Who Can Afford A New Car?

There's a new study out that says the only place in America where the average household can afford to buy the average new car is...Washington, DC.

The typical new vehicle is now more expensive than ever, averaging $30,500 in 2012, according to TrueCar.com data, and heading up again as makers curb the incentives that helped make their products more affordable during the recession when they were desperate for sales.

According to the 2013 Car Affordability Study by Interest.com, only in Washington could the typical household swing the payments, the median income there running $86,680 a year. At the other extreme, Tampa, Fla., was at the bottom of the 25 large cities included in the study, with a median household income of $43,832.

The study looked at a variety of household expenses, such as food and housing, and when it comes to purchasing a new vehicle, it considered more than just the basic purchase price, down payment and monthly note, factoring in such essentials as taxes and insurance.

Of course, there are people outside of the great suction pump of wealth who can afford new cars: people with very good jobs, or buying the cheapest new cars, but unsurprisingly, the generation that elected Obama, then re-elected him, are generally the ones injured by the policies that continue to suck all the wealth of this nation up, and drop it on a favored few in the nation's capital.

I wish that I had some confidence that the under 30s would figure out that they injured themselves by how they voted, but it doesn't seem like they are going to figure it out.

UPDATE: I should explain that my concern isn't entirely abstract.  A relative has his first job out of college, working as a production assistant at a TV station.  The pay and the hours are so miserable that he is borrowing a car for the moment, but at some point, he is going to have to buy one, and even the cheapest new cars are too expensive for someone who graduated cum laude, and he has to look at cars with more than 100,000 miles to even get into the right price range.

I am also upset that there was a time when a car like this would set me to drooling because it used to be something that I could seriously consider buying.  No more.  There's no point in considering trading in the Corvette and the Jaguar to buy something like this.