Is the McCallister family's wealth the most unrealistic part of the Home Alone series?
Considering the whole family went to Paris on vacation, fans have always known the McCallisters were loaded. But The New York Times decided to figure out just how much money the fictional family was working with. The paper's conclusion? The McCallisters were members of the 1%.
Yes, there's a reason bumbling bandits Marv and Harry targeted the family's mansion, which sprawled across Winnetka, a wealthy suburb of Chicago. Experts from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago told the Times the McCallisters' Lincoln Avenue home "was affordable only for the top 1% of Chicago household incomes." Think about it—Kevin had four siblings, yet the cost of raising five children didn't phase Kate and Peter.
The economists the Times consulted estimated that to afford the house in 2022, the family would need an annual income of $730,000—and that's before factoring in the child-raising costs.
This isn't the first time fans have scrutinized the Home Alone family's exorbitant wealth. In 2016, LeBron James posted a meme wondering just how high Peter's salary was. And it sounds like it was pretty high, considering his occupation in finance. In 2019, the Houston Chronicle reported that the movie's official novelization described Peter as a "prominent businessman." (Kate, meanwhile, was a fashion designer.) Of course, not every businessman can afford a mansion like the McCallisters'. But there's another factor at play with the Paris trip, too.
You may not remember this detail, but Kate actually states at the beginning of the movie that Peter's brother Rob paid for the family's trip to Paris. The movie's novelization apparently doesn't shed any light on what Rob's career is (although fans have long speculated that at least one McCallister brother was a member of the mob).
Of course, in Home Alone 2, Kevin memorably racks up a $967 room service bill at the Plaza, all while staying in a luxury suite unattainable for most people. Kevin may have been inadvertently abandoned by his family, but he also lived the kind of privileged life most people only dream of.
