Good news. We’re only the second worst.

The local salaries aren’t exactly keeping up with the mainland though.

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/massachusetts-most-expensive-state-raise-kid-mississippi-cheapest

Numbers like these seem to be exaggerated to get attention. This would suggest that a family of 4 would cost something like $140,000 a year and clearly people here manage to raise families on a good deal less than this.

Somebody explain California.  I can't figure it out.

29K?  Bullsh*t.

On one hand for stats like these, it may be a more ideal case.  On the other hand, maybe weve just been living so poor everyday that what should be a middle class lifestyle seems rich.

How they broke up the stats:
Annual cost of a child: $35,049
Food: $2,481
Childcare: $19,592
Medical costs: $1,569
Additional housing: $6,188
Transportation: $3,305
Other necessities: $1,915

Things have changed with more women in the workforce.  Women used to stay home and take care of the children which eliminated the need for childcare and some other costs and at the same time, wages were much higher because of less people in the workforce.

There's this one too.  It uses the 50% housing / 30% discretionary / 20% savings ratios which isn't relevant today and distorts things in reality.

On one hand for stats like these, it may be a more ideal case.  On the other hand, maybe weve just been living so poor everyday that what should be a middle class lifestyle seems rich.

How they broke up the stats:
Annual cost of a child: $35,049
Food: $2,481
Childcare: $19,592
Medical costs: $1,569
Additional housing: $6,188
Transportation: $3,305
Other necessities: $1,915

Things have changed with more women in the workforce.  Women used to stay home and take care of the children which eliminated the need for childcare and some other costs and at the same time, wages were much higher because of less people in the workforce.

Women increasingly had to enter the workforce because our standard of living is rapidly declining. Regulation and predatory taxation wiped out the small businesses who traditionally created the most jobs.
Now we are a nation of middle managers with nothing to manage because our industrial base has been outsourced in order to make the investment class filthy rich while impoverishing every one else.
The whole rigged game is coming apart and the response to try at save it is to devalue the currency, which is a hidden tax that steals even more wealth from the productive classes and guarantees a crash.
At some point nobody will be able to afford anything, asset bubbles like the housing market will pop, and we will have to figure out how to reindistrialize in a devastated economy without the benefit of a world reserve currency.