This article does not comment on the plot and acting skills, but only talks about how realistic the money + story background setting is.
After watching the whole show, I think the biggest bug is the income level of the Barbers, which cannot support their upper middleclass expenses.
First of all, let's take a look at the leading actor Andy Barber. The position should be Assistant District Attorney, probably the county-level assistant attorney. I searched it and found that the average annual income of the county-level assistant attorney in Massachusetts where the male lead is located is $63K, and the highest limit is about 79K. Since the boss appreciates Andy so much, and the police who work with him also praise him, Andy's business ability should be very strong, then treat him as 79K.
The work of the heroine Laurie Barber is more embarrassing, from the beginning to the end is a bug.
She seems to be a teacher at an NGO that specializes in taking care of abused children at home. Since she is an NGO, her salary cannot be high; secondly, "abuse children" are usually ignored by their parents and are reluctant to spend money. So why does her school have a strong atmosphere of aristocratic private school? The decoration of this school is placed in the big little lies, which does not violate the harmony at all, but it is more drama when placed here.
The female lead university majored in art history, so why did she become a teacher? Generally speaking, only those who teach high school can teach what the university majors. The students in the female lead school seem to be elementary school students or even kindergarten (after all, with children playing with 123 wooden people in class), the teacher will be studying elementary education and early childhood education. So how did she become a major in art history? You have to say that the hostess may be an administrative job in the school, but she does seem to teach students. Furthermore, this NGO is not an ordinary school, it is dedicated to taking care of abused children, so I don't know if there are other educational requirements for teachers in this regard.
I will treat her as a Special Education Teacher. Since she can take pictures on behalf of the school and shoot advertisements, her business skills should be very good, and she will also participate in budget meetings. It seems that her level is quite high. The Special Ed Teacher salary predicted to her on Salary.com is about 68K.
The combined income of the couple is about US$150,000 per year (rounded to the nearest dollar). Will there be other income? Andy's father raped the murderer and went to jail. It looks like he was brought up by a single mother. If you say that there is a mine at home, I think it's more difficult. Andy should be a Phoenix man. It's not clear what the Laurie's family is, and it doesn't seem to be mentioned. But Laurie has been married as an adult. Americans’ pee sex, many of the children’s college tuition fees have caused them to use their own student loans. If Laurie’s family continues to support Laurie (+Andy) financially for so many years, I don’t think it’s possible. .
150,000 dollars may seem like a lot, but! It is mentioned in the play that Jacob was pregnant by Andy when he was still in law school, and Jacob is now 14. That's how Andy has been working for about 10 years. If Laurie is about the same age as Andy, without the three years of law school, his work experience should be 13 or 14 years. That 150,000 is their current family income. In the early years, it was definitely not that much. In the early years, Andy had an income of 0 + Teacher Laurie just joined the job, and his salary was about 40,000 or 50,000.
After talking about income, let's look at expenses.
In addition, the biggest persuasion of working as a lawyer in the United States is high tuition. After three years, even with scholarships, most people are still burdened with student loans of 100,000 yuan. Unless Andy had a good grade that year and asked the law school to give him a full prize, otherwise he is only in his thirties and the student loan will definitely not be repaid, but the amount of repayment is hard to say, and we will ignore it.
Andy and Laurie have a suite in Newton, Massachusetts. Just searched by Zillow, the price is about $800,000 to $1.5 million for a three- or four-bedroom detached house. You said that they are just two couples with a baby, two bedrooms are enough, no, I really haven't seen a two-bedroom detached house, no matter how small it is, it is three-bedroom. Besides, their master bedroom is so spacious, maybe the two rooms are connected. Those under 1 million, whether three-bedroom or four-bedroom, generally look older. Houses like Andy's are beautiful on the outside, and the interior decoration is new and beautiful, at least 1.3 million. For 1.3 million houses, Zillow's monthly payment is estimated to be $6,000. Mortgage expenditure in one year is about 72K. No, no, you said that this is the current house price. House prices are rising year after year. The Barber family was lucky. They bought it when housing prices plummeted after the housing bubble in 2008. It has doubled now (indeed, the average price in May of this year) Provincial Newton’s average transaction price was 1.27 million, and in July 2011, the average transaction price was 730,000), so they bought it at 700,000 that year, and the mortgage that year was 36K.
Litigation, this is an astronomical expenditure at any time. Attorney fees are extremely high. Even if Andy and Joanne are friends, they give him a friendly price, but they want to be much cheaper. They also hired an expert for Jacob to do an evaluation. Experts charge a very high price. Joanne can give Andy a friendly price, but it is unrealistic to ask the expert to also give Andy a friendly price. Such experts generally charge on time. We don't know how many hours have been given to them in total. But the Barbers have met with the experts several times, and the experts must have interviews with Jacob individually for evaluation. We have no way of knowing how much they spent in the lawsuit. But I have a friend who committed a few minor things a few years ago and was eventually sentenced to more than 100 hours of community service. When they first met with the lawyers, they said that it should be 60,000 yuan (in RMB), but they went back and forth to find experts from various sources, and they eventually spent more than one million yuan. And Jacob’s crime of murder can go to life imprisonment. The starting price of Google is about 100,000 to 150,000 US dollars. If it only costs 500,000 US dollars in the end, I think it is cheap.
So when they finished their lawsuit, they immediately went to Mexico for a luxury holiday, or when it came to the most expensive time (Christmas + New Year), I didn't understand it. Although it is worth celebrating, you have just spent a huge sum of money in a lawsuit and are now going to Mexico for a luxury tour. With reference to the vacation package on Expedia, the average per capita is about 4-7K, so this trip is worth more than ten thousand and twenty thousand US dollars for the hotel + air ticket, which is not considered as local consumption.
In general, the Barber family is very dignified and decent. The husband is the assistant prosecutor and the wife is the teacher. But in fact, this work income is now a very ordinary middle class in the United States. Although it is not poor and it is definitely not a white trash, it is difficult to live a rich life (unless the family has a mine). Otherwise, it is just a living, and even a little bit tight. On the one hand, professionals cannot afford to spend less and wear clothes. Too bad (especially Andy has to go to court), dry cleaning of clothes (especially Andy has to go to court) and so on.
However, the lifestyle shown in the play is very typical of the upper middleclass. Although it is not the kind of rich and expensive, but at least the kind of daily consumption that does not worry about money. To live such a life, Andy has to work in a big law firm, or Laurie is a VP of investment banking.
Of course, what I said/analyzed is not necessarily correct. If you don't agree, let's talk about it below.
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