With income upwards of $150,000 a year before taxes, a family in the United States should be able to live a comfortable middle-class life. But for Rachel and her husband, a religious Jewish couple in New Jersey with three children, it’s barely enough to scrape by — even after her parents step in to help.

“I’m a CPA, and I go through my expenses every single year,” Rachel (not her real name) told The Times of Israel. “I can’t make it work.”

It’s not because they live a lavish lifestyle or have an oversized house, Rachel said. It is simply the cost of living in a Modern Orthodox Jewish community: school tuition, kosher food, holidays, and community fees that seem to gobble up more and more of the family’s income every year.

The past year has been particularly expensive, Rachel said. The family’s oldest daughter is in Israel on a gap year program, like many of her peers, at a cost of some $35,000 for tuition, accommodation, and expenses. The other two kids attend Jewish schools where the official tuition price is about $25,000 for each child. After financial aid and benefits, they pay “just” $11,000 for their daughter in high school and $16,000 for a son in elementary school.

Total Jewish education costs for the year, before any other expenses: $62,000.

“People complain about the price of college tuition,” Rachel said, “but we’ve been paying that for years, and that’s before college even starts.”

Factor in the costs of living in a relatively upscale Jewish community, and it’s hard to make ends meet even on a respectable salary, Rachel said.

“How does the community afford to keep doing this?” she wondered. “I’m not sure.”

She’s not the only one asking that question. With tuition prices steadily rising in recent years, many in the Orthodox world are trying to figure out how to live within their means and stay afloat without compromising on their religious principles.

“If you do the math, a religious family has to effectively be among the top 3-4 percent of earners in the United States in order to keep up with the costs of living,” said Zvi (not his real name), an activist for financial education in the Orthodox world. “Basic Jewish needs cost a lot of money.”

The costs go beyond education, explained Eli Langer, host of the Kosher Money podcast on personal finances.

“There is also the cost of kosher food, and of living in neighborhoods that have to be in close proximity to a shul,” Langer said. “There are expectations around costly weddings, summer camps, and gap-year programs in Israel. All of this creates enormous financial pressure that many families endure quietly.”

The issue is “a massive story, with so many different cogs,” said Rabbi Simon Taylor, the Orthodox Union’s national director of communal engagement who oversees its Living Smarter Jewish initiative, which provides coaching on budgeting and financial responsibility. And it’s a challenge that resonates throughout the United States, even if it is most strongly felt in East Coast Orthodox strongholds in New York and New Jersey.

“Research has shown that this is the single biggest issue affecting the religious community,” Taylor said. “And we’re looking to create more awareness so we can spread information and financial literacy in as many ways as we can.”

Understanding the reality

A seminal 2024 survey of nearly 3,000 Orthodox Jews in the US, conducted by Langer’s podcast, offered a detailed look at the scope of the problem. Some 78% of respondents said finances were a major source of stress for them, and only about half of the respondents earning $250,000 to $300,000 said they felt like they were “making it.” Even above $300,000, more than 30% said they felt financially strained.

Two-thirds of respondents said they carried debt (excluding mortgages), and 62% of people said they relied on parental support for at least one of their major life expenses

Two-thirds of respondents said they carried debt (excluding mortgages), and 62% of people said they relied on parental support for at least one of their major life expenses

Two-thirds of respondents said they carried debt (excluding mortgages), and 62% of people said they relied on parental support for at least one of their major life expenses. Many have low levels of savings and retirement funds.

About 80% of the respondents said they live in the New York Tri-State area, broadly in line with the geographic distribution of Orthodox Jews in the US. Some 82% reported annual gross income above $100,000.

For comparison, the median salary in the US in 2024 was a bit over $83,000, according to data from the US Census, and median salaries in New York and New Jersey, two states with large Jewish communities, are $69,000 and $83,000, respectively. An average family of four needs about $107,000 to cover all of its necessities, according to a 2024 study by SmartAsset.

Orthodox Jews make up about 9% of the estimated 7.5 million Jews living in the US, according to Pew Research.

The difference can be stark. Shana (not her real name), a religious mother living in Teaneck, an upscale, predominantly Jewish town in New Jersey, said her family feels financially strained on their combined annual salary of $400,000 (or about $260,000 after taxes), even as her non-Jewish neighbors accumulate wealth and buy vacation homes. The family pays $60,000 a year to send a child with special needs to a private Jewish school, $33,000 for their high schooler, and another $18,000 for a third child in primary school. They also pay $21,000 in property taxes and have a $2,000 monthly mortgage, bringing those fixed expenses to nearly $160,000 a year.

Shana and her husband don’t take any tuition assistance, since the schools would........

© The Times of Israel