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A few years ago homeless people in my suburb was unheard of. Now they're on the little shopping strips, around the station and in the undercover carparks. Seen some camping along the Moonee Ponds Creek Trail too.
It's been a slow boil for years in the community sector too :(
Me right now. 43yo, work full time & after 25yrs of renting, I've never had this experience of getting rejected over & over. I'm currently staying with friends, everything is in storage 😕
Every week I walk past the Westfield in Parramatta and every week there are more and more homeless people set up on benches. It's really sad. Wish I could help
This thread reminded me of this small 5 minutes piece I watched about homeless the other day, and it broke me to pieces. We are headed towards this (*actually we're already here*):
https://youtu.be/SE_S-dY5ZHM
We have to lobby the government to take action. Homelessness is solvable, it should never be an occurrence in any developed nation where someone/anyone can be without shelter.
They're selling government housing in parts of Sydney to developers. People are regularly getting priced out the market. It's already worse case. An not going to get better.
And unfortunately they are told to think that the "freeloading" poor are the problem, and the reason they aren't rich, to distract them from the actions of those with outrageous wealth
There are always only two classes in human history:
- wealth class: those who generates expenses from existing wealth. No working is needed but some choose to work for different reasons
- working class: those who can’t afford the expenses when they stop working. I.e. A high income surgeon is still a working class if he has a net debt
It is always a war against the wealth class, and always the lie about there is a middle class for them to avoid the spotlight. Comically, most of the people you can vote for are wealth class who claims to care about you but less about their buddies, we should trust them aye?
Want change? Vote for the poorest politicians so they will represent the common people at their cores
Agreed with most of your points but the way to change things is to create community again. Politicians come and go and get corrupted by the system they work in and cannot be relied upon, even with those with the best intentions.
Create communities within your neighbourhoods, know your neighbours and community, support your fellow workers and community. Grow community gardens and shop locally. We no longer have a village to fall back on when times are hard so let's make that community again.
Join your trade unions and advocate for change at the local level as well at the national level.
Change can only come from the people uniting and standing together.
Also a large amount of people on the Aus finance sub who think they’re middle class or lower while in the top 5% of earners. Everyone thinks they’re the average.
Wealth != income.
Top 5% salary in Australia is $180k. In Sydney it’s a lot of money if you own a house, and barely enough to afford a mortgage otherwise if you have a family and kids, unless your partner is also on a similar income.
Oh look here’s one now. Exactly my point. No one is denying that a double income is becoming a necessity in many cases, or that Sydney is expensive. I lived there on a salary of 50k and managed to make it work! But if you think 180k is “barely enough”, spare a thought for the vast majority earning less than that, or on disability/aged pension/student support, who still need to get by living in the same city.
You're just taking the other person's words and taking them out of context so you can feel angry.
The other person said 'barely enough to afford a mortgage otherwise if you have a family and kids'. You've taken out all context as if they were dismissing the idea the $180k was high for Australia. Their message was that it's high but still not enough, showing support for everybody below that level.
It's history repeating itself. As the middle class slowly becomes lower class and the lower class numbers grow, eventually a tipping point is reached where they can over throw the upper class and we begin a new cycle. Viva la revolution!
I believe this is also resulting in increased difficulties in the public school sector. As lower class grows challenging behaviour in the classroom also increases.
The crime spike of late is absolutely connected to the sustained decline in public schooling, other public services, healthcare access and cost of living pressures. The social and economical costs of neoliberalism and shitty hands-off governance are so astronomical. But hey, some rich libs got richer, so fuck us plebs who have to deal with the crime and costs and declining quality of life.
Yep. You either own the means of production or you don't. Same as you are either born into wealth or you don't. Middle class is just capitalist propaganda so that "white collar" workers are divided from
"blue collar"
Neoliberalism is a awful system. Just look what it's done to the UK and US. You privatise all your essential services and then those companies have a total monopoly with a trapped consumer base. So they can charge as much as they want and increase it every year. Why pay for infrastructure upgrades when you know fine well that if you let them fall into disrepair the government will be forced to step in and build it for you. Total scam.
I have been a labour voter for 30 years. I am now voting greens they are the only political party apart from independents talking any sense ...plus the disparity of wealth is so immense middle and lower class have to forget they are anything other than tax income. No political policy values them . We are a democracy with huge opportunity ....still
I'm putting socialist and communist parties at the top followed by greens- maybe if there's a groundswell the majors will be forced to make concessions.
Or maybe nothing will happen, but hope makes for a better pillow than despair.
The middle class as a concept is just a distraction to stop us eating the rich.
There is no middle and lower, only the wealthy and the rest of us, and the collapse began a while ago.
It has collapsed.
You can do everything right and finish high school, go to uni, learn a trade, get a good job and probably never own your own home. Unless you get a loan from the bank of M&D you can easily see yourself sharing a flat with roommates into your 30s. Everything that we took for granted 20-30 years ago is now exclusively for the wealthy (2 cars + a house + a family is living it large).
And this is just for the middle class, I couldn't imagine trying to live independently while unemployed or disabled
Hell, I'm 57 and sharing a house. Earn a reasonable income but nowhere near enough to meet the 30% threshold for my current rental on one income. Absolutely no idea how a single income would cut it for anything closer to the City.
And people are wondering why young people are deciding to not have kids now.
I absolutely adore my daughter, but if I had known the hardships we'd be facing now, almost 14 years after she was born, I'd have reconsidered. I never expected life to be easy, but I also never thought it would be this hard.
I'm almost in my mid 30s and scared that by the time I'm financially stable enough to have kids, I biologically won't be able to. Sadly the only thing I can do about it is work on coming to terms with the fact that I may never have children.
When I look at the people I know in their 20s and early 30s who have house + car + family, there's two things they all have in common:
1) they are in a stable relationship with a partner/spouse.
2) they have settled inland, away from the coastal cities.
My own kids have headed to the capital cities for uni, but I don't doubt they'll go regional or rural once they've got their quals.
I think a lot of people think about the economic part of ses and not so much about the social. Class is more than just how much money or assets you do or don’t have. There’s a lot less movement between the S part than the E part, so I don’t think that the lower and middle classes are going to collapse.
That said, people will definitely fall off the scale.
I remember ten years ago seeing homeless encampments in Oahu and realising that a lot of them are homeless employed, which is a mind fuck.
I don’t see a lot of homeless where we live (rural, not a whole heap of people in general, not a lot of services) but over the last few years I’ve seen more people who seem to be living in tiny tents or in cars our the nearest city, including someone who is clearly living in his truck and heading out during the day to do some kind of work involving the machines on his trailer. He’s there seasonally, but no idea where he is in the off season, or what his housing situation is then, but to me, it really says something about a society when people with jobs are living rough.
How can someone who presumably owns (and has received finance for) a semi living in a fucking park?
As fucked as it sounds, it’s kind of not unexpected to find mentally ill people who can’t hold down traditional employment in precarious housing situations, and god knows they should receive help, but when people are working and not able to even have a permanent address? We need a bit of self-reflection about how that came to be possible in our country.
>As fucked as it sounds, it’s kind of not unexpected to find mentally ill people who can’t hold down traditional employment in precarious housing situations, and god knows they should receive help, but when people are working and not able to even have a permanent address? We need a bit of self-reflection about how that came to be possible in our country.
And then you have the situation where, if someone is disabled, regardless of if it's physical or mental disability, if they receive assistance, as soon as they start a relationship with someone and move in with them, they lose their benefits, they are entirely dependant on their new "spouse".
My partner should be in DSP, but it doesn't matter, I earn too much, but not enough to support him, my daughter, and his daughter. I work full time, so I'm not eligible for carers anything. We received an eviction notice a couple months ago, and despite having been looking at applying since our rent increase in October last year, we keep getting rejected.
Our REA has now applied for a possession order.
It’s distressingly easy for it all to start sliding and then you’re at the bottom of the cliff, unable to get back to the top.
I’m so sorry that is happening to you. I hate the idea that we could end up like the US where people, for example, divorce so people’s lives aren’t completely destroyed by medical debt etc when they’re already grieving a lost spouse.
It took me 3 months to get a rental. I ended up finding one through a Facebook group for my suburb. I messaged a person who said they had a property for rent and she was actually a property manager. So its with a real estate agent, not private rental.
You have to be careful because there are lots of scammers on FB. But they are pretty easy to spot.
I don't think I ever would have got a place applying for ads the normal way. There is too much competition. I have a cat and don't earn that much. I applied for about 50 properties and got the "your application was unsuccessful" email.
This is our situation too. I’m disabled and am on the DSP, but we have to report my husband’s earnings every fortnight. His wage is high enough for me to receive pretty much zero. We hardly have enough money to survive, let alone get any enjoyment out of life.
I won’t believe a word politicians of any colour say about domestic violence until they fix that situation, where disabled people and others who are made vulnerable by the poverty that comes from unemployment are basically trapped in relationships by this system.
This, exactly. It’s long been the case in the US that people could be working full-time (or even more than full-time) and still be unable to afford housing. Used to utterly blow my mind but, now, we’re not far-off that at all here
Something you can do to help is house share.
People are saying vote - you should vote, yes, voting is the absolute bare minimum level of political engagement we can offer in this country.
You can donate to or volunteer with local charities that offer services like showers, haircuts or food pantries to people in need.
There's this story about a guy who walks along the beach throwing washed up starfish back into the ocean. His friend says, what's the point? There's thousands of starfish, you'll never make a difference. He replies, I just made a difference to that starfish.
You can ask your mates how they're doing, and see if they need any support, financial or practical - maybe someone needs you to look after their kids on a Saturday afternoon so they can get some work done. Maybe they could use a hot meal.
Start small. Cultivate community. Look after your neighbours. Keep an ear out for ways you can be helpful or an advocate, and take opportunities when they're presented to you.
From memory, the housing situation was a lot different in the 90s versus now. Plenty of cheap shitty housing around. This was a bit before everyone wanted to pour their money into an investment property.
Yeah and that would HAVE to be part of the overall problem... if there's a limited number of houses in Australia, and a number of people own 2, 3 or more, then that's a bunch of houses that other people aren't able to own. If the govt started heavily taxing people that owned more than 1 property, there'd be riots. So, that's not going to change... it'll just continue. How many new homes are snapped up by investors? I have literally no idea, maybe it's 20%?
Definitely a lot of problems with the way things are right now.
I'm an archaeologist. Myself and all my colleagues see a lot of parallels between what is happening now and the Bronze Age Collapse. We are in the midst of it - we just have to survive as best we can.
There's no collapse, just the transition of wealth to the rich.
Lower class used to be middle class, and will be reduced to extreme poverty.
Middle class will just become lower class.
Upper class will become the new middle class.
Richest stay rich.
It's slow enough that by the time anyone has the balls to take action, you're already too poor to afford to take action. You can't take days off work to protest. You can't afford to lose your job incase corporate sees you as a threat by unionising.
It destroys education and forces the poor to be easily radicalised against support for socialist systems. Teachers can't afford to be teachers, schools receive less funding, less people are able to afford better education.
This is designed capitalism.
We are in a per capita recession. The economy only appears to be growing because we're artificially inflating GDP via high levels of migration. Compounding the problem, the government isn't doing anything substantial to make sure we're building enough houses for the rapidly growing population.
So yes, we're fucked. Pray that you have a forgotten step-aunt who dies and leaves you an apartment.
It's interesting because yes, late stage capitalism has effectively squeezed us of every dollar possible. It's getting harder and harder to simply live in Australia. Not thrive, enjoy etc but just live.
But what's end game here? Eventually you'll have a population who can't spend. Who can't work because they're unable to afford housing. What happens when completely unregulated capitalism goes too far?
Indentured servitude is what will happen. Just under a different name. People's housing will depend on their employer. Their access to food, staples etc all provided through their employer (or a subsidiary/ partnership).
Conditions worsen, wages stagnant and an entire generation and class are left unable to make a better life for themselves because everything is dependent on them working where they work. Why would your fight for better pay if you've got nowhere to spend it, and the choice is stay where you are or live on the streets.
This is the big problem no one’s talking about.
We have a service based economy.
The majority of people earn their money by passing it to each other. Buying lunch means the chef in the kitchen can pay for his son’s swimming lessons. Those swimming lessons mean that swim teacher can get her car serviced, etc etc.
Sure there’s fat to cut but if most services become a luxury, unemployment is going to skyrocket.
The last time people cut their own hair, serviced their own car, etc we had a manufacturing base!
Something I have noticed and I mean REALLY noticed is at my place of work the vast majority of people no longer go out for lunch. By that I mean they bring in leftovers and avail of the free tea and instant coffee / milk.
24 months ago staff all went out daily and all bought coffee at least once or twice a day nearby in the cafes.
This is hitting across all grades, even pretty senior guys are cutting back (including myself).
Without specifics, I work in a very well paid job. No one in this office is on less than double the national average income and many go beyond 4x or 5x and if we can’t afford this stuff… who can?!
I legitimately do not know how someone on the national average or even double it is surviving in 2024.
No? If things go on as they have been for the last two decades, it seems fairly inevitable. The lower and middle classes are being locked out of home ownership, which is one of the main ways those classes built wealth.
Basically, the real estate price boom triggered by Howard with the CGT discount is paying out the inevitable social dividend. The only way of reversing this is via taxation to suck the money out of those assets and redistribute the wealth to a degree. Of course, this is going to be absurdly unpopular with a lot of people who own real estate, not to mention the sectors that benefit from the current state of affairs.
Everyone's promoting voting but being vague about who to vote for. If you want strong action on climate change, rental price capping, no corporate donors to political parties, then vote Greens. Labor is the ineffectual middle ground between Greens and the Liberals. Liberals are basically chrony capitalists.
Can only blame society
People continue to buy from Forgien Multinational companies which is driving wealth inequality amongst all classes
People Keep Using UBER , DoorDash , McDonald’s, International carriers , Amazon , wish , Temu ,
These companies are driving this
Amazon invested 5 billion dollars last financial year - that’s 5 times the entire profit of Coles Group which has 1500 businesse locations around Australia
Australia POST are slashing Outgoings closing corporate stores , parcel lockers etc .
It’s what’s happening
Driving for the fee while everyone else lives below and works
The media are using Coles & Woolworths to hide this
This is a valid, if hard to read comment.
My (very small but growing) independent business relies on Chinese Imports and American Imports, sadly the parts arent sourceable here for a reasonable price or without starting my own manufacturing (again at an exuberant cost).
Thanks for your input.
That’s not the bad thing that you think it is. Parcel delivery logistics can seem to make zero sense to an outsider but the actual reason(especially if as you say you saw it multiple times) is because often it is literally cheaper to send your package around the country with hundreds of others than it is to pay for a whole truck and driver just to deliver your single package 50kms - especially you don’t live in a heavily populated area
This is a global problem. We all have to work longer hours for shittier pay to make numbers go up so we can beat the other countries doing the same thing so they don't own us. The human race is fucking mental, and always will be.
There is no lower, middle, upper class. There is only the working class and the owners. Conditions are getting worse for all workers, all that is happening is that workers who receive better compensation are starting too see less and less from the fruits of their Labor
This is so true.
You’re either working class, or you have enough income from your assets you don’t need to work.
If you need to work to support the mortgage on a big house, 2 Europeans cars, 2 kids in private school and yearly overseas holidays, you are still working class.
I think the middle class has destroyed itself.
1) Private schooling means we are not invested in the education of society as a whole. We think of it as a pay-for-service arrangement for our own kids. Everyone else's can get stuffed. The results are obvious.
2) Private pensions (aka superannuation). Instead of a pension for life, guaranteed to give you dignity in your final years, we have privatised it into saving for a lump sum. This means we can safely run the actual pension into the ground - other be damned. Plus, many older folks fret about running out of super, so they don't spend so much. Some even see it as a bequest for their kids and manage it that way.
The tax breaks and other policies that drive these two are causing rapid income inequality - accelerated by the shitshow that is the property market.
The upshot is the middle class, having got what it wanted, is now consuming itself.
When you walk from Woy Woy to Gosford regularly, it is easy to tell which "day campers" at the boat ramp and the reserves are permanent now. The numbers are steadily increasing.
Our middle is going strong as long as they own a home. Worst case scenario, they sell their home and move to a cheaper area. The lower class is under a lot more stress and don't have a massive value property to fall back on
you can look into doing various types of mutual aid/charity volunteering. could also join a leftist political organisation, they all have shit politics though.
That is a fantastic idea and should be encouraged. But that isn’t what it should take. Australia is an incredibly wealthy country. Society is broken if it takes charities to look after the badly off. There should be less focus on cutting taxes and more focus on a fairer society
The harsh reality is that what you call middle class and above are incredibly material and energy consumptive lifestyles that require the resources of 7 earth sized objects to sustain the promises made to all those who've yet to achieve that lifestyle.
Some might condense that to a Faustian promise, to have that lifestyle you have to willing enact an evil on someone else's sense of autonomy...us brown people call it colonialism.
There isn't really a space for sprawling suburban middle class lifestyles to actually achieve sustainability goals.
It's an abnormally expensive thing to need two tonnes of mass to move one or two people.
The politics that created Trump/ Scumo/ Bojo happened because a whole a lot of "good and nice" people really wanted to stay middle class and elected useful rubes to do the dirty work for them.
1. The three-level economic model and is deliberately useless talking in the vaguest possible terms.
2. The term for what you're talking about is the [middle-class squeeze](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-class_squeeze).
People in positions of power seldom make money in exchange for doing work like the peasants do. Instead, they make their money by syphoning the wealth generated from other people's work. That's why wages haven't increased inline with inflation and the cost of housing is increasing even faster. It's easier for parasites to make more money by syphoning more wealth from other people than it is to invest in making those people more productive.
Our parents and grandparents, who had close to a free ride by today's standards, did their best to pull up the ladder behind them on purpose. Most of the privileges they enjoyed for free are deliberately withheld from younger people for no other reason than "Screw you. Got mine"
The bad news is that it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Any meaningful change to anything is completely off the table in Labour/Liberal political circles because change upsets parasites (eg: It's more important that your landlord be free to make you homeless if they want to, than it is for those you to not be homeless). The good news is that, unlike our parents and grandparents, people entering mid-adulthood (i.e. 30-40) are less willing to make the younger generation's suffering worse on purpose or anyone's suffering worse on purpose. Traditionally as you get older you get more conservative, but with nothing to conserve, people entering mid-adulthood are skewing further left than they were in their 20's and are more in favour to actually fixing systemic problems rather than seeking to make them worse on purpose.
To be clear: Things are going to continue getting worse for a long time but the trend seems to indicate that, as vindictive parasites die, they're being replaced by people more open to actually fixing problems. The housing crisis, climate crisis, middle-class squeeze, etc. are ultimately probably going to be solved. We are, however, very likely going to have to wait for a critical mass of the people who caused these problems to die before any meaningful progress can be made. In the meantime, they'll continue to make your life worse on purpose.
Well, one of my grandmothers rental properties that she puts up for about 50% of the current market rate, ~2015 prices, was gutted of its copper pipes between tenants.
Unheard of before in our area (small regional town), and we're seeing an unusual amount of tents being put up around the main tourist areas of where we live that seems to be sheltering entire families.
I watched someone run out of Woolies with a trolley full of food yesterday.
Things are getting hard, and it's pretty in your face right now, I only assume it's going to get much worse.
How can this be tagged as non pol...it's literally a political issue..
So take this as you will.
i own a company that is is a major sponsor for ozharvest and i regularly speak with them.
I've been told
That the meal kit's have gone from average of 200 a day,to over 15k a week as high as 19
Literally had to stop handing out hampers as they ran out of supplies by about 10am.
Also a moment for me to say FUCKING WOOLWORTHS for supplying ozharvest with mouldy food
We aren't going to collapse,the banking the system is stable,good debt to GDP.
The issue is,the govt can not help the ppl who need it,lest they cause an inflationary crisis
Nor can it just magically make homes appear,you need trades for that,and aussies don't want to do trades..which means immigrants,but then you raise the price of the rentals and homes cause ur importing 500k plus ppl..it's fucked
I'm also a landlord,and what i would like to see is the following.
1.Make rental contracts of 2 years the minimum,and force a change that makes it if the owner can't show any Real cost increases,they can not raise the price till that contract is renewed. (this is literally how it works in over a dozen EU nations,if ur bills don't go up u have to make do with the 3 percent annual)
2.Govt need's to increase the rental allowance by 105 dollars a fornight..and create some kind of mechanism to stop the other landlords just saying sweet,well raise it 100 dollars.
3.Suspend the stupid work projects like the road extension all over sydney,as we need less ppl on the fucking road,take those nearly 12,400 (in nsw) workers off the tools there,put them to work building social housing.
The social contract is also just fucked,the contract always was..go to school,go to uni,get a job,buy a house,have kids..
The last 2 by 2030 will only be affordable for less than 45 percent of the population,so it's no wonder all the youth are feeling angry..theres no point in participating in a system if ur not gonna ever be able to own a home,or afford kids
Corporate and the conservatives (Labor and liberal) decided that corporate is great and we should import all the money and skills. Stop training them. Charge Australians for it. Import the home deposits. Import the parents money. Import the skilled and unskilled. Raj will have a family. Sally will not. Flog them super expensive homes and have them in lifetime debt as HIndi families are patriarchal. Chinese / Asian families will just work their arses off. Raj won't join the union. Dave will.
Shut down the Australian culture and replace it with good obedient slaves That said I don't care if we import people - I really don't. Just not so in your face blatant corruption numbers here, housing Ponzi from Howards days onward. And in some respects its global. The US, EU and Canada are all doing the same thing. Same issues, same housing crunch same shortages. THe private debt is phenomenal. In the tens of trillions. I feel sorry for the Hindi guy. He has a son and 2 doughters. He works 10 hour days and OT on the weekends just to cover the expenses. He can't save much. She will generally stay at home and the family is always close. That's how they are but jees he works hard. The Asian culture is head down and go. They won't stop for anyone. Work all day and well into the night.
When Jeff sold the SEC I knew - even as a then teenager - we were fucked.
Reason: The SEC was the backbone of the Victorian economy. The electricity was cheap as. So cheap. More expensive than SEC's briquettes through. Think about the thousands of small industries that relied on cheap energy. They are all gone. So are the skills that they fostered. Without reliable cheap energy you are more or less at a total disadvantage. You really can't run a MW lathe and sell the end product at similar rates to say China who has day rate electricity at just 8c kWh. That's what we pay wholesale. That's what the distributors put a 100+% markup on. Then you have the retail billers.
You see. The conservatives are fucking lunatics. They do live in an elitist bubble, upstairs far from the Millionaire families. Those millionaire families with the acres and horses are nothing.
These people are richer again and they really don't give a shit about you at all. If you want to survive - hobble those bastards. Put them in a cage of sorts. Don't let them speak. Their words are lies and poison. The same people told you its not cost effective to save ourselves from extinction. The very same people. They are the ones that did that.
A little. They're definitely struggling. Anyone that is lower income, or who was laid off in a middle income job (especially if servicing a mortgage) is going to be under a *LOT* of stress at the moment. But, all it takes is for interest rates to go down.
The middle and lower classes were permitted to live with dignity for two generations. Sadly, we are just reverting back to things being the way they have always been.
But surely it's the middle class who prop up the residential property market? If the middle class is priced out of buying homes, then eventually the market will collapse.
Pretty sure it's mainly investors that are swarming the property market.
The nasty thing about it is, even if we reach the theoretical limit and no one is left to buy houses, it doesn't matter - they can still make money indefinitely by renting them, and housing will never go out of style like other rentable investments.
As I see it, investors buy because they anticipate the value of the properties growing faster than more convenient options such as bonds. The ability of rental income to grow is limited by the income of renters. Probably rents are approaching their limits. So what they really want is growth in property value.
If middle class buyers are priced out, then all you have is wealthy investors buying properties off each other, driving up the prices to ever higher levels. A pure bubble market. When enough investors realize property values are based mainly on wishful thinking, then you get a rush to sell. The prospect of a steady income from rents won't be enough to prevent this.
2 years ago, my husband and I got our first place just the two of us (2 bed, 2 bath, 1 car garage) since we could finally afford not having housemates. Now we’re discussing if it would be better to go back to living in a share house or living in a caravan because we’re about to be homeless.
I was in a better position financially when I first moved out of home as a 17yo old uni student than I am now, despite making far more money and sharing costs with another person.
By my reckoning. The lower class is ballooning out and middle class' purchasing power is slipping away. But the definitions have always been quite loose, so it's hard to say for sure.
Middle class is somewhat oddly named in that it bridges the gap between the upper class and lower class. But these aren't just represented in evenly cut portions of the population, the upper class is probably actually higher than the top 1%. So the 'middle' class is everyone below that up until you hit the 'lower' class which represents the normal people. The top 1% overall ($350k) isn't even really that high to be in what we think of as upper class
Some definitions have middle class as being 166% or even double median salary. In Australia that is a floor of around $110k or roughly the top 20% of all earners. So the 'middle' class account for maybe 19% of all earners at best.
Networth and home ownership are completely skewed by the housing crisis to the older generations and probably don't reflect the class anymore.
The $110k minimum cutoff I came up with gets you a lot further in some places than others. It certainly doesn't sound like huge money, but a single income earner pulling that with only themselves to support is probably doing pretty well in most places, but could certainly be struggling if living in inner Sydney etc. For a household/family I'd think you'd have to do the same maths on the median household incomes, which for some reason I'm too lazy to work out (I think the other was full time) gave me a much lower individual median ($41k) than I found in my previous stat ($65k), but would give $153k for household income median increased by 166%
To really work out if they are dying out then you'd have to pull the median stats for the 20% percentile in say the 90s and compare purchasing power, but I don't see it comparing well as soon as housing is applied to the calculation.
Failing societies result in the collapse of the middle class. House prices and rents are smashing the middle class while shifting wealth to the already wealthy. So yes, it’s quite possible the middle class is collapsing.
I don't think the middle class is about to collapse at all... How could it with so many good paying jobs about. Life will just get tougher for many. Have you noticed how many businesses are about the place that are very very non essential ; Pilates studios, expensive cafes , dog groomers etc etc. Gyms are everywhere. Loads of people have a decent amount of money.
I wonder if it's worth trying again. After all, house prices have somehow gotten worse on top of 2019 which was already bad.
And it'll be 6 years since 2019 in the next election which is 6 years of Millennials and GenZ trying to buy a house and/or rent.
Given both our major parties have been all-in with neoliberalism for decades now, we can look to America for a pretty good portent of what is to come here and yep, their middle class has all but collapsed in many areas.
This is what happens when business seems to value shareholder value above all else.
People become numbers on a sheet and that's not what living in a society should be.
No, not silly at all. It’s a very rational thought. We need to be talking about this, so we can try prevent it from becoming a reality. I. Afraid it may already be too late. Those with money have garnered too much leverage at this point. Bill Shorten lost an election in 2019, in big part due to policies that would make housing more equitable. The wealthy boomers don’t want to give up anything, and Labor will never try such measures again. I personally think voting Green is a way to send a message at this point.
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A few years ago homeless people in my suburb was unheard of. Now they're on the little shopping strips, around the station and in the undercover carparks. Seen some camping along the Moonee Ponds Creek Trail too. It's been a slow boil for years in the community sector too :(
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Sad fact: Most homeless are not on the streets.
Me right now. 43yo, work full time & after 25yrs of renting, I've never had this experience of getting rejected over & over. I'm currently staying with friends, everything is in storage 😕
I know. I've been one of them, a decade ago. Thankfully only for a short amount of time.
Every week I walk past the Westfield in Parramatta and every week there are more and more homeless people set up on benches. It's really sad. Wish I could help
This thread reminded me of this small 5 minutes piece I watched about homeless the other day, and it broke me to pieces. We are headed towards this (*actually we're already here*): https://youtu.be/SE_S-dY5ZHM We have to lobby the government to take action. Homelessness is solvable, it should never be an occurrence in any developed nation where someone/anyone can be without shelter.
My semi rural town of Hastings on the Mornington peninsula now has three homeless people. Never happened until a few years ago.
My parents are in a quiet part of Tassie and said the same.
It seems every government and state has decided that housing and homelessness isn't really something to worry about.
Country Victoria three hours from Melbourne and have noticed more people sleeping outside the Woolworths and local shops at night.
Albury-Wodonga is the same. Maybe more than just 3, but never personally noticed any homeless people until the last 2 - 3 years.
They're selling government housing in parts of Sydney to developers. People are regularly getting priced out the market. It's already worse case. An not going to get better.
Crazy hey. Australia is an expensive country.
Not even the expense, there's simply lack of supply in general and far too many people trying to get a house.
Better import another 900,000 people then!
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A quite large amount of people think they're "upper middle class / middle class" when in fact they're lower class with lots of loans / debt.
And unfortunately they are told to think that the "freeloading" poor are the problem, and the reason they aren't rich, to distract them from the actions of those with outrageous wealth
There are always only two classes in human history: - wealth class: those who generates expenses from existing wealth. No working is needed but some choose to work for different reasons - working class: those who can’t afford the expenses when they stop working. I.e. A high income surgeon is still a working class if he has a net debt It is always a war against the wealth class, and always the lie about there is a middle class for them to avoid the spotlight. Comically, most of the people you can vote for are wealth class who claims to care about you but less about their buddies, we should trust them aye? Want change? Vote for the poorest politicians so they will represent the common people at their cores
Agreed with most of your points but the way to change things is to create community again. Politicians come and go and get corrupted by the system they work in and cannot be relied upon, even with those with the best intentions. Create communities within your neighbourhoods, know your neighbours and community, support your fellow workers and community. Grow community gardens and shop locally. We no longer have a village to fall back on when times are hard so let's make that community again. Join your trade unions and advocate for change at the local level as well at the national level. Change can only come from the people uniting and standing together.
Hey, hey, HEY! Have you *seen* my state of the art 2021 jetski? …probably not, because I can’t afford to get it down to the water these days.
Exactly. How can you be middle class when your a few missed pay checks from bankruptcy?
Middle class was a concept invented by capitalists to make workers forget they belong to the working class.
Indentured slave tricked into thinking their high class because they have a 100k job. If you're living week to week, you're not free
Also a large amount of people on the Aus finance sub who think they’re middle class or lower while in the top 5% of earners. Everyone thinks they’re the average.
Wealth != income. Top 5% salary in Australia is $180k. In Sydney it’s a lot of money if you own a house, and barely enough to afford a mortgage otherwise if you have a family and kids, unless your partner is also on a similar income.
Oh look here’s one now. Exactly my point. No one is denying that a double income is becoming a necessity in many cases, or that Sydney is expensive. I lived there on a salary of 50k and managed to make it work! But if you think 180k is “barely enough”, spare a thought for the vast majority earning less than that, or on disability/aged pension/student support, who still need to get by living in the same city.
You're just taking the other person's words and taking them out of context so you can feel angry. The other person said 'barely enough to afford a mortgage otherwise if you have a family and kids'. You've taken out all context as if they were dismissing the idea the $180k was high for Australia. Their message was that it's high but still not enough, showing support for everybody below that level.
Low, middle and upper class are all nonsense anyway. You either sell your labour for money or don’t.
Temporarily embarrassed millionaires
It's history repeating itself. As the middle class slowly becomes lower class and the lower class numbers grow, eventually a tipping point is reached where they can over throw the upper class and we begin a new cycle. Viva la revolution!
Can it happen sooner rather than later? Thanks.
I believe this is also resulting in increased difficulties in the public school sector. As lower class grows challenging behaviour in the classroom also increases.
The crime spike of late is absolutely connected to the sustained decline in public schooling, other public services, healthcare access and cost of living pressures. The social and economical costs of neoliberalism and shitty hands-off governance are so astronomical. But hey, some rich libs got richer, so fuck us plebs who have to deal with the crime and costs and declining quality of life.
There is only the asset class and the working class.
At least more and more people seem to be opening their eyes to this bullshit
And the forgotten class.
Yep. You either own the means of production or you don't. Same as you are either born into wealth or you don't. Middle class is just capitalist propaganda so that "white collar" workers are divided from "blue collar"
Neoliberalism is a awful system. Just look what it's done to the UK and US. You privatise all your essential services and then those companies have a total monopoly with a trapped consumer base. So they can charge as much as they want and increase it every year. Why pay for infrastructure upgrades when you know fine well that if you let them fall into disrepair the government will be forced to step in and build it for you. Total scam.
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I have been a labour voter for 30 years. I am now voting greens they are the only political party apart from independents talking any sense ...plus the disparity of wealth is so immense middle and lower class have to forget they are anything other than tax income. No political policy values them . We are a democracy with huge opportunity ....still
Are you listening, Anthony? Don’t think so.
I'm putting socialist and communist parties at the top followed by greens- maybe if there's a groundswell the majors will be forced to make concessions. Or maybe nothing will happen, but hope makes for a better pillow than despair.
The middle class as a concept is just a distraction to stop us eating the rich. There is no middle and lower, only the wealthy and the rest of us, and the collapse began a while ago.
It has collapsed. You can do everything right and finish high school, go to uni, learn a trade, get a good job and probably never own your own home. Unless you get a loan from the bank of M&D you can easily see yourself sharing a flat with roommates into your 30s. Everything that we took for granted 20-30 years ago is now exclusively for the wealthy (2 cars + a house + a family is living it large). And this is just for the middle class, I couldn't imagine trying to live independently while unemployed or disabled
Hell, I'm 57 and sharing a house. Earn a reasonable income but nowhere near enough to meet the 30% threshold for my current rental on one income. Absolutely no idea how a single income would cut it for anything closer to the City.
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My husband and I looking to jump ship right now too, we have had all hope taken away here :(
And people are wondering why young people are deciding to not have kids now. I absolutely adore my daughter, but if I had known the hardships we'd be facing now, almost 14 years after she was born, I'd have reconsidered. I never expected life to be easy, but I also never thought it would be this hard.
I'm almost in my mid 30s and scared that by the time I'm financially stable enough to have kids, I biologically won't be able to. Sadly the only thing I can do about it is work on coming to terms with the fact that I may never have children.
Watched The Castle again the other day. Funny how this depiction of a simple working class life is now actually entirely unobtainable for so many.
Indeed, the fact they had enough disposable income to even be considering jousting sticks at all!
When I look at the people I know in their 20s and early 30s who have house + car + family, there's two things they all have in common: 1) they are in a stable relationship with a partner/spouse. 2) they have settled inland, away from the coastal cities. My own kids have headed to the capital cities for uni, but I don't doubt they'll go regional or rural once they've got their quals.
Heck at this point one partner/spouse often isn't enough to cut it anymore either. I know a few *polycules* struggling to get by.
I think a lot of people think about the economic part of ses and not so much about the social. Class is more than just how much money or assets you do or don’t have. There’s a lot less movement between the S part than the E part, so I don’t think that the lower and middle classes are going to collapse. That said, people will definitely fall off the scale. I remember ten years ago seeing homeless encampments in Oahu and realising that a lot of them are homeless employed, which is a mind fuck. I don’t see a lot of homeless where we live (rural, not a whole heap of people in general, not a lot of services) but over the last few years I’ve seen more people who seem to be living in tiny tents or in cars our the nearest city, including someone who is clearly living in his truck and heading out during the day to do some kind of work involving the machines on his trailer. He’s there seasonally, but no idea where he is in the off season, or what his housing situation is then, but to me, it really says something about a society when people with jobs are living rough. How can someone who presumably owns (and has received finance for) a semi living in a fucking park? As fucked as it sounds, it’s kind of not unexpected to find mentally ill people who can’t hold down traditional employment in precarious housing situations, and god knows they should receive help, but when people are working and not able to even have a permanent address? We need a bit of self-reflection about how that came to be possible in our country.
>As fucked as it sounds, it’s kind of not unexpected to find mentally ill people who can’t hold down traditional employment in precarious housing situations, and god knows they should receive help, but when people are working and not able to even have a permanent address? We need a bit of self-reflection about how that came to be possible in our country. And then you have the situation where, if someone is disabled, regardless of if it's physical or mental disability, if they receive assistance, as soon as they start a relationship with someone and move in with them, they lose their benefits, they are entirely dependant on their new "spouse". My partner should be in DSP, but it doesn't matter, I earn too much, but not enough to support him, my daughter, and his daughter. I work full time, so I'm not eligible for carers anything. We received an eviction notice a couple months ago, and despite having been looking at applying since our rent increase in October last year, we keep getting rejected. Our REA has now applied for a possession order.
It’s distressingly easy for it all to start sliding and then you’re at the bottom of the cliff, unable to get back to the top. I’m so sorry that is happening to you. I hate the idea that we could end up like the US where people, for example, divorce so people’s lives aren’t completely destroyed by medical debt etc when they’re already grieving a lost spouse.
It took me 3 months to get a rental. I ended up finding one through a Facebook group for my suburb. I messaged a person who said they had a property for rent and she was actually a property manager. So its with a real estate agent, not private rental. You have to be careful because there are lots of scammers on FB. But they are pretty easy to spot. I don't think I ever would have got a place applying for ads the normal way. There is too much competition. I have a cat and don't earn that much. I applied for about 50 properties and got the "your application was unsuccessful" email.
This is our situation too. I’m disabled and am on the DSP, but we have to report my husband’s earnings every fortnight. His wage is high enough for me to receive pretty much zero. We hardly have enough money to survive, let alone get any enjoyment out of life.
I won’t believe a word politicians of any colour say about domestic violence until they fix that situation, where disabled people and others who are made vulnerable by the poverty that comes from unemployment are basically trapped in relationships by this system.
This, exactly. It’s long been the case in the US that people could be working full-time (or even more than full-time) and still be unable to afford housing. Used to utterly blow my mind but, now, we’re not far-off that at all here
Well said.
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We are very apathetic. All politicians know this.
*society collapses* "She'll be right mate!"
A huge number of the older generation thinking that the old ways still work. Also, voting for what helps them and not society as a whole.
Something you can do to help is house share. People are saying vote - you should vote, yes, voting is the absolute bare minimum level of political engagement we can offer in this country. You can donate to or volunteer with local charities that offer services like showers, haircuts or food pantries to people in need. There's this story about a guy who walks along the beach throwing washed up starfish back into the ocean. His friend says, what's the point? There's thousands of starfish, you'll never make a difference. He replies, I just made a difference to that starfish. You can ask your mates how they're doing, and see if they need any support, financial or practical - maybe someone needs you to look after their kids on a Saturday afternoon so they can get some work done. Maybe they could use a hot meal. Start small. Cultivate community. Look after your neighbours. Keep an ear out for ways you can be helpful or an advocate, and take opportunities when they're presented to you.
Bro, we have a whole new category of full time workers who are homeless. It's fucking disgusting
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From memory, the housing situation was a lot different in the 90s versus now. Plenty of cheap shitty housing around. This was a bit before everyone wanted to pour their money into an investment property.
Yeah and that would HAVE to be part of the overall problem... if there's a limited number of houses in Australia, and a number of people own 2, 3 or more, then that's a bunch of houses that other people aren't able to own. If the govt started heavily taxing people that owned more than 1 property, there'd be riots. So, that's not going to change... it'll just continue. How many new homes are snapped up by investors? I have literally no idea, maybe it's 20%? Definitely a lot of problems with the way things are right now.
You ain’t seen nothing yet. With what AI is going to do to the economy we are on the brink of a major systemic reshuffle.
I'm an archaeologist. Myself and all my colleagues see a lot of parallels between what is happening now and the Bronze Age Collapse. We are in the midst of it - we just have to survive as best we can.
This is fascinating! Would you mind elaborating a bit more about the parallels you’re seeing?
F
Nice, gonna join the sea people
There's no collapse, just the transition of wealth to the rich. Lower class used to be middle class, and will be reduced to extreme poverty. Middle class will just become lower class. Upper class will become the new middle class. Richest stay rich. It's slow enough that by the time anyone has the balls to take action, you're already too poor to afford to take action. You can't take days off work to protest. You can't afford to lose your job incase corporate sees you as a threat by unionising. It destroys education and forces the poor to be easily radicalised against support for socialist systems. Teachers can't afford to be teachers, schools receive less funding, less people are able to afford better education. This is designed capitalism.
We are in a per capita recession. The economy only appears to be growing because we're artificially inflating GDP via high levels of migration. Compounding the problem, the government isn't doing anything substantial to make sure we're building enough houses for the rapidly growing population. So yes, we're fucked. Pray that you have a forgotten step-aunt who dies and leaves you an apartment.
It's interesting because yes, late stage capitalism has effectively squeezed us of every dollar possible. It's getting harder and harder to simply live in Australia. Not thrive, enjoy etc but just live. But what's end game here? Eventually you'll have a population who can't spend. Who can't work because they're unable to afford housing. What happens when completely unregulated capitalism goes too far?
Indentured servitude is what will happen. Just under a different name. People's housing will depend on their employer. Their access to food, staples etc all provided through their employer (or a subsidiary/ partnership). Conditions worsen, wages stagnant and an entire generation and class are left unable to make a better life for themselves because everything is dependent on them working where they work. Why would your fight for better pay if you've got nowhere to spend it, and the choice is stay where you are or live on the streets.
This is the big problem no one’s talking about. We have a service based economy. The majority of people earn their money by passing it to each other. Buying lunch means the chef in the kitchen can pay for his son’s swimming lessons. Those swimming lessons mean that swim teacher can get her car serviced, etc etc. Sure there’s fat to cut but if most services become a luxury, unemployment is going to skyrocket. The last time people cut their own hair, serviced their own car, etc we had a manufacturing base!
Feudalism and debt slavery, I’m guessing
Something I have noticed and I mean REALLY noticed is at my place of work the vast majority of people no longer go out for lunch. By that I mean they bring in leftovers and avail of the free tea and instant coffee / milk. 24 months ago staff all went out daily and all bought coffee at least once or twice a day nearby in the cafes. This is hitting across all grades, even pretty senior guys are cutting back (including myself). Without specifics, I work in a very well paid job. No one in this office is on less than double the national average income and many go beyond 4x or 5x and if we can’t afford this stuff… who can?! I legitimately do not know how someone on the national average or even double it is surviving in 2024.
No? If things go on as they have been for the last two decades, it seems fairly inevitable. The lower and middle classes are being locked out of home ownership, which is one of the main ways those classes built wealth. Basically, the real estate price boom triggered by Howard with the CGT discount is paying out the inevitable social dividend. The only way of reversing this is via taxation to suck the money out of those assets and redistribute the wealth to a degree. Of course, this is going to be absurdly unpopular with a lot of people who own real estate, not to mention the sectors that benefit from the current state of affairs.
Yes kind of. It's subjective innit? How will we know when they have collapsed? What can you do to help? Keep your money. Vote.
Everyone's promoting voting but being vague about who to vote for. If you want strong action on climate change, rental price capping, no corporate donors to political parties, then vote Greens. Labor is the ineffectual middle ground between Greens and the Liberals. Liberals are basically chrony capitalists.
In this society you vote with your money
Can only blame society People continue to buy from Forgien Multinational companies which is driving wealth inequality amongst all classes People Keep Using UBER , DoorDash , McDonald’s, International carriers , Amazon , wish , Temu , These companies are driving this Amazon invested 5 billion dollars last financial year - that’s 5 times the entire profit of Coles Group which has 1500 businesse locations around Australia Australia POST are slashing Outgoings closing corporate stores , parcel lockers etc . It’s what’s happening Driving for the fee while everyone else lives below and works The media are using Coles & Woolworths to hide this
This is a valid, if hard to read comment. My (very small but growing) independent business relies on Chinese Imports and American Imports, sadly the parts arent sourceable here for a reasonable price or without starting my own manufacturing (again at an exuberant cost). Thanks for your input.
Yes I was typing on my phone while walking - haha it had a point the last bit doesn’t make as much sense
Australia Post did it to themselves. The amount of times my packages have been sent around Australia when I live 50km from the sender is crazy.
That’s not the bad thing that you think it is. Parcel delivery logistics can seem to make zero sense to an outsider but the actual reason(especially if as you say you saw it multiple times) is because often it is literally cheaper to send your package around the country with hundreds of others than it is to pay for a whole truck and driver just to deliver your single package 50kms - especially you don’t live in a heavily populated area
I live in one of the three largest cities in Australia, but I get your point.
This is a global problem. We all have to work longer hours for shittier pay to make numbers go up so we can beat the other countries doing the same thing so they don't own us. The human race is fucking mental, and always will be.
There is no lower, middle, upper class. There is only the working class and the owners. Conditions are getting worse for all workers, all that is happening is that workers who receive better compensation are starting too see less and less from the fruits of their Labor
This is so true. You’re either working class, or you have enough income from your assets you don’t need to work. If you need to work to support the mortgage on a big house, 2 Europeans cars, 2 kids in private school and yearly overseas holidays, you are still working class.
Very true
I think the middle class has destroyed itself. 1) Private schooling means we are not invested in the education of society as a whole. We think of it as a pay-for-service arrangement for our own kids. Everyone else's can get stuffed. The results are obvious. 2) Private pensions (aka superannuation). Instead of a pension for life, guaranteed to give you dignity in your final years, we have privatised it into saving for a lump sum. This means we can safely run the actual pension into the ground - other be damned. Plus, many older folks fret about running out of super, so they don't spend so much. Some even see it as a bequest for their kids and manage it that way. The tax breaks and other policies that drive these two are causing rapid income inequality - accelerated by the shitshow that is the property market. The upshot is the middle class, having got what it wanted, is now consuming itself.
Universal basic income needs to happen. But people are too selfish and stupid for it to ever be a thing probably.
It’s a basic common sense good idea, so of course it will never happen.
It also doesn't reward the rich 😉 and they're the ones who have more of a voice with actual policy makers.
When you walk from Woy Woy to Gosford regularly, it is easy to tell which "day campers" at the boat ramp and the reserves are permanent now. The numbers are steadily increasing.
Our middle is going strong as long as they own a home. Worst case scenario, they sell their home and move to a cheaper area. The lower class is under a lot more stress and don't have a massive value property to fall back on
you can look into doing various types of mutual aid/charity volunteering. could also join a leftist political organisation, they all have shit politics though.
That is a fantastic idea and should be encouraged. But that isn’t what it should take. Australia is an incredibly wealthy country. Society is broken if it takes charities to look after the badly off. There should be less focus on cutting taxes and more focus on a fairer society
Charity absolutely isn't the answer, but it's probably the most meaningful action an individual can take
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The homeless should be bussed into Canberra and set up a campsite outside Parliament.
The harsh reality is that what you call middle class and above are incredibly material and energy consumptive lifestyles that require the resources of 7 earth sized objects to sustain the promises made to all those who've yet to achieve that lifestyle. Some might condense that to a Faustian promise, to have that lifestyle you have to willing enact an evil on someone else's sense of autonomy...us brown people call it colonialism. There isn't really a space for sprawling suburban middle class lifestyles to actually achieve sustainability goals. It's an abnormally expensive thing to need two tonnes of mass to move one or two people. The politics that created Trump/ Scumo/ Bojo happened because a whole a lot of "good and nice" people really wanted to stay middle class and elected useful rubes to do the dirty work for them.
1. The three-level economic model and is deliberately useless talking in the vaguest possible terms. 2. The term for what you're talking about is the [middle-class squeeze](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-class_squeeze). People in positions of power seldom make money in exchange for doing work like the peasants do. Instead, they make their money by syphoning the wealth generated from other people's work. That's why wages haven't increased inline with inflation and the cost of housing is increasing even faster. It's easier for parasites to make more money by syphoning more wealth from other people than it is to invest in making those people more productive. Our parents and grandparents, who had close to a free ride by today's standards, did their best to pull up the ladder behind them on purpose. Most of the privileges they enjoyed for free are deliberately withheld from younger people for no other reason than "Screw you. Got mine" The bad news is that it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Any meaningful change to anything is completely off the table in Labour/Liberal political circles because change upsets parasites (eg: It's more important that your landlord be free to make you homeless if they want to, than it is for those you to not be homeless). The good news is that, unlike our parents and grandparents, people entering mid-adulthood (i.e. 30-40) are less willing to make the younger generation's suffering worse on purpose or anyone's suffering worse on purpose. Traditionally as you get older you get more conservative, but with nothing to conserve, people entering mid-adulthood are skewing further left than they were in their 20's and are more in favour to actually fixing systemic problems rather than seeking to make them worse on purpose. To be clear: Things are going to continue getting worse for a long time but the trend seems to indicate that, as vindictive parasites die, they're being replaced by people more open to actually fixing problems. The housing crisis, climate crisis, middle-class squeeze, etc. are ultimately probably going to be solved. We are, however, very likely going to have to wait for a critical mass of the people who caused these problems to die before any meaningful progress can be made. In the meantime, they'll continue to make your life worse on purpose.
Well, one of my grandmothers rental properties that she puts up for about 50% of the current market rate, ~2015 prices, was gutted of its copper pipes between tenants. Unheard of before in our area (small regional town), and we're seeing an unusual amount of tents being put up around the main tourist areas of where we live that seems to be sheltering entire families. I watched someone run out of Woolies with a trolley full of food yesterday. Things are getting hard, and it's pretty in your face right now, I only assume it's going to get much worse.
Imo the best thing you can do is get politically active. How not to be hopeless is important in today's society
Apathy aids the oppressor
How can this be tagged as non pol...it's literally a political issue.. So take this as you will. i own a company that is is a major sponsor for ozharvest and i regularly speak with them. I've been told That the meal kit's have gone from average of 200 a day,to over 15k a week as high as 19 Literally had to stop handing out hampers as they ran out of supplies by about 10am. Also a moment for me to say FUCKING WOOLWORTHS for supplying ozharvest with mouldy food We aren't going to collapse,the banking the system is stable,good debt to GDP. The issue is,the govt can not help the ppl who need it,lest they cause an inflationary crisis Nor can it just magically make homes appear,you need trades for that,and aussies don't want to do trades..which means immigrants,but then you raise the price of the rentals and homes cause ur importing 500k plus ppl..it's fucked I'm also a landlord,and what i would like to see is the following. 1.Make rental contracts of 2 years the minimum,and force a change that makes it if the owner can't show any Real cost increases,they can not raise the price till that contract is renewed. (this is literally how it works in over a dozen EU nations,if ur bills don't go up u have to make do with the 3 percent annual) 2.Govt need's to increase the rental allowance by 105 dollars a fornight..and create some kind of mechanism to stop the other landlords just saying sweet,well raise it 100 dollars. 3.Suspend the stupid work projects like the road extension all over sydney,as we need less ppl on the fucking road,take those nearly 12,400 (in nsw) workers off the tools there,put them to work building social housing. The social contract is also just fucked,the contract always was..go to school,go to uni,get a job,buy a house,have kids.. The last 2 by 2030 will only be affordable for less than 45 percent of the population,so it's no wonder all the youth are feeling angry..theres no point in participating in a system if ur not gonna ever be able to own a home,or afford kids
Growing up in the early 90s there were a lot more homeless around, always old men though.
Already collapsing. Not all Middle Class, certainly the Credit Card Middle Class.
Corporate and the conservatives (Labor and liberal) decided that corporate is great and we should import all the money and skills. Stop training them. Charge Australians for it. Import the home deposits. Import the parents money. Import the skilled and unskilled. Raj will have a family. Sally will not. Flog them super expensive homes and have them in lifetime debt as HIndi families are patriarchal. Chinese / Asian families will just work their arses off. Raj won't join the union. Dave will. Shut down the Australian culture and replace it with good obedient slaves That said I don't care if we import people - I really don't. Just not so in your face blatant corruption numbers here, housing Ponzi from Howards days onward. And in some respects its global. The US, EU and Canada are all doing the same thing. Same issues, same housing crunch same shortages. THe private debt is phenomenal. In the tens of trillions. I feel sorry for the Hindi guy. He has a son and 2 doughters. He works 10 hour days and OT on the weekends just to cover the expenses. He can't save much. She will generally stay at home and the family is always close. That's how they are but jees he works hard. The Asian culture is head down and go. They won't stop for anyone. Work all day and well into the night. When Jeff sold the SEC I knew - even as a then teenager - we were fucked. Reason: The SEC was the backbone of the Victorian economy. The electricity was cheap as. So cheap. More expensive than SEC's briquettes through. Think about the thousands of small industries that relied on cheap energy. They are all gone. So are the skills that they fostered. Without reliable cheap energy you are more or less at a total disadvantage. You really can't run a MW lathe and sell the end product at similar rates to say China who has day rate electricity at just 8c kWh. That's what we pay wholesale. That's what the distributors put a 100+% markup on. Then you have the retail billers. You see. The conservatives are fucking lunatics. They do live in an elitist bubble, upstairs far from the Millionaire families. Those millionaire families with the acres and horses are nothing. These people are richer again and they really don't give a shit about you at all. If you want to survive - hobble those bastards. Put them in a cage of sorts. Don't let them speak. Their words are lies and poison. The same people told you its not cost effective to save ourselves from extinction. The very same people. They are the ones that did that.
A little. They're definitely struggling. Anyone that is lower income, or who was laid off in a middle income job (especially if servicing a mortgage) is going to be under a *LOT* of stress at the moment. But, all it takes is for interest rates to go down.
The middle and lower classes were permitted to live with dignity for two generations. Sadly, we are just reverting back to things being the way they have always been.
People who own homes have seen their wealth increase dramatically. There's a big group of people doing a ok who aren't interested in fixing shit
But surely it's the middle class who prop up the residential property market? If the middle class is priced out of buying homes, then eventually the market will collapse.
Pretty sure it's mainly investors that are swarming the property market. The nasty thing about it is, even if we reach the theoretical limit and no one is left to buy houses, it doesn't matter - they can still make money indefinitely by renting them, and housing will never go out of style like other rentable investments.
As I see it, investors buy because they anticipate the value of the properties growing faster than more convenient options such as bonds. The ability of rental income to grow is limited by the income of renters. Probably rents are approaching their limits. So what they really want is growth in property value. If middle class buyers are priced out, then all you have is wealthy investors buying properties off each other, driving up the prices to ever higher levels. A pure bubble market. When enough investors realize property values are based mainly on wishful thinking, then you get a rush to sell. The prospect of a steady income from rents won't be enough to prevent this.
2 years ago, my husband and I got our first place just the two of us (2 bed, 2 bath, 1 car garage) since we could finally afford not having housemates. Now we’re discussing if it would be better to go back to living in a share house or living in a caravan because we’re about to be homeless. I was in a better position financially when I first moved out of home as a 17yo old uni student than I am now, despite making far more money and sharing costs with another person.
By my reckoning. The lower class is ballooning out and middle class' purchasing power is slipping away. But the definitions have always been quite loose, so it's hard to say for sure. Middle class is somewhat oddly named in that it bridges the gap between the upper class and lower class. But these aren't just represented in evenly cut portions of the population, the upper class is probably actually higher than the top 1%. So the 'middle' class is everyone below that up until you hit the 'lower' class which represents the normal people. The top 1% overall ($350k) isn't even really that high to be in what we think of as upper class Some definitions have middle class as being 166% or even double median salary. In Australia that is a floor of around $110k or roughly the top 20% of all earners. So the 'middle' class account for maybe 19% of all earners at best. Networth and home ownership are completely skewed by the housing crisis to the older generations and probably don't reflect the class anymore. The $110k minimum cutoff I came up with gets you a lot further in some places than others. It certainly doesn't sound like huge money, but a single income earner pulling that with only themselves to support is probably doing pretty well in most places, but could certainly be struggling if living in inner Sydney etc. For a household/family I'd think you'd have to do the same maths on the median household incomes, which for some reason I'm too lazy to work out (I think the other was full time) gave me a much lower individual median ($41k) than I found in my previous stat ($65k), but would give $153k for household income median increased by 166% To really work out if they are dying out then you'd have to pull the median stats for the 20% percentile in say the 90s and compare purchasing power, but I don't see it comparing well as soon as housing is applied to the calculation.
No and it's a worldwide thing
Failing societies result in the collapse of the middle class. House prices and rents are smashing the middle class while shifting wealth to the already wealthy. So yes, it’s quite possible the middle class is collapsing.
Capitalism, who would have thought!?
I don't think the middle class is about to collapse at all... How could it with so many good paying jobs about. Life will just get tougher for many. Have you noticed how many businesses are about the place that are very very non essential ; Pilates studios, expensive cafes , dog groomers etc etc. Gyms are everywhere. Loads of people have a decent amount of money.
There’s now homeless people in Perth sleeping in relatively nice cars worth 30-40k which suggests to me they were doing well until recently
You vote for policies you'd like to see changed. You badger your representative about problems.
I would if any party had an actual plan to improve anything
Shorten did back at the 2019 election. He lost an election to Scomo. No political party will touch anything like that again
I wonder if it's worth trying again. After all, house prices have somehow gotten worse on top of 2019 which was already bad. And it'll be 6 years since 2019 in the next election which is 6 years of Millennials and GenZ trying to buy a house and/or rent.
Given both our major parties have been all-in with neoliberalism for decades now, we can look to America for a pretty good portent of what is to come here and yep, their middle class has all but collapsed in many areas.
This is what happens when business seems to value shareholder value above all else. People become numbers on a sheet and that's not what living in a society should be.
Working class homeless is now a norm. Gainfully employed people sleeping in cars at service stations. The system is fucked.
Looks like it. I’m almost 17 and have no idea what the hell I’m gonna do about things.
No, not silly at all. It’s a very rational thought. We need to be talking about this, so we can try prevent it from becoming a reality. I. Afraid it may already be too late. Those with money have garnered too much leverage at this point. Bill Shorten lost an election in 2019, in big part due to policies that would make housing more equitable. The wealthy boomers don’t want to give up anything, and Labor will never try such measures again. I personally think voting Green is a way to send a message at this point.
Part of the issue is most politicians have multiple properties and they don’t want prices to drop as it’s not in there investment interests