the only numbers that matter

According to 2024 Census data, the median income for a family of four in the United States is $125,454. Median means half the country earns less than that. Using the MIT Living Wage calculator as a guide, the average annual expenses for a family of four in the US is $110,000. Remember, median is the exact middle. Most families fall below that number. Even then, that’s just 13.6% more income than expenses. 

Now guess how much the average family of four pays in taxes? Around 20%. There goes the 13.6% difference in expenses and income. The truth is the average family in this country has a shortfall. They do not make enough to pay their expenses. 

In short, half the families in this country cannot make ends meet.

  It gets worse when you look at what it costs for a family of four to live comfortably. The $110,000 is to pay the bills. It covers necessities. To save money for the future and have money to spend on wants as well (like college, that bass boat, or that cabin on a lake), the average family of four needs $235,000. You know how many families earn enough to live comfortably? Ten percent! So 90% of the families in the United States do not earn enough income to live comfortably.

We are told that this country is divided by party, by ideology. This is a lie. We are divided by the haves and the have nots and the have nots are extremely frustrated. Too many people in this country do not have enough money to pay their bills and for almost 90% of Americans the American Dream is just that, a dream.

The Declaration of Independence famously states that Americans are 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' The pursuit of happiness requires disposable income and 90% of Americans have very little.

This income disparity is a national scandal.  These numbers should be on every billboard, every political advertisement, and on the tip of every American's tongue. Yet Republicans and Democrats barely give it lip service.  Our political parties have failed in their primary duty to bring prosperity to the American people.

We need our leaders to be dedicated to closing this gap for Americans. We need our leaders to be dedicated to ensuring that 90% of the families in this country earn enough to live comfortably, not the other way around.  We are those leaders.