what these data show
is that today's family with children is going broke
over the basics
what's happened in the last generation
is that a father's wages a man's wages
have gone up as we know less than one percent
depending on the data you want to look at that actually declined slightly more stayed
flat when adjusted for inflation
but the family income has gone up seventy five percent in that period of time why?
because they've added a second worker 0:00:32.669,0:00:36.320
but that family today
0:00:40.690,0:00:44.080 it's health insurance payment it's car payment
and eight and is after school board
preschool here for its children
the payments for those four things
meantime family today has
less money left over
then the one income family had over a generation
ago
so with two people in the workforce all the expenses 0:01:04.920,0:01:07.810 their clothes and gasoline to get to work
the underlying reality
is that days two-income family
he's having to spend so much more
just for the core
just for the basics just for the mortgage and health insurance from a car and preschool
than parents had to spend a generation ago
and that's what it is that's driving them into bankruptcy
other words
and once that you can say yes we always understood in having children is expensive
but what's happened in single generation is that the cost of having children has shot and way out of reach
of the average median earner
0:01:49.829,0:01:50.870
but before we do that
isn't the real problem here
maybe any real problem here
%uh when you point out for example that the income on it
it cost to get inflation adjusted
cedras paris everything equal
but the problem is that is that the cost of living index
0:02:30.729,0:02:33.980
0:02:38.239,0:02:40.509 it's a nice way to put it
indeed one of the things that's interesting to look at when you compare family budgets
from I just picked the early nineteen seventies tried to pick that as one generation so we're
not loading the numbers by moving back into the fifties or even sixties
so in thirty years
what's happened is a typical budget
with a typical family
clothing
families today surely spend more on clothing
but the data show when he
pulled apart in you adjust for inflation is that days mom dad and two kids
spend twenty one percent less
for clothing
than a family spent a generation ago
what's happened
0:03:42.049,0:03:45.409 appliances everyone wants to talk about how todays family
has microwave ovens them
popcorn popper is an espresso machines that we didn't have a chance
inflation adjusted dollars today's families are spending forty four percent less
on appliances then they spent generation ago
letss on furniture less on floor coverings
on tobacco little more on alcohol but the real point here
is that
Americans
have actually cut
where they spend
in humans the fixed costs once you've committed to that mortgage once you
committed to make health insurance payments once you've committed to make those car payments
they've committed to
big fixed costs
month after month after month and today
it takes
two salaries
just to make those fixed costs and families have
actually ended up spending less
in all those categories where there was at least
some discretion in the past