How rich is the McCallister family in “Home Alone”? Economists answer – The Hollywood Reporter
“Home Alone”, clockwise from bottom left: Hilary Wolfe, Michael Maronna, Devin Rattray, Macaulay Culkin, Angela Goethals, Catherine O’Hara, John Heard, 1990.
Don Smetzer/20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved / The Everett Collection
33 years have passed since then Home Alone It was released on the big screen. And fans are now getting an answer to an age-old question: How rich is the McCallister family?
Not only were the film’s famous family — Peter (John Heard) and Kate McCallister (Catherine O’Hara) and their five children, including Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) — living in a large house, but they were also heading on a trip to Paris in the 1990 film.
So New York times I decided to get to the bottom of the matter, working with three economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago—Max Gillette, Cindy Hull, and Thomas Fahlstrom.
Because the McCallisters’ home is an actual property in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, economists were able to compare data from Chicago-area household income in the 1990s, home property values and mortgage rates as well as taxes and insurance. .
Home “Home Alone”.
Jacek Poczarski/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
They determined that a family with an income of $305,000 in 1990 — or about $665,000 in 2022 — would be able to afford a home, assuming the family spent no more than 30 percent of its income on housing. This makes the home affordable only to those in the top 1 percent of income in the Chicago area, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Zillow appreciated it too Home Alone The house will cost about $2.4 million in 2022, and Realtor.com listed the house in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the United States.
Although the film never revealed what the parents did at work, the novel, written by Todd Strasser and based on a screenplay by John Hughes, made Kate McCallister a fashion designer because there were models in the house and Peter McCallister a businessman because he was a “fashion designer,” Strasser said. “Safe bet.”
He added that he never thought to explain how the McAllisters got their money and assumed they were “upper middle class” but not “super rich”.
