The Cost of Living, in Plain Numbers

Editor, Times-Union:

I am sharing figures calculated by the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator. It estimates the “monthly income needed to maintain a modest but not adequate standard of living.” That figure includes housing, food, childcare, transportation, and other essentials, but not discretionary spending, for a married couple with four children ages 4, 8, 12, and 16 living in the United States. In one mid-range Indiana county, the monthly amount needed is $6,800 to $7,200, or $81,000 to $86,400 a year.

Other sources place current average U.S. costs for family and individual needs at the following levels:

• Gasoline: regular at $4.478 per gallon; diesel at $6.45 per gallon
• Mortgage rate: 7.1 percent, with an average existing monthly payment of $2,023; new loan payments of $2,198 to $2,883, or $24,276 to $34,596 annually
• Utilities: $4,300 annually
• Rent: $2,075 per month, or $24,900 annually
• New car: $49,800 to $50,100
• Used car: $26,300
• New home, construction only: $323,000
• College: $39,406 annually
• Food for a family of four under the thrifty plan, with all meals prepared at home: $993 per month
• Total annual health care for a family of four with employer-sponsored insurance: $37,824, including premiums and out-of-pocket costs such as deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance, and pharmacy expenses

Make your own list of expenses and keep these figures in mind when you vote. Remember who is directly responsible for them. Remember which party’s candidates have done nothing in recent years to stop the man who talks about groceries, calls affordability a hoax, has illegally expanded his own wealth into the billions while in office, and is spending taxpayer dollars on television ads promoting his political messaging. Remember which people on your ballot support the lifestyles, cruelty, and corruption of those in power while ignoring your hardship.

Remember the candidates in Indiana and in Kosciusko County who say they hear you, recognize your pain, want the chance to improve your lives, and intend to hold that man and his loyal, greedy followers accountable for their negligence and disregard for everyone else.

Affordability is not a hoax. The numbers do not lie. We the people know the truth. We the people can fix the problem. We the people can vote, and we must vote.

Jeanne Tuka Schutz
Winona Lake