Are you in the middle class, 2023?

[amylevan]

People bring up how crowded Disney is as a reflection of the economy. I think it has more to do with the population in Florida exploding over the last few years. I’d be surprised if they ever bring back out of state annual passes.

Annual pass sales are resuming April 20.

 

[DCLMP]

The increased crowds should be do to a much larger population. It’s not like the parks have gotten bigger.

In 1990 the US had a population of 250m. In 2022 the US had a population of 333m. That’s almost an additional 100m people.

They do need another gate. Its seems like since the end of Covid the crowds have been unmanageable. There could be a lot of factors contributing to that, but I dont think it suddenly becoming affordable to the middle class is one of them.

 

[DCLMP]

Annual pass sales are resuming April 20.

I didnt know that. It does sound like the will be limited.

 

[RamblingMad]

They do need another gate. Its seems like since the end of Covid the crowds have been unmanageable. There could be a lot of factors contributing to that, but I dont think it suddenly becoming affordable to the middle class is one of them.

Stimulus money plus lockdown. People ended up saving far more than they normally do. Now, they're spending it, and prices are going up. Eventually, they'll deplete the excess cash. This is temporary. But a much larger population isn't unless we have another global war.

 

[LYSE]

We would fall somewhere at or over the upper middle line

 

[Colleen27]

I personally think the percentage-of-median approaches to defining middle class are meaningless because they reflect nothing about buying power or standard of living. Using an extreme to illustrate the rule, look at the figures for Detroit.

Lower limit: $24,214 Median: $36,140 Upper limit: $72,280

Now, there is no way that lower limit or even the median is enough to support what most would consider even a basic middle class lifestyle of homeownership or renting a decent place, having health insurance and a car that is legally plated and insured, and a few small extras in life, never mind things like paying for the kids' college or taking vacations. But it is a poor city, so you can be both below the poverty line and in the middle class based on the percentile method. It makes more sense, IMO, to define middle class as a set of financial milestones/goals and build out the income range from there, but that would require really grappling with the fact that the bottom 80% of the income distribution is in the midst of a long downward standard-of-living slide. Easier, then, to simply redefine middle a chunk of the whole, regardless of whether lower middle class is synonymous with food insecure and one crisis away from homeless.

... but to the original question, we are solidly middle class using statewide numbers which is no surprise since we've always had a median-ish income for our area.

 

[RamblingMad]

I personally think the percentage-of-median approaches to defining middle class are meaningless because they reflect nothing about buying power or standard of living. Using an extreme to illustrate the rule, look at the figures for Detroit.

Lower limit: $24,214 Median: $36,140 Upper limit: $72,280

Now, there is no way that lower limit or even the median is enough to support what most would consider even a basic middle class lifestyle of homeownership or renting a decent place, having health insurance and a car that is legally plated and insured, and a few small extras in life, never mind things like paying for the kids' college or taking vacations. But it is a poor city, so you can be both below the poverty line and in the middle class based on the percentile method. It makes more sense, IMO, to define middle class as a set of financial milestones/goals and build out the income range from there, but that would require really grappling with the fact that the bottom 80% of the income distribution is in the midst of a long downward standard-of-living slide. Easier, then, to simply redefine middle a chunk of the whole, regardless of whether lower middle class is synonymous with food insecure and one crisis away from homeless.

... but to the original question, we are solidly middle class using statewide numbers which is no surprise since we've always had a median-ish income for our area.

Here's a good one (from 2016):

https://www.hellawealth.com/blog/money/what-is-middle-class-in-every-state/

Let me see if I can find something more recent.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/23/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/

https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0912/which-income-class-are-you.aspx

 

[DCLMP]

I didnt know that. It does sound like the will be limited.

I thought one article said that, but there’s dozens of articles on it. Not something that interests me anymore.

 

[DCLMP]

Stimulus money plus lockdown. People ended up saving far more than they normally do. Now, they're spending it, and prices are going up. Eventually, they'll deplete the excess cash. This is temporary. But a much larger population isn't unless we have another global war.

Deep discounts and lots of availability showing at least for the weeks I’ve looked at this summer. The pull back may already be happening.

 

[RamblingMad]

Deep discounts and lots of availability showing at least for the weeks I’ve looked at this summer. The pull back may already be happening.

It's hard to tell since the data available is at such a high level. I definitely know a credit crunch is happening.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRTSCLCC

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRIWCIL

 

[Colleen27]

Lots of city people live entire lives without ever owning the roof over their heads so I don't get the preoccupation with ownership. Truthfully, very few people ever actually own their homes. What we do is go into a co-ownership with a bank. We all saw how kind they were as co-owners in 08, soooo it's a bit iffy.

I think the preoccupation comes from the fact that homeownership is generally the largest builder of wealth for working people, given the upward long-term trend in real estate prices in most markets. Plus homeownership gives a degree of stability; I know so many people over the last few years who got hit with double-digit rent increases (%, not $), sometimes in consecutive years. That doesn't happen if you buy a home with a fixed mortgage, so even if you are stuck co-owning with your lender, you're at least paying a fairly constant amount (with some flex on taxes and insurance, of course).

 

[RamblingMad]

I think the preoccupation comes from the fact that homeownership is generally the largest builder of wealth for working people, given the upward long-term trend in real estate prices in most markets. Plus homeownership gives a degree of stability; I know so many people over the last few years who got hit with double-digit rent increases (%, not $), sometimes in consecutive years. That doesn't happen if you buy a home with a fixed mortgage, so even if you are stuck co-owning with your lender, you're at least paying a fairly constant amount (with some flex on taxes and insurance, of course).

Home ownership helps you lock down your cost of living. But you have still have property taxes, insurance, and upkeep. All have risen.

 

[Colleen27]

Home ownership helps you lock down your cost of living. But you have still have property taxes, insurance, and upkeep. All have risen.

Yeah, and I know that's a little different in my state (and a few others that I know of) because we have tight caps on property tax increases, which makes the advantage of ownership bigger than in a place where property taxes can go up freely based on market values. But generally speaking, rent has to go up as all those things go up too, usually with a little extra to increase the landlord's compensation because all of his living expenses are going up along side his business expenses.

 

[RamblingMad]

Yeah, and I know that's a little different in my state (and a few others that I know of) because we have tight caps on property tax increases, which makes the advantage of ownership bigger than in a place where property taxes can go up freely based on market values. But generally speaking, rent has to go up as all those things go up too, usually with a little extra to increase the landlord's compensation because all of his living expenses are going up along side his business expenses.

I wouldn't want to be a renter right now. The rents near me for the equivalent home are now twice my mortgage payment.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

The increased crowds should be do to a much larger population. It’s not like the parks have gotten bigger.

In 1990 the US had a population of 250m. In 2022 the US had a population of 333m. That’s almost an additional 100m people.

Flights have also come down in price significantly which has opened the ability to travel to a larger population.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the average domestic roundtrip base airfare in 1990 cost $288 or $554 in today’s dollars. The most recent data from the department states that the base fare for the same type of ticket in 2018 is $340. That’s almost a 40 percent decrease in price per mile, according to another study from Compas Lexecon. If you include the average bag fee, the price in 1990 is $556 in today’s dollars and $362 in 2018, respectively.

https://www.rd.com/article/see-how-much-it-cost-to-fly-30-years-ago/

 

[Colleen27]

I wouldn't want to be a renter right now. The rents near me for the equivalent home are now twice my mortgage payment.

It is about the same here, if you can even find a house to rent. A mortgage on a decent starter home in my area is significantly less than rent on a one-bedroom apartment.

 

[DLgal]

It's less about secrecy and more about security. I would argue that advertising how much you make vs someone seeking it out themselves is different. I follow the rule of two pieces of information that should never be loosely shared: the amount of money that you have and whether you are armed.

How much you make doesn't necessarily correlate to how much you have.

 

[DCLMP]

It's hard to tell since the data available is at such a high level. I definitely know a credit crunch is happening.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRTSCLCC

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DRIWCIL

Oh for sure. I had to laugh at the global war comment because of that happens none of our going to be concerned about WDW or what class we fall into.

I could see more Americans vacationing domestically just because of the fear of war or international events. I'm supposed to be on a cruise to Israel in 3 weeks and praying things calm down.

 

[DCLMP]

Not really a Disney discussion, although

How much you make doesn't necessarily correlate to how much you have.

It's a Disney board everything relates to Disney.

It would be interesting to see the income-to-debt ratio of different income levels. I think there would be too many variations. My instincts tell me that those in the lower income bracket probably have little debt because basic necessities are all they spend money on.

 

[DLgal]

It's a Disney board everything relates to Disney.

It would be interesting to see the income-to-debt ratio of different income levels. I think there would be too many variations. My instincts tell me that those in the lower income bracket probably have little debt because basic necessities are all they spend money on.

I think debt is probably a pretty steady percentage of income across the board. The people who are consumer debt free are the minority, I think.

And it seems probable that lower income people have higher debt as a percentage of their income precisely BECAUSE they must go into debt to afford necessities.