300,000 in protests at Israeli capital.

[bobalot]

at the current exhange rate, that comes out to about 13,000 USD.

Did I read that right, thirteen grand a month? That's insane, I don't make that in a year.

That's actually not so much for two well qualified, young professionals. There's a lot of couples earning that much or more in Germany who are not considered rich- doctors, engineers, architects, etc. But definitely high medium class

Their income is at a level which they really shouldn't be complaining about it.

Sadly, we have this type of people in Australia. We had people on $150,000+ combined incomes complaining that they were doing it tough and shouldn't be losing government support payments (which were cut in a recent budget). Fucking unbelievable.

[Danny Bhoy]

A strange world we live in today. Nowadays, in Singapore, it is possible for a family unit to have nearly US$10 million in NET investible assets (by which I include property other than the primary residence(s)) and still be considered merely rich/high medium class. 20 years ago, US$10 million in net investible assets was called "fucking loaded".

[Ace Pace]

I need to get home and find the article again, but basically, kids are a killer here.

It's possible, but it means they're going for the relatively expensive choices.

First article. (in hebrew)

There's some expensive choices (a car and a bike?) but the big ticket items listed are not very much optional.

[eyl]

First article. (in hebrew)

There's some expensive choices (a car and a bike?) but the big ticket items listed are not very much optional.

Not optional, maybe, but it seems to me they could certainly cut down on some things.

On the one hand, they make 42K NIS; about half will go to taxes.

I'd assumed that they were selecting expensive choices for child care (4 kids), but looking at the table it seems not particularly.

OTOH, as you say, they have both a car and a motorcycle (or scooter, both terms are used). dropping the latter would save them over 1000 NIS per in insurance, fuel and so forth.

Now, maybe they need the bike. However, I don't know exactly where they live, but they're paying 7,000 rent plus 1,100 arnona (municipal property tax on a house or apartment) per month? As they say they live "35 km from Tel Aviv", the costs should be relatively cheaper than in TA, which tells me they're living in a large house in a very expensive neighborhood. And 1200 per month on electricity? That's almost ten times the amount I payed last winter (in Jerusalem, which gets pretty cold); granted, kids will presumably use a fair amount, and they're heating a larger house, but still. There are also some minor items which seem excessive, but I won't go into them.

Mind you, that doesn't mean the problems they're mentioning should be dismissed. In particular, child care is coming out to over 7,000, and like I said they don't seem to be selecting expensive day care and such (and they omitted after-school activities for the kids)

[Faqa]

Well, they have 4 kids, presumably they need a fairly large house.

Then again, they have 4 kids - and if you want to raise 4 kids in an upper-middle-class lifestyle, then that's gonna cost you.

I'm not sure what they expect the Gov't to do about child care, though.

(Also, the "35 kilometers from TA = not expensive" is fairly funny. There's quite a lot of upper-middle-class enclaves with high cost-of-living that distance from TA - and somehow, I don't get the feeling they were living in Netanya or Ashdod, yes?)

[eyl]

(Also, the "35 kilometers from TA = not expensive" is fairly funny. There's quite a lot of upper-middle-class enclaves with high cost-of-living that distance from TA - and somehow, I don't get the feeling they were living in Netanya or Ashdod, yes?)

Note the term "relatively". The point is that if they're that far out of the city instead of right in the middle of it, there are plenty of places they could get a good house and neighborhood with lower costs (while inside Tel Aviv, even a just "decent" place is very expensive). IOW, they should have acceptable lower-cost options.