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I agree with you 100%. In the mid-80's I was making in the $4.50-$5.50/hour range which I believe was slightly more than minimum wage. My rent for a decent 1-bedroom apartment was $150/month and I paid for everything but my car insurance, which my father was kind enough to pay.
Now, not only is rent much higher but cell phone and cell service are essential and they are considerably higher per month than a landline and what we used to pay for the occasional long distance call. Utilities and gasoline are at least double what they were then. College tuition (and therefore, loan payments) is at least 10 times what it was then.
It does not surprise me that 47% of Americans couldn't afford a $400 unexpected expense. People on the lower end of the economic scale are stretched to the limit.
In the 1980s, I was putting myself through college (engineering), working two jobs to pay for it, and surviving on $0.25 cups of noodles. I lived where I could find a place to sleep. Graduated and got a good paying job now I don't worry about it. These days, BTW, its much much easier to get aid to go to school.
The point being is that anyone at the lower end of the economic scale has every opportunity to fix it on their own. The government won't ever do that for them. That has been proven time and time again over the last 50 years that it has been tried.
It's all about choices. Everyone makes choices that put them where they are today. If they can't come up with $400, then that is on them, nobody else.
There was a time when $400 would've been very hard. Single income enlisted military family with four children. We were fortunate to have hand me down computers from parents. We didn't have any gadgets or fancy TVs. We could put food on the table, clothes on our backs, and enjoy a dinner out here and there. So while it may seem unreasonable to many, I can understand being in that place.
I'm heartily thankful we are no longer in that place. Heck we just had an out of the blue $600 expense this week and it didn't even phase us.
In the 1980s, I was putting myself through college (engineering), working two jobs to pay for it, and surviving on $0.25 cups of noodles. I lived where I could find a place to sleep. Graduated and got a good paying job now I don't worry about it. These days, BTW, its much much easier to get aid to go to school.
The point being is that anyone at the lower end of the economic scale has every opportunity to fix it on their own. The government won't ever do that for them. That has been proven time and time again over the last 50 years that it has been tried.
It's all about choices. Everyone makes choices that put them where they are today. If they can't come up with $400, then that is on them, nobody else.
YOU ARE IGNORING THE DATA.
A newborn in the UK is more likely to move from poverty to middle class than any newborn American. And the UK sucks in terms of social mobility. But they along with most everyone else are far ahead of us.
Many people in the USA grow up in a household where education is not highly valued, do we blame the kid whos mama taught him school is a chore and that college is for rich white kids?
The USA is leaving MASSIVE amounts of money on the table by NOT helping those who have fallen up off the ground. The lost productivity is only shocking.
Yet all I hear are conservatives crying about how the poor should do it themselves, and get off their lazy butts.
Spending Billions over the next couple of decades could result in your own children having a much higher standard of living and a much safer life.
But instead we stick to short term gains as our country is falling behind.
In short our short term politics is exactly why our country is failing. we do nothing to get the bottom 20 or 30% out of the poverty trap and instead we waste resources imprisoning them while we could be providing vocational training and get them invested .
Al kept working as a tax accountant into his late 70s. But Alzheimer's disease forced him into retirement.
The couple is getting by on about $2,500 a month in Social Security and Veterans Administration benefits, plus food stamps and help from their two sons. They stopped paying the mortgage and are fighting foreclosure in court.
That article was the topic of another thread and I read it there. The individuals in the article got to where they are by frittering away money from home equity loans on their houses, to the point where they had mortgages they could no longer afford. Seems to me that by using their home equity as ATMs with no regard as to consequences put these folks in the position they are now in. It's hard for me to work up much sympathy for them.
Actually as a couple they do not have control over whether they get divorced, it only takes 1/2 of that couple to make that decision
I have been married for 34 years. My experience matches what I have observed. Treat your spouse with love and respect and the odds of a divorce filing are pretty darn low. You need to stop slamming your head. You can kill brain cells that way and you do not seem to have many to spare.
There was a time for many years when we couldn't have afforded $400 unexpected expenses. Small children, couldn't work and afford daycare for two. No college degree for me or my husband. We didn't have fancy gadgets.... very simple,frugal lifestyle. Now, I have a college degree and the children are grown. We are better off.
The reason poor people stay poor is they make decisions to keep themselves poor.
Once you're there it's difficult to get out.
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