This is how much you have to make a year to afford a home in 2024, realtor claims: 'The old American dream died'

Published

1 year ago

January 18, 2024

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Americans now need to make $120K a year to afford a typical middle-class life and qualify to purchase a home, one expert discusses.

“I think most of us in America would define the middle class as somebody who can work a 40-hour-a-week career and can have the income to purchase the average home in America,” Freddie Smith, an Orlando realtor and TikTok creator, told Fox News Digital.

The TikToker, whose videos explore millennial and Gen Z struggles to afford a home and the general cost of living in today’s economic climate, dissected the common factors of living a middle-class existence.

“A lot of us grew up middle class, and we watched what middle class was in the 80s and 90s as millennials. And nowadays, what has moved the goalpost more than anything is the housing market,” the relator said.

Smith explained how, just a few years ago, $60-$70K a year would have been sufficient to qualify for a home.

With the average cost of a house being around $400K-$420K in 2024, people’s salaries would need to be around $120K a year for people to even qualify, Smith explained.

The realtor highlights how this wage-to-housing gap has forced many people to rent for a longer period.

“Rent prices are taking up 30-40% of people’s income, making it harder for them to save for a house. So it’s this perpetual cycle that is keeping people out of the middle class,” he explains, noting this trend has been continuing at a rapid pace over the last few years.

Smith also explained how a $120K salary, even without children, becomes a far lower number when confronted with the crippling debt most Americans are facing today.

Is 100k salary the new middle class? ??

“Most people are carrying student loan debt, which is at an all-time high, and the average payment in the country is $500 a month for your college degree. [There are] some people I’m seeing in my comment section saying $500, I wish, it was $1,200 a month for me,” said Smith.

Credit card debt is also at a record high in America, and while Smith acknowledges that reckless spending could be a factor, he has learned from many Americans commenting on his posts that many are forced to use their cards for groceries because they ran out of money.

According to DQYDJ, the average American income in 2023 was roughly $69K a year, with only 18.8% percent of Americans reaching $100K or more a year. According to the same source, the top 10 percent of individual earnings started at $135,605 a year.

The middle class is in a segmented state, Smith argues, largely determined by how much debt one finds themselves in.

“If you are someone who bought a house before 2020 and you have it paid off or you have a 3% interest rate, you are not burdened by the housing costs like the 2024 adults are now,” the relator said, explaining how debt, especially college debt, housing costs and childcare are burdening millennials and Gen Zers starting their lives.

“People are spending about $1,200 to $1,500 a month on daycare, and I’ve even heard it as much as $3,000-$4,000. So when you add in somebody who’s renting for $2,500, $2,000 for daycare, $1,000 for two college loans, just that alone, you need $100,000 as an income just for that,” said Smith.

For slightly older individuals who had a chance to pay off their debt and have grown-up children, $70K remains a comfortable middle-class wage to them.

“‘These millennials are whining. These Gen Zers just work harder.’ If you bought your house before and don’t have those other payments, that’s really the three-layered cake. Housing, college [debt] and daycare” explained Smith, highlighting these three factors greatly determine your middle-class placement.

As a result of high housing costs, many young people are choosing to stay at home with their families to save funds.

Smith explains how he is seeing communal living go even further in Florida, where separate families are choosing to live under one roof.

“Many families [with] 3 or 4 adults and [say] five children, they all split a big house, and they all take care of each other. You can see that they have a lot of toys and they’re pooling their money,” Smith detailed.

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The TikToker enumerates how millennials and older Gen Zers had a “difficult” hand dealt to them. Younger Gen Zers, however, have a lot of “opportunity” to “crush in today’s economy” if they plan carefully to avoid debt and make smart financial choices.

“The millennials, they’re the pinched generation where college essentially stopped working for most. The debt piled up, and the old American dream died, and we got left holding the bag,” he said.

The creator said that through posting on TikTok, he has learned a tremendous amount about the everyday struggles real Americans are facing through his comment section.

“People in America, real society, are sharing all this with me. And I’m learning at a rapid pace from all different individuals. It’s not just googling it, or asking 100 college students what they think. It’s thousands and thousands of people sharing what’s going on,” said Smith.

The realtor discussed how there is a “bigger conversation” around an evolving American Dream that we’re likely to see take place over the next few years.

“We’re basically redefining the American dream from top to bottom, like the way that we see work and work-life balance,” said the creator, explaining how the idea of owning a home might grow old alongside past generations.

“I don’t even know if millennials and Gen Zers want to follow that path of buying a house and living in it for 40 years and staying at the same job for 40 years. I don’t think creatively, work-life balance wise, is also what our long-term play is,” he said.

Entertainment

Snoop Dogg becomes co-owner and investor of Swansea football club saying it’s ‘an underdog just like me’

Published

2 hours ago

July 18, 2025

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Snoop Dogg becomes co-owner and investor of Swansea football club saying it's 'an underdog just like me'

Snoop Dogg has become a co-owner and investor of Swansea, with the US rapper hailing the Welsh football club as “an underdog that bites back, just like me”.

The former Premier League club, which plays in the English second tier, confirmed the US rapper and producer plans to use his own money to invest in it, Sky Sports reports, although it didn’t disclose financial details.

“My love of football is well known, but it feels special to me that I make my move into club ownership with Swansea City,” the music icon said in the announcement.

“The story of the club and the area really struck a chord with me,” he added. “This is a proud, working class city and club.

“An underdog that bites back, just like me.

“I’m proud to be part of Swansea City. I am going to do all I can to help the club.”

Swansea’s American owners, led by Brett Cravatt and Jason Cohen, are trying to grow the Championship club’s global brand and increase commercial revenue.

Snoop Dogg, 53, who has 89m followers on Instagram and more than 20m on X, helped launch the team’s 2025-26 home shirt last weekend.

The club ownership group said: “To borrow a phrase from Snoop’s back catalogue, this announcement is the next episode for Swansea City as we seek to create new opportunities to boost the club’s reach and profile.”

Luka Modric, who recently signed with AC Milan from Real Madrid, joined Swansea’s ownership group in April.

Politics

Diane Abbott suspended from Labour Party

Published

2 hours ago

July 18, 2025

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Diane Abbott suspended from Labour Party

Diane Abbott has been suspended from the Labour Party pending an investigation.

A party spokesperson confirmed the decision to Sky News but did not give a reason why.

Politics Live: The Starmtroopers are coming for the Corbynites

It comes after the veteran MP defended previous comments about racism which sparked an antisemitism row and led to a year-long suspension.

She apologised at the time and was readmitted back into the party before the 2024 general election.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Diane Abbott has been administratively suspended from the Labour Party, pending an investigation. We cannot comment further while this investigation is ongoing.”

Sky News understands that the suspension is not related to the four rebels who lost the whip on Wednesday for “repeated breaches” of party discipline, including voting against the government’s welfare cuts.

The action has been taken because of an interview in which she doubled down on her claim Jewish people experience racism differently to black people, which previously sparked a huge controversy.

In a letter to The Observer in 2023, Ms Abbott argued that people of colour experienced racism “all their lives” and said that was different to the “prejudice” experienced by Jewish people, Irish people and Travellers.

Shortly after it was published, she issued a statement in which she said she wished to “wholly and unreservedly withdraw my remarks and disassociate myself from them”.

However in a new interview with BBC Radio 4’s Reflections programme this week, she said she did not look back on the incident with regret.

Ms Abbott said: “Clearly, there must be a difference between racism which is about colour and other types of racism because you can see a Traveller or a Jewish person walking down the street, you don’t know.

“But if you see a black person walking down the street, you see straight away that they’re black. They are different types of racism.”

She added: “I just think that it’s silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism.

“I don’t know why people would say that.”

Commenting on the suspension, Ms Abbott told Sky News: “It’s obvious this Labour leadership wants me out. My comments in the interview with James Naughtie were factually correct, as any fair-minded person would accept.”

The clip of the interview was re-posted by Brian Leishman, one of the MPs suspended on Wednesday, who said: “Diane Abbott has fought against racism her entire life.”

Bell Riberio-Addy, who lost her role as trade envoy in yesterday’s purge, also came to Ms Abbott’s defence, saying: “Before condemning her based on headlines, I would listen to her clip and note she discussed the different forms that racism takes and condemned all forms of racism.”

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell made similar comments, saying that in the interview his colleague “forthrightly condemns antisemitism & discusses the different forms of racism”.

But Labour MP David Taylor told Sky News he has “long thought Diane Abbott shouldn’t be a member of our party due to her appalling positions on everything from Bosnia to Syria”.

He added: “As the Jewish Labour Movement have said, antisemitism targets Jews regardless of how they look, and many in the community are visibly Jewish and suffer racism for it.”

In the interview, Ms Abbott said she “of course” condemns antisemitic behaviour in the same way she would condemn racist behaviour because of the colour of someone’s skin, adding: “I do get a bit weary of people trying to pin the antisemitic label on me because I spent a lifetime facing racism of all kinds.”

Ms Abbott made history when she was elected as Britain’s first black female MP for Labour in 1987.

She is the longest-serving female MP in the Commons, giving her the title “Mother of the House”.

As an MP on the left of the party she has often clashed with the leadership throughout her career – bar her time serving in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet.

Many MPs rallied in support of Ms Abbott last year when it was not clear if she would be reinstated in time for the general election, or allowed to stand.

She went on to retain her seat of Hackney North and Stoke Newington with a majority of over 15,000.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner hinted action could be taken against Ms Abbott when she told The Guardian earlier on Thursday that she was “disappointed” in her colleague’s remarks.

“There’s no place for antisemitism in the Labour Party, and obviously the Labour Party has processes for that,” she said.

A source close to the decision to suspend her told Sky News there is a “very slim chance” she will be allowed back in, given she did antisemitism training and apologised last time.

It raises questions about whether Ms Abbott could join the new party being formed by Mr Corbyn and former Labour MP Zarah Sultana.

For the time being, Ms Abbott will sit in the Commons as an independent MP.

Adnan Hussain, who was elected as the independent MP for Blackburn last year, said on X: “We’d be honoured to have a giant like Diane join us, she [should] come to the side that would really appreciate her for the legend she is.”

UK

Child who died in Minehead school coach crash was 10-year-old boy, police say

Published

2 hours ago

July 18, 2025

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Child who died in Minehead school coach crash was 10-year-old boy, police say

The child who died in a school coach crash in Somerset on Thursday was a 10-year-old boy, Avon and Somerset Police have said.

A specially trained officer is supporting the child’s family, the force said, adding that two children taken to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children by air ambulance remain there as of Friday.

Four children and three adults also remain in hospital in Somerset.

There were between 60 to 70 people on board when the incident happened near Minehead, just before 3pm on Thursday.

The coach was heading to Minehead Middle School when it crashed on the A396 between Wheddon Cross and Timbercombe.

Police said that 21 people were taken to hospital, including two children who were taken via air ambulance.

Gavin Ellis, chief fire officer for Devon and Somerset, said the coach “overturned onto its roof and slid approximately 20ft down an embankment”.

Rachel Gilmour, MP for Tiverton and Minehead, said the road where it happened is “very difficult to manoeuvre”.

“You have a very difficult crossing at Wheddon Cross, and as you come out to dip down into Timbercombe, the road is really windy and there are very steep dips on either side,” she told Sky’s Anna Botting.

It comes after a teacher at Minehead Middle School praised the “incredibly brave” pupils for supporting each other after the coach crash.

“You have looked after each [other] in what was a life-changing event, we will get through this together,” they wrote on Facebook.

“I feel so lucky to be your teacher. I am so grateful to my wonderful colleagues during this time who were also fighting to help as many people as we could.”