Goodbye, middle class! No more trips to Itchy & Scratchy Land

Goodbye, middle class! No more trips to Itchy & Scratchy Land. #TheSimpsons #middleclass #families

Transcript

00:00According to the census, no middle-class family can live like The Simpsons anymore.

00:04The rent is too damn high.

00:06Over the past 36 seasons, The Simpsons has given us episodes about elaborate monorail scams,

00:10gun-toning babies, and aliens from planet Rigel 7.

00:13But in 2025, the most implausible aspect of the show just might be the family's comfortable lifestyle.

00:18This is a palace!

00:21How in the world can you afford to live in a house like this, Simpson?

00:24I don't know. Don't ask me how the economy works.

00:26Homer and Marge are able to raise three children on a single income,

00:29all while maintaining two cars and a house so massive that they've hardly set foot in one of the rooms in nearly four decades.

00:35Not to mention how the family is able to take spontaneous vacations to exotic locations and ultra-violent theme parks.

00:40This is just what I was hoping for, spending the day together as a family.

00:44But U.S. census data from 2025 illustrates that the show no longer represents ordinary America.

00:59For one thing, when the animated series first premiered back in 1989,

01:03the ordinary American family household was comprised of 3.16 people,

01:07typically two parents and up to two young children.

01:09But in the decades since, those numbers have slowly been declining as American families have chosen to remain smaller.

01:15Although, to be fair, the Simpsons didn't exactly plan to have so many kids.

01:18Dr. Rodney Tavera, the academic director and senior lecturer in American Studies at the University of Sydney's United States Studies Center,

01:26noted that the ages that people get married has shifted as well.

01:29He said when Homer and Marge would have gotten married,

01:31the average age would have been something like 20 to 22 years old.

01:34And now it's going up to almost 30 years old.

01:36And the Simpson family's financial situation is harder to swallow than a jagged metal crusty-o.

01:41Dr. Tavera said for a patriarchal father of a family to be able to provide for his family,

01:46have a double-story home, take the family on holiday, buy a new car every few years,

01:50that was normal for many white, middle-class Americans, and that's no longer the case.

01:54He also noted that this was already becoming a thing of the past when the show debuted,

01:58saying it was decreasingly the case in 1989 and even less so now.

02:02While the median income of families has risen, inequality means that fewer people have that amount of money.

02:07How did this happen?

02:08Well, let's let The Simpsons explain it.

02:10They chopped salaries to raise stock prices,

02:13cut up the pie and kept all the slices.

02:15Tax breaks went to CEOs,

02:17never trickling down to every show.

02:19And so it came to pass.

02:22Weedy rich men kicked our ass.

02:24Fiddling while they burned our middle class.

02:27Our middle class.

02:28Fiddling is naroda.