COLUMN: Better off than 2020? Depends on perspective

My two favorite statements during presidental election years are: 1. Are you better off than you were four years ago? (Typically asked and answered by the party opposing the incumbent). 2. any comments made about being in the middle class.

Considering those questions are asked with more emphasis as the election approaches, lets use October as the base. In October 2020, I was unemployed. My position was eliminated months earlier as a combination of COVID economics and new owners of previous job. It’s obvious for me to say I was better off in October 2024 as I was employed full time. Party politics had nothing to do with it.

My housing is not what it was in October 2020. I enjoyed the house I had at that time although the taxes were incredibly high, and are preparing to go higher. My wife Jennifer and I purchased the house more because of the location. We knew taxes were high then. We still wanted the house and understood the conditions. I know, property taxes are linked more to local governments than the federal. Our living arrangements now are different - something we both planned and prepared for the past 16 months and something that the presiding government had no influence.

Based on my regular purchases, and sometimes impulse/”luxury” buys, inflation has decreased in the past two years. Some anecdotal examples are i purchased a bag of my favorite flavor of Fritos this fall for less than $3. The same bag nine months ago was hovering near $6. I have a rotation of breakfast cereal, and one costs more now than it did a year ago. Another one has been at a tolerable price this year a couple of times. I don’t have to stick with the rotation, and haven’t. Again, I can change my choices to fit my needs, still be content and not have to be pressured to think, “am I better off than I was four years ago” when I voted last month.

The last two years I’ve been able to comfortably fly to and have time around Portland, Oregon, and in Arizona. I don’t fly enough to call myself an expert on flying. I also know that those can be considered luxury choices for some people, regardless of who is president, so wife Jennifer and I save a little on a regular basis for just those moments; or if a financial emergency happens. Speaking of which, we replaced three of the five major appliances (dishwasher and stove/oven were excluded) in the last two years at the previous house. They all were an unexpected hit to the budget, but we did not hit the panic button.

My conclusion: Some of our decisions should have no connection to the incumbent president and the pressure of “are we better off than we were four years ago.” We sometimes have to objectively analyze ourselves and our decisions and not think it’s someone else’s fault for the situation we are in. We can also create our own conditions.

The middle class issue is fascinating as its definition is not the same everywhere. How could it be? Coming home with $55,000 in Berkley, California, probably defines poverty. But if you are in western Kansas along the time zone line, you should be more than comfortable. Middle class has to be a relative category.

Defining middle class is just as a challenge as it is living it. Joseph Wurzelbacher (known in the press as Joe the Plumber) may have given the middle class the most attention as he owned his own business and asked candidate Barrack Obama in 2008 about taxes on small businesses. Small business is another term I think that doesn’t have a solid universial definition.

I’m in the middle of Ian Frazier’s new book “Paradise Bronx.” More an essayist than traditional fiction author, Frazier did some extensive history and research of the New York borough. New York has it all; the upper class and those who are desperate. But what about the middle?

“Even paradise can be too much sometimes and middle class life can oppress the spirit, especially if you’re young. The ordinariness of it makes you want to upset your parents and smash everything. To be middle class, you must stay between the lines of too cheap and too fancy, too good and not good enough. Maybe your family wants you to be a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant — commendable dreams, but maybe not your own.”

Upper, middle, lower; just try and be content wherever you are.