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submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by Kushia@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

I've been watching a few American TV shows and it blows my mind that they put up with such atrocious working terms and conditions.

One show was about a removal company where any damage at all, even not the workers fault, is taken out of their tips. There's no insurance from the multimillion dollar business. As they're not paid a living wage the guy on the show had examples of when he and his family went weeks with barely any income and this was considered normal?!

Another example was a cooking show where the prize was tickets to an NFL game. The lady who won explained that she'd be waiting in the car so her sons could experience their first live game, because she couldn't otherwise afford a ticket to go. They give tickets for football games away for free to people where I live for no reason at all..

Yet another example was where the workers got a $5k tip from their company and the reactions were as if this amount of money was even remotely life changing. It saddens me to think the average Americans life could be made so much better with such a relatively small amount of money and they don't unionize and demand far better. The company in question was on track to make a billion bloody dollars while their workers are on the poverty line and don't even have all their teeth?

It's not actually this bad and the average American lives a pretty good life like we're led to believe, right?

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[-] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 81 points 11 months ago

There's just a lot of inequality in the US that is both socially and politically unacceptable in the rest of the developed world. Extremes are more accepted here.

There are more extremely rich people than you would see in other Western countries and and many, many more extremely poor people than in other Western countries. Alleviating that would mean implementing policies to redistribute wealth that many Americans are not willing to implement, especially conservatives.

The US basically sacrifices the good of the many for the great of the few.

[-] SelfHigh5@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago

And they manage to get poor people on board by tying their policies to Jesus and Family Values. And it works like a charm and it’s so weird.

[-] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 15 points 11 months ago

Which seems even stranger. In many other countries, Christians vote left of center to promote economic equality, reduce poverty, get green policies to protect God's green earth, make sure that everyone has universal access to healthcare and education, etc.

In the US, they vote oppotite of that.

[-] Poik@pawb.social 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Because if you're poor, it's because Jesus is punishing you for something. (This is a slight exaggeration of the mindset.)

For showing my point I like the joke that was made of the pastor in Katrina turning down help from the coast guard three times because God will save me, then drowning, getting to the pearly gates and asking why he wasn't saved. The response was "I tried three times. You didn't get on any of the helicopters I sent to save you." There are direct parallels to religious figures claiming God will save them from COVID and not wearing masks or getting vaccines or anything, then dieing of COVID not months later. And those weren't jokes. They were in the news...

Religion is taught very poorly here in a lot of places, and it's very predatory in a lot of the US. Any religious television here is only a scam.

[-] lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee 11 points 11 months ago

Every American is a rich man who is temporarily down on his luck and making big societal changes would screw them over when they finally get their money.

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[-] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 81 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

1 in 8 lives in poverty (<20k for a 2 person household).

1 in 4 has less than 1k in savings.

1 in 2 has less money saved than last year.

1 in 2 is living paycheck to paycheck

But thanks to massive income inequality, the average American makes 59k a year.

[-] nitefox@sh.itjust.works 38 points 11 months ago

Fun fact: America is arguably better if you are rich or with a high income, Europe is better if you have a lower income / are poor

[-] GBU_28@lemm.ee 35 points 11 months ago

This. If you are fortunate to have great employment (100k+, dual income preferred (so breaking 200+), depending on location), with good healthcare, your options are great, and you'll access a higher level of service than most of the world can get. Great schools, great doctors, great home/car/vacations.

If you don't have that raw income, and therefore don't have that support, america is a much much different place.

I'm fortunate enough to have gone from very low class to a much higher strata and I never get comfortable. I'm constantly surprised by shit that just happens...easily.

An example: by having good insurance, I have a very good dermatologist. I have psoriasis and use a biologic injectable to handle it completely. Once, my specialty pharmacy had some sort of shipping issue and I called my doc to check in. They said come by.

They handed me 6 doses FOR FREE, so 6 months of medication, like it was nothing. Each dose is thousands of dollars cash. I pay 25$ with my insurance. I assume a vendor rep dropped a ton off.

Point being, I know there are millions of folks on very expensive meds, who don't have a high quality doctor relationship, who could never access that perk I did. Literally paywalled customer service.

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[-] Thisfox@sopuli.xyz 61 points 11 months ago

Honestly was shocked when I first visited. On TV the streets are wide there and everyone has enough to eat.

Visit (and at this point I have spent time in about half their states) and it is a different story. Broken roads in disrepair. Beggars everywhere, fighting for the chance to ask you for food, water, anything. We stopped at traffic lights and a teenage boy shaking with palsy knocked on our windows begging for food. People mobbed me in one city because I was carrying a bag of apples and they hoped for one as my bag split. I was careful never to give, but was still followed everywhere as an obvious tourist. The only place I did not get food begging on every single streetcorner was Manhattan. I am told this is because they deported beggars to the mainland there. Heartless sods in a capital that gets snow told me "there's less beggars in winter, the cold gets them".

I think you're right about the jobs, too. There were roadworkers on those broken roads, using jackhammers without ear protection, or even foot protection. I was told it was because they are "free" to bring their own PPE. They looked injured and sick but determined.

Shops were similar. Waitstaff looked half starved, serving the rich in an obsequious yet hateful way unnervingly like a roleplaying slave. It was disgusting, and ruined many a meal by constant disingenious artificial attention.

You won't regret visiting, but it is a ridiculously heartless broken place. The most expensive travel insurance too, for reasons most obvious in their medical stories.

Yanks are no doubt going to downvote this to oblivion, but it is how I have so far experienced their miserable cities.

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 19 points 11 months ago

To be fair, Gary, Indiana isn't most people's first choice to visit...

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[-] Karlos_Cantana@sopuli.xyz 11 points 11 months ago

Where the hell did you go to see all that? I've lived in the US for half a century and never seen any of that. There are some states that need to figure out how to pave roads that will last more than 2 years, but many states have figured that out.

[-] Thisfox@sopuli.xyz 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The roadworkers? Three seperate sites in chicago, then similar seen again in New York State, and in Louisiana. Other places too but they stood out.

Knocking on our windows to beg for food and water? Everywhere on the east coast. The kid happened in New York State, but similar happened in Pennsylvania, in tenessee, in illinois, in Louisiana, and everywhere really.

I was mobbed in Pennsylvania during the notorious Apple Incident, it happened again to a friend in Charlestown with a large bag of peaches, but when we were telling this story to a bunch of other Aussies they told me a chilling tale similar that happened to a girl of their number in Tenessee. The third one happened to strangers, but they had no reason to lie to me.

I don't rightly know what to tell you, but we saw so many beggars everywhere except manhattan. We did not like getting restaurant meals, tried to stick to takeaway, because waitstaff were upsetting everywhere we went. And if you haven't seen the massive holes in your roads, society and infrastructure in your time there, it's likely because you are overused to them.

America is terribly full of the desperately poor.

Edit; I have learned not to talk of the incidents that happen once, if I can help it, as I get told they are "isolated incidents" or "just happen in that state". The girl with the dog crying in louisiana, the orphans we met in ohio, the shaking window knocker, poor bastard.... That said, those isolated incidents also add up to a larger truth. All of them were due to a lack of health care or social care. All could have been cured with a little kindness, or the yanks being a little less blind to their fellow man. It is a very harsh place.

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[-] frankfurt_schoolgirl@hexbear.net 45 points 11 months ago

The American economy is built in a very specific way to make certain things cheap and certain things very expensive. The cheap things are gas, toys, commodities, clothes, unhealthy food. The expensive things are education, good food, healthcare, and, in certain areas, housing. That means there are a ton of Americans who live extremely precarious lives, where losing their job would be the end, but they still have a higher level of material comfort than many people would in other countries.

The other thing about the American economy is that wealth is extremely biased towards older people. For a long time, the system was built around normal working class people buying a house, and building wealth through that. As long as housing prices went up at a controlled rate, everybody slowly got richer. Now, older people own most of the houses. Like I grew up in a small town that was sort of the ideal American dream neighborhood. There were a bunch of other kids on my street, including some good friends. We rode the bus together and spent the weekends hanging out in my friend's loft. Now, when I go back there, there's like one family with kids on the street, and everyone else is a retired couple in a huge house that they don't really need. They have no particular incentive to move out, because it would be expensive and they're comfortable.

So if you're a younger person without in-demand education you really are extremely poor. 5k could really improve your quality of life by letting you get some dental work or something. Although the unemployment rate is low right now, companies are able to collude to some degree to keep entry level jobs precarious.

[-] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 19 points 11 months ago

Also the unemployment rate is low because they stopped counting those who have given up looking for work

[-] Kushia@lemmy.ml 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I cannot understand the desire to be trapped in a job because without it your family gets no healthcare and will basically either die in a ditch or you'll get a bankrupting bill for it. Not having universal healthcare even as a safety net scares the crap out of me.

[-] Bongles@lemm.ee 19 points 11 months ago

Do you truly think anyone desires that?

[-] FippleStone@aussie.zone 9 points 11 months ago

Some people are convinced that it's the price of freedom

[-] VentraSqwal@links.dartboard.social 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

50% of people keep voting for it, so some people must love it.

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[-] frankfurt_schoolgirl@hexbear.net 10 points 11 months ago

Most people hate this. It's just impossible for the average person to do anything about it because very few politicians support changing the current system. In the 2020 election for instance there were like 2 dem candidates and 0 Republican candidates who wanted a public option for health insurance. Nationalizing the whole thing, NHS style, is completely off the table.

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[-] figjam@midwest.social 44 points 11 months ago

Americans are told by the media that they are living "the good life" and that they shouldn't bother looking at conditions elsewhere. USA!USA!USA!

[-] Jeredin@lemm.ee 23 points 11 months ago

You have to go further than that. A huge population only cares about itself and has made it a part of their identity. Those who have it well don't have to think about those without: drive to or work from home, live and socialize on internet platforms that isolate themselves from the plight of those with less. They can order everything online and have it delivered to their door - they have no clue and depending on how separated they are from those struggling, they may just say, "those people just aren't working hard enough," or some similar line of thinking. It's not hopeless, but we need far more progress in the US, especially with wage inequality and affordable living/homes. Jeff Bazos is allowed to help buy up single family homes so the rich can rent them out....it makes me so angry and sad.

[-] TheUncannyObserver@lemmy.dbzer0.com 43 points 11 months ago

Is it that bad here? Well, to answer your question let me just say that, in America, your very life might depend on keeping your boss happy. Many people live in places where there aren’t many options for jobs, and our healthcare is tied to our employment. If those people lose said job, they might not be able to afford lifesaving medications that they need. Often, those people are too poor to afford moving somewhere with better opportunities. I’m lucky enough to live in a city large enough to provide plenty of opportunity for employment, but I do currently work just four blocks away from the bridge I lived under as a child one winter, because I was thrown out by the Gospel Mission for skipping the morning sermon and prayers one day.

[-] Shelbyeileen@lemmy.world 41 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Disability (which I paid taxes for, to protect me from poverty if I became disabled) pays a whopping $914/MONTH.

I sell nudes to afford basic necessities.

They also have an asset cap of $2,000 which hasn't changed since 1974. Basically, if I have more than $2k in my bank (or in any valuables like comics or coins) at any time, they take away my food and Medical insurance. If adjusted for inflation, it would be $13k. I'm drowning and lucky I'm an attractive girl, otherwise I couldn't afford to survive.

[-] christian@lemmy.ml 9 points 11 months ago

There are a lot of awful things here but to focus on just one, holy shit monthly rent could go over the asset cap in a few years.

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[-] RBWells@lemmy.world 34 points 11 months ago

The main problem we have here is the difference between mean and median income. The average (mean) is fine but not many actually make that. There's a majority who are sort of poor or very poor, a smaller slice who are average and that's reasonably well off (not in immediate danger of something dire happening) and a minority who are so fucking rich it skews the average.

All of this is exacerbated by the lack of social safety net here, we simply don't do as much redistribution in the correct direction as most rich countries. So it's harder to be poor here because they are preyed on rather than supported. In those shows you watched, you are correct, the stickiness of capital in the upper classes is the problem, not an overall lack of money.

It's just not spread out right. Yes more should unionize and also we need more small to medium size businesses, more growth at the bottom to pull that money back and spread it out better.

[-] Kushia@lemmy.ml 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This is an interesting take and I think you are right. Apart from unionizing and demanding better there are definitely structural problems in how capital moves though the classes because there's clearly enough wealth to make a lot of people's lives better. I mean, that wealth is right there on display in these shows but it's just not shared with these workers at all except when the wealthy want to big note themselves a little bit.

[-] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 33 points 11 months ago

Consider me as a data point. My salary is in the low six figures. I have a reasonable mortgage and car loan. I also live paycheck to paycheck and have trouble paying my bills every month. I am currently in default on several thousand dollars of medical debt, that I am trying to pay off gradually, but I'm not always keeping ahead of my new medical debt.

Part of my income goes to helping out some relatives and friends who are in much worse shape, but even without that, I would have trouble breaking even.

I am just barely short of being in the top 10% of US incomes. The income inequality in this country has left the vast majority of the population struggling. Many can no longer afford enough food or housing.

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[-] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 31 points 11 months ago

Well when most employers can fire you at any time for almost any reason (at-will employment) and your healthcare is tied to your job then.... yeah, employers can treat their employees pretty poorly and get away with it, especially if you work in something like fast food or big box retail where plenty of young, unskilled workers are entering the workforce every year that they can replace you with.

[-] ieightpi@lemmy.world 29 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

You know it's pretty obvious that inequality is rampent in the US and people are hurting because of it. Yet the latest polls show just how popular Donald Trump and the Republicans are. Conservatives use to try and hide their true intentions, but today they dont care and will say exactly how much they want Americans to hate other people in the country. I truly wish I could understand why an average Americans doesnt see how much the Democrats have done under the Biden administration to try and fix these issues. I really do believe if the Democrats could finally have control of the federal government, and I mean 2008 levels, we could see some serious change.

[-] boCash@lemmy.blugatch.tube 24 points 11 months ago

Demonization of education has a heck of a lot to do with the issues this country is currently facing.

[-] Asafum@feddit.nl 7 points 11 months ago

For one, propaganda is a hell of a drug. Fox ~~two minutes hate~~ "news" will tell anyone who listens that every single problem you have is the fault of ~~Goldstein~~ liberals/leftists/Democrats.

A point for Trump is that "conservatives" are also completely jaded and cynical about the system as well as we are, their chosen method is to use Trump to burn it all to the ground and "start new" with their "strong man" who will force the change they want to see. They see Biden as a feckless, weak, liberal who not only can't fix the issues we have, but won't do it because he's in x,y,z persons pocket (completely ignoring that Trump doesn't need to have someone to serve as he's serving himself.)

I think we're all fed up with the system, but the neoliberal greed is good 80s assholes will continue the beatings until morale is improved.

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[-] scoobford@lemmy.ml 28 points 11 months ago

Tl;Dr: It varies very drastically by locale. Rural Americans can often live okay on "very* minimal income. Standards on what " poor" and "normal" vary about as widely between parts of America as they do between America and where you're from.

Where I live (Dallas), I'm making around $40,000 in an area where the median is $60,000. I live alone, but I will have to buy a new car this year and I will barely be able to make my payments. I do not have a college degree, and I'm still basically entry level.

I've been looking at moving a lot recently. If I moved where I want to live (Oregon), I'd probably make the same or slightly less money, and my rent and expenses would probably rise by a few hundred a month. In effect, I would barely be getting by if I didn't have a car payment.

I've also been looking at Chicago, where the median wage is slightly less than I make now, but cost of living is slightly lower, and I'd make slightly more. I also wouldn't have to have a car, so my disposable income would rise drastically.

[-] octobob@lemmy.ml 9 points 11 months ago

Dog if you're thinking about moving, come to the best small-town vines rust belt city that has the lowest cost of living in the US, where I was born and raised, Pittsburgh. I love this city to death and it has deep working class roots. I bought an 1800 sq ft, 4 bedroom home that was built in 1890 for $160k in 2020. I've been renovating it for the past few years and still got a ways to go but it's coming together beautifully.

For what it's worth, our rent is still well below the national average, and I love this city to death. It's small, but not too small, but not too large, everybody seems to know everybody, and there's always always something to do. The geography and nature and rivers really forced this city's hand a few hundred years ago where now everything is just built around and into mountainsides and deep woods, highways and roads and everything is a snarling maze of studio Ghibli elden ring on ketamine and I wouldn't want it any other way

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[-] bartolomeo@suppo.fi 22 points 11 months ago

Isn't the median income like $35k/year? A $5k tip would then be at least a month and a half's salary for half the workers in the country. That's pretty significant and a good reason to be stoked. Considering that Americans pay out of pocket what is normally covered by taxes (on top of taxes), yes, I would say that they really are that poor. That's part of the system though, because as long as workers are tired and in poverty they'll never have the time and energy, or take the risk of missing even a minute of work, to organize.

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[-] ctobrien84@lemmy.world 21 points 11 months ago

Don't confuse the difficulty of unionization with the lack of need/want. Most states are "at will", which means they can pretty much fire you for whatever, whenever. Couple that with low wages and poor social programs, and you have a vast amount of workers who can't afford to go on strike.

However, many of us are living comfortably, with decent wages, insurance, and paid time off. Folks from other places really tend to forget how many people are here, and just how varied the situations can be. It's not dire for many of us, but if you're on the bottom, the struggle is nearly insurmountable. Which, unfortunately, is by design. We're working on it though, just don't equate tv shows to an accurate depiction of a country of 300 million.

[-] FilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

Came here to say this. Living in New York is completely different than living in a small town in Wyoming. Might as well be two different countries. The available jobs, average wage and education can differ vastly depending on which state and which part of said state.

[-] janNatan@lemmy.ml 17 points 11 months ago

It really depends on where you look. In rural areas of red states (states in which the majority of elected officials are members of the Republican party), things are pretty bad. Red states tend to have fewer (read: almost no) social programs.

I have a bit of a unique perspective on the dichotomy, because one side of my family is firmly in the lower class and the other firmly in upper middle.

There's a big difference for the two. It's like two different countries. For the lower class, what you've described is indeed normal. And many in the other classes would not believe that it is that bad for them.

[-] frankfurt_schoolgirl@hexbear.net 21 points 11 months ago

Obviously things are worse in red statea, but poverty is a constant in America. The only reason rich dem areas seem rich is because they force all the service economy workers who make their lattes and teach their kids to commute hours into work every day.

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[-] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

You're considered "well-off" if you can manage to become a wage slave, which is where 100% of your income goes to your bills.

[-] jmp242@sopuli.xyz 13 points 11 months ago

I would guess America is so wildly diverse, like most countries, that there's no real "Average American". Sure, median income isn't great and recent inflation has screwed with poorer people all the way through to probably upper middle class.

However, I don't think there's "one reason" for people being / feeling poor. It also depends on what you mean by "life changing".

Anyway - I'd say there's are very poor people. Some of this is generational poverty, some of it is no family support, some of it is addiction, some of it is mental illness, some of it is bad choices. A social safety net would really help here. For whatever reason the US is against much of one.

There's working poor, where supposedly the value they bring to a company isn't sufficient to pay a living wage. I guess elsewhere this is government forced to be a higher minimum wage way more than in the US. This I think is also leading to lots of apathy now in service workers, which means atrocious service at most places, which is finally starting to impact people higher up the income chain. Though it's usually scoffing that no one is doing a good job anymore.

Middle class people get squeezed by inflation a LOT, and children are incredibly expensive. As you get into middle middle and upper middle classes there's also the spending problems. This is either driven by lack of or failures of public options, so people are paying for home schooling / private schooling, paying ever more out of pocket to get access to medical care at ever higher rates, and really any service needed can be astronomical or else often worse than doing nothing unless you know a guy. There's also all the credit card debt that with higher interest rates are squeezing people even more. Some of this is unnecessary spending running out of control, but some of it is lack of wages keeping up with inflation mixed with many things having way more ongoing costs than they used to. Either they have planned obsolesce (Back in the 90s no one had to buy a new landline phone, or wireless phone every 2 years), they have subscriptions (again, in the 90s you bought a car or a radio, you bought a computer, you bought a game, whatever - it lasted with no ongoing payments), and many things just don't last at all. Then there's the interest in experiences - which is a transient thing, so you're always paying for a new one. I'd also say there's a huge burden on everyone related to college - and it is getting less obvious by the year if that hit in loan payments "forever" is worth the supposed economic boost. My parents grew up when college was like $8,000 max for 4 years and room etc - you could work your way through it, and the boost to lifetime expected earnings was pretty easy to overshadow the effort or loan if any needed. I might have been the last generation to get through with $20k in debt from 4 years, which while I'm still paying on isn't enough to overshadow the earning benefits. Today (and for the last 15 years or more) it's more and more for a 4 year degree, while the expected positions aren't going up in pay very much at all. But if you do go to college that's going to hit you and your parents for a long time also.

As you get to upper middle and upper class - upper middle is scared shitless by the inflation, wage increase demands, etc that might cause them to fall out of that class, so they can feel "poor" even though they're far from it.

TL;DR: there are a lot of poor Americans, and many who are "doing OK" either drowning in debt or just feeling insecure even if not technically poor.

[-] Lennnny@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

When I moved from the UK to the US I left a fairly nice job paying £30k a year (this was back in the 2000s) and had to start again from the bottom. I earned $6 an hour, and my then bf and I sublet an apartment for $600 p/m (he was on a grad school salary that worked out to $9 an hour). We bought discount food items and everything was thrifted, we didn't save anything, and we went nowhere and did nothing. I have a memory of us buying a sandwich from the gas station as a treat and making it last all weekend (tbf it was like a footlong sub).

Fast forward to now, we have a combined income that puts us in the top 10% of the country. We own a house, luckily got in before prices went insane, so our mortgage is actually less than our sublet was (adjusted for inflation). We still thrift and buy reduced meats from the supermarket, we travel more but because our jobs pay for it, we do eat out a lot more but I still cook most weeknights.

We're better off now by a long shot, but we're still careful with our money, and have crafted some neat tricks to make sure we don't spend beyond our means. If we bought all the new clothes, groceries, cars, and vacations like the movies suggest is normal for a middle class couple, we'd go broke quickly. Also, having zero kids helps massively.

Sometimes I look at what we've achieved and what our net income is, and it's wild to me that people survive on less. Sure, we enjoy things now vs. sticking to essentials at all times, but it's wild that people are expected to live an entire life just getting by on the basics. What's the point of having community, taxes, and law if you still live paycheck to paycheck, surviving just to work and sleep?

[-] M500@lemmy.ml 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I’m an American and I had a pretty decent job out of college and the idea of moving out of my parents house without roommates was impossible. In fact I don’t know a single person who did it.

$5000 might not be life changing for me, but it would take me a really long time to save that much.

Americans have high salaries compared to the rest of the world, but everything is really expensive so things kind of balance out.

One thing to consider is that the higher salaries make it easier to get things like an iPhone or MacBook. But all the things that are needs like housing, food, and a car are almost too expensive to afford.

Most people have a car loan, most people don’t even dream of owning a home any longer. When you see that you will never earn enough for a home, then you don’t really save for it.

When the amount you earn that. An be saved is too little then you don’t really bother with it.

Most Americans do not live nearly as well as it is portrayed on TV or in movies.

update

I’ll add on to this that most Americans have debt for some reason or another besides having a car and house. A lot of people have student debts that are oppressive some people have medical debt as well.

Gas prices are reasonably low, but everything is so far that you end up using a decent amount of gas to get around.

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[-] millie@beehaw.org 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

That's really hard to gauge.

I drive a cab. I definitely fall into the category of people whose lives could be significantly upgraded for $5k. Some of the people I drive around are so much better off financially than me that that concept isn't something that would ever even occur to them, while some of them are in much tougher positions. For where I am financially, I'm pretty lucky. I've got cheap rent that hasn't gone up in over a decade and a reliable vehicle that I didn't have to pay for. If things go bad I have family that can help a bit, but at the moment I operate on very little. I know people who bring in more but have way more going out and have to make huge sacrifices because of it.

But like, the majority of the people I pick up really don't have it easy. Most don't have vehicles, so that's a pretty big filter in the direction of poverty in the US, but that financial category is very much built into and intended by the system and people seem to be totally fine with it. I can only assume that's the case, given that we have suburban neighborhoods full of people with enough throw-away money to completely elevate nearby destitute neighborhoods but it doesn't happen. And this is in Massachusetts, where we have some half-decent social services.

But, like, it's bad. Look at it this way. The next time you go run some errands, try to pay attention to the people who are ringing you up, getting your food, all of that. Think of the sheer quantity of people working in positions that you interact with every single day in service jobs. For the most part, all of them are making no more than a few dollars above minimum wage. Most are probably within 2 dollars of it.

Wherever the average American's at financially, there's a lot more that those who are well off could be doing to make it better. Like, maybe instead of new marble countertops, give someone that life transforming $5k. Because it is absolutely the morally correct move, and your distressed reaction is absolutely the correct reaction.

Do something about it.

[-] PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com 8 points 11 months ago

When I was poor, $5k would've been life changing. I wouldn't have eaten any better except for a day or two, but I wouldn't have had debts hanging over my head.

Matter of fact, I had a $4k debt hanging over my head for like 6 years because I dropped out of college. I couldn't pay it off until I got my dad's life insurance after he died. I worked the entire time, 6 years straight, but was underpaid and Wells Fargo was doing its illegal overdraft fee thing....I will never work with that bank again. It wasn't uncommon for me to pay $70 in fees on a paycheck of $400. Idk how the fuck I survived.

[-] Kushia@lemmy.ml 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

$5k definitely helps people, it lets you catch up on bills, treat yourself a little and be able to enjoy life for a bit. But in this show it felt like medieval royalty throwing a few copper to the peasants on the streets and they literally said it was a once in a lifetime thing for these people. It was downright depressing that Americans live like this.

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this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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