Most Americans don't earn enough to afford basic costs of living, analysis finds
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cost-of-living-income-quality-of-life/Open linkView original on lemmy.world692
Comments94https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cost-of-living-income-quality-of-life/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
Richest country in the world doesn't take care of its citizens. Funny how that works
Or it's not actually the richest.
So you're right. We are number 11 now
Edit: we are still number 1 by GDP.
From the point of view of most people total country GDP is meaningless (only certain businesses get a "cut" of the total country GDP and hence it matters to them), and per-capita GDP is what matters and even then how much it matters depends on the level of inequality in a country since when a few get most of the wealth that per-capita value (which is the median) is quite different from what actually most people get (the mode).
2 economist walking in the woods.
Economist 1 says to economists 2: I’ll give you $100 if you let me kick you in the balls.
Economist 2 says “sure”
Then economist 1 kicks economists 2 in the balls and gives him $100.
They continue walking and see a big pile of shit.
Economist 2 says to economist 1: I’ll give you $100 if you eat that pile of shit.
Economist 1 says “sure”, eats the pile of shit and economists 2 gives economists 1 his $100 back.
They continue walking, eventually economist 2 asks “What was the point of what we just did?”
Economist 1 responds “We just increased GDP by $200.”
*Country with the richest persons living in it
Technically GDP is just a measure of cash flow. So how much the government, private business and individuals spend all dumped together with all spending on imports subtracted. High GDP means lots of money changing hands but doesn't necessarily care who's hands, just that money is flowing.
Look at GDP per capita figures. Indians are not doing better than Japanese or Brits
Last I heard, China is.
It is almost like we are being scammed.
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.
Of course, a true kingdom requires impoverished serfs. Welcome to techno-feudalism.
Serfs
Brah do you even serf?
Peasants had better working conditions under feudalism than workers today. This is capitalism working as intended.
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.
"...Stupidity, Phobia, Greed, Wrath, and Traditional Values...from your powers combined, I am Captain Conservative!"
There was a time when I thought the 2016 Brexit referendum was going to be the dumbest political story of the year. Then the US said "hold my watery beer".
I like your optimism, but sadly I cannot share it..
you all best buckle up, because it's gonna get a lot worse
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.
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.
This is like saying John Wilkes Booth didn't kill Lincoln, a gun did...
It's like saying NFL linebackers don't cause concussions, rather its the rules and protective gear of professional football which cause concussions
Both ways of seeing it are true - the linebacker is the one actually performing the tackle, but he would not be permitted to cause that damage were he not enabled by the inherently dangerous rules and equipment
Same thing here. Clearly the billionaires are the ones directly causing the harm. But they are only able to do so (and only able to become billionaires in the first place) because of the existing system
It's not like that.
NFL players don't design and control the rules around equipment.
Billionaires 100% designed the current system that benefits themselves over everyone else.
The currently alive billionaires largely didn't design it; previously alive billionaires designed it and the currently alive ones have refined it.
Which is the way capitalism is supposed to work; it's a society ruled by and for capitalists - aka the billionaires who own the largest units of capital
Regardless, it is this system that is to blame. The actors within the system are also contributors, obviously. But individualizing systemic issues is not an effective way at seeing the solution.
The way to solve the problem of a bad king is not to replace him with a good king; it is to abolish monarchy altogether and replace it with a system wherein the people are the ruling class
Not at all.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
But the whole point of that time is to actually change stuff, so they wouldn't make nearly as much profit, and maybe not even get to keep it.
It would be like buying a car that's cheap because it's on fire. They need us but we don't need them.
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.
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.
No shit….
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've been underemployed with health problems, but hey, the government gives me $5 a day to cover my food costs.
The only reason I can even afford to be sick is because I have a partner, live half an hour by car from the grocery store and rent would be more than twice as much in the city. We pay a little more than a half of our combined income on rent.
Its fucked up, because I really need to go back to work, but Medicaid patients get sent to the end of the line. I woke up today shitting blood and puking, then check my phone and see a voicemail letting me know that my June 3rd appointment got resheduled to June 30th, and this is to discuss biopsy results from April.
Luigi did nothing wrong.
Now imagine being in a red state. Add being a minority in the Deep South. Undocumented immigrant even. No public transportation. Food desserts. This is what hyper -individualism and entertainment culture did for us, on top of how bad it could be for then. Farther south, the worse it gets. That's why slaves feared being "sold down the river." Speaking of which check out the difference in prison/jail conditions and treatment the farther south. I won't speak on more right now except to add women not having bank accounts, charge cards, right to vote or divorce and the legality of beating them by the rule of thumb.
Just having your car breakdown in a red state is a major crisis, debilitating event - There is no walkable infrastructure, no public transportation. But yeah, everything is like that down here.
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.
I didn't see that value in the article. Did I miss a reference?
https://lisep.org/mql
The linked report.
They can't afford bread?
Let them eat cake.
I have friends in their 30s who were surprised about maxing out their IRA because where are they going to get an extra $6k?
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.
"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.
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.
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.
"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.
Your experience isn't everyone's experience. Where you are 60% probably looks different than innercity 60%.
Confirmation bias for you situation.
Or rural experience. Wages are still shit but ever since covid rural housing and food costs have gone through the roof.
And so many rural Americans being in food desserts doesn't help at all.
Gotta drive 30+ minutes to the store just to buy some over priced trash food. Gotta keep insurance on the crappy car you struggle to maintain, gotta keep gas in the tank, etc. It's a snow ball that once it starts rolling it just keeps going downhill faster and faster.
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.
The linked report is super clear https://lisep.org/mql
They split up the necessities of life into 8 buckets, then calculated how much money you need to spend on them per year.
But the actual meat of the report is geared toward the moving trend for items,
poingint out that food, rent, choldcare and medical are becoming more expensive at a rate that's quickly surpassing wages.
Really? It pretty accurately reflects what I see every day.
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.
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.
People have bee saying this for a while now.... this isn't news anymore. Why is he still alive?
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.
Yeah, but something something half a world away..
Check with the IRS! Someone call Bill Nye to confirm. How can this be true?! 😂😂
How much did the analyst get paid?
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.
Who's Biden?
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.
Thanks for your link with virtually no data.
No references to studies.
It basically just says the reality for most voters is that they still struggled. It bypasses all the real statistical data showing our economy in a recovery process during Biden's term.
A recovery process that surpassed other first world nations.
Real gross domestic product grew 2.5% in 2023, significantly outpacing growth in all other G7 nations.[38][39][40] Real GDP growth averaged a robust 3.4% during the first three years of the Biden presidency.[41]
The labor market was strong in 2023. The unemployment rate averaged a very low 3.6% in 2023, as it had in 2022; the last year with an average 3.5% unemployment rate was 1969.[26] The number of persons with jobs continued setting records monthly as it had since June 2022 when the pre-pandemic peak was regained, reaching 157.3 million in December 2023. An average of 251,000 jobs per month were added in 2023, a total of 3.0 million.[27]
Wage gains exceeded inflation in 2023, with real (inflation-adjusted) hourly earnings for all employees increasing 0.8% from December 2022 to December 2023.[42] The inflation rate measured vs. one year earlier was 6.4% in January 2023 and 3.1% in December as the inflation rate slowed.[43] Census data released in January 2024 showed that record-high new business applications were filed in 2023, the third consecutive annual record high.[44]
For data through November 2024, President Biden on average had the lowest unemployment rate (4.12%) and highest real hourly wages for production & non-supervisory workers ($30.11) among presidents back to 1964.[49][3]
In 2024, Biden pushed to limit junk fees through the FTC, FCC and CFPB.[50] Biden has taken antitrust more seriously than presidents in recent memory, as seen by the work of Lina Khan at the FTC,[2] a historic court victory against Google's search monopoly, and a lawsuit to break-up Live Nation and Ticketmaster.[50]
In February 2024, the total federal government debt grew to $34.4 trillion after having grown by approximately $1 trillion in both of two separate 100-day periods since the previous June.[51] However, the ratio of debt held by the public to GDP fell from 97.1% in Q1 2021 when Biden started to 95.2% in Q2 2024, as growth outpaced debt increases.[52]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Joe_Biden_administration
Now, before you start crying about this being from Wikipedia, I'd like to point out the numbers inside the brackets above. Those are what those of us who have gone to school call SOURCES. That's the beauty of Wikipedia. If you think it isn't being accurate, you can click on the source links embedded into the website to verify the claims.
Those SOURCES are what your link, which should be considered an opinion piece, are lacking.
So I have to ask myself, do I rely on a link with almost no data at all, and absolutely no sources, or do I rely on a link that has a shit ton of data and sources included to back the claims being made?
If I was you, I'd just blindly believe the link with no sources. But, thank the gods, I am not you.
Your link is a hit piece with no sources. Do better.
He did. That’s literally the best America could do and asking for more means you want Republicans to win.
Only libs downvote me.
I am winning so hard with tarrifs right now. /s
Not the first time I’ve been called a trumper.
Do more creeping my comment history, noob
I am just responding to what you said. never called you anything. I got no time to creep on your comment history. I am too busy searching for cheaper eggs on the DL so that I don’t rouse ICE to any potential thought crimes.
Have you considered raising quail for eggs if you can't raise larger fowl, such as chickens or ducks? Quail eggs are tiny, but they produce a lot of them and raising quail has a small footprint.
BORING!
Oh good, you’re bored, I can now forge in peace. I heard the farmers in the next town over is basically giving away soybeans since the tarrifs hit. I should go and see I can get some to make tofu.