is draining local workers dry.

It is likely much more doable as a family unit. I can't speak for everyone, but I wish I didn't have to depend on anyone else to be to afford my own home.

Dual income is nice, but the ability for one or the other to not have to work (sickness, travel, sabbatical) would be really nice. Or just having the ability to live alone and not throw away money into rent.

Vast majority of house holds are not dual income equal pay... also... tons of other stats that contradict that. 73k is median, make this a great deal above median.

Vast majority are NOT dual income?

According to BLS, 53% of households are dual income, 66% of households with children are dual income. The difference, according to the BLS, is that old retired people are often single income and don't have kids. But retired people are generally not in the market as first time homebuyers anyway.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characte...

So frankly, it would be fair to say that the vast majority of american families ARE dual income.

Dual income equal pay... please read.

Sorry, I don't see how that's relevant. Being at $79k and $35k pay is not equal but achieves the same end result of meeting the $114k mark.

my dude median HOUSEHOLD income is 73k, that means 40 something and 30. I'm feeling like this is an elaborate joke based on your handle because you certainly do...

I never made a claim that every american could go out and buy a house right now? I said that for dual income families it is very achievable. You are quoting median household numbers to me which is immaterial to the arguments here considered. I'm interested in dual earning household income.

I can't find figures for this with BLS, but Rocket Mortgage who has a lot of data on american family and homebuyer incomes says that the average dual income family WITH kids brings in $129k per year. Even higher for DINKs. Now this is average not median, but I think it's still paints the broad picture I'm trying to communicate. I doubt median is half the average.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dinks-average-salary-138-000-...

Household with children is 82k -- so yes they can be half average. Of course the average HOUSEBUYER will be higher than the overall median household with children. Come on man...

There is median household income and there is median earnings of dual income households. They are two different things. You keep talking about the former, I am only interested in the latter. Median household earnings figure contains many single income households.

There is no argument from me that buying a house on one income can be difficult. But my original comment way up at the top specifically says dual income households.

No it does 82k median family of four. What is so difficult for You to understand here?

That 82k figure includes one income households. I want you to exclude all single income households because I am only talking about dual income households.

I'm not misunderstanding it, you're just continually citing an irrelevant data point comment after comment. This whole time, I have been talking about dual income households. You can tell me median household income figures until youre blue in the face; I am only talking about dual income household figures. They aren't the same thing.

Median household income includes dual income but also single income households. I only want to consider dual income households, because that's who I said can reasonably meet the $114k figure.

And I keep telling you, that is a dual income stat family of four. Dude. You are trying to cohort into an irrelevant corner of data and then still finding it not satisfactory. Stop, just take the L.

Dual income marriages had a median household income of roughly $135,000 to $145,000 in 2022. Marriages with a sole earner lagged far behind at around $75,000.

Pew research

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/04/13/in-a-gr...

Clearly I’m the one missing the cue at this point…

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