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Survey: Almost 50% of Americans Consider Themselves ‘Broke’
(www.marketwatch.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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That's a bit reductionist.
A large chunk of the US fritter away their money on interest, and that's precisely the type of problem that can be solved with careful budgeting. Here's a report by Forbes about debt, and I'll highlight this section on credit card debt:
Credit Card debt details
And some more details from a Federal Reserve report (referenced by the above section), which states that 37% of families making $100k or more carried a balance. That income is well above the level most claim to need to feel financially secure. That doesn't mean a $100k salary is insufficient, it means there's more to the discussion than just income.
Personal anecdote about staying debt free in school
My parents helped me with school tuition, but I paid my own rent, food, transportation, etc while making around minimum wage (first job was $0.50 over min wage, second was $2 over). I know it's possible to live debt free on pretty much any income, provided work is steady, because I've done it. Student loan repayments are capped at 10% of discretionary income in the US (so after taxes), with 20% being the worst case (it varies by program). So I don't think student loans are the main issue either.Examples of spending problems
I don't know if careful budgeting can fix all of the problems the 50% quoted in the article have, but it can certainly help with a lot of them, if not most. Issues vary, but a large percentage of problems aren't income problems, but spending problems, such as:My point here is that a very large chunk of that 50% could be much more financially stable by making a few behavioral changes. However, it's a lot easier to claim to be a victim than to make those changes, so that's why these types of articles get a lot of traction and comments are largely unconstructive.
If you actually want to change your financial trajectory, talking about it can help. Making a post here detailing your income, expenses, debts, etc is one way to do that. A budget isn't going to help someone living on the streets suddenly afford an apartment, but if you have a steady job, there's a really good chance that a reasonable budget can end the paycheck to paycheck cycle. And I'm guessing a very large chunk of that 50% in the article would fall into this category.
Explain how it is reductionist to say that when there's over 50% of a whole nation that's in financial woes?
If anything trying to blame the each individual's actions is reductionist.
It paralyzes any political discussion in order to uphold an ever fragile status quo.
How many more people in your own country need to into debt before
you start calling it a systemic issue? 80%? 90%? 99%? 99.9%? 99.99%?
Whatever your solution is going to be, people's incomes are going to go down,
as everything is being automated.
Grocery stores are being automated.
Fast food chains are being automated.
Any brick-and-mortar store is disappearing.
Artists are being replaced
Your personal anecdote is worthless.
I delivered magazines, newspapers and mowed lawns when I was a kid.
Good luck telling the Gen Z that!
And if you don't understand why, I'll try be as reductionist as possible
in how my (and your) personal anecdote doesn't work anymore:
Internet, AI & robots has set up the us the bomb
All your income are belong to FAANG!!
You have no chance to survive make your time
Move Cap Install Com
For great justice!
This is self-reported data, so there's no consistent definition of what "broke" means. It could mean anything from "I literally can't afford food" to "I'm stressed about my finances," and the causes are as diverse as the definitions of "broke." The Fed reports that 77% are at least doing "okay" financially, so that's a pretty big disconnect. On the Expenses side, 82% of people are able to pay the current month's expenses, and that's consistent across all income levels until we get to the <$25k/year level, which is 67% ($25k is $12.50/hr).
So I'm going to cite some other sources to hopefully get more information about it. Here's another survey by PennyHoarder about budgeting, and some takeaways:
And here's another that discusses how Americans overspend their budgets.
When I look at this data, it seems there's a lot of people who could benefit from more transparency in their finances. I don't see a systemic issue where half of the population is drowning in debt, what I see is a large chunk of the population who need better financial education.
That's not a given. Technological advances tend to increase wages, the main issue is churn in the labor market as people adjust to the new opportunities the new tech has created.
I see this automation as a good thing. Yes, it sucks for people in the short-term whose jobs get replaced, but if there's something the market is good at, it's adapting to changes in labor supply. Sometimes there's sustained unemployment, but that's rare and often due to protectionist policies (e.g. I blame the Great Depression on Hoover's tariffs). If we truly can't compete with bots, we can always tax capital from bots and provide something like Universal Basic Income (my preference is Negative Income Tax, which is the same thing, but with income caps for benefits).
What are you talking about? I literally just paid a neighborhood kid to mow my lawn yesterday.
Delivering magazines and newspapers was a very uncommon job even at its heyday (my brother did it in the 90s, but that's the only kid I heard of doing it), whereas mowing laws and other small jobs are still about as common as it was in the past.
But I'm not sure why you're referencing Gen Z, Gen Z will be in their 20s already, so they wouldn't be interested in those neighborhood jobs, unless they make it a business (and two families in my neighborhood run small landscaping businesses, and I see landscaping trucks every day in my city).
If someone wants to hustle for a little more money, there are a lot of options:
These kinds of service jobs won't be replaced by robots anytime soon, and that's extra true for the trades (e.g. plumbers, electricians, etc) where there are generally strict codes and licensing requirements. If you decide not to go to post-secondary education, you have lots of options for consistent or inconsistent work, depending on what you're looking for.
I think there should be some policy changes (i.e. I'm a fan of NIT/UBI as mentioned), but the real problem is the same problem that we've had for pretty much forever: people really like blaming others for their problems. If you want help, there are a lot of opportunities out there, they just require work to go out and get. It's a lot easier to whine and blame the issues on "capitalism" or "political party of choice," but honestly, the average person is way better off today than pretty much any point in history, yet we seem to complain way more.