Yesterday I listened to a training session at work in which the presenter described the work being done in another part of the company on helping clients encourage their employees to save more for retirement; one interesting thing that more employers are doing, apparently, is moving beyond retirement savings to provide encouragement, online tools, and in-house sessions on money management more generally.<\/p>\n
And I started thinking about this: \u00a0whether wages have stagnated, regressed, or proceeded to climb depends on one\u2019s interpretation of the data: \u00a0how you slice and dice by education level\u00a0or\u00a0earnings percentile, what metric you use for inflation, and so on. \u00a0But one thing is true: \u00a0the government develops inflation metrics based on price changes for a \u201cbasket of goods\u201d that\u2019s supposed to represent typical spending. \u00a0(One of these days I\u2019ll look up the details and unpack them.) \u00a0There are some very real ways, though, in which that \u201cbasket of goods\u201d has not just changed over time, but gotten bigger: \u00a0our expectations of what constitute \u201cbasic living expenses\u201d and \u201cspending needed to be middle class\u201d have changed quite a bit over time, and this is a significant impediment in Americans saving for retirement, or savings at all.<\/p>\n
So I thought I\u2019d compile a list of these types of changes, and ask you to brainstorm with me on this, or collect comments anyway, until I have time to really dig through the available data.<\/p>\n
You can get a cheap, \u201cdumb\u201d phone and a by-the-minutes plan for a fairly low price, and, if you\u2019re single, replace your landline with it. But more and more, even the poor \u201cneed\u201d a smartphone. \u00a0And I don\u2019t really know how likely poor families are to have a computer with internet service, but we\u2019re told that this, too, is a need, not a want. \u00a0Heck, my high schooler is expected to do his homework on his school-issued iPad, with the instruction to the substantial number of Mexican immigrants (the parent meeting at orientation was twice as long as it otherwise would have taken because everything was translated into Spanish) being to stay after school, then go to the library, and, after they close, or the McDonalds or Panera as needed after school closes down for the day.<\/p>\n
Bottom line is that for most of us, internet service of various types has been transformed from a \u201cwant\u201d into a \u201cneed\u201d \u2014 and thinking about that left me wondering what other transformations have occurred. \u00a0At the level of \u201cwhat you need to be middle class,\u201d many, probably. \u00a0The size of one\u2019s house, to be sure, but even the expectation that one lives in a single family house, and that to live in an apartment is a marker of failure. \u00a0Air conditioning is now a need. \u00a0The \u201cneed\u201d to spend on activities for the kids \u2014 it happens fairly often that in stories of unemployment hardships, the parents struggle mightily to maintain the travel soccer expenses. \u00a0The \u201cneed\u201d for more clothes (at least, judging from the very small closets in our first house, built in 1946), for a health club membership. \u00a0Heck, even in terms of food, more and more people feel they \u201cneed\u201d out-of-season fresh produce (and more of it), organics, a better cut of meat than grandmother\u2019s pot roast, and so on \u2014 not to mention the \u201cneed\u201d to eat out more often than past generations.<\/p>\n
Which all leaves me wondering: \u00a0has this been quantified? \u00a0Time to hit google, I suppose. \u00a0But in the meantime: \u00a0your thoughts?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday I listened to a training session at work in which the presenter described the work being done in another part of the company on helping clients encourage their employees to save more for retirement; one interesting thing that more employers are doing, apparently, is moving beyond retirement savings to provide encouragement, online tools, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n