Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

originally posted by: Irishhaf
a reply to: Aazadan


Try again mate, I paid 95k for my house, I know several markets where you can get a decent house for less than that, and you can get land for less than 2k an acre.

Which means you can have a job that doesn't pay 150k a year and live quite well.


Also if I am brining in 80-90k a year and I only need to make 40k a year to pay all bills...I am not poor I am upper middle for my area.

You really need to get out of the big city and see some more of the country your numbers are probably accurate for the expensive coastal areas and that's about it.

That’s about where you should be. A mortgage payment should be no more than 6% of your income and a minimum of 45% should go to savings. That’s the minimum you should be at.

the republicans made sure the wealthy got huge tax cuts, that was their top priority, so...speaker Ryan did his job, and now he is leaving....deficits will go up even faster, so the republicans will cut Medicare and social security the next time they get control of congress.....the republicans want only wealthy people to rule and succeed, so they will do all they can to make that come true.....all others, you're on your own

a reply to: Aazadan

Normal people thrived under Obama, in particular his second term. Maybe you're the abnormal one?

Delusion... it's what's for dinner.

Don't worry... someday you'll figure things out.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: Vasa Croe

originally posted by: CB328

I think if somebody can't afford food or rent it is pretty much their own fault

Is it there fault that the average house now costs $300,000 and medical insurance is hundreds or thousands of dollars?

Where are you getting that the average house is $300K? And yep...thanks to Obamacare, medical insurance is really high and we couldn't keep our docs.

bulls**t.....you could keep your doctor, you just had to pay him cash...you know....like people who have NO insurance...join the club with the rest of the uninsured, and you'll taste the sweet fruit of poverty.

originally posted by: Dfairlite
a reply to: CB328

If you believe that 43% of households can't afford food shelter and transportation, you're dumber than CNN for posting such absurdity. 43% LMAO. Sometimes you should stop and think before posting.

This article has so much intellectual dishonesty, it's hilarious. Take this paragraph for example:

For instance, in Seattle's King County, the annual household survival budget for a family of four (including one infant and one preschooler) in 2016 was nearly $85,000. This would require an hourly wage of $42.46. But in Washington State, only 14% of jobs pay more than $40 an hour.

So we're to compare cost of living in one county to the wages of the entire state? Really? These aren't valid comparisons.

United way sure makes you dig a lot for the source data, I wonder why?
Here's why:

The transportation budget is calculated using average annual expenditures for
transportation by car and by public transportation from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer
Expenditure Survey (CES).

and

The health care budget includes the nominal out-of-pocket health care spending, medical services, prescription drugs, and medical supplies using the average annual health expenditure reported in the CES

Basically, they're shocked to find out that 43% of people are below average. Welcome to statistics people. 49% are below average and 49% are above, by definition.

This is why it so hard to have rational discussions with some folks on here. They have no grasp of basic statistics and mathematical concepts. They are easily susceptible to dramatic headlines and don't have the ability to dig deeper to really see what is going on with the data and how said article may be misleading.

There is a reason so many progressives still believe bullsh*t like:

Women only earn 72% of what men earn...

97% of scientist support global warming...

Black men are killed by police...

Tax cuts were only for the rich...

The media is great at creating these misleading headlines that while technically true are dishonest in how they present the data. But the libs who eat it up don't have the intellectual horsepower to see through the ruse.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
Where are you getting that the average house is $300K? And yep...thanks to Obamacare, medical insurance is really high and we couldn't keep our docs.

The median price of a home in the US is about $200k, but that's across the entire country and includes all the more rural areas where high paying jobs don't exist. To live in an area where you can reasonably expect to work for above $10/hour it is much higher than $300k.

This shouldn't be too surprising, it takes $350k/year in the US to be middle class these days.

$350k is not middle class. It ain't rich, but it most certainly ain't middle class. Even in very high cost of living areas, you'd live pretty good off $350k. It might feel like middle class if all your neighbors make $1 million which is really the problem in high cost urban areas where you have a lot of people making far more than that...

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: KTemplar

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: howtonhawky
How much money per hour does one have to make in order to survive on their own in the usa?

It varies greatly by region, so there's not a single answer. In some areas of the US you can survive on your own with a relatively nice apartment, and enough food to get by, on about $10,000 per year. In other areas of the US the exact same quality of life costs $100,000 per year.

I just moved out of a town I lived in while finishing up another degree. I lived there for four years. My apartment cost me $450/month with all utilities included. It had heating and central air, was 2200 sqft, and came with a yard (lawnscapers were included in my rent). It wasn't in the nicest town or in the nicest neighborhood (my neighbors ran a puppy mill in their back yard, and were drug dealers the rest of the time), but it was a nice apartment and it fit my budget of about $950/month in income at the time I signed the lease.

Where I moved now is a nicer town with a still low cost of living, in a good neighborhood for a single person. My new place is 4000 sqft, allows pets, and costs me $600/month plus utilities (so about $800/month in total). I've lived in this town before on an income of about $11,000 annually and was able to make it. I have more income now, so I get to live better... but it can be done.

Eventually I might even be able to afford to buy a home at this rate.

Our towns median income is below full time minimum wage.

Where pray tell is this? Even the median rent for Detroit is in the 800 range! Are you sure your old place wasn’t a meth lab once?

Small town Ohio, Portsmouth. Median income in the town of about $12,000 per year. That means low rents. Detroit is much higher col even if it’s low by city standards.

Thank you for the info. My sister lived in Ohio for a short while, Cincinnati to be exact, she hated it!

a reply to: Edumakated

350k per year puts you in the top 0.8%. It's rich.

originally posted by: TheRedneck

Delusion... it's what's for dinner.

Don't worry... someday you'll figure things out.

TheRedneck

It is astounding that we are only talking less than 10 years ago and people suggest that "people thrived" under the Obama Presidency.

What we saw was massive layoffs of the middle class, with no one hiring outside of low paying minimum skill jobs. We also saw a huge increase in the cost of living. As example meat prices more than doubled from Oct 2008 to Oct 2014.

So many families that were making it all of a sudden saw a wage earner lose their professional job to end up working in fast food while the cost of living went up drastically.

Thriving indeed...

originally posted by: Gothmog

originally posted by: Nyiah

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: CB328

When was the last time all Americans could afford rent and food?

My late grandmother used to joke, before we moved north, that they had more to live on & not starve or go homeless when she was a kid in the Great Depression than families do today.

She was a sarcastic old broad, but she might not have been joking, either. Sometimes truths were just heavily dipped in the sarc & we didn't realize it.

Thats because they knew how to farm , hunt , trap fish.
Forgot the major one - They built their own homes out of chopped down trees.
Folks today ? Not so much
Comparing totally different times and situations

Today , folks do not concentrate on food and shelter. They have to have a Lexus , high priced phones , tats , etc.
Who has money left for unnecessary things like food and a place to live ?

Also today, there is a crippling amount of government regulation...one cannot cut down some trees on there own property without government interference, one cannot build a house without a licensed contractor and permits, one cannot simply go hunt or fish without a license and strict regulation (seasons, bag limits, etc). The people today cannot be as independent as those generations years ago...

a reply to: AnonymousMoose

older generations grew up in a totally different country then they handed to us

every second of my day has a regulation or law governing what I am and am not allowed to do

originally posted by: SpeakerofTruth
Well, here's the deal. Income hasn't kept pace with inflation.

Everyone talks about increasing minimum wage, which I am all for people making more money. However, the problem is that everytime minimum wage is increased, the cost of everything else is increased 15-20 cents effectively negating any minimum wage increase.

Until corporate price gouging to maintain and even, in some cases, increasing profits is eliminated, raising minimum wage isn't going to accomplish anything.

Some people who have lived through minimum wage increases while making minimum wage at the time told you this would happen.

But no one ever pays any attention.

And this is not due to corporate greed, it is due to distortion of the market. You have an artificially increased wage ceiling? Well, the entire market resets to reflect that.

a reply to: Xtrozero

It just goes to prove that a large percentage of the population are literally living under a fantasy. Now, I dearly love fantasy (marathoning Star Trek Discovery while I solder as we speak), but fantasy has a way of giving through to reality in a very, very inopportune time.

There's going to be a bigly disturbing wake up call coming for so many...

TheRedneck

I really do believe we have solutions for this problem, especially with advancing technology and automation. However, not only would this require encouraging self-sufficiency at the level of the government, it would also require providing the tools to obtain it.

Regardless of the true value inherent in that, fostering dependency is a practice that goes back many generations.

All of the money we pour into continuing welfare is detrimental far, far beyond just the financial cost. But, it is an immensely powerful tool to accomplish certain things in the general population.

Unfortunately The Trump Administration is not God and what if they were to deliver justice the people must do what they know and stop waiting for their saviour.

Be your own saviour now. I believe no one is short of any grief or bereft in this country along it's pinion to a materialistic dominant focus.

Though basics like rent, food, transportation and maybe some super expensive walmart shopping is the major complaint, it is valid.

People work very hard in this country to not have a better quality of life.

It's really the natural course of a debt focused economy though people.

This train has been going in this general direction for too long to not notice a more diverse and creative economy is needed or we fail.

The real Problem and I know I sound like a Giant Hippie is that Technology is Dominating Humanitarianism. We value machines and dildos babbling on in news about legal mumbo jumbo taking it's sweet ass time to get to the F##King Point.

The point is grow a pair and take this country down to grass roots #ery on a government De-Centralization and Succession of excess governance that's drained you constantly while it's denied you help and over looked your destruction of your family and friends.

They are completely #ing detached and what do they know of god anyways?

originally posted by: Dfairlite
a reply to: Edumakated

350k per year puts you in the top 0.8%. It's rich.

Yes, but it isn't rich how most people would define rich. You won't be driving an Italian exotic car. You wont be living in a multi million dollar mansion. You most certainly cant fly private.

You are a working stiff who just makes good money. It means you fully fund 401k. Maybe can afford private school and a nice vacation.

A person making 350k has more in common with people making 75k than they do with people making 5 million. However, both the 350k person and the 5 million person are 1 percent.

Saying someone making 350k is rich is lime saying anyone who is over 6 foot tall is an NBA player. Being over 6 foot probably outs you in top 1 percent for height but in no way makes you a pro basketball plsyer.

All of the money we pour into continuing welfare is detrimental

All of the money we are giving the rich and the military industrial complex is detrimental.

It is mostly wasted and does nothing to help 90% of the population.

originally posted by: Edumakated
$350k is not middle class. It ain't rich, but it most certainly ain't middle class. Even in very high cost of living areas, you'd live pretty good off $350k. It might feel like middle class if all your neighbors make $1 million which is really the problem in high cost urban areas where you have a lot of people making far more than that...

It's definitely middle class. It's not on the verge of poverty or anything, but when houses cost 1 mil+, you're still going paycheck to paycheck, both people work, you only have 1 car, and have a fairly modest lifestyle, $350k household is middle class in most cities.

Outside of the cities you don't need quite as much, but outside of the cities you either pay for it with your time in the form of long commutes, or you give up a significant chunk of income.

originally posted by: Dfairlite
a reply to: Edumakated

350k per year puts you in the top 0.8%. It's rich.

No, that just means that income inequality is too high as you need to be in the top 0.8% to have a mid tier middle class lifestyle.

a reply to: Edumakated

This is just under $30k/month. In two months you'd make the median annual income of an American. You could afford a 1.5-2 million dollar home. Obviously it depends on where you live, but in 98% of America, that's rich man's territory.

But yes, the top 0.1% are a completely different category. To compare them to anyone is crazy. But then you get into the .01% and they're even crazier. What does a guy making 5 mil/yr have in common with bill gates/steve jobs/jeff bezos/etc? When you compare the 99th percentile to the 99.9th percentile you're getting an order of magnitude off from your starting point. You're talking about the top 10% of the top 1%.

Side note: I think 6 foot 5 puts you in the top 1% for height (iirc)