西雅图四口之家至少需要6位数收入才能维持生计
By Danny Westneat Seattle Times columnistThe other morning, down in the Chinatown International District, the line outside the door was 200 long, snaking around the cul-de-sac at Eighth Avenue and Weller Street as though fans were waiting for a big show.
The opening was indeed big, and unfortunately keeps getting bigger. They were waiting for the 10 a.m. doors at the Chinatown ID food bank.
This is how it’s been going across the city this fall. Demand at the food bank in the U District is up an alarming 47% compared with last year. It’s the same in North Seattle.
“We’re actually seeing more people now than we did at the peak of the pandemic,” the director of North Helpline food bank told KING 5 News.
Why is this happening? Two teams of researchers have been looking at the Seattle area as a distinct micro-economy, and have found that once again, we’re at the top of a list — though not one we want to be on.
The Seattle area ranks as the place with the fastest-growing prices in the United States, according to one new analysis of the economies of the 50 largest U.S. cities. We’re not yet the most expensive place to live — San Jose, Calif., i.e., Silicon Valley, gets that dubious distinction. But the cost of living is escalating faster here than anyplace else.
This past week, the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity analyzed what it calls the “true living cost” for 50 cities — adding up big-ticket items such as housing and child care, but also food, health care, transportation, technology like internet access, and personal household items. The goal was to estimate the minimum of what it takes to make it, on a modest budget, in places around the country.
Incredibly, it’s now in the six figures for a family of four in Seattle — about $107,000. That’s up more than 80% since 2005, which ranks us No. 1 for fastest-rising cost of living, ahead of Honolulu.
University of Washington researchers at the School of Social Work recently published a similar finding — that in Seattle it now takes $102,000 to keep a family of four afloat. On the Eastside, it’s $119,000, making that one of the priciest places in the nation.
What’s most remarkable about the UW finding is how rapidly the economic pressure cooker is intensifying. They found that the cost of basic life necessities in Seattle just went up by $16,000 per family in a single year — from $86,000 in last year’s estimates, to $102,000, an 18% jump.
There’s the run on the food banks, explained. The UW’s report, called “Overlooked and Undercounted,” attributes most of this cost-of-living jump to food, housing and child care. (The average cost of day care in Seattle, now more than $14,000 per year, has passed the UW’s in-state tuition).
The people getting squeezed are not “a small nor a marginal group, but rather represent a substantial proportion of households in the state,” it concludes. It estimates that more than 1 in 4, or about 700,000 households statewide, are below water.
In Seattle, this is the echo to the tech boom, and it remains the challenge of the times. The city has done a lot of work in the past decade on it — by pushing higher wages, for instance, and forming a subsidized preschool program. More needs to be done, even as free-market costs are an elusive thing for governments to do much about.
It was striking that the same voters who picked a supposedly “moderate” slate for the Seattle City Council also endorsed the most ambitious tax levy in city history, nearly a billion dollars for affordable housing. The vote on the levy was not close — it won by 38 percentage points. That’s not a call for Seattle to get timid.
Both the city and state can look for more ways to ease the cost burden. Example: In Europe, which has had an even worse cost-of-living crisis post-pandemic, they’ve been cutting the price of mass transit. Spain has a program that grants free train tickets for trips up to 300 kilometers (about 180 miles). We don’t have a train network like they do, but how about making buses and light rail free for a set period? The state has collected $1.2 billion extra in tax money since it passed its budget in April that it could use for something like that.
Likewise, a Seattle City Council member, Alex Pedersen, recently suggested eliminating the city’s usurious 15.5% tax on water. (He wants a capital gains tax instead.) Decades ago, the state canceled a much lower sales tax on groceries, because it was considered inhumane and punishing for the poor to tax life-sustaining food. What possible justification is there for taxing water (at least nonexcessive, personal-use amounts)? Yet Pedersen hasn’t gotten much official support for his idea.
It’s time for the state to consider ways to ease back on the price of energy, too, maybe with a gasoline tax cut or some other rebate plan. Gas is $4.41 a gallon here, third highest in the nation, according to AAA. It’s $2.73 in Texas. That 60% difference is brutal on the working class. I’m a supporter of the state’s climate change policy, in theory, but it’s going to get repealed by voters if lawmakers don’t give folks some kind of break.
That concept should be at the back of every politician’s mind in the months ahead — how to give people just a bit of a break. Because we’re now No. 1 on the kind of list where you really don’t want to be at the top.
Danny Westneat: dwestneat@seattletimes.com; Danny Westneat takes an opinionated look at the Puget Sound region's news, people and politics.
想维持生计？家庭年收入要达到这个数……
最新的人口普查数据显示，一个典型的美国家庭年收入约为7.1万元。然而，最新的一项盖洛普（Gallup）民意调查则显示，美国人认为一个普通家庭每年需要至少8.5万元的收入才能维持生计。
盖洛普的发现与金融科技公司SmartAsset最近进行的一项研究结果相吻合。该研究发现，普通美国人需要每年68499元的税后收入才能过上舒适的生活。如果假设的税率为20%，那么所需要的税前收入约为8.5万元。
CBS：10 个城市的中产和工薪阶层入不敷出
CBS News 近日的报道分析了美国 50 个大城市中产和工薪阶层的生活水平。虽然旧金山的生活成本很高，但路德维希共享经济繁荣研究所（Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity; LISEP）的研究发现，它的高工资抵消了昂贵的生活成本（年收入不足 10 万美元在旧金山就被视为低收入），因而中产和工薪阶级家庭的生活水平反而比其他城市更好。
根据 LISEP 的数据：
- 加州圣何塞-桑尼维尔-圣克拉拉地区的中产和工薪家庭，在去除基本生活必须开销之后，薪水还能剩下 25.4%，在 50 个大城市中排名第一、最为「惬意」。
- 其次是德州奥斯汀-朗德罗克地区，去除基本开销之后平均还剩 25.2% 。
- 接下来是首都华盛顿周边的 DMV 地区，22.1%；加州旧金山-奥克兰-弗里蒙特地区， 18.2%；以及佐治亚亚特兰大-桑迪斯普林斯-玛丽埃塔地区，17.3%
- 表现最差的是内华达拉斯维加斯-天堂地区，剩余薪水为负数，-22.1%，意味着有很多低收入和中低收入的工薪阶层，他们的薪水还不够支付基本的开支，入不敷出。
- 剩余薪水为负数的地区总共有 10 个，除了拉斯维加斯-天堂地区外，还有加州弗雷斯诺；加州洛杉矶-长滩-阿纳海姆；纽约州布法罗-尼亚加拉瀑布；纽约州罗切斯特；加州河滨-圣贝纳迪诺；夏威夷州檀香山；纽约-新泽西北-长岛；加州圣地亚哥-卡尔斯巴德-圣马科斯；弗吉尼亚州里士满。
- 这 10 个入不敷出的地区，有 4 个在加州、 3 个在纽约，剩下的 3 个分别在内华达、夏威夷和弗吉尼亚。
下面的地图中，蓝色表示工薪阶层有剩余薪水，而红色和橙色则表示很多人入不敷出。
LISEP 的数据还显示，约 60% 的美国人生活困难，2022 年他们的收入平均缺口接近 14,000 美元。这几年食品、租金都在上涨，许多家庭在持续的通货膨胀下面临挑战。 LISEP 主席吉恩·路德维希（Gene Ludwig）表示，无论在美国哪个地方，中低收入家庭的状况都不容乐观。
路德维希指出，美国政府追踪的数据，通常无法准确反映数百万美国家庭的实际经济状况，尤其是通货膨胀的影响。例如，根据 CPI，住房价格上涨了 54%，但实际上，中低收入家庭的租金上涨了近 149% 。
路德维希警告说，「过去 20 年中，中低收入美国人面临的通货膨胀率高于高收入群体，而工资增长并没有跟上，使得他们的生活状况比 20 年前更糟。」他认为，分享美国经济增长的财富对于维护中产阶级和建立稳定社会至关重要。不幸的是，目前的趋势并不乐观。
