Survey: 40% of Americans "struggle" to pay for basic needs such as groceries or housing

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Despite the U.S. economy being near full employment, 39.4 percent of adults between 18 and 64 years old said they experienced at least one type of material hardship in 2017, according to the study, which surveyed more than 7,500 adults about whether they had trouble paying for housing, utilities, food or health care.

[Jason]

Buttery Ben Ghazi

[osxmatt]

It’s almost as if we shouldn’t use unemployment as a measure of economic well-being.

[marioandsonic]

Obviously this means we need to give millionaires another tax cut.

[Ricofoley]

 

 

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

In a world where Medicare for all is reality (read: higher taxes by necessity) what people also need is """reasonable""" cost controls on necessary medications and medical treatment, which people can clearly afford.

[Keyser_Soze]

It means they just need to pull up their bootstraps and open their own business and make money!

[thewhyteboar]

Reagan should be remembered as one of the worst presidents of all time. 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 minute ago, thewhyteboar said:

Reagan should be remembered as one of the worst presidents of all time. 

Basically all of them since Nixon were pretty shitty in their own unique shit way

 

Edit no, Johnson

 

Wait, Kennedy

 

Ok, ok, Eisenhower.

 

Truman wasn't that special either.

 

Fdr was a cripple.

[thewhyteboar]

3 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Basically all of them since Nixon were pretty shitty in their own unique shit way

Also true. Trickle down is a scam.

[Chadatog]

I can personally attest to this, half a month behind on the mortgage and have to keep borrowing money from my daughter's cash and asking parents for help with gas and groceries by the end of the month.

[RedSoxFan9]

[Greatoneshere]

Not surprised at all given wage stagnation.

 

Probably time for another millionaire and billionaire tax cut me thinks.

 

Republican GOP: hold my beer.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

While being fully aware of wage stagnation and higher living costs, I wonder how much of this could be helped if the average American just wasn't stupid with money. I know this family who has always lived in total poverty, but both parents smoke and I fucking swear they get pet after pet. Pets are wonderful, but if you struggle with your own necessities, you probably don't need to have 3 dogs and 5 cats. 

[Greatoneshere]

6 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

While being fully aware of wage stagnation and higher living costs, I wonder how much of this could be helped if the average American just wasn't stupid with money. I know this family who has always lived in total poverty, but both parents smoke and I fucking swear they get pet after pet. Pets are wonderful, but if you struggle with your own necessities, you probably don't need to have 3 dogs and 5 cats. 

 

Hard to say - let's fix the first two problems you listed (wage stagnation and higher living costs) and let's see if the problem persists.  

 

I agree though - most people are very stupid with money. The 2008 economic crisis wouldn't have happened to the degree it did without stupid and willing participants on the receiving end of all that predatory lending. 

[RedSoxFan9]

 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

9 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Hard to say - let's fix the first two problems you listed (wage stagnation and higher living costs) and let's see if the problem persists.  

 

I agree though - most people are very stupid with money. The 2008 economic crisis wouldn't have happened to the degree it did without stupid and willing participants on the receiving end of all that predatory lending. 

I'm all for it.

 

I just take a dim view of humanity in general. Like with these people, her husband doesn't want to consistently hold a job and as a result, is ineligible for rehire at a lot of local businesses. And while she's working for the moment and going to school to try for nursing, she claims all these severe pain(fibromyalgia) and anxiety problems. Like, it's to the point where she avoids talking to people on the phone. If you can't make a phone call, you ain't making it as a nurse. Plus, they have 4 kids, despite having lived in total poverty all their lives. And the kids weren't accidents. They wanted that many. Said she would have had more, too, if she hadn't had complications and had to get her tubes tied with the last.

 

I dunno, I read about her daily problems on FB and sometimes I'm just like...

[Joe]

I bet it's also very dependent on COL as well. Someone who lives in the tri-state area or in the Bay Area probably struggles more to make ends meet without a well-paying than a person in the deep South. 

[Greatoneshere]

27 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I'm all for it.

 

I just take a dim view of humanity in general. Like with these people, her husband doesn't want to consistently hold a job and as a result, is ineligible for rehire at a lot of local businesses. And while she's working for the moment and going to school to try for nursing, she claims all these severe pain(fibromyalgia) and anxiety problems. Like, it's to the point where she avoids talking to people on the phone. If you can't make a phone call, you ain't making it as a nurse. Plus, they have 4 kids, despite having lived in total poverty all their lives. And the kids weren't accidents. They wanted that many. Said she would have had more, too, if she hadn't had complications and had to get her tubes tied with the last.

 

I dunno, I read about her daily problems on FB and sometimes I'm just like...

 

Well, I'm all for fixing our education system along with our health insurance system! Because some of these "adults" are coming out pretty stupid. Who's with me? 

 

Seriously though, yeah, seeing that kind of story is depressing just because of how prevalent it is, not only in the US but pretty much everywhere in the world, oftentimes even worse elsewhere than it is here. A dim view of humanity is entirely warranted as a default world view because that's what the evidence indicates. 

[RedSoxFan9]

Educated people waste money all the time

[Greatoneshere]

5 minutes ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

Educated people waste money all the time

 

Of course they do, but a better education system would help a few people make less bad decisions, surely. Perhaps only 2 or 4 kids instead of 10, for instance.  

[CastlevaniaNut18]

39 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

Well, I'm all for fixing our education system along with our health insurance system! Because some of these "adults" are coming out pretty stupid. Who's with me? 

 

Seriously though, yeah, seeing that kind of story is depressing just because of how prevalent it is, not only in the US but pretty much everywhere in the world, oftentimes even worse elsewhere than it is here. A dim view of humanity is entirely warranted as a default world view because that's what the evidence indicates. 

Unfortunately I see it all the damn time. 

 

I'm not one of those people who think poor people should dress in rags and survive on spam and beans or whatever. But at least try to make good decisions. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

16 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Unfortunately I see it all the damn time. 

 

I'm not one of those people who think poor people should dress in rags and survive on spam and beans or whatever. But at least try to make good decisions. 

How Poverty Changes the Brain

 

Your Brain on Poverty: Why Poor People Seem to Make Bad Decisions

[RedSoxFan9]

It doesn’t really matter if they make good decisions either

 

http://www.alternet.org/economy/getting-out-poverty-means-making-zero-mistakes-almost-20-years-america

[Greatoneshere]

9 minutes ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

It doesn’t really matter if they make good decisions either

 

http://www.alternet.org/economy/getting-out-poverty-means-making-zero-mistakes-almost-20-years-america

 

Right, of course, but it doesn't help that they aren't making good decisions either. This is why multiple choice answers like "all of the above" exist. 

[sblfilms]

I’ve helped a lot of people make budgets and get out of debt when they’ve previously been living behind on all their bills, so I certainly track with what @CastlevaniaNut18is saying.

 

It isn’t the only problem, but financial mismanagement is a problem for a ton of middle class folks.

[Kal-El814]

For as easy as it is to shit on the obviously poor when it comes to fiscal responsibility, there are a tremendous amount of middle class people who are an unexpected event and a short hourglass away from poverty themselves. They don’t struggle, they just don’t plan long term and have no meaningful savings. They landed a better job than someone in a low skill position, but their decisions are equivalently bad or actually routinely worse, they can just absorb them provided they never lose their employment.

 

12 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

It isn’t the only problem, but financial mismanagement is a problem for a ton of middle class folks.

If we could get our collective shit together, we’d have federally mandated statistics, home economics, and financial studies classes as part of the grade and high school curriculum. It’s fucking ridiculous that you can graduate high school having taken a class on trigonometry but not know how APRs fuck you, how to cook for yourself, or have a rudimentary understanding of probability.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

19 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

I’ve helped a lot of people make budgets and get out of debt when they’ve previously been living behind on all their bills, so I certainly track with what @CastlevaniaNut18is saying.

 

It isn’t the only problem, but financial mismanagement is a problem for a ton of middle class folks.

I have some genuine concern for my parents and their retirement. They're not living paycheck to paycheck and they're both nurses, but I seriously have no idea how well they've planned for retirement. I know they have 401ks, but I don't know what their savings is really like. I do know they burn through plenty of cash on things they could probably do without. I just hope they're going to be set, because they're 54 and 55 right now.

[osxmatt]

17 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I have some genuine concern for my parents and their retirement. They're not living paycheck to paycheck and they're both nurses, but I seriously have no idea how well they've planned for retirement. I know they have 401ks, but I don't know what their savings is really like. I do know they burn through plenty of cash on things they could probably do without. I just hope they're going to be set, because they're 54 and 55 right now.

 

Maybe they’ll end up like my parents. Didn’t really plan well for retirement, so they’re retiring to Mexico (this weekend actually) because they can’t really make it in the US. And they’re 65 and 66.

 

They are die hard Trumpers too.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

2 minutes ago, osxmatt said:

 

Maybe they’ll end up like my parents. Didn’t really plan well for retirement, so they’re retiring to Mexico (this weekend actually) because they can’t really make it in the US. And they’re 65 and 66.

 

They are die hard Trumpers too.

Hah, I can never see them in Mexico. 

 

My dad taunts me all the time saying Trump is the greatest president this country has ever seen. I think he's totally serious, too. My mom is also a Trumper.  

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

1 hour ago, Kal-El814 said:

For as easy as it is to shit on the obviously poor when it comes to fiscal responsibility, there are a tremendous amount of middle class people who are an unexpected event and a short hourglass away from poverty themselves. They don’t struggle, they just don’t plan long term and have no meaningful savings. They landed a better job than someone in a low skill position, but their decisions are equivalently bad or actually routinely worse, they can just absorb them provided they never lose their employment.

 

If we could get our collective shit together, we’d have federally mandated statistics, home economics, and financial studies classes as part of the grade and high school curriculum. It’s fucking ridiculous that you can graduate high school having taken a class on trigonometry but not know how APRs fuck you, how to cook for yourself, or have a rudimentary understanding of probability.

Like anyone would pay attention in any of those classes. We have an education problem in this country and no amount of schooling can fix that.

[Jason]

56 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

My dad taunts me all the time saying Trump is the greatest president this country has ever seen. I think he's totally serious, too. My mom is also a Trumper.  

 

"Tearing apart my family relations to own the libs!"

[CastlevaniaNut18]

32 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

"Tearing apart my family relations to own the libs!"

It goes deeper and further back than that.  

[Massdriver]

3 hours ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Like anyone would pay attention in any of those classes. We have an education problem in this country and no amount of schooling can fix that.

Yep. From what I can recall reading about this, finance classes don’t produce better outcomes for whatever reason. https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/13/473561841/not-all-financial-education-is-effective-here-are-4-ideas-that-work

 

Its worth trying something though. 

[marioandsonic]

I love threads like this, because they remind me that I have no savings or retirement fund set up, and I'll be working until 10 years after I die.