Are you worse off than Mom and Dad?

Many of us, according to the latest research, don't have it as easy as our parents

Thursday, September 11, 2003

(5:08 PM ET)

By Jeanne Sahad

CNN/Money Senior Writer

"When top earners build larger mansions ... they shift the frame of reference that defines an acceptable house for those just slightly below them on the income scale. And when those people respond by building bigger houses, they in turn shift the frame of reference for those just below them, and so on, all the way down."

NEW YORK -- CNN/Money
If you feel like it's harder to provide the kind of middle class upbringing for your kids that your parents gave you, you may be right.

According to Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, coauthors of "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke," the average two-income middle class family today earns 75 percent more than the typical single-income family did 30 years ago. But today's family, they say, ends up with less money for everyday living expenses and savings.

Why? The costs of housing and a good education are killing them.

In other words, the authors argue, it now takes two incomes to provide what one income provided 30 years ago: a middle class home in a safe neighborhood with a decent public school.

And that doesn't even factor in the cost of a private school or, for that matter, college, which the authors argue is now viewed as a must-do for today's parents in a way that it wasn't 30 years ago. So, too, is paying for kids to go to a good pre-school.

(More: Money.CNN.com)

2003 © Cable News Network LP, LLLP.

Dan