| Ticker | Status | Jurisdiction | Filing Date | CP Start | CP End | CP Loss | Deadline |
|---|
| Ticker | Case Name | Status | CP Start | CP End | Deadline | Settlement Amt |
|---|
| Ticker | Name | Date | Analyst Firm | Up/Down | Target ($) | Rating Change | Rating Current |
|---|
The math has stopped working on the American Dream. What used to be a realistic checklist —home, kids, a couple of cars, and a dignified retirement— now doesn’t work even for the highly educated.
The middle-class milestone lifetime bill has crossed $5 million, as the latest infographic from Visual Capitalist shows. The problem isn’t just inflation. It’s that everything essential—healthcare, housing, education, and even old age—has become a luxury good.
Healthcare has become a financial trap masquerading as a basic need. The average American will spend over $414,000 on medical care between the ages of 22 and 85. That’s without factoring in long-term care, which can top $100,000 a year.
Medical inflation outpaces the Consumer Price Index by roughly three percentage points annually, KFF analysis showed. Between 2020 and 2025, healthcare costs rose 5-6% yearly while general inflation hovered near 3%. If this differential persists, lifetime healthcare expenses could balloon past $2 million by retirement age—more than quadruple today’s estimate.
And if you live longer, you pay more. Americans over 85 rack up about $40,000 a year in healthcare bills. That adds up to a third of their lifetime medical costs in their final decade.
Retirement turned from a lifetime reward to an increasingly complex math problem. The cost of a comfortable 20-year retirement is $1.6 million, a Charles Schwab survey showed. Meanwhile, traditional pensions have largely disappeared.
Barely 15% of private-sector workers have pensions, leaving the rest to gamble with 401(k)s that average less than $190,000 by age 60. That’s a far cry from what the average American says they need to retire comfortably. Financial advisors recommend having 10 times one’s salary saved by age 67—a target 88% of Americans in their 60s fail to meet.
Owning a home—the anchor of the American identity—now costs nearly $1 million over a lifetime, not counting repairs or taxes.
Since 1980, housing costs have increased 416%, while the CPI rose just 180%. Most recently, median prices jumped from $327,000 in 2020 to over $435,000 in 2025. Mortgage rates doubled too, meaning you’re paying twice as much for the same house.
President Donald Trump recently floated a new idea to tackle home affordability with a 50-year loan. The argument is for a lower monthly payment, but the calculations are demoralizing. Stretching a 30-year payment to a 50-year one would create marginal savings. Meanwhile, an average $450,000 home would require over $1 million in interest payments over the life of the loan.
Two kids and a college degree each—that’s over $870,000 gone before they turn 22. College alone takes over $200,000 for in-state tuition, and private schools would add another $234,000.
The 2024-25 academic year averages $24,920 annually for public in-state students and $58,600 for private institutions, meaning a family with two children attending simultaneously could face annual bills approaching $120,000.
Vehicle ownership across a lifetime can cost around $900,000, assuming two new cars every decade with financing, insurance, and maintenance. Transportation costs have risen 30% since 2020, outpacing the 20% general inflation rate. Last month, the average price of a new vehicle rose above $50,000 for the first time.
Electric vehicle (EV) adoption, while environmentally beneficial, front-loads the costs. An average EV is $12,000 above comparable gas models, though lower operating costs eventually offset premiums.
Vacations, pets, and weddings tack on another $258,000. These “extras” aren’t luxuries anymore—they’re part of what people see as a decent life.
A college-educated American will earn approximately $2.8 million over their lifetime, according to research from Georgetown University. It is barely half of what it now costs to live the so-called Dream. This gap explains the decline in birth rates, delayed homeownership, and increased retirement anxiety.
Americans still take trips, still adopt pets, and get married. They just go into debt doing it. Currently, household debt stands at $18.59 trillion, an increase of $197 billion from the previous quarter.
The Dream isn’t dead, but it increasingly requires dual incomes, inheritance, or, as Warren Buffett noted in a Thanksgiving letter, exceptionally fortunate circumstances.
Yet, unless wages start catching up, the price of “the good life” will stay permanently out of reach.
Read Next:
Photo by Kmpzzz via Shutterstock
Posted In: SPY
