Elizabeth Warren wrote a book about this issue 2 decades ago: The Two Income Trap.
It used to be that you could afford a mortgage on 1 income. Now you can’t even afford it on 2. The explosion of 2 income households has made it much harder to compete in the bidding wars for housing.
At the same time, homeowners (NIMBYs) go to city hall and fight tooth and nail to protect their investments by blocking new housing development. It’s this horrible cycle of ladder pulling.
I haven’t read, but read a brief summary. Thanks for sharing.
It felt unintuitive to me at first. Why would two incomes be more risky than a single income? But yeah if one of those two become incapicated/unable to find work… you are screwed since you need both. Single income you essentially have a backup (assuming they can find work)
So, reduced work week would free up needed time and reduce convenience costs, but families are still exposed.
But I don’t want to go back to a single income household at a societal level (doesn’t sound like EW did either). Tricky.
God I wouldn’t have the energy to raise kids. I work, my wife works, and working to pay someone else to raise my kids that I only see when I finish work sounds like shit.
This is definitely a contributor, but declining fertility rates isn’t a new thing.
I think the largest problem is average hours worked per parent has been increasing for 60 plus years.
We need more full time jobs at 30 hours a week or so.
Elizabeth Warren wrote a book about this issue 2 decades ago: The Two Income Trap.
It used to be that you could afford a mortgage on 1 income. Now you can’t even afford it on 2. The explosion of 2 income households has made it much harder to compete in the bidding wars for housing.
At the same time, homeowners (NIMBYs) go to city hall and fight tooth and nail to protect their investments by blocking new housing development. It’s this horrible cycle of ladder pulling.
and she did nothing about it.
What did you expect her to do about it?
I haven’t read, but read a brief summary. Thanks for sharing.
It felt unintuitive to me at first. Why would two incomes be more risky than a single income? But yeah if one of those two become incapicated/unable to find work… you are screwed since you need both. Single income you essentially have a backup (assuming they can find work)
So, reduced work week would free up needed time and reduce convenience costs, but families are still exposed.
But I don’t want to go back to a single income household at a societal level (doesn’t sound like EW did either). Tricky.
God I wouldn’t have the energy to raise kids. I work, my wife works, and working to pay someone else to raise my kids that I only see when I finish work sounds like shit.
Depends on where you are. My wife and I work 100 hours a week easy