[dionidium]

What's happening is that upper-middle class families really do run out of money after saving for college, sending the kids to private school, both driving two new cars, and so on. They think of those things as basics and forget that those basics are unattainable to most.

[Avshalom]

Right. Hedonistic treadmill/keeping up with the jonses/we rate our lives compared to our peers not compared to objective rock bottom etc... And of course "fucking baffling" was a bit of a rhetorical flourish. Certainly we all understand how they've managed to spend all their money. It's the "and yet they keep spending all their money" that makes us want to grab them by the shirt collars and cartoonishly backhand them.

[gohrt]

Note that "saving for college" means "saving to pay for their kid's tuition AND ALSO pay for the financial that goes to a family earning $50k/yr".

And two cars (not necessarily new) because both parents are driving to work.

And property tax that pays for public school for kids of less real-estate-wealthy folks

Also marginal tax rate (Federal, state, social security) of ~30-40% on the difference in income.

[dionidium]

You can't list those first three things and then also -in the last one. The last one encompasses the first three.

[sukilot]

That is incorrect. Tuition and property tax is not the same as income tax.