Disney hates poor people: NYT Opinion Edition

Disney and the Decline of America's Middle Class (gift article link)

This is an editorial, not exactly reporting, so I understand that it's more about taking a position than anything. Still, it feels a little disingenuous.

Sure, you can quote the most expensive room at the Poly, but it doesn't mean there aren't rooms at All-Star for $150. You can quote LL pricing, but it doesn't mean there isn't stand by. You can talk about rising ticket prices, but it doesn't mean much without considering demand and the cost of these big-swing attractions.

I feel like the author gets close to deeper meaning:

One of the economic puzzles of the past five years has been the persistence of serious consumer negativity at a time when nearly everyone has a job, median household incomes are historically high, and we are spending more than we did before the pandemic. Yet all but the most affluent are seemingly not happy with the economy or their place in it.

So is there an expectation problem? I'm not saying the wealth distribution curve hasn't changed, but is the real issue that people want to be in a certain sandbox, and feel like victims of... something? White grievance feels pretty trendy right now.

I’m ok with the cost of Disney IF you could tell me the employees weren’t having to live on poverty wages. I don’t know where pay rates are at but I know housing in Orlando is expensive.

I don’t know so much I would call it an expectation problem. The majority of society is being priced out of life, and they are unlikely to be able to do anything about it. You can’t just get a degree, get experience, or work your way out of it, although that what the masses are consistently told. If someone does the work, puts in the hours, gets the credentials, none of that means anything. People must still play the lottery (being in the right place and the right time, or having the right connection) and hope that the gatekeepers allow them to be deemed worthy of an attempt at a path that allows them the ability to participate in life.

The wealthy get wealthy off the backs of the poor, by taking profits that are generated by the workers. Argue that however you want, but that fundamentally what is happening in societies across the world. This is nothing new, this is the basics of running a business, the only thing that has changed is the ownership class has decided more recently to just take more. Why not make more profits for me instead of making sure the workers are taken care of.

I won’t disagree the article should mention the $150 rooms, but that is still a substantial amount over the course of a week, plus tax, plus parking if that applies. Park food is up, everything is an up charge, and that is the core of what the article is getting at. Yes you can do it bare bones cheap, but be honest, the experience is **** compared to someone that can pay for rides and better food, etc.

Gunkey Monkey:

I don’t know where pay rates are at but I know housing in Orlando is expensive.

$18-20 starting. The problem isn't that affordable housing doesn't exist, it's that the proximity of it to the parks isn't great. It's better at UO, for about the same pay.

TheMillenniumRider:
The majority of society is being priced out of life

Citation?

And no, we do not have a meritocracy. I mean, a lying felon liable for sexual assault is president. But it also isn't reasonable that a degree or credential should entitle anyone to anything. I was sold the same thing in the 90's, but the difference was that it was sold only as a first step, not a golden ticket. That seems like an expectation problem to me.

RRR > Economics discussions on Coasterbuzz.

Jeez, I don’t know, just search and find a plethora of article about affordability issues. I did a quick search and the number thrown out for a single adult is anywhere from 80-124k per year depending on state for a living wage. At 80k that places you in the 70th percentile. So yeah, we have an affordability problem, or a wage problem, or whatever you want to call it. People don’t have enough income, and 50 years ago being a mail carrier, or insert whatever other reasonable career was enough to provide for a family, it isn’t anymore.

The degree or credential isn’t even enough to land a job in many cases anymore. I never said a degree must equal a massive salary, but even getting a livable salary is a total crap shoot and you can’t really do anything to place yourself in that position outside of straight luck or being born into it.

I don't think Disney hates anyone, but every time these threads pop up I get curious how much more expensive a trip to Disney is today versus the last time we had a family trip planned for 2020. Mind you that trip got cancelled because there was some kind of bug going around, but we still had it priced out and ready to go; $5,764. That was up slightly from the previous trip in 2015 that was just over $5,000, but that's to be expected. In 2014 and 2015 we did the exact same trip; 4 humans, 6 nights, Art of Animation family suite, 4 park ticket days each (no hopper, just one day at each park), Disney Dining Plan, Memory Maker. This doesn't include travel because like back then we have enough Southwest points to fly round trip for free. But mind you, this is without travel.

This was also back when you got 3 fast-passes for free. No "lightning lane" costs to factor in.

I just tried to book the same trip for the same time of year; first week in March, 2026.

The cost?

And this is a trip that, from my perspective, is lower in value as it no longer includes free (three) fast passes to each park each day. And this is a "cheap" resort.

That about a 65% increase in cost from 5 years ago.

Not arguing that it's still worth it for some people (clearly it is), but for us that's not even close to a value proposition worth considering.

That's why, as a local, I didn't renew my Annual Pass for the first time in quite a while when it expired earlier this year.

I was a Cast Member from 2008-2014. In August 2015 I bought my first Annual Pass, the weekday select pass for Florida residents. At the time the cost of that pass was $249 + tax. It came with a lot of block out dates and did not include parking. I used it a lot and didn't feel the need to renew. I bought the same pass again in 2019 and it was $349 + tax, but now included parking. I renewed it every year for 5 years.

That same pass is now $469. While it's still an incredible deal for what amounts to endless weekday visits to all the WDW parks, I did not feel that I was still getting $469 worth on my personal spending/fun slider. If I was new to town and hadn't explored the parks much? I'm sure I'd be there every week. But as a former Cast Member that is slowly creeping up to the two decade mark of living in Central Florida? It was time to take a break.

By contrast, the highest tier pass with no restrictions was $729 in August 2015 and is currently $1,549. Or roughly 15.64 Cedar Flags Gold Passes.

TheMillenniumRider:

Jeez, I don’t know, just search and find a plethora of article about affordability issues.

I don't have to, the article has the links in the passage I pasted in. The links didn't carry over, so here they are...

...at a time when nearly everyone has a job, median household incomes are historically high, and we are spending more than we did before the pandemic.

That's one a million reasons that the election was so confounding. People on both sides were talked into this idea that everything sucked, when the numbers were the opposite. Post-pandemic inflation had been moderating steadily, too. Now job growth is stalling and inflation is headed back up, because of self-inflicted harm from tariffs and public sector layoffs.

People don’t have enough income, and 50 years ago being a mail carrier, or insert whatever other reasonable career was enough to provide for a family, it isn’t anymore.

You aren't wrong, but academically, why is that true? There are a hundred macroeconomic reasons for that, but the existence of rich people aren't one of them. Fifty years ago, China was largely closed off from the world, and just started to realize that global trade was the only thing that would help (there's an economic lesson for the dip**** in the White House). Heck, China didn't even exceed the EU in manufacturing output until a decade and a half ago. Even then, manufacturing is done more by machines that humans. Even if we could affordably repatriate manufacturing here, it would still be done mostly by machines, not skilled labor. Also, how often does anyone get useful mail anymore? I can't think of a better example of how technology has changed everything.

So yes, things have changed in 50 years, but the reasons are explainable, and not really caused by some moral failing. Now, if we don't respond in a positive way, yes, that's a moral failing. But the way we keep trashing the planet and electing literal criminals, I'm not sure anyone really cares that much.

Bringing it back full circle to Disney, like any non-essential item, hospitality businesses come in many flavors and at many price points. Six Flags is doing a great job of showing you what the minimum looks like. Non-public operators like Dollywood and Holiday World are showing you how to balance value and cost. Disney is somehow showing tens of thousands of people a good time on a plot of land in the swamp. Their satisfaction levels aren't perfect, of course, but they're pretty high.

I do get the price sensitivity. For passes this year, we ended at around $1,070 each with the $100 water park/(mini-)golf upgrade. I think we started around $500 (without the upgrade) for passes that had no block out dates in 2013. On the other hand, about every other year we do a few nights on-property to pretend we're tourists, and there are always deals if you're flexible. This year it was about $220/night with tax at Coronado Springs, a moderate resort with some pretty extraordinary eating/drinking spots and a great pool. I will never understand how people believe that a $100 room on I-Drive is a better deal in the overall context of the trip, when Disney has transportation, extra time in the parks, and frankly non-sketchy, clean rooms for the same price (I checked, All-Star Sports has $78+ tax).

Such a tired take.

Yes Disney is expensive. But the parks are busier and more popular than ever.

obviously a lot of people can still afford to go.

I think Disney is both an obvious example for an article like this and a misleading one, which results in an endless number of dumb articles that really don't do a good job of exploring whether there's a real problem here.

Obvious because, stupidly, going to Disney World has become a rite of passage for middle-class kids over the last 50 years. It's weird, or possibly brilliant marketing, that that's the case. Like, going to Yellowstone, or seeing the capitol in DC, or going up the Gateway Arch, could be similar rites of passage, but I don't feel like they are. (Not that people don't do those things anymore, but ... this isn't an article about any of them.)

And stupid because:

1. being that rite of passage gives Disney World tremendous pricing power; and
2. Disney hasn't built ten other Disney Worlds to meet rising demand - there are six times as many McDonald'ses in the US as there were in 1971, but the same number of Disney Worlds*; and
3. (this is the big one) the expectation for what "going to Disney World" means is wildly different from what it was when some of us were kids. When I went as a middle-schooler, we drove to Florida, there was one park, and we stayed in my grandma's trailer near Crystal River and drove over in the morning. There were two hotels and a campground at WDW, so obviously that was part of the experience for a rather select few. It was one day of a Florida vacation. Now ... you don't need me to tell you about now.

   You could still do that, of course! But it means telling the kids we're going all the way to Florida and going to the Magic Kingdom, and missing all the other stuff there, because when I was a kid that was all we had and it was good enough and I walked uphill both ways to school and ate gravel for breakfast ...
   

"Going to Disney World" is a LOT more expensive than it used to be, even if visiting the Magic Kingdom isn't. But I'm not sure that tells us anything about middle-class life in America, other than we've all be suckered into thinking that if we don't go to Disney World, our kids' childhoods won't be complete.

*Yes, they have built more parks, but that hasn't addressed demand in a way that brings down prices.** Or at least, in the aggregate those additional parks make "going to Disney World" more expensive.

**I suppose it's possible to imagine a world where only the Magic Kingdom exists, and people pay $1,000 for a day there.

There is two Disney resorts in this country, everyone forgets that. The one in California has the best Disney Park (the OG Disneyland) is much smaller, making less days needed to visit, and staying offsite is much more doable to save on costs. If you are flying to WDW (ie live outside the south) transportation costs should not be too different and will definitely be offset by the savings elsewhere. Why does everyone forget about Disneyland?

Jeff:

So is there an expectation problem?

Maybe? But, I'm not sure the problem is "expectations have changed" so much as "what one can afford as 'middle-income' has changed."

I'm in my mid-50s. When I was growing up, middle class meant: can afford a decent-but-still-modest home, sending your kids to college without taking on debt is a reachable goal, and it would not be unreasonable to own a car that you either bought new or with very low miles. I'm not sure how many of those things are still true.

In 1985, the median home price was 3.5X the median income. Today it is 5.8X. (Some of that difference is negated by lower interest rates today vs. 1985, but not all of it.)

From 1973 to today, "purchasing power" has increased 63% (loosely: that's the degree by which income has risen fater than inflation). But, the cost of a public college or university has gone up by 177% in that time. And, many of the families in my parents' cohort took out a second mortage to help cover college tuition. Right now, a four year degree at Directional Michigan would be a cool $100K, and that's if you live at home with your parents. If you live separately, it is closer to $140K.

Effective car prices have been pretty steady for most of that time, and in fact had been getting better. At least, until the last four years, when the number of weeks a family needed to work to earn the price of a new car went up about 20%. (Note: this graph is bad and the person who drew it should feel bad, because it is not zero-based on the y-axis).

Each of these are examples of things that a generation ago may have been able to reasonably expect as part of a middle-income lifestyle, and it is less true now than it was then. But those things are all markers of status, and losing access to them is a tangible loss of status.

Bringing that to WDW: for a certain segment of the US population a WDW vacation is a coming-of-age rite of passage. For another segement, "regular" WDW vacations are a status marker--taking those vacations communicates to those around you something about your socio-economic status. As the price of that vacation rises faster than purchasing power (and I think it is pretty clear that it has), that forces more famiilies to confront a tangible experience of loss-of-status.

And I suspect loss-of-status experiences matter a LOT more than what eggs cost.

Touchdown:

Why does everyone forget about Disneyland?

Not me. Was just there this summer and had a great time. The weather is a ton better than Florida summers as well.

but overall, Disney Florida has more stuff to do generally.

Not that much more. Count up the attractions it’s pretty equal. Once all those DCA additions come online (Avengers dark ride, Iron Man flight Sim, Avatar, Coco Ride) it’s going to be really close.

I believe at one point the two California parks actually had more rides/shows/attractions than the four Florida parks. That may not be the case now, but it is close.

There's "attractions" and there are "things to do." Many of those things to do are not in theme parks.

Jeff:

That's one a million reasons that the election was so confounding. People on both sides were talked into this idea that everything sucked, when the numbers were the opposite.

I suppose this is a rather black and white way of looking at the current economic situation. Jobs are up and spending is up, so therefore the economy must be doing great. But I don't agree that those numbers tell the whole situation. Rather just a tiny piece of it. Consider how BLS defines an "employed person". The BLS considers the person with a well-paying livable wage, benefits, 401k, etc. as employed, exactly the same as someone who works part time at Mcdonalds, and the same as someone who drives for uber because they are scratching at the walls to make ends meet. Clearly those people are all employed, but they live vastly different lives, dictated by available employment opportunities.

Spending is up, sure, but the report cited is sort of useless from a analysis standpoint. That report simply asks consumers what they think their spending will be in the coming months. It does not record actual spend, nor does it factor inflation. So spending is up of course on that report because people expect things to get far more expensive, a sign of poor economic situation. In looking at that site I came across this statement as well,

"The median expected year-ahead growth in everyday essential spending, or daily living expenses related to what one absolutely needs, increased to 4.9 percent in April from 4.1 percent in December. The median expected growth in non-essential spending decreased from 1.5 percent in December to 1.0 percent in April, the lowest such reading since August 2020."

So, spending isn't up by choice, spending is up on essentials because cost of living is increasing. Additionally, the report operates on a sample size of 1300, which is statistically enough to give an accurate picture, assuming the 1300 homes selected for the survey are representative of the population as a whole and not skewed toward those who are much better off employment wise.

All of this has a whiff of "If we don't test than cases won't increase" from the covid days.

hambone:
"Going to Disney World" is a LOT more expensive than it used to be

I used the $30 for four number from 1955 against the median salary of 4400 and then did that same math for $850 today for a day over the median salary, and yes Disney has gotten more expensive, but not as much as you would have figured. Now if you go for a week, plus hotel, plus addons, etc., that changes things. In addition, the experience in 1955 is not the same as today, you do not have equal opportunity to all items as guests in 1955 did, and if you attach a cost to making the opportunity equal, then the costs of Disney has dramatically risen.

Brian Noble:
But, I'm not sure the problem is "expectations have changed" so much as "what one can afford as 'middle-income' has changed."

This is exactly what point I am driving. The economy, as measured by the various reports and metrics is doing better. But that isn't exactly the case, dig into the average person and they are probably worse off. Sure, more people are employed, but they have to be because of costs. Many more households are dual income than in 1955. Cool, more people are working, but that doesn't mean they are better off or happier for it.

Spending is up, sure, great news, but I spend far more on housing and food than I did 15 years ago, so less is spent on discretionary items, great news for those economic reports, but are people happier or better off?

TheMillenniumRider:

I used the $30 for four number from 1955 … and yes Disney has gotten more expensive, but not as much as you would have figured. Now if you go for a week …

This is very much my point. “Going to Disney World” means something quite different now compared to 30 years ago. The better comparison is “going to Florida,” which in my day of walking uphill both ways, meant a day at Disney World, a few days at the beach, maybe the Everglades, maybe the fort at St Augustine, maybe Gatorland, maybe other stuff that seems dated today. Disney World might have been the star, but it wasn’t the whole show. Nowadays for a lot of folks, “going to Florida” = “going to Disney World.”

Brian what are you referring to? Disney has practically eliminated water sport options post Covid, DL has a shopping center too, GCH has a spa, that leaves you golf, mini golf and waterparks, and I guess resort hopping if you really wanted to. I’m not seeing anything that really moves the needle for most average families.