The Two-Income Trap - Elizabeth Warren [109]
104 Homeowners’ median distance to work increased from 7.9 miles in 1975 to 10 miles in 1999. Bureau of the Census, American Housing Survey, 1975, General Housing Characteristics, Current Housing Reports H-150-75A, Table A1, Bureau of the Census, American Housing Survey, 1999, Current Housing Reports H150/99 (October 2000), Table 2-24, Journey to Work—Occupied Units.
105 U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Transportation, “Automobile Affordability, 1979-1999,” OTT Fact of the Week 121, March 20, 2000. Available at www.ott.doe.gov/facts/archives/fotw121.shtml [12/19/2002].
106 Patricia S. Hu and Jennifer R. Young, Summary of Travel Trends: 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, December 1999), Table 20, Distribution of Vehicles by Vehicle Age and Vehicle Type, 1969, 1977, 1983, 1990, and 1995 NPTS (percentage of total vehicles).
107 BLS, Consumer Expenditure Survey: Interview Survey, 1972-1973, Table 5; Consumer Expenditures in 2000, Table 4.
108 “Volvo Saved My Life,” Volvo.com. Available at http://new.volvocars.com/whyvolvo/why_save_my_life.asp [12/19/2002].
109 Melanie Haiken, “Car Seat Safety: How to Choose and Use a Car Seat: Why Does my Child Need a Booster Seat?” Parentcenter.com, http://www.parentcentercom/refcap/39413.html [12/19/2002].
110 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Fatality Facts—Children, 2001 (Arlington, VA: IIHS, October 2001).
111 Bureau of the Census, Historical Income Tables—People, Table P-36.
112 BLS, Consumer Expenditure Survey: Interview Survey, 1972-1973, Table 5. In 1972/73, the average family of four spent $160 (inflation adjusted to $640) on private health insurance (not including expenditures on Medicare). However, 38 percent of these families spent nothing whatsoever on health insurance, typically because they were uninsured, although in some cases because they were covered by a government program such as Medicaid or because they had a particularly generous employer who paid the entire bill. In order to get a more accurate picture of the average health insurance burden on a middle-income, insured family (who would not typically qualify for Medicaid), we have included in our calculation only those families who spent at least $1 on health insurance. For our estimate for a middle-class family’s typical expenditures on health insurance, the calculation is as follows: $640 (average expenditures on health insurance) divided by 62 percent (the portion of families who reported expenditures on private health insurance) = $1,027.
113 Average mortgage principal and interest paid by a home-owning, four-person family; for methodology, see note 64 above. BLS, Consumer Expenditure Survey: Interview Survey, 1972-1973, Table 5.
114 BLS, Consumer Expenditure Survey: Interview Survey, 1972-1973, Table 5. As we noted earlier, the average family of four actually owned 1.7 vehicles in 1972/73 and 2.5 vehicles in 2000. We also noted, however, that the average family of four has 2.5 adults. A family with more than two adults is presumably more likely to have more vehicles, while a family with two or fewer adults would have fewer vehicles. Since our focus here is on the nuclear family with two adults and two young children, we assume, for simplicity’s sake, that the family owns just one car in 1972/73 and just two cars in 2000. We will use this calculation again in chapter 5 when we calculate the postdivorce budget.
115 Claire M. Hintz, The Tax Burden of the Median American Family, Tax Foundation Special Report 96 (Washington, DC: Tax Foundation, March 2000), Table 1, Taxes and the Median