The Number Of Americans Living In Their Vehicles “Explodes”

alot of triggered peeps too distraught to work

This is all the worthless Snowflakes who quit their jobs to live their bestest life. I've invested in Hemp Rope stock, because GD it....I love watching Darwin's Theory at work! #gravityhugs

a reply to: Willtell

originally posted by: pointessa
Yes, I do agree there are lot's of people living in their cars or RV's. The local Walmart parking lot is full of them. Many of us are one paycheck away from joining them. There are many factors conspiring against the working middle class: health care, housing costs, stagnating wages. Our government seems to be more concerned with the "rights of illegal immigrants than it does for citizens that have paid into this system for their entire lives. (The last statement is my opinion, for what it's worth).

Actual middle class is not one paycheck away from homelessness. If you're middle class you can afford a prolonged period of time without a job.

originally posted by: Reverbs
If you make 34,000$ a year which is like what 30,000 euros..

That puts you in the top 1% wealthiest people on earth..

I feel like a lot of you are selfish babies.

Sounds like the sort of crap the poor tell themselves to convince themselves they're well off.

originally posted by: avgguy
If you can’t live off of a 50k salary you have a spending problem not an earning problem. Ignorant people spend their whole paycheck on “things” because they’re stupid.

12k in taxes brings you to 38. Minimum of 20k into retirement brings you to 18. Rent brings you to 6 (1000/month). Food to 4 (350/month). 500/month into non retirement already brings you negative and we didn't touch transportation, utilities, entertainment, education, or health care.

originally posted by: Willtell
What could happen IF people weren’t so brainwashed is that for example we could nationalize the real estate industry and give people FREE lodging

While I don't agree with that, I would be all in favor of encouraging rentals by increasing property tax rates on unoccupied homes.

I think the statistic was that NYC has 3 open apartments for every homeless person. I get that some (many?) homeless people are unattractive as renters, but the housing market would be much friendler to people in general if land lords had some extra financial incentives to rent homes, and needed more competition to attract people to live in their properties.

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: Willtell
If you are having trouble finding a job in this economy, you are doing it wrong. Just in my tiny area alone, there are jobs available and help wanted signs up everywhere. There are some road blocks in place in that most of the good jobs require you to not be on drugs and MJ, being still illegal here, will kill your chances, but if you really need a job, stopping that vice might net you a fine work environment.

Maybe things are different elsewhere, but here, it's going in the correct direction.

How many of those signs in windows are solid careers rather than dead end jobs?

originally posted by: Edumakated
There aren't any Google coders or Facebook folks living in their cars because they have no other options...

Have you seen the cost of living in Mountain View?

Engineers trying to live in the parking lot at Google in their cars became enough of a problem after having happened multiple times, that the company had to make rules specifically prohibiting it.

The company I work for has an office out there, and we actually give corporate owned housing to a bunch of the software engineering staff specifically so that they don't have to live out of their cars. And those people are making 6 figures.

a reply to: wdkirk

Blue collar work is for people who want to be at the mercy of others their entire lives.

originally posted by: Vroomfondel
When you can clearly define the term "middle class" the answers will be self evident.

Significant desposable income and an insignificant share of wealth.

Basically, a group with the ability to buy a lot, but without already having ownership of lots of assets.

originally posted by: Jilara
I have no idea how you live if you're the janitor at one of these tech firms. I've never had the courage to ask one.

Most of them have 2 hour commutes where they buy a home on an interest only loan. Essentially, they go into a bunch of debt, then pay just the interest on that debt (which they can barely do). They do this to essentially rent at a lower price. They fund their car purchases through a similar system, buying older vehicles that have already suffered most depreciation and effectively renting them (but still paying or upkeep).

originally posted by: Blaine91555
I think I've mentioned before the man I lease the house I'm in from is losing money due to the cost of property taxes and insurance here. He owns five houses and he's losing money on all of them. He raises rent, they sit empty. He tried to sell them at $100,000 below appraisal and no joy. The only interested people were the new crop of amateur house flippers.

Yeah, its certainly a complex issue for sure

Market price is what something will sell for. I think you've got a good case here that the appraisal is wrong.

It’s really the fault of everyone who has given up... the incels, the trans, the non-entrepreneurials (millennials)

Until folks stop looking for handouts and start learning to survive, it will continue.

originally posted by: wdkirk
Here's and Idea, how about folks quit moving to LA thinking they are going to be in the movie business, record business or some other asinine idea? The US blue collar work force is evaporating because everyone thinks they should do their own start up of are going to be top dog at a firm coming out of college. There are plenty of jobs in Indiana. My company cant hire fast enough right now and we are in Manufacturing. Sorry, it won't be fame and fortune but it put food on the table, clothes on your back, supports the buying of a house and cars. Good old fashioned hard work at the blue collar level BUILT America.

My company will even train you if you have ZERO experience.

The rush to California is because "non-complete agreements" are illegal, and that industries tend to be clustered so that it is easy to change jobs. That creates a big pull compared to other areas. But the downside is that the high taxes have been stopping people from moving up in the property market, so instead they extend and upgrade the home they have with
extensions and new features. This pushes up the price of their home and prices those below them out of that area.
They call it the "Golden Jail". You don't want to downsize, you want to move up, but it actually costs you more to move upmarket, so you just hang there and the whole market grinds to a halt.

articles.latimes.com...

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Edumakated
There aren't any Google coders or Facebook folks living in their cars because they have no other options...

Have you seen the cost of living in Mountain View?

Engineers trying to live in the parking lot at Google in their cars became enough of a problem after having happened multiple times, that the company had to make rules specifically prohibiting it.

The company I work for has an office out there, and we actually give corporate owned housing to a bunch of the software engineering staff specifically so that they don't have to live out of their cars. And those people are making 6 figures.

It's been like that for decades. You have that narrow peninsula with a string of 10 to 20 cities each around 6 miles long north to south and 3 miles across. One side is the Sierra Nevada mountains, with the high scenic views, then the small homes and apartment blocks. Close to the freeways are the corporate offices. On the other side are the low income housing estates for non-tech workers.

Yuppies would get a special permit from the Forestry People to to build their dream log cabin up in the mountains. They they formed the Sierra Club to stop tract developments in the same area. No-one wants to lose their sunlight due to high-rise blocks - it was tried in Mountain View. Nor do they want their property tax to go stratospheric simply because next door has a MVA of $5 million because it was converted into condo units.

a reply to: Willtell

I don't know about the homeless problem, but let me tell you about a problem I do see everyday.

People willing to work.

YES!

The mill where I work, and I am in a position to know, has gone through several people in the past week who show up for work. But, when it is time to get a little dirty and sweaty, and its not even dirt, they will quit. We actually have a big pile of applications from which to chose, but because of the work, the applicants have to pass a drug test. I know this is now normal procedure, but it cuts our selection down real fast. And it costs money to have people tested. While the pay is not the greatest in the world, almost double minimum wage, a lot of people have been feeding their families for years working here.
This country is sorely lacking in workers who are not bothered by a little honest labor, and if you don't have skills, there are places who will teach them to you. Yes, you may get sweaty and dirty because you are not sitting in an air conditioned office punching a keyboard while you keep up with your face book page. But, I will guarantee you the paycheck will be enough for you to live on. Plus, the actual work is good for the body and will save you the cost of that gym membership each month.

a reply to: tinymind

This is true accept the good for the body. I have significant life long injuries from carpentry and production woodworking. For one my shoulders are a mess. Torn bicep tendon, carpal tunnel, and wrists are pretty locked up. I eat well and exercise.

It's a tough call. We need trades and they need to be treated as important members of society but on the other hand manufacturing is becoming automated making a heavier reliance on programmers, where the operators are basically pulling parts.

There is nothing wrong with economic change we don't need buggy whip makers anymore, but at the same time people need to look at what jobs are available if they are becoming takers or unproductive to society.

A lot of the car/van/RV dwellers and boon-dockers, are by choice.

I even considered living that way for a while, after retirement, but life obstacles got in the way, and since I am only semi-retired, I had to put the boon-docking lifestyle on hold.

A lot of the younger people don't want the responsibility of a house. They don't like being stuck in one place, they don't want to be bothered by the upkeep and all the additional costs that go with it. They prefer a more nomadic way of living.

I guess they will be known as the gypsy generation.

originally posted by: tinymind
The mill where I work, and I am in a position to know, has gone through several people in the past week who show up for work. But, when it is time to get a little dirty and sweaty, and its not even dirt, they will quit. We actually have a big pile of applications from which to chose, but because of the work, the applicants have to pass a drug test. I know this is now normal procedure, but it cuts our selection down real fast. And it costs money to have people tested. While the pay is not the greatest in the world, almost double minimum wage, a lot of people have been feeding their families for years working here.

The problem is, that type of work doesn't actually solve the problem. It's a dead end job. We have a lot of those workers at the company I work for.

They slave away for double minimum wage, they have no career path past that, beyond maybe becoming a factory supervisor. Their entire professional life is going to involve sitting in a noisy, dirty environment that is being more and more automated away.

Meanwhile, I sit in an air conditioned office, I get to take 2 hour lunches, breaks whenever I feel like it, work from home whenever I want, casual environment, the pay starts at 6 figures, and it has a long career path for future advancement. That's for a first job out of college.

How does the manufacturing job in any way compete with the job that's engineering the products you're building? People who settle for that are victims of society, because they're thrown in a hole they can never climb out of.

originally posted by: luthier
It's a tough call. We need trades and they need to be treated as important members of society but on the other hand manufacturing is becoming automated making a heavier reliance on programmers, where the operators are basically pulling parts.

Let me tell you about these so called good manufacturing jobs. Where I work, we have a guy who sits next to a press. He takes some small rectangular cut pieces of metal. Places one in the press, pushes a button. The press bends the metal so it forms a 90 degree angle. He takes that metal, places it in a stack of completed parts. Then he grabs the next one.

Totally mindless, 8 hours a day, sits at that station grabbing a piece of metal and pushing a button. The guy who does it has been working there for 40 years. He makes something like $17/hour, so roughly double the median income of the area.

Most other stations aren't much better. It is totally mindless work that a trained monkey could perform. Working those jobs doesn't improve the person. They don't get better over time. They don't even learn anything that could get them a promotion. It's a complete dead end for no payoff.

Those are not jobs we need more of, and we should not encourage anyone to take them. They're predatory, and they completely cut off an individuals professional development for the rest of their career in exchange for a pittance.