You're right, you can't afford to live in Boston (Day 39)

Or most of Massachusetts.

One of my children pays more than the accepted ratio for rent. (That's about 28 percent, thought sometimes it gets up to 30.) Shockingly, they don't have a lot of money in savings, and they were aghast when they found that they owed some money in taxes. Not very much, but when you live effectively paycheck to paycheck, anything is a lot. 

I thought of this child when I saw this chart from the good people at the Raise Up MA coalition. Suffice to say, my child is not making the $27.89 per hour they would need to in order to be able to, well, afford to live in Boston. They talk about moving to a more rural area, but frankly that won't do it; they'd probably have to leave the state, as I think one of my other children will eventually.

Just so we're clear, that's one of the most painful things a parent can write. This isn't the same as "my child is going to leave the state to pursue a really great education somewhere, or they got their dream job in another part of the country." This is "my child can't afford to stay somewhere where they have friends and family, and they can't imagine being able to build a life here."

This is not unrelated to wealth inequality in Massachusetts. Forget comparisons to San Francisco; when places get like this, it starts to feel like some of the oligarchies around the world where you find a disproportionate number of billionaires but the average citizen is likelier to live in poverty (I'll let you fill in the blanks). 

So let's raise the minimum wage, and let's support unions. It's not just to keep my children here, but other people's, too.

Deb in the City