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| Extra | Why young families are always broke
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Married, with children: These are the real heroes among us. Mercifully, we're clueless about the financial implications when we take our wedding vows.
By Scott Burns
In case you haven't figured it out, the reason you always feel broke is that you are married, with children.
It's that simple.
Yes, you probably put too much on your Visa bill. And, yes, it's incriminating that you know the exact price of a Starbucks Grande Mocha. But when push comes to shove, such indulgences are minor compared to the real cause.
Children.
For better or worse, we're clueless about the financial commitment we make when we take our wedding vows.
The sad, sad numbers
You can understand exactly why it's difficult to make your paycheck cover your expenses if you'll spend a few minutes thinking about a tool once used by the Department of Labor. It's called the "Revised Equivalence Scale," and it is one of the many devices that have been used to sort out the differences in cost of living for households of different age, size and composition. While academics continue to debate the best tools, a revised equivalence scale that's more than 20 years old tells the story.
Let's say that the cost of living for a young married couple without children gets an index number of 100. From there, the revised equivalence scale has an index to represent the cost of living for each size and age of family composition. - A young single person, for instance, would get an index of 71.
- The arrival of a first child takes the index to 127.
- The arrival of a second child moves the index to 147.
The index continues to climb as the children age. It reaches 204 when the older child is 6 to 15 years old and peaks at 231 when the older child is 16 to 17. (The index is apparently unaware that some children go to college.)
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From there the index starts to descend, going down to 186 when only one child is at home (assuming the other isn't at Stanford or Harvard). It reaches a mere 120 when the couple makes "empty nester" status. It hits 104 when the couple is retired, and bottoms at 57 when a spouse dies and leaves a widow.
Put all these index numbers together, and you have a life cycle. You also have an idea of how much your income needs to increase if you have the heartwarming and politically correct goal of having two children. Between the day we marry (index 100) and the day the index peaks at 231 -- a period of about 17 to 19 years -- real family income needs to grow at 4.5% to 5% a year to maintain our standard of living.
What you need: More money
So, think about that.
If your real family income needs to grow at 4.5 % to 5% a year and inflation is 2.5% to 3.5%, the simple project of marrying and having a family requires income growth of 7% to 8.5% a year.
Not for two or three years. Not for five years.
It requires that size annual income increases for nearly two decades.
How often does that happen?
Not very. According to the Web site salary.com, typical workers saw a raise of 3.7% in 2005, following an average raise of 3.6% in 2004. At best, that's 1 percentage point over the rate of inflation, not the 4.5% to 5% a young family will need to avoid a declining standard of living
Averages, of course, can be misleading. Younger workers tend to get larger raises. More experienced workers tend to get smaller raises. How long you get real raises depends on the complexity of your job and whether your responsibilities increase.
Whatever the job, no workers get raises because they are parents and need the money.
Many young couples, armed with visceral knowledge of this reality, decide to have fewer children. Some -- an increasing number -- decide to have none.
What about the others? Are they dumb?
No. They are heroes, real everyday heroes.
| The long financial climb to raise a family | | Family Status | Years Married | Age | Index* | | Single | NA | 24 | 71 | | Young married | 0 | 25 | 100 | | Young married, one child | 3 | 28 | 127 | | Young married, two children | 5 | 30 | 147 | | Married (older child 6-15) | 10 | 35 | 204 | | Married (older child 16-17) | 19 | 44 | 231 | | Married (older child 18 plus) | 21 | 46 | 196 | | Married (old child at home) | 25 | 50 | 186 | | Empty nest couple | 30 | 55 | 120 | | Retired couple | 40 | 65+ | 104 | | Widowed | | | 57 |
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*The index uses newlyweds as a standard of 100 and shows changes in income needed to maintain status quo. Expenses do not include college educations.
Source: Scott Burns, Dallas Life Magazine, March 2, 1986
See Scott Burns' Web site.
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MSN Money's editorial goal is to provide a forum for personal finance and investment ideas. Our articles, columns, message board posts and other features should not be construed as investment advice, nor does their appearance imply an endorsement by Microsoft of any specific security or trading strategy. An investor's best course of action must be based on individual circumstances.
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