Is the middle class partly to blame for its own woes, part two?

Yesterday, I argued the middle class is partially (but certainly not totally) to blame for its own woes.

Here’s a more in-depth look, based on Liz Pulliam’s smackdown of financial whiners and an analysis stating today’s middle class has less disposable income after essentials, to which I give a contrarian take.

I’ll buy the argument that college costs have unnecessarily, and pretty uncontrollably for the average middle-class parent, risen beyond inflation, as the second article states. But, housing costs? People have brought this on themselves by buying ever-bigger houses even as average family size continues to shrink.

Nobody put a gun to any family’s head and told them to buy a 2,600-square foot house, let alone a 3,500-square foot one, when an 1,750-square foot house would be adequate to their needs and a 2,200-square foot one would be more than adequate.