Edited to add - To be clear for anyone, it's Oligarchs/Billionaires paired with rampant, unfettered corporate greed. (at least in my view)
Someone reminded me that I was using dogwhistle parlance in my use of they which may have suggested otherwise.
Here are some visual aids to accompany my clarification:
The F’d up thing is that being solid middle class and having sufficient income to help with a kid’s college money, put away money to actually retire, and pay a mortgage is top 10%. That’s literally what middle class was 50 years ago. Now you have to be a ~10%-er to do it.
And that isn't an accident. It's by design.
It's a race to the bottom. Go look for a job now. Your best offers are less than half what they should be. They want masters degrees and a decade of experience for "entry level" work. The more desperately poor people there are the less they can offer to recruit. Less pay, fewer benefits.
I make twice the average household income where I am by myself. I'm doing okay, but like, not great at the same time. How the fuck are other people surviving???
Edit: Just kidding, I got the stats wrong, I make a bit above average household on my own, not twice. Point still stands, however.
Barely.
Yeah, remember when "Wow, I could make $100,000 a year?" was impressive? It was not that long ago.
It's still better than what most people make, but it's really not a lot anymore.
We're able to just barely do those things on a just below median household income in a just above median cost of living area for one very, very specific reason: My wife's greatest generation grandparents saw the economic writing on the wall 20+ years ago and went into assisted living to give their only grandchild their house as a wedding present. If we had real housing costs while living here we'd be paycheck to paycheck without kids at best.