College Debt Hits Well-Off

Depending upon your definition of upper middle class, which the Red defines as households with annual incomes of $94,535 to $205,335, this group of people saw the largest increases in student loan debt.

Although these figures may represent a huge income to some, remember as most American know the value of $100k income today isn't what it used to be as we noted in this post $100,000 income: No big deal anymore.

The issue with this income level is that parents take in a greater amount of income so that they miss out on financial aid, but they don't make enough to be able to cover the rising costs of tuition that someone in the next income bracket would be able to afford.  As one family put it, it's like being in financial purgatory.

Full WSJ story here

• The Journal's analysis defined upper-middle-income households as those with annual incomes between the 80th and 95th percentiles of all households nationwide. Among this group, 25.6% had student-loan debt in 2010, up from 19.5% in 2007. For all households, the portion with student loan debt rose to 19.1% in 2010 from 15.2% in 2007.
• The amount borrowed by upper-middle-income families, meanwhile, has soared. They owed an average of $32,869 in college loans in 2010, up from $26,639 in 2007, after adjusting for inflation, according to the Journal's analysis.
• According to the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the University of California at Los Angeles, which surveys more than 200,000 freshmen, the portion of last year's freshmen who said cost was a "very important" factor when picking a college increased by 20.7% since 2007 for students with family incomes of $150,000 or more, the biggest jump for any income group, says John Pryor, the program's director.
• But with college costs rising, twin blows from falling home values and the stock market plunge of 2008-09 have sent many families over the edge. On average, upper-middle-income households' median net worth fell 19%, to $369,320, in 2010 from three years earlier, according to Journal calculations.

How to Make Your Lost Phone Findable

NYT tech blogger David Pogue describes how to find you lost iPhone if the phone is still on and the thieves have not already wiped out your iTunes account.

Full story here

Decoding the Science of Sleep

With having a new born sleep is a critical commodity that is often in short supply in my household.  Last we we posted an article on a new migraine cures.  One thing I have personally noticed is the correlation between sleep and migraines.  Sleep deprivation often triggers migraines.

As our schedules have gotten busier, a global economy where business never sleeps, and smartphones that are always on, it's no wonder that people have become more tired.  Where do you find time to fit sleep into your schedule?

As this WSJ article points out, "sleep likely hovers somewhere near flossing in most of our lives: something we are supposed to do more—but don't."

• Sleep wasn't something we were supposed to worry about in the early years of the 21st century. Technology was making the world smaller by the day; the global economy blurred the lines between one day and the next, and things like time and place were supposed to be growing ever less important in the always-on workplace. Most of us never gave sleep much thought—considering it nothing more than an elegant on-off switch, like the ones on our smartphones, that the body flips when it needs to take a break from its overscheduled life. Sure, we'd like to get a bit more of it. But, beyond that, sleep likely hovers somewhere near flossing in most of our lives: something we are supposed to do more—but don't.
• This skyrocketing sleeplessness has given rise to a large and growing industry: Americans now spend tens of billions of dollars on prescriptions, at sleep labs, on mattresses and for medical devices in our quest for some simple shuteye, according to Marketdata Enterprises, a market research firm based in Tampa, Fla. "Fatigue management consultants," meanwhile, now work with more than half of the current Fortune 500 companies, law-enforcement groups and even Super Bowl-winning teams on ways to maintain a consistently high-performing workforce and prevent accidents.
• And no amount of caffeine can alleviate the need for sleep. When that time comes, many adults turn to sleeping pills for help. About 60 million prescriptions for sleeping pills were filled in the U.S. last year, according to IMS Health, a data and analytics firm in Parsippany, N.J. That number is up from 48 million in 2006. Yet a number of studies have shown that drugs like Ambien and Lunesta offer no significant improvements in the quality of users' sleep.

The Numbers Inside a Hot-Button Issue

The graph below shows an interesting dynamic between the share of income people receive vs. the amount of taxes they pay.  As incomes have risen in the upper class, so too has their share of income taxes paid.  Taxes has become a hot button topic in this years Presidential campaign.  Obama wanting to increase taxes to stop deficits while Romney wants to decrease taxes and focus more on spending cuts to reign in deficit spending.

This WSJ article takes a look inside the numbers to give a different view point on the tax situation in the US.

• "Who's right: Obama or Romney? Both. Or neither," says Joseph Thorndike, a tax historian. "When it comes to taxing the rich, there is no single, objectively correct answer. You can talk all you want about asking rich people to pay 'their fair' share,' but don't kid yourself. You're just trying to turn private opinions into public policy."