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I have been low income and a single mom since I became a mom. Never have I had an empty pantry. I shopped sales, used coupons and stretched food stamps when we received them. Even now, I might not cook at home or the kids might say "there is nothing to eat.", but we have a packed pantry with all the basics, tons of canned goods, unopened boxes of cereal, pasta, tuna, sauces, etc. Never do we not have enough food that we would miss a meal. People that have no food, make no sense. And often times they have messed up priorities. They buy cigarettes before food. Or worse.
Please read the post I was responding to for context.
sometimes people are just dumb.. We know people who both work, and live in a low COL area of the country. They never seem to have money and only one of them has an "okay" job. So really there isn't much room for them to downsize as they're already pretty minimal and their rent really couldn't be cheaper.. yet they're talking about having a kid. I asked how they plan on paying the $1,000+ a month in child care bills since they both work and they just say "its not that much money".. its just total denial at that point. The only place they could pull money from is their own retirement and personal vehicles assuming they even contribute to retirement, tho I'm sure they have like $600 worth of car payments.
Lol! You think THAT'S why the middle class is shrinking?? Delusional might not be a strong enough word.
There isn't one reason why, but having kids outside marriage = volunteering for poverty. I can't believe I have to explain this to people. And BTW, the evidence for this is so overwhelming, even liberal social scientists are admitting this is true:
I’ve been studying single mothers since long before “Murphy Brown” was on the air. In a study I co-authored with Adam Thomas, I put them into hypothetical households with demographically similar unmarried men who, in principle, would be good marriage partners. Through this virtual matchmaking, we showed that child poverty rates would fall by as much as 20 percent in an America with more two-parent households.
In later research, Ron Haskins and I learned that if individuals do just three things — finish high school, work full time and marry before they have children — their chances of being poor drop from 15 percent to 2 percent.
There isn't one reason why, but having kids outside marriage = volunteering for poverty. I can't believe I have to explain this to people. And BTW, the evidence for this is so overwhelming, even liberal social scientists are admitting this is true:
I’ve been studying single mothers since long before “Murphy Brown” was on the air. In a study I co-authored with Adam Thomas, I put them into hypothetical households with demographically similar unmarried men who, in principle, would be good marriage partners. Through this virtual matchmaking, we showed that child poverty rates would fall by as much as 20 percent in an America with more two-parent households.
In later research, Ron Haskins and I learned that if individuals do just three things — finish high school, work full time and marry before they have children — their chances of being poor drop from 15 percent to 2 percent.
Shrug. All that tells me is that the 'poverty' bar in this country is very low - a childless adult working year-round 32 hours per week is defined by government as NOT poor. Even if they have to live with umpteen roommates and can't afford to have a life - let alone ever own a home or even live without roommates - they are defined as not poor.
I just did. The truth p*sses people off, unfortunately.
Eh. The "truth" isn't all that simple.
Your touted "having babies out of wedlock leads to poverty" tagline? What counts? Conceiving out of wedlock? Giving birth out of wedlock? Eventual marriage? Single parent households? Divorce? Or what about your quote that cites "two parent households"? Can't a child born out of wedlock still be raised in a "two parent household"? And therefore reap all the benefits that a child born into a marriage has?
Shrug. All that tells me is that the 'poverty' bar in this country is very low - a childless adult working year-round 32 hours per week is defined by government as NOT poor. Even if they have to live with umpteen roommates and can't afford to have a life - let alone ever own a home or even live without roommates - they are defined as not poor.
Of course they're not. Nor should they. If you are an adult with no children and making minimum wage, you should be working far more than 32 hours a week. There's no reason you can't. And if you want to work less than 2 jobs, gain the skills to get a job that pays enough for you to do that.
If you can't work more than 32 hours a week, then there's some medical issue that prohibits you doing so, and you should qualify for disability. If you don't qualify, but still maintain that you can't work 2 jobs, that just making excuses.
sometimes people are just dumb.. We know people who both work, and live in a low COL area of the country. They never seem to have money and only one of them has an "okay" job. So really there isn't much room for them to downsize as they're already pretty minimal and their rent really couldn't be cheaper.. yet they're talking about having a kid. I asked how they plan on paying the $1,000+ a month in child care bills since they both work and they just say "its not that much money".. its just total denial at that point. The only place they could pull money from is their own retirement and personal vehicles assuming they even contribute to retirement, tho I'm sure they have like $600 worth of car payments.
I have to agree with this first sentence.
I can't figure out if the OP is mean spirited or not. I think it depends on who he's comparing himself to. Remember this is an anonymous forum to discuss money issues so questions like this are appropriate. I ask myself this same question when I see its the case with people that make comparable or more income than we do. Not out loud, but people tell more than they should and it makes no sense to me how some I know are heading into retirement after earning well their whole adult life and didn't plan. Every person on earth is a few decisions away from losing every thing they have. I think it comes down to that. Not everyone knows what to do with money once they earn it. Yet this question is asked over and over on citydata.
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