Looking for a new car under $20,000? Good luck. Your choice has dwindled to just one vehicle
apnews.com
At a time when Americans increasingly want pricey SUVs and trucks rather than small cars, the Mirage remains the lone new vehicle whose average sale price is under 20 grand — a figure that once marked a kind of unofficial threshold of affordability. With prices — new and used — having soared since the pandemic, $20,000 is no longer much of a starting point for a new car.
This current version of the Mirage, which reached U.S. dealerships a decade ago, sold for an average of $19,205 last month, according to data from Cox Automotive. (Though a few other new models have starting prices under $20,000, their actual purchase prices, with options and shipping, exceed that figure.)
At the current minimum wage ($7.25), it’s takes 2.757.6 hours or nearly 70 40-hour weeks to reach $20,000.
That is over 1.3 years of full time work to equal the one “cheap” car option. And it completely ignores any other costs, like taxes and interest, let alone god-damn housing, food, medical bills, etc.
This economic system is fucked. If you’re not fighting for income and wealth equality, you’re sociopathic.
Don't worry, if you can't afford it in cash you can always take out an 84 month loan at 6.5% if you're lucky, so it's actually only ~$25,000, or 3,448.3 hours/86.2 40hr weeks!
Yes that seems very reasonable. Also why the fuck are you buying a new car on min wage lol
I make about 8x the min wage and I would still probably never buy a new car.
Covid fucked up the car market pretty bad for several years and it's only NOW just barely recovering. People were selling used cars for more than they bought them new. And used shitty cars that used to go for cheap are going for premium prices.
If you're going to pay out the nose anyway, it starts to make a lot of sense to get something new because it's both cheaper and you'll know the full history and have the full warranty.
This assumes no home, food, or fun outside of work beyond daydreaming.
Who has the time or energy to daydream?
Who buys cars with cash??
That's why, if you or someone you know doesn't make enough, you get a used car. Brand new cars are such a waste of money. With that being said, prices across almost everything today is still fucked in the US with housing definitely being the worst offender.
I make enough and I drive a 2007 accord. Fuck paying for a new car.
If you are minimum wage there's no way you are getting full time hours. Minimum wage employers will only schedule works for 20 hours a week to ensure they won't get close to getting benefits.
Very reasonable take. I'm here for it.
Hard pass.
Communists should take a long, hard look at how well communism has worked elsewhere. Capitalism has many problems, and wealth inequality is one of them, but it's the economic system that has worked best so far. The fact is that my surgeon should earn a lot more than my gardener.
Really, the problem stems from the idea of wealth in general. To use a Communist structure like that would require eliminating the concept of non-tangible “wealth” entirely. Because otherwise you get the kind of incongruencies that you describe.
It’s hard though, right? Without wealth, how do you value the work of others? It used to be done by bartering. Or perhaps people did it because they were good at it, and didn’t mind helping out. People worked together.
Obviously this doesn’t fit in the modern era, when people generally work specifically to earn money, rather than for some general purpose. People probably aren’t going to want to do the job they already have in exchange for nothing but goodwill. They have to have a purpose. Our purpose in Capitalism (unless you are very lucky) is to earn Wealth so we can continue to exist, and as a guiding philosophy that does a decent enough job for most people.
You're romanticizing an era that never existed. Even if we can build such an economy, it's absurdly impractical in a modern, complex world. Sure, if we only had to build homes, hunt, and make babies that's fine, but too many modern necessities, such as sanitation, require a reward beyond being good at it or helping out.
Yes, this was my exact point. Money is how we quantify the value of effort in the modern era. It’s why Communism will never work with our current framework. They are fundamentally incompatible. Our purpose in life is to make money, we cannot just start giving everyone equal quantities of it — life would be meaningless. It requires a paradigm shift on how we value effort.
But minimum wage -> minimum effort, right? I have no problem with
no effort => no reward.I'm making way more money as an EE than when I was a teen making minimum wage at a factory. That shit is grueling and far from no effort
Clearly you've put effort into becoming an EE. Clearly it has paid back. I don't see why you're arguing.
I don't see why I wouldn't want my fellow man who is struggling in the system to do better just because I went into huge debt to be an EE
Nobody wants your fellow man struggling in the system whether you went into debt or not. Some fellow men, however, are blood sucking assholes living off others' effort.
Yeah, and those blood suckers are the richest assholes out there
Not caring about the well-being of others is called Antisocial Personality Disorder i'm afraid
Strawman argument.
It's an ad hominem, not a strawman. Maybe if you actually studied philosophy instead of just parroting people who just want your attention for monetary gain, you'd understand why the minimum wage being dangerously low is bad for everyone.
You're obviously of great education, yet fail to see my point completely. What gives.
You're not doing a good job explaining yourself. It currently reads like you're being a troll who thinks that people should starve.
If I squint, I can maybe see how you're actually trying to aim yourself at the owning class, but your points aren't coherent enough for that to make sense.
Plus, I'm neurodivergent, I can barely parse regular speech half the time, I'm not going to spend much more effort than that on someone who appears to be retaliating rather than explaining their position.
Your mom is a strawman argument.
I've worked minimum wage jobs and jobs that pay far more, and I definitely wasn't working harder at the high paying ones
Americans sure love wasting money.
If love is code for being forced to by horrible corporations that can do whatever they want because we have no consumer protections at all. Yup. If you mean buying cars, we kind of have to. Public transit is a joke outside like 3-4 major cities. I remember my first job out of college, had a light rail stop within biking distance from home and one right outside the office. Looked into riding it. Near 2 hours each way, multiple transfers. 20 minute car drive.
Big difference between buying a small car and buying a tank that costs twice as much and burns twice the fuel.
I feel like you don't understand that, in addition to the transportation shortfalls from the comment above, people are also stuck buying whatever vehicle they can afford, which oftentimes are the tanks you describe, which unfortunately have the aftermarket values that fall into lower earners' price range.
Short of that, I challenge you to get a popular rapper to talk about their pimped out Prius.
Lolololol you give me a zip code I'll find you a car cheaper than a truck. What an absurd excuse.
Who's talking about trucks?
I drive and EV, who said anything about a truck?
I have an 02 VW Golf diesel. My coworkers are constantly asking why I don't get a new car. My TDi will still be running when I'm six feet under, I'll never give it up.
There is some truth to this but small cars have been selling poorly for years now. I’m sure marketing campaigns are at play here but surely some people are capable of seeing through those. Why does no one buy small, affordable, efficient cars anymore? It’s baffling to me.
Part of it, as I understand, is that vehicles classed as light trucks instead of passenger cars (i.e. pickups and SUVs) are exempt from certain safety and testing requirements. Car manufacturers push them super hard because less money on regulatory compliance = more profit.
There's also been the cultural tie between big vehicles and masculinity, I'm sure the marketing teams haven't been shy about reinforcing that attitude.
Honestly it’s becoming increasingly hard to drive smaller cars in the sea of tank sized ones for a couple of reasons.
First, it can be really hard to see in situations where an SUV is blocking your view of the oncoming traffic or you need to pull out between two tanks. Also, I find it really difficult to drive my small car at night because I have astigmatism and the oncoming trucks and suvs are shining directly at my face the whole time. Last, even small cars with good safety ratings fair poorly in impacts with higher and heavier cars, especially if I had kids I think this would be a significant motivation to not have the smallest car on the road.
It’s an infuriating situation as someone who doesn’t want to buy a land boat just to go to the grocery store, but I don’t really think the blame can solely be placed on consumers. What we really need is to close the loopholes in emission standards for SUVs, implement a tax on heavy vehicles, and start taxing gasoline at sustainable rate. Unfortunately there isn’t much desire to do any of those things right now :(
Nope. This is all driven by the car companies. They can get higher margins on large vehicles.
Also they’re barely offering sedans any more- except for high performance things
They’re all cross overs and “SUVs” and “pickups”
The fuel economy regulations are more forgiving for larger vehicles. Since the manufacturers fail at making efficient engines, they just make larger vehicles to get a passing rating. This is why small trucks no longer exist and an F150 is now the size of an elephant.
Barely offer sedans? Only if you specifically mean American manufacturers. Toyota, Nissan, Subaru and Honda all offer multiple sedan models. Claiming there aren't any sedan models out there is just pure nonsense.
I've had two Mazdas in a row and loved both.
But is it? Even the few small models available aren’t selling. If this were being forced on us, the few economy models would be in high demand but it seems to be the opposite. What is going on in the American psyche? I don’t understand it.
Lololol just blame everyone but they market! I can walk into a Subaru or Nissan dealership today and buy a no frills car for under 20k (despite the false headline). People willfully choose to spend more on features.
Go try. Last time I had to buy a car they wanted 3k over sticker. The market has been a nightmare for years.
I did a year ago. Outback XT, paid $500 under sticker and they had cheap base trims on the lot for MSRP as well.
Give these guys a call. They will sell you an MSRP Impreza today. https://maps.app.goo.gl/TEq15ZHTqbQrrRus6
These, not ironically at all, are not desirable cars and sit on the lot. So while a nicer more popular car at 50k may still be hard to find, the poverty trims are very much available.
I live in a car manufacturing city. I don't work in the industry but have plenty of friends and acquaintances who do. Have 2nd hand stories of high level managers giving speeches where they literally say they are focusing on trucks and SUVs because the margins are better.
Oh don't get me wrong, trucks and SUVs ARE the focus. They just aren't the only option. I can point out like 5 sedans under 20k with availability. People matter the choice to buy bigger and with more features. There market represents it by making more of them. But you still have plenty of choices.
You are delusional. All you have to do is go somewhere like cars.com to see how wrong you are. Search new, all vehicles under $20,000. There's a couple, all of them would be over $20,000 after tax, title and license fees. There are barely any cars that cheap now. Car manufacturers are intentionally not offering budget vehicles now. That's the whole point.
Right? People can't seem to cope with the fact that Americans want bigger cars.
Not just Americans. SUVs (less so trucks) are huge sellers in Europe as well.
A fucking Mirage? That's even worse.
It's still cheap, only 20x the minimum wage
At least if you consider that in my country the cheapest is 50x the minimum wage
The minimum wage is not $1,000 anywhere in the United States.
At the absolute worst min wage, the car is 2x the minimum wage.
Yearly vs monthly wage.
How are people up voting this. Can people not do 1st grade basic math? This is just incorrect
Maybe the car is 0 dollars then the math checks out.
The new 2024 Chevy Trax, which has gotten rave reviews, starts at about $21k.
It is infinitely better vehicle than this Mirage.
Difference is that the number they're looking at is the average sales price. There is a big difference between starting price for a bare-bones option without fees and actual sales price across the model line.
What's the Nissan versa going for? I thought it was supposed to be cheap as balls too?
Fuck Nissan and their shitty transmissions
if the new mirage is like the old one id rather have used anyway.
The 1995 Mirage was one of the most fun cars I've ever owned, I'd take it over any newer model.
And with a jiggler it's an easy one to take!
It's spelt gigalo.
I believe the jiggler is the gigalo's money-maker.
Ok, now that's funny. 🤣🤣
I hope China can flood the market with cheap EVs.
I hope the Chinese do a better job at it than the Vietnamese have. Vinfast cars are awful.
Detroit thanks Biden for standing behind trumps China trade war or else the American consumers may have been able to get a new EV at half that cost.
"Average sales price" what a shitty headline, but hey gotta soak that karma somewhere.
Consumers are choosing expensive vehicles and companies are responding. Stop blaming everyone else but the rampant over spending on features.