Most Americans don't earn enough to afford basic costs of living, analysis finds
Most Americans don't earn enough to afford basic costs of living, analysis finds
you all best buckle up, because it's gonna get a lot worse
Hunter Thompson wrote "Hell's Angels" in 1967.
There's a passage about the economics of being a biker/hippie/dropout.
In those days, a biker could work six months as a union stevedore and then hit the road for two years. A part time waitress could could support herself and a live-in boy freind
Then Nixon/Reagan came in to save us.
It is almost like we are being scammed.
60% is a majority, right? The article was working really hard to downplay it. “The bottom 60%” that’s more than half the country… social unrest will be the least of their worries
But you have millionaires who play kids games on tv and billionaire celebrities made famous by their looks or money, that go on to play government in real life in all your major political offices. Multi millionaire actors and starving paramedics. What an advanced society.
America was a great experiment in maxing out capitalism and rugged individualism. Now all other countries know how it will end and to oust any politician even hinting at doing the same.
America and the UK, together they show the world what not to do. Conservatism and oligarchs are poisons that kill civilizations.
I really think we need a sublemmy dedicated to specifically tracking the high stakes competition between the US and UK to spectacularly faceplant in the stupidest possible fashion.
It is a very close competition so far and there have been a lot of upsets in the sense that it has made us all upset that the world is burning.
I like your optimism, but sadly I cannot share it..
Looks like it's time to eat the rich.
They have too much power and resources now. We aren't going to get a better quality of life through peaceful means.
There's a relatively nonviolent solution America can do, but it would be complex to organize. Stop. Anyone that can stop working for even a day, or a week. Just pick a starting point and stop working, buying, consuming. They can't fire everyone.
I’d love to see it but I think they could outlast us and would love at the chance to buy up failing small businesses and property during that time.
I agree. Only 5% at most would follow through, and most of that 5% are non-vital employees, you don't even have a union culture to organise this, and the best the democrats have done is stay silent.
Again, I agree, this would work if we organise it.
We need magats to get angry. They’re the reason why this shit show is still going on.
Of course, a true kingdom requires impoverished serfs. Welcome to techno-feudalism.
Serfs
Brah do you even serf?
That’s because we haven’t cut taxes for the rich quiiiite enough yet
Those trickle down economics, I'm still waiting on them since the fucker beat Decocus.
Trump is certainly trickling a golden shower upon humanity. The guy is an ass, and will tell us to thank him for the opportunity to eat the few rancid seeds found in his shit.
Credit is doing a lot of heavy lifting. If credit seizes up, then it all falls apart. That's why interest rates have been held low for so long.
Which country has the highest millionaires in the world?
The U.S
IMO gini coefficient is more comprehensive. Some millionaires like doctors actually earned it. But you can't become a billionaire without being a parasite.
"The middle class has been declining — we just haven't recognized it fully," LISEP Chairman Gene Ludwig told CBS MoneyWatch. "It's really dangerous because it's the kind of thing that leads to social unrest, and it's not fair. The American dream is not that it's given to you — it's that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead and achieve the things in life that you want to achieve. It's not living in a tent, not having to steal."
The wealthy always forget this, because they're convinced they're a special unique snowflake and smarter than everyone else, instead of understanding they were just lucky.
It’s not because of the wealthy that someone else is poor - it’s the system and regulations that allow people to accumulate that level of wealth. Once you reach a certain point, making more money becomes easier and easier. Going from 1 million to 100 million is often much easier than going from zero to 1 million. If the game is rigged, it’s not the fault of the player for playing it well.
We knew this since the 70s
Yeah, they oaved iver their income inequality fore the past 50 years by just letting everyone take on more debt. Our debt based economy is about to crash in on itself
Also nothing new, they did a big news report in Reno like 20 years ago and cost of living was about double what the average income was for the city. You had a two income family or roommates, or live at home.
No shit….
To convince more people, it may help to have an analysis that doesn't include celebratory dinners, eating out, physical television, etc. The inclusion of those things are either a drop in the bucket or have good enough rationales, but too many Americans are too dumb to accept that.
If Americans stopped doing that the economy would crash, people would lose their jobs, and most people wouldn’t be able to afford to live.
So it’s the same thing in the end.
People have bee saying this for a while now.... this isn't news anymore. Why is he still alive?
I have been saying this for a while. It seems like a really bad idea to push the most armed populous on the planet to the breaking point. One day the shooting is going start and it isn't going to stop.
Theyve been getting away wiith it for so long i'm sure they don't think anything will ever happen
Currently it looks more like: a fascist government supported by the disenfranchised so they can look down on someone else. Doesn’t really matter who.
By design, I'm sure. Can't have those poors even thinking about saving money.
Can't have them having the time and education necessary to think. Ideas are dangerous.
Stock market gambling games and communism for the billionaires.
Social darwinist, survival of the fittest, ruthless exploitative capitalism for the poors.
I have friends in their 30s who were surprised about maxing out their IRA because where are they going to get an extra $6k?
yeah that's a funny trick isn't it
They can't afford bread?
Let them eat cake.
It takes $44,737 for a one-person household to maintain a "minimal quality of life"?
Stagnation of wages and increasing prices are causing a crisis, no doubt, but is that really the number we're looking at for a minimum?
According to this, I've only ever personally known (at least well enough to know their income) two people affording a 'minimal quality of life'.
Reverse inflation says that 1970 dollars that would be about $5400. Don't know how useful that is without knowing (remembering, which I don't) the cost of things then.
On another note, the current poverty line is $15k for a single person. I can't see how someone could afford a place to live and eat with that in most places. I guess if you share a place with a few other people.
I live under the poverty line. It's doable with a 'nonstandard' way of life (ie I don't own a car and work online), a low CoL area (though even here rent eats up most of my income), and government subsidies from living in a Blue State (thank you, Medicaid), but otherwise I'd be screwed.
It's also not great, in case that needs to be said.
I didn't see that value in the article. Did I miss a reference?
The linked report.
It's shocking, isn't it? And yet, consider how many people are living on a USD/day. In that context, I feel incredibly blessed.
Y'all needed a study to find this out! Y'all could have just asked me and saved a whole bunch of time!
Studies like this are important so that politicians can't as easily dismiss it, at least in theory. In practice it's so that those doing the study can shout "Called it" when shit inevitably hits the fan. Still useful though.
They’ll dismiss it hardly now
"Sound like the perfect time to cut Medicaid" -Republican Congress
As far as I can tell they're trying to push for violence so they can initiate martial law and stop elections.
Sounds like a conspiracy theory, but these fucks are literally focused on doing only what hurts average Americans. It's concentrated.
What they don't seem to grasp is that we're the most armed populous on the planet, so martial law may not do what they think it's going to do.
Either way, arm up.
"For the bottom 60% of U.S. households, a "minimal quality of life" is out of reach"
Is this for real? Sounds odd to me.
Really? It pretty accurately reflects what I see every day.
Your experience isn't everyone's experience. Where you are 60% probably looks different than innercity 60%.
Confirmation bias for you situation.
That is why I asked.
But still, they write "out of reach" so I it means 60% of people are well beneath minimal life qualitiy. I wonder what minimal life quality actually means tough.
Or rural experience. Wages are still shit but ever since covid rural housing and food costs have gone through the roof.
Y’all got options you just won’t do it.
They don't want to hear it and will fight you about it. Their fascist dictator however...all good.
Yeah, but something something half a world away..
How much did the analyst get paid?
But the Libs keep telling me Biden fixed the economy.
Who's Biden?
You can fix a broken bone while doing absolutely nothing to prevent the accident that caused it and that's just what happened. The accident was Trump, and he's back to break shit again.
We had the best post-covid recovery of any country in the entire world. But it still wasn't good enough, so now we have Trump.
To be clear, I agree that it could've been much better, but destroying it entirely was not the correct response.
That's because the Libs are more educated than you and paid attention to the stats and KNOW as a FACT that Biden had solid economic recovery during his tenure as president.
