Rosefolly added this to the comments about US study and equal pay in the US.

You probably know that a BS or BA takes four years in the US, and
sometimes five if the college is overcrowded and classes are hard to
get, but that is because you must take a certain number of classes
outside your major - liberal arts if you are a tech/science major, or
math and science if you are a liberal arts person. It is considered that
this will help to make you a well-rounded member of society. To some
extent, I think it is true.

We are also seeing the rise of the master's degree as the standard of
a well educated person. My husband, one daughter, and I all have one,
as does my brother. It has become fairly common. My other daughter has
two bachelor's degrees (career change), and my non-academic son
completed a certificate program at a community college. It is unusual
for anyone to stop at high school and expect much of a career, very
different from a generation ago. And a generation before that, my
grandfather stopped at eighth grade, which was considered perfectly
adequate. He was educated in Canada where he grew up, but the same was
true in the United States.

(I do want to add a side comment here. It is my personal belief that a
person who did not go beyond high school but continues to read all his
life long is apt to be a far better educated person than someone who
gets a degree but never opens another book for the rest of his life.)

Equal pay is an iffy thing, addressed differently in different
places. In areas where the cost of living is higher, pay also tends to
be higher, the Boston-NYC-Washington corridor being one region with a
notoriously high cost of living. Hawaii is also a very expensive place
to live, and Los Angeles and the Bay Area (including Silicon Valley) is
just as expensive.

Government job pay scales are mandated by regulation, and union jobs
by contract. The business sector is free to pay what the market will
bear. There is a set federal minimum wage, though some areas have set
their own higher minimum wage, much disputed by business which says that
it will mean higher unemployment or the failure of small businesses. As
for pay for women, in my area the pay ranges can be different for two
reasons (at least). One is that pay is generally negotiated, and women
tend to be less assertive in asking for more money, more inclined to
wait until their value is recognized and spontaneously rewarded. The
other is that if there are children involved, mothers are employed full
time are more likely to work only 40-50 hours a week (I did) while
fathers feel free to stay at the office 50-60 or more hours. Long hours
are highly valued here in Silicon Valley, and they do tend to be
financially rewarded. Then there is the fact, still true, that many
women choose traditional female careers (teaching, nursing, library
work) where pay lags unless there is a union to increase it.

As far as I know the only part of the UK where pay-rates are higher to reflect the increaded 'standard of living' is in London. Originally it was meant to help towards housing costs but these days the price of a property there has become meaningless, where thousands have become millions and only Russian oligarchs can afford the totally outrageous prices . . . the 'trickle-down effect' has seen the same thing happen throughout most of the country. All powered by greed and more greed.

London Weighting

"Afflicted" definitely implies something wrong, but not necessarily a mental deficit. It could be anything - depends on the context.

Rosefolly's explanation of US education and pay is excellent.

Watching the tv series "House Hunters" provides me with an often amazing view into disposable income of young people and how the cost of housing varies depending on where you live.

A simple, older bungalow in most of New York state might be on the market for $68,000- $75,000 whereas the same house nearer NYC or other larger cities in the west could be closer to $750,000.

The market drives the values.

And I would suggest that the pay levels of the population in these areas drive the market.

Many young families are faced with two working parents and children in daycare almost from birth because otherwise they cannot afford their life style.

Yoyobon, I always wonder how those kids fresh out of college can afford a $500,000 house plus renovation cost. Clearly I don't work in the "right" industry!

Re. housing values in central Florida...my FIL bought his home 30 years ago for $45,000. He's about to put it on the market and the realtor wants to price it at $145,000. :)

Donna

I bought a house in 1973 for $20,500 in a blue-collar area of Louisville . I was a single mother at the time, and the bank claimed I was the first such woman to whom they had ever made a real estate mortgage loan (although they made me get a co-signer). Shortly after that I read that banks were missing the mark in that area because a woman will eat peanut butter and crackers in order to pay her house payment, whereas a man doesn't have such a strong nesting instinct.

Bud and I sold that house when we moved six years ago for $116,000. I must say, though, that he is a wonderful handyman and had made so many improvements to the house that it "showed" beautifully. We married in 1981 when interest rates were sky high, so it only made sense to keep "my" house rather than buying. The men he worked with were merciless in their teasing him--men can be such jerks--although they gave him a very nice communal check for a wedding gift.

I know it is difficult to compare prices or facts across countries, in fact within countries.

Over here, young people . . and I mean in their 30's, not just out of school/college are finding it almost impossible to get on the 'property ladder'. In my innocence I was surprised to find our daughter and s-in-l can't even put down a deposit on a property unless they can 'prove' to the mortgage co that they are both bringing in some huge amount of joint salary per month.

We now have a saying over here that grown-up 'children' are relying on the Bank of Mum and Dad, either to help with costs or provide child-care while both partners have to go out to work to cover their costs. This has put many couples off from starting a family, waiting until their late 30's or having more than one child. Often these are the very people who have been through a university education (as mentioned above) following the then 'guide lines' of the extra qualifications leading to an enhanced salary.

Many youngsters, with good school results are looking less to further education and going straight into 'work' especially in jobs with good prospects and/or training.

Are young people expecting too much?

This is probably sounding like "In my day..." but we and many others bought basic State built (three bedrooms,one bathroom, sitting room, kitchen and a lavatory) homes in the Sixties and worked our way up the property ladder, if that was what we had as a goal.

I was prepared to offer a GD the small deposit for a Government assisted First Home buyers scheme but she turned up her nose when I asked her if she was interested in one of those homes.

"Matchboxes!" she sniffed. "We want a good size place with a big back garden"

I never went on to make the offer. She still lives in a rented place.

Vee, many young people in the US are in the same situation. Many still live at home with their parents in their late 20s/early 30s.

Ann, we bought a "starter home" within a year of marriage. At that time (early 80s) we had to have proof of income, put down at least 10%, and they had rules about debt loads - your total debt had to be below a certain percentage of your income, and your mortgage debt could only be a certain percentage of your total debt. Apparently many of those rules have been scrapped in recent years.

We lived in that small 2 bedroom house until we could afford a larger one, and we're still in that second house 24 years later!

Donna

Ann, even what used to be known as 'Council Houses' (ie houses built to be rented to people who could not afford to buy) have now after the 'Right to Buy' scheme come onto the market at really silly prices . . albeit still cheaper that the private homes being built.

DD is in south Manchester where a very 'ordinary' pre war semi detached with small kitchen, one or two small 'living rooms', three bedrooms and bathroom plus small garden are going for over £400,000. Ten years ago you could have probably knocked two zero's off the price. Even the older 'working men's cottages' . . . in a terrace/row, with one living room, scullery-type kitchen and two bedrooms and just a paved yard at the back fetch nearly as much!

Carolyn, were you expected to have a co-signer for your mortgage because you were a female who couldn't be trusted with big financial decisions?!

When we bought our present house in 1980 it was, and still is, in an unlovely village with a very busy main road running past the front door. It only cost £30,000 was large and rambling, still partly furnished and very unkempt but had a big garden with the richest soil you could imagine, looking over fields down to the distant River Severn. Today, with the roof fixed for the second time and the addition of a bathroom and a couple of extra flushing loos (previously the only loo had relied on rain-water) some redecorating and very basic central heating we have been told it would fetch more than £600,000 . . . add on half that price for the $$ equivalent.

My goodness, Vee, you are sitting on (in) a fortune! Yes, I got the feeling my gender affected the bank approval; however, I only had 10% to pay down and they preferred 20%. In fact, they made me pay a small amount monthly on an insurance policy to guarantee payment until I reached that magic percentage. All this was despite the fact that I had been paying rent equivalent to the house payments for five years and was, of course, never late with a payment (good old peanut butter).

Life has certainly improved for me, for which I am truly thankful. We bought this house in a much nicer neighborhood at the end of 2009 when housing prices were depressed and paid cash for it. (Really, truly thankful.) The value has just been reassessed for tax purposes (usually lower than selling prices) and has increased by about $50,000.

My starter home (three tiny bedrooms, one bath, living room, and eat-in kitchen) cost $11,750 in 1960, with monthly payments of $67.50 that included taxes and insurance. Salaries were equivalent, though. My parents' farmhouse didn't have running water until I was in my 20s, and my mother's first teaching salary in the early 30s was $61 per month.

This is TMI, I suspect, but it's interesting how things have changed in my lifetime.

Vee, we managed to get a rented Council House shared with another family in 1948. My parents had to provide a doctor's certificate to confirm my mother's depressive state and letters confirming that we were sharing a house with three other families and one cooking stove to get that! As housing stock was gradually increased we finally had a house all to ourselves!

They always rented various places from the Council and refused the Right to Buy on the grounds that they would have to do their own maintenance and that by then they were too old to want the bother.

I think people expect FAR too much in a home, after watching many HGTV shows. In so many areas of the country, in apparently costs over $600,000 to get a nice home. Or so you would think....

That's one reason I like Fixer Upper. Waco has property values even lower than in our area (which is pretty low) and people can actually find houses for $150,000. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on how ritzy the area.

We were looking at homes with acreage, in case we had to move a few year ago. At that time, $175,000 could get you a used manufactured home, about five acres and maybe one outbuilding. And that was usually 15-20 minutes from a very small town, with populations as low as 300. So figure 20-30 minutes driving to get to a larger town. In Spokane (nearest city) it's expensive, but nothing like Seattle. It's ridiculous how many hoops people have to jump through, to even qualify for a home loan in this economic climate. And with job loss always on people's minds...it almost makes more sense to rent for a while.

Eventually (hopefully) the real estate market will stabilize and banks will realize they're in the business to LEND money, not buy each other out in endless mergers.

Re "the afflicted one." I've been reading Susan Cheever's book, 'Drinking in America." It's a history of the part drinking played in American history, and it appears that for many years--at least from Colonial times to perhaps the early 20th century, "afflicted" was often used to describe drunks, either as someone who was drunk or as an habitual alcoholic (a term that wasn't used until quite recently).