CNN: “Digesting that fact becomes harder when you consider that the Schuetts earn a comfortable living, with Amy, 39, pulling in $150,000 a year as a hospital psychiatrist. True, their income did take a big hit last summer when Brian got laid off from his job as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical firm (he’d been making a base salary of $82,000 a year, plus commissions as high as $24,000)….
Yet, says Amy, ‘We live from one paycheck to the next, we’re struggling to save and we never seem to have enough money to do anything fun.'”
I think there’s not enough information in the article to call the Schuetts “yuppie scum.” They have four daughters, after all, and it seems as if they got burned in the real estate crash, buying rental properties to generate income but then being unable to find tenants. Of course, the article could be leaving out information, but they don’t appear to be throwing money away and they seem to be taking steps to economize.
The negative savings rate in the United States is a political and economic problem as much, if not more than, one of a lack of personal virtue.
True, Richard, but you still have to wonder about not being able to live in Nebraska on $150K/year — four daughters or no four daughters. (If that’s a “comfortable living”, then apparently my family is destitute.)