- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
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I feel so bad for those without college degrees or trade certifications. They are absolutely fucked going forward.
I feel so bad for those without
college degreesvast inheritances ortrade certificationshuge trust funds. They are absolutely fucked going forward.Fixed it.
Do you think everyone is poor? With the right training or college degree a path to moderate wealth is quite open. Trade jobs are especially in high demand and bring in a huge income.
Trade jobs are especially in high demand and bring in a huge income
Yeah dude, all those carpenters and plumbers are driving lambos.
In Colorado, they are driving $100K+ trucks and live in huge houses. Trade jobs pay close to six figures here, with a median salary of $97,860 per year.
You keep saying “trade jobs”. Be specific.
You don’t know what a trade job is? Carpenter · Carpet installer · Construction worker · Drafter · Framer · Home inspector · Housecleaner · Mason · Mechanical installer.
I work in the trades. That’s how I know carpenters don’t make a hundred grand a year you fucking idiot. Or plumbers, or drywallers, or housecleaners.
As of 2022, 33.9% of US HOUSEHOLDS made less than $50k/year. The median rent for the same year was $1874/month. That is $22,488/year. That is 44.976% of 50,000. 50,000 was the highest end of the range from 0 to 50,000. That means that ~⅓+ of the country have a very high probability of paying more than 45% of their annual wage in rent alone. Taking the low average from here, that is another $562/month out the window for utilities, or $6,744/year. So shelter and basic utilities for survival has us up to $29,232. For reference, that is 38% of the annual income for $75,000/year, the next line up in that chart. That is another 16%+ of households, which means that more than 50% of the US population is spending 38%+ of their annual income on housing and basic utilities, not even food. And just in case you are curious, that initial <=50k group is paying 58% of their income just to have heat, electricity, and housing to use them in. And to make sure that these numbers were not being biased by rents among income distributions, I was able to find raw data to check my estimates. They were actually low. Of the 45,221,844 households renting as of 2022, 10,492,596 of them make less than $50,000/year AND pay more than 40% of their annual income in rent. That is 47.2% of people making less than 50k/year and accounts for over 23% of all renters in the country.
So, in long, yes, everyone is poor. And to think otherwise is to either buy in to blatant propaganda, functionally not understand statistics but still think you know better than those who do, or be disingenuous representing reality in a bid to mislead the public. Only you can answer which one that is.
I party because the rent is too damn high! No, wait…… 🤔
Utilities have also been on the rise, and this year Ortigoza isn’t planning on turning on the home’s heater, even with temperatures dipping into the 30s at night. Instead, she plans to wear extra clothes around the house and bundle her daughter in blankets.
I just want to say… Don’t do that.
If you want burst water pipes, then that is how you do it.
Instead, let your house drop to uncomfortably cold temperatures, but with still a buffer above freezing. The thermostat is only accurate for wherever it’s placed in the house. It’s not able to tell you what temperature your pipes are at the distant ends of the house.
If you’re going to turn the heat off at below freezing, then you need to empty your pipes first, and no one is going to do that.
But yeah… I felt I needed to get that out of the way first.
Anyway, wages and unemployment are getting ‘better’, but that means very little if it’s still not a living wage.
Anyone saying the ‘economy is strong’ doesn’t know jack shit about economics let alone macroeconomics.
You mean how can some people barely survive while others have millions or even, wtf, billions? NBCnews? That’s your question?
Boy that’s a question right there NBCnews. Yessir a real head-scratcher. Hmm! Boy howdy, the mind reels at what could be the cause of such a huge imbalance in our society. I suppose we’ll just never FUCKING KNOW.
Back to work.
In a household of four with two full time incomes (both teachers, so take that with a grain of salt), we are at the point that the food budget is the only thing left to cut. We have canceled any subscriptions, cut all other spending, and often skip lunch/breakfast or eat Ramen noodles to save the bulk of our money for the kids and feed them better. I’m sick of beans and rice, BTW. Due to the nature of our jobs and the outside of school hours (which we are compensated for), side hustle is not an option. We would like to actually be present and part of our kids lives. I keep getting told “it gets better,” but the stress of making the bills and feeding the family is relentless, and that says a lot since we are way more fortunate than most. We need change.
“It gets better” is just a bullshit comment to keep you complacent. It doesn’t get better unless we make it better.
two full time incomes (both teachers, so take that with a grain of salt)
Sorry but they counts as one income tops. It’s shameful how little teachers are paid. I hope you and your family find a better situation somehow.
It’s incredible to me that people need over $2k a month for food. I go to Sam’s once a week to replenish supplies and feed a house of six, two adults and four boys between 10-14, on $800-$1000 a month. That includes a ribeye or new york strip dinner every Saturday so theirs still plenty that could be cut. What the hell are people eating?
I sound like you, but I bet your answer is that we’re buying groceries and preparing a lot of those meals.
Single parents or busy ones that can’t do that have to buy ready food.
A classic tale of “it’s expensive to be poor”.
So I started looking at prices since my comment and I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s astounding to me what the difference in cost is for premade or hell even just not bulk. I had no idea how much I was saving with a vacuum sealer and apparent luxury of having a large pantry and large standup freezer to go with the kitchen fridge/freezer. I don’t think I could make it through more than a couple days using a top of fridge freezer if that’s all I had. So bulk buying wouldn’t even really be possible as a typical renter. Just the wasted time having to shop multiple times a week (not just grabbing something but legit grocery shopping) sounds miserable and the expense from extra trips doesn’t help any.
With only a few people, you can maybe go a week with a normal freezer. But you will be eating everything you have. With 6 people? You would need to go shopping every 2 or 3 days. You will not buy frozen things in bulk unless you want to only eat a few items for 2 days.
Nobody has to buy pre-made food. That’s just inherent lazy bullshit.
in my city, there are numerous “food deserts” where fresh food generally isn’t available, and people go to pricey convenience stores which sell, guess what, premade food, junk. When you are raised that way, and everyone around you does the same, it comes naturally. And who is educating them otherwise, or making useful changes?
My mom grew up not knowing how to cook, bc they almost never had real food in their house (actually the “projects”, single mom with schizoaffective disorder, four kids). She was working at like 12, 13, and if she were still alive, I’d love for you to try telling her they were lazy lmao
I’d be happy to call her lazy as your anecdote is just that. Books exist, as do library’s, all full of knowledge on how to make shit to eat.
Probably people buying a ton of pre-made meals and whole foods. A lot of people just put stuff in their carts without considering prices.
That’s definitely not what happens to most people, a lot of them don’t have time to cook or have never been taught how to buy proper food because of the failed education system.
Because trickle down economy unsurprisingly doesn’t work. Good question tho.
As we all know, the word “economy” means “rich people’s yachts”.
If you’re individually fucked, then it of course hurts, but generally speaking the US economy has been doing pretty well in the last 20, 10 and 5 years. Covid-19 was a bit shit but it was a bit shit for pretty much everyone.
If you wanna see an economically mediocre previously well-off area, check out EU.
“If you’re rich you’ll doing fine actually. If you’re poor you don’t matter”
I believe USA has a rather large middle class still, don’t they?
They do. And poor people don’t matter so you’re all good. Just be careful not to get sick and fall below the middle class line.
Over the last 200 years, it has been more likely for people to climb out of extreme poverty than go the other way. The amount of people in extreme poverty was ~75% in 1820, and it’s now ~10%.
But perhaps you were talking about poverty, not extreme poverty. That figure has been rather more or less same for a long time in the US.
In the last 20 years vastly more people climbed out of poverty in China than in USA. If that’s your metric Chinese economy is doing amazing and USA has stagnated 20 years ago.
It’s pretty much a fact that the Chinese economy has been doing great in the last 20 years, and since most of the extreme poverty used to be in places like China, it’s not a large surprise that the most climbing happened there. It’s easier to climb when you’re at the bottom – there’s way more room above you than below you.
generally speaking the US economy has been doing pretty well in the last 20, 10 and 5 years.
Over the past 50 years GDP per person has quadrupled, the number of working adults per household has doubled, and yet people lost the ability to buy a house, and afford a family or college.
Why are we not 8x richer, in real (inflation-adjusted) measures?
The economy has not been doing well at all, for average people.
That’s because the economy is strong… for the rich.
The problem is shareholders expect infinite growth from a finite space, and that growth has to come from somewhere.
If you’re already producing as many of your product, as cheaply as you can get away with, then the only thing you can do is charge more - but that strategy only works if the worker’s wages don’t go up with the profits.
As a result prices are going up, but worker’s salaries aren’t anywhere near as quickly, because the rich are scooping the extra cash and leaving all the working class to starve.
I’ve been working since the mid 90s and in the corporate sphere since the early 2000s.
From this experience I think we go through cycles. If you remember the 80s we had movies like wall street. “Greed, for want of a better word is good”
I think we’re around about that point again. I received a directive from way up top and it was about priorities. Profit, shareholders, reducing cost and then customers. Customers were last and employees not even in the list. Unironically straight up customers last no mention of employees.
Through the 90s it was quite different, investors in people was a big thing, there was a lot of focus on team dynamic, wage rises were good, fully comped end of year parties. This kind of thing.
Then I watched this very slow drift away from this. Entire departments and then offices being closed. Below inflation payrises becoming the norm and the bare minimum from the company. Legal minimum pension match, no end of year anything comped. If lucky you’ll get lunch at a corporate meeting.
The only thing that keeps me sane is the hope that we’re near the end of the cycle and things turn around. It’s depressing at this point.
Maybe somebody should… I dunno… Do something about it. Like a revolutionary act of defiance or something, I dunno, just spitballing. Feeling cute, might revolt later.
Go for it. We’re following your lead.
We were over at my mother’s yesterday and we were talking about grocery prices and my mother asked my wife how much we paid for milk and my wife says she doesn’t look, because it doesn’t matter when we need milk regardless. I don’t look either. It’s the same with gas prices. I hear they’ve gone way down, but I’ve honestly stopped looking. What difference does it make what a gallon of gas costs when I need that gallon no matter what it costs?
You don’t need milk. You do need gas though.
We don’t “need” milk in the sense that it is not necessary for our survival. We need milk in order to keep eating and drinking the things we enjoy eating and drinking. And I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect milk in your tea and your cereal.
No, you do need milk. Don’t let the capitalist propaganda engine tell you that comfort and contentment are not necessary for life. To even insinuate that having milk to put on cereal or in tea is some sort of luxury or indulgence that you should be able to cut out is lunacy. Human beings need comfort as much as we need socialization for emotional and mental maintenance. We need fun and enjoyment. That is why even in modern hunter-gatherer tribes the workload is less than half of ours and they all have full bellies and spend the rest of their time pursuing leisure activities and spending time with their family/community.
(not accusing the person you are replying to, they are a victim too)
Capitalist propaganda engine? Do you hear yourself? Say those words out loud and tell me your not a looney conspiracy theorist. What propaganda? XD
Is it propaganda to say most mammals do not keep drinking milk after they’re babies? Is it also propaganda to say things like broccoli, kale, nuts and seeds are calcium alternatives? Is it propaganda that the vitamin D can be obtained from fish, sunlight, and liver? Explain what this propaganda machine is. 🤡
Capitalist propaganda tells us that we don’t “need” anything and that all of those things you’re talking about are luxuries. Food? That’s a luxury. Clothes? That’s a luxury too. Water? You better believe you don’t need that, you selfish little piggie!
(also, tbh they didn’t specify the milk has to come from an animal. plant milk is milk!)
Biden is definitely helping the economy by bringing in all that cheap import child labor so he should know
Yeah gonna need a citation on that one.
We have no official Labor Secretary at the moment and haven’t for months. In the same timeline of Biden stating he would have his departments crack down on child labor we have gone an additional 10 months of silence.
An attempt at passing a bill to push against child labor and to use the already existing framework of banning sales of items made with child labor both failed with no support from the white house.So, sure, both sides. And yes, the system is already broken and split. But at best Biden is complacent, and at worst happy to look the other way while his investors make money.
