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Do you not understand how many barely can cover their bills, let alone invest? I'm now repeating myself, but my mother raised us on a secretaries salary in the 60's and 70's. Our grandfather still had to subsidize our rent. There was nothing TO invest.
I said this earlier in the thread, but to me that sounds like "Let them eat cake".
There are millions of Americans, including myself, who can cut back on the crap (cell phone, Starbucks, cable tv etc.) and put that money into an investment account. Sure, there are some people are who are in dire straits, but a lot of us are just being lazy and irresponsible. A little savings is better than none. Another option is to automatically have money deducted from your paycheck and diverted into a simple savings account and/or a retirement account.
Oh and here's a thought for the breeders: stop having kids you can't afford.
kids ,especially out of wedlock are a real financial killer. it is bad enough divorce takes it's toll on finances but this constant breeding out of wedlock is asking for trouble .
of course then the excuse then becomes they have no one to watch the kids ,can't afford day care , are living off a low wage , the list goes on and on but it was a poor decision that did it .
There are millions of Americans, including myself, who can cut back on the crap (cell phone, Starbucks, cable tv etc.) and put that money into an investment account. Sure, there are some people are who are in dire straits, but a lot of us are just being lazy and irresponsible. A little savings is better than none. Another option is to automatically have money deducted from your paycheck and diverted into a simple savings account and/or a retirement account.
Oh and here's a thought for the breeders: stop having kids you can't afford.
We didn’t have any of that, and we lived in a one bedroom apartment. I shared a bed with my mother till I was 14. When my mom had us she was married and my dad was able to support us, but he suffered a brain injury when I was five and had to go to a Veterans home. You think you know everyone’s circumstances enough to judge, you’re wrong. Yes there are many who could save more but more are doing their best and still struggling.
kids ,especially out of wedlock are a real financial killer. it is bad enough divorce takes it's toll on finances but this constant breeding out of wedlock is asking for trouble .
of course then the excuse then becomes they have no one to watch the kids ,can't afford day care , are living off a low wage , the list goes on and on but it was a poor decision that did it .
You guys are trying to make this about poor people now, it’s not. This thread isn’t why poor people can’t make it into the middle class, it’s about the increasingly hard struggle for the middle class to remain middle class. Even intact families with two wage earners who don’t smoke or have tattoos or HBO.
Of course individual decisions impact finances, but to imply that it’s all about individual choice and economies don’t matter is ridiculous. Of course it matters if health insurance costs 40% of take home pay, of course it matters if student loan debt prevents you from buying a home or saving for 20 years, of course it matters if your company hasn’t made a 401k match in 10 years, of course it matters if Walmart or Amazon destroys the 5 generation family business. All these things are issues that did not exist in past decades to the degree they do today. To pretend nothing has changed except the choices people make is denial of reality.
having to many kids is certainly a major reason many middle class folks are struggling, you are trying to hard to discredit a lot of valid points here
People in past decades had many more kids than we do today but did not struggle nearly as much. I work with elderly people who had 10, 11, 12 siblings regularly. Today it’s much more rare to have that many.
it is still a reason many are struggling . even 3 can be to many today for some .kids are expensive to raise and provide for properly . i will also throw in sending kids away to schools that are expensive for bs degrees that are no better than degrees at local schools, when neither they nor the kids can afford it ..
You guys are trying to make this about poor people now, it’s not. This thread isn’t why poor people can’t make it into the middle class, it’s about the increasingly hard struggle for the middle class to remain middle class. Even intact families with two wage earners who don’t smoke or have tattoos or HBO.
Of course individual decisions impact finances, but to imply that it’s all about individual choice and economies don’t matter is ridiculous. Of course it matters if health insurance costs 40% of take home pay, of course it matters if student loan debt prevents you from buying a home or saving for 20 years, of course it matters if your company hasn’t made a 401k match in 10 years, of course it matters if Walmart or Amazon destroys the 5 generation family business. All these things are issues that did not exist in past decades to the degree they do today. To pretend nothing has changed except the choices people make is denial of reality.
Your "increasingly" is flawed, a comparison to a short and select slice of time in previous history. There has never been a time in our history where many did not "struggle". Life before 1900 was a day to day struggle for almost everyone but the upper class. No, people 100 years ago were not saddled with student loan debt because there weren't student loans and most did not go to college. You were wealthy enough to pay for it and already educated enough to pass it or you didn't go. People 100 years ago didn't have 401k's. Much fewer bought homes. People 100 years ago didn't often have "health insurance" or expect society to pay the cost for their misfortune. People got sick or injured and they suffered.
Mostly what has changed are people's expectations of how life should be.
i agree . my dad and mom struggled , that is why we lived in a new york city housing project .
his dad and mom struggled because they lost every thing in the great depression .
i got dumped out of school in the 1970's , right in to vietnam , soaring inflation , the worst job market since the great depression and no gas for our cars .
also priorities for spending have changed . today we have cable and tv bills that are 170-200 a month . we pay hundreds of dollars for satellite radio . health insurance used to amount to just blue cross blue shield if you went to the hospital for most of us and it was generally a free bee thrown in by the employer in these parts .
then we have 100 to 200 dollar a month cell phone bills , we pay for water and have real estate taxes that can be 1/2 the price the house was when it was bought 30 years ago .
houses have become much bigger too . so we created more expenses where they did not exist before
Last edited by mathjak107; 09-22-2018 at 09:24 AM..
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