西雅圖四口之家至少需要6位數收入才能維持生計
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.
想維持生計？家庭年收入要達到這個數……
最新的人口普查數據顯示，一個典型的美國家庭年收入約為7.1萬元。然而，最新的一項蓋洛普（Gallup）民意調查則顯示，美國人認為一個普通家庭每年需要至少8.5萬元的收入才能維持生計。
蓋洛普的發現與金融科技公司SmartAsset最近進行的一項研究結果相吻合。該研究發現，普通美國人需要每年68499元的稅後收入才能過上舒適的生活。如果假設的稅率為20%，那麽所需要的稅前收入約為8.5萬元。
CBS：10 個城市的中產和工薪階層入不敷出
CBS News 近日的報道分析了美國 50 個大城市中產和工薪階層的生活水平。雖然舊金山的生活成本很高，但路德維希共享經濟繁榮研究所（Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity; LISEP）的研究發現，它的高工資抵消了昂貴的生活成本（年收入不足 10 萬美元在舊金山就被視為低收入），因而中產和工薪階級家庭的生活水平反而比其他城市更好。
根據 LISEP 的數據：
- 加州聖何塞-桑尼維爾-聖克拉拉地區的中產和工薪家庭，在去除基本生活必須開銷之後，薪水還能剩下 25.4%，在 50 個大城市中排名第一、最為「愜意」。
- 其次是德州奧斯汀-朗德羅克地區，去除基本開銷之後平均還剩 25.2% 。
- 接下來是首都華盛頓周邊的 DMV 地區，22.1%；加州舊金山-奧克蘭-弗裏蒙特地區， 18.2%；以及佐治亞亞特蘭大-桑迪斯普林斯-瑪麗埃塔地區，17.3%
- 表現最差的是內華達拉斯維加斯-天堂地區，剩餘薪水為負數，-22.1%，意味著有很多低收入和中低收入的工薪階層，他們的薪水還不夠支付基本的開支，入不敷出。
- 剩餘薪水為負數的地區總共有 10 個，除了拉斯維加斯-天堂地區外，還有加州弗雷斯諾；加州洛杉磯-長灘-阿納海姆；紐約州布法羅-尼亞加拉瀑布；紐約州羅切斯特；加州河濱-聖貝納迪諾；夏威夷州檀香山；紐約-新澤西北-長島；加州聖地亞哥-卡爾斯巴德-聖馬科斯；弗吉尼亞州裏士滿。
- 這 10 個入不敷出的地區，有 4 個在加州、 3 個在紐約，剩下的 3 個分別在內華達、夏威夷和弗吉尼亞。
下麵的地圖中，藍色表示工薪階層有剩餘薪水，而紅色和橙色則表示很多人入不敷出。
LISEP 的數據還顯示，約 60% 的美國人生活困難，2022 年他們的收入平均缺口接近 14,000 美元。這幾年食品、租金都在上漲，許多家庭在持續的通貨膨脹下麵臨挑戰。 LISEP 主席吉恩·路德維希（Gene Ludwig）表示，無論在美國哪個地方，中低收入家庭的狀況都不容樂觀。
路德維希指出，美國政府追蹤的數據，通常無法準確反映數百萬美國家庭的實際經濟狀況，尤其是通貨膨脹的影響。例如，根據 CPI，住房價格上漲了 54%，但實際上，中低收入家庭的租金上漲了近 149% 。
路德維希警告說，「過去 20 年中，中低收入美國人麵臨的通貨膨脹率高於高收入群體，而工資增長並沒有跟上，使得他們的生活狀況比 20 年前更糟。」他認為，分享美國經濟增長的財富對於維護中產階級和建立穩定社會至關重要。不幸的是，目前的趨勢並不樂觀。
