Honest question about first story: how come they need $1000/week if they spend on groceries $100/week? I am sure rent eats a large chunk of that thousand but it still doesn't add up.
The cost of healthcare is also extremely high, 22% on average in the metro area. This is probably skewed by the elderly.
Add in a phone bill, electricity ($150 average), internet, garbage, water & sewer and $1000 a week for a family of 6 seems low to me, actually. They're doing a very good job making do with their relatively modest income ($77k/yr), only 55% of the area median income for a family of 6.
By the way, for a family of 6 they spend way less on groceries than I would expect.
People love to hate billionaires, but most NIMBY initiatives that block housing development and drive up the rents are pushed by groups of regular citizens, not the super-rich. Also true outside the US. Czechia hardly has any millionaires, but bored pensioners with a quest to meddle in everything are plentiful and they have, uh, results. So do some green NGOs.
That isn't to claim that there aren't issues stemming from income inequality. Just that cost of living issues are some of the most pressing day-to-day and are often self inflicted (voting against infrastructure, voting against public transit, voting in favor of boneheaded zoning, etc).
I, also, hate democracy when it produces results I disagree with.
I dont know about Portland, but I live in suburbs of NY. Even an hour away, what you save in rent you end up giving up in the entire drive-park-ride-subway shuffle.
- You have to drive to the train station (pay for car, insurance, gas). Homes walking distance to train station are extra premium costs.
- You have to pay to park at the station (~$10/day for me)
- You have to pay for the rail ticket ($37 roundtrip / day for me)
- You have to pay for the subway/bus from the rail station to the office ($5.50 / day)
All-in, on RTO day trip costs $53 not including the car. Its not huge for a tech worker, but for many people this is prohibitive.
https://www.njtransit.com/fares
You can use pre-tax FSA transit accounts, but 1/3 of the time the cards dont work and you pay out of pocket. Then you cannot reimburse because FSA providers like HealthEquity do not allow transit post-reimbursement, even when their cards malfunction. Then, you lose the balance if you dont (cant) spend your balance in time. The entire system is set up to squeeze people.
The time aspect is huge. I try to load up Udemy courses and podcasts and try to turn it into forced learning time.
w/r/t Annual Costs, note that there are slight monthly discounts available. The discounts break-even at 4days a week, so the discounts dont even work unless you are 5 days RTO. There is no winning!
As a person living outside of the US, all of those didn't even cross my mind (maybe except for car payments).
I have “good” insurance for a family of 4 and on top of my monthly insurance premiums (maybe $500/month? I honestly try to ignore it) I paid at least 3,000 in additional. But one kid did do a 2 week hospital visit.
(looking at my own paycheck and bank statement):
- Rent / Housing
- Health insurance premiums
- Health insurance deductibles
- Health insurance balance bills (what insurance mysteriously doesnt pay)
- Health insurance co-pays
- Prescription co-pays and balance bills from PBM*
- Electric, Gas, Water, Sewer bills
- Phone+internet (often locked into 2yr plans so you cant shop around)
- (for me and some) Car insurance / gas
- (for me and some) Public transport
- (for some) student debt payments
All this is before any restaurants (a luxury, even for qsr), savings (good luck), travel (not realistic for many), dental /orthodontic (often deferred)
For those outside the US or some lucky US states, a PBM is a pharmacy "benefits" manager, which creates many rules for where you can fill your prescription to have it covered by health insurance. Mine (OptumRX) will set higher prices than I could get if I shopped around for medicine. If I choose the lower price, I either pay for it myself (out of pocket, not applying insurance) or they will bill the difference between what I paid and the higher "fair" price they set. There is no winning. Sometimes the PBM price is so high it is better to just pay out of pocket, or even to purchase the meds overseas (which I know people do, esp those closer to Canada.) Also, your doctor has to send the prescription electronically to the pharmacy, which makes it difficult to shop around since you dont actually have the prescription in hand and many doctors wont respond to you once you've left the clinic. Death by a thousand cuts.
The first example sure has a lot of payroll deductions, $680 a week is ~$35,000 a year. I guess health insurance premiums are probably deducted before the $680.