What People Earn

Every year Parade magazine (an insert magazine that is in with the news paper) has a story on what people earn. It shows people from all sorts of occupations and what they earn a year. Actors, doctors, construction workers... You get the idea.

In the article this year it talks about a guy and how he used to earn 100k at his job as a financial-services manager at a Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep dealership, but last year his pay shrank to 76,000.

Yes that would suck to lose about 25% of your pay. But at the same time when the national average yearly income is 31,000, making 76,000 isn't so bad. Is it?

The article then goes on to talk about how his wife doesn't make too much as an administrative assistant for the state, so they've had to cut back on "vacations, meals out, and other spending. Each month they wrestle with which bills to pay and which to put off a bit longer."

It's that last sentence that stopped me in my tracks.

They have to wrestle with what bills to pay? WTF?

So let's say his wife makes 25,000 a year. That gives them a combined income of more than 100k.

If you have to struggle with your bills making that much, it sounds to me that these people are the typical people I have bitched about time and again on this blog.

The middle class pretending to be rich and thinking they are entitled to every luxury they desire.

I just think the magazine picked a bad example to try and show how things have gotten rougher for people. HAd it been someone who was making 100k who lost their job and is now making $7 because there are no jobs would have made more sense to me.

But if your life is so rough because you make 76k... Boo fucking hoo.