The Two-Income Trap - Elizabeth Warren [106]
58 Coontz, The Way We Never Were, p. 168.
59 Chris McComb, “Few Say It’s Ideal for Both Parents to Work Full Time Outside of Home,” Gallup News Service, April 20-22, 2001.
60 Both women and men who did not finish high school saw declines in real wages over the past twenty years. By contrast, among college graduates, women’s earnings have increased 30 percent since 1979, while men’s earnings have increased by 17 percent. U.S. Department of Labor, “Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2000,” Report 952, August 2001, Table 15, Median Usual Weekly Earnings of Full-Time Wage and Salary Workers 25 and Over in Constant (2000) Dollars, by Sex and Educational Attainment, 1979-2000 Annual Averages.
61 Median earnings, which are the best measure of middle-class wages, have risen less than 1 percent for men since the early 1970s, while women’s earnings have increased by more than one-third. Bureau of the Census, Historical Income Tables—People, Current Population Survey, various Annual Demographic Supplements. Available at http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/incperdet.html [1/5/2003], Table P-36, Full-Time, Year-Round Workers (All Races) by Median Income and Sex, 1955 to 2000.
62 Barbara J. Lipman, Center for Housing Policy, “Paycheck to Paycheck: Working Families and the Cost of Housing in America,” New Century Housing 2 (June 2001): 24-26.
63 As we discuss in chapter 6, the proportion of middle-income families who would be considered “house poor” has quadrupled since 1975. Bureau of the Census, Annual Housing Survey for the United States and Regions, 1975, Part C, Financial Characteristics of the Housing Inventory, Annual Survey (1977), Table A.1, Income of Families and Primary Individuals in Owner and Renter Occupied Housing Units, 1975. Available at http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/h150.html [3/10/2003]; American Housing Survey for the United States: 2001, Annual Survey (2001), Table 2- 20, Income of Families and Primary Individuals by Selected Characteristics—Occupied Units. Available at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/ahs01/tab313.html [3/4/2003]. In addition, the Consumer Expenditure Survey indicates that mortgage payments as a proportion of income has increased considerably since the early 1970s. Many indexes that measure housing affordability have shown no clear trend. These indices, however, typically calculate a theoretical housing cost, based on such factors as current mortgage rates and an imputed down payment amount. As a result, the indices are extremely sensitive to fluctuations in interest rates, ignoring the fact that many families have fixed-rate mortgages and do not refinance during periods of high interest. Similarly, these indexes typically assume that all buyers get a conventional mortgage, which ignores the extraordinary rise in high-cost subprime mortgages in recent years. Furthermore, they assume that the typical down payment has held constant over the past generation, when in fact first-time home buyers are putting down far smaller down payments today than twenty years ago. See, for example, Bureau of the Census, “Who Could Afford to Buy a House in 1995?” Table 4-2, Affordability Status of Families and Unrelated Individuals for a Modestly Priced Home, by Current Tenure and Type of Financing, United States, 1984, 1988, 1991, 1993, and 1995. See also Joint Center for Housing Studies, State of the Nation’s Housing, Table A-3. We continue to believe that the best evidence of real housing costs is the direct data on what families report they are actually paying.
64 BLS, Consumer Expenditure Survey: Interview Survey, 1972-1973, Table 5; Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2000, Table 1400. Note that in 2000, 74 percent of married couples with children owned their own homes; in 1972/73 this figure was 71 percent. In order to isolate the effects of changing supply and demand for owner-occupied housing, this calculation only accounts for changes in mortgage expenditures (including both interest and principal) by families who owned their own homes. Federal Reserve data produce