Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America
This raises two questions in my mind:<p>I admittedly come from a very privileged background (in terms of both an upper-middle-class family and genetics), but how have so many people found themselves in places where it&#x27;s so hard to make ends meet? My parents paid for college (like I said, admittedly privileged) and the State of North Carolina actually gave me free tuition and paid me a stipend to get my Master&#x27;s degree (free&#x2F;cheap government education is a benefit which you don&#x27;t have to be privileged to get, at least not as privileged). I chose the &quot;wrong&quot; programs from a job prospects &#x2F; earnings perspective - Sociology and Public Administration. I still managed to fall into a career as a data scientist. I&#x27;m not paid a bay-area salary, but then the suburbs of Raleigh&#x2F;Durham don&#x27;t have a bay-area cost of living either. My wife and I have a bigger house than we need, drive two old (2005 &amp; 2009) but functional cars, have two kids, take a reasonably nice week-long vacation each year, and give quite a bit away, all on one salary. We&#x27;ve both made sacrifices to be debt free other than the mortgage, which helps. Most of my close friends went to very reasonably-priced state schools (e.g., NC State University), got the &quot;right&quot; degrees, and are now gainfully employed and able to support a family. Do I just live in that much of a bubble? Are my and my friends&#x27; experiences really that out of the ordinary in America in 2018?<p>Second, is it just because I&#x27;m young? This article suggests a lot of programmers&#x2F;engineers end up being un-hireable by middle age, and struggle to find another career to make ends meet. Does that match the experience of a lot of folks here? From my perspective, most of the middle aged programmers&#x2F;engineers I know have just moved on to become software architects, managers of development teams, CTOs, consultants, etc. - in other words, they&#x27;re doing even more lucrative work facilitated by their years of experience.