Breaking news: in one of the most productive countries / economies in the entire history of humanity, the majority of people creating that productivity do not get to enjoy the rewards of that productivity.
same as it ever was.
You know what would fix this? More military spending.
You’re getting dangerously close to sounding like you don’t support the troops!
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Well we certainly shouldn’t have a universal healthcare system that would lift people out of medical debt and not tie them to low-paying, menial jobs just to get health insurance.
Because something about invisible hands.
Look, the oil rich countries arent going to discover freedom by themselves
Unions.
I give 1% to my union. My pay is ~10% better than it would be if we didn’t have it, and management gets in huge trouble if they mistreat workers. And by trouble, I mean they fired a manager when they scheduled a worker over their lunch break.
Damn, I could sure use that at Amazon…
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So you still live paycheck to paycheck, except now you have to trust someone else to negotiate on your behalf instead of negotiating yourself
negotiating yourself
Collective action is the only way to get even remotely close to a fair wage.
If one person quits they shrug and hire some other shmuck. If everyone quits, they have a problem. Good luck negotiating that way.
I guess it depends on the industry. Replaceable production line workers following processes that haven’t been automated yet are different from say engineers designing the production line
Plenty of engineers get abused by their employers too it’s super naive to think otherwise. And it’s going to get worse and worse and worse as time goes on that’s the undebatable history of capitalism.
Engineers designing production lines absolutely get fucked over with horrible working conditions. Unions benefit every single position workers fill.
I guarantee you’ve never known an Engineer in manufacturing.
LoL what a shit take of thinking you are special because you are currently being treated nice.
If an engineer is living paycheck to paycheck it’s their fault, and very weird, since they’re generally decent at math.
“instead of negotiating”
Negotiating collectively is the only way to negotiate with a Capitalist. Individually, you are a replaceable cog, collectively you’re the machine.
If you’re living paycheck to paycheck it stands to reason that your negotiating position isn’t very good.
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Wow great comment. Thanks for contributing
You know, as time goes on, your derision just outs you for the bootlicker that you are.
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Lol. Angry little fellow.
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This was a terrific time for us to go down to a single income.
Terrific time for me to get divorced.
And be a single income prior to it.
Alimony is brutal
Lady in the thumbnail got some guns
Srsly. Economics Schmeconomics, whats the tattooed lady’s story?
If she has kids, they gotta be the most well behaved kids in the history of the universe.
Guns like Prison Mugatu
Did you just assume their gender?
Lol aren’t you just on a roll on this post 🤣
If only we were back in the good Ole days of 2019 with the economy roaring and 78% of people reporting living paycheck to paycheck according to CareerBuilder.
It’s PROBABLY a measurement problem, not an actual number with insight on how people are living. People self report incorrectly to a lot of things, and paycheck-to-paycheck can mean a lot of things. We think of it as someone who might be homeless without their paycheck but someone who would have to sell some stocks or stop retirement contributions might also think of themselves as “paycheck to paycheck.”
If you are working, your paycheck is probably a big part of your budget. That makes this survey question a bit meaningless.
You’re spot on here. Plenty of people count maxing out their 401k and IRA as “living paycheck to paycheck”, because their budgets would go upside if they missed a paycheck and did literally nothing to cover it.
Combine that with the general bias all people have to view themselves as generally normal and you get a pretty meaningless metric.
but someone who would have to sell some stocks or stop retirement contributions might also think of themselves as “paycheck to paycheck.”
Oh, like I had to do when I moved to another apartment? I had to wipe out my (tiny) Roth IRA just to pay the deposit. My wife had to wipe hers out just to pay the movers and all the other BS fees. We now have no retirement savings and haven’t since we moved six months ago. We both had to stop contributing to our IRAs in order to continue paying the bills. We’re not even paycheck to paycheck at this point, we’re at month to month.
We just had to refinance our mortgage because our credit card debt was out of control and the payments were too high.
But it did nothing to help with student loans or medical debts.
Yeah, I had to empty my 401k to be able to just keep renting and I’ve decided that it’s probably not worth paying towards anymore since by the time I would retire they likely would tell me I need at least 8 times whatever I could afford to put in so I’ll just plan for death as my retirement like Boeing would want.
Pretty much. I’m very much resigned to the fact that I’ll be working well after the standard retirement age and will likely die at work, with nothing but debt to pass on to… nobody because I can’t afford to have children.
Boeing actually found the longer you work the shorter you live so good news you won’t work past retirement you will work until you die and then retirement age won’t exist. It will be a myth from the past.
but someone who would have to sell some stocks or stop retirement contributions might also think of themselves as “paycheck to paycheck.”
And some people think the Earth is flat…
But neither population is statistically significant
Selling my stocks to pay rent would be like selling my car to pay for a bus ticket.
if you need to sell your stocks to receive value from them then you’re gambling not investing and I would actually consider that the same shitty situation.
The median savings is $5,300. So at the bare minimum, 12% of America has over $5,300 in savings but considers themselves “paycheck-to-paycheck.”
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jeez. that’s the low-end of my goal for yearly savings. I generally average a bit more, at least the last few years.
Congratulations on the privilege?
If you only have about 5K in savings, you need that in savings for emergencies such as medical expenses or suddenly needing to move due to rent increases. That is paycheck to paycheck.
Seems like a lowball number actually
Many many people are unemployed and/or homeless, or trapped in debt, which skews the numbers.
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Hey, but everyone, the 1% are doin’ great and Biden needs his re-election, so the economy is super stronk!
How ignorant can a comment even be? I mean just the idea that the current economy and state of wealth inequality is Joe Biden’s fault is astounding. The previous administration gave biggest handout to the 1% of any government in the history of mankind.
But that’s just the history of America for the last 40 years I guess. Republicans administrations gutting things, giving massive handouts to the rich, destroying social safety nets, allowing corruption and fraud to go rampant, etc… then when a democratic administration tries to clean it up just a little bit, to stabilize things, all the mouth breathers suddenly forget everything happened beforehand.
Good thing that Biden isn’t fixing that but is instead spending all his time trying to throw more bombs on babies.
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Honestly I think people are just tired of being stuck between a rock and a hard place of literal authoritarianism and apathetic stagnation. Even if one is clearly better people are desperate for change and the best leader that we have to look up to is a stuttering old man who complained he wasn’t paid enough while being extremely upperclass and having a stay at home nanny for his kids.
People crave representation and I can see why they complain about the extreme lack of it. And lashing out at the downtrodden do not get them to feel better. You can’t whip a smile onto someone’s face.
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Fair on the stutter part but not sure what to call it when he struggles with words but especially in the case of Trump who literally can’t remember and stumbles his way through sentences. Cause it is not perfectly fine coherent speech that I expect from people over 80
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Lots of words by a dolt who just doesn’t get it.
I get it. You voted Hilary. Like a dolt.
Speaking of dolts.
Even Hillary wasn’t this stupid.
Don’t get me wrong I hate the prior guy. But isn’t it always funny how the Democratic party in their times of super majority don’t tend to fix the shit entirely that the last guy rammed through. Take the tax cuts and removing alot of deductions for the working class. Wouldn’t it make sense to undo those tax cuts and tax increases?
Both sides aren’t the same but this ain’t a left vs right issue, it’s a class war.
What super majority?
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The French Revolution saw less poverty and less inequality than what exists in modern day America.
The wealthy view this as progress: “we milked more of the production and still have a docile subservient society”
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The French revolution saw a shitload more innocent civilians killed than what exists in modern day America.
This is so incredibly stupid it boggles the mind. There were not even 300 million civilians in France, especially considering that today there are only 60 million people living there.
The point is to draw attention to the idea that the French Revolution was bad in every possible way
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wanton murder
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gave rise to an Emperor
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was mob rule led by a small group, not democracy
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did not materially change the lives of the majority of the French moving forward
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was literally called the Reign of Terror
Your opinion is tainted by British and reactionary voices writing the history of the French Revolution.
Overthrowing the Ancien régime left the average French person with much more political voice in the 1870’s than the average member of the 3rd estate could have hoped for at any point in the 18th century.
-Wanton Murder
Yeah there was violence political and non-political due to the anarchy that came from the revolution. This is unavoidable when the political elites do not respect the voices of the majority of their citizens.
-Gave rise to an emperor
Yeah because the entirety of Europe declared war on France several times in order to save their cousin king Louis, to save the estates of their rich noble exile buddies, then to avenge King Louis, and finally to protect British and exile monetary interests.
-was mob rule led by a small group, not democracy
It was eventually figured out, and it was always better than the pre 1789 status quo. **
-did not materially change the lives of the majority of the French moving forward
Lol, except for the entire political upheaval of the French Society.
-was literally called the Reign of Terror
It was called the Reign of Terror by British papers, the average Parisan had nothing to fear from the revolution other than reactionary mobs. Which was much safer than offending the wrong noble, or walking in front of the horse of some member of the gentry.
I am basing the French Revolution from the Estates General of 1789 to the start of the 2nd French Republic.
I’m not interested in your revisionist history, thanks.
It’s weird for you to put this much effort into a post encouraging violence in the US. Violence you most assuredly would not benefit from.
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Lol some clown is removing my comments as “uncivil” in posts
Violence is the only way that rights and freedoms have ever been secured. It has NEVER happened by voting
Can’t disagree with this more.
Advocating for violence is wrong, and that’s probably why you keep getting your comments removed.
In fact I’ll go so far as to say that if we rely on violence every time to resolve issues then there’ll be nothing left but cockroaches and dolphins looking around the scorched Earth wondering “What the fuck happened here?!”
Well to be fair, he didn’t say which side would be committing the violence. One analysis of the civil rights movement is that is was successful because it provoked violence by the oppressors while cameras were present.
Well to be fair, he didn’t say which side would be committing the violence.
I speak towards violence of any kind, from either side. Self-defense notwithstanding.
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Everything good you have-especially as a US citizen- is the result of violence and nothing else.
If you’re talking about overthrowing tyrants to become a free nation, then yeah /agree violence is most likely needed.
But the whole point of America and its political system is to resolve conflict in non-violet ways, so definately think your’e wrong there. Violence begets violence and destroys your land/homes.
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Also, for the record, our system is absolutely not set up to resolve conflicts in nonviolent ways.
You need to justify that statement with real-country examples, because unless your definition of “violence” is different than it is for the rest of us, your comment is easily proven false.
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Based on your definition…
All of
AmericaHumanity is violence.FTFY.
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How does any vote get passed in Congress today? Congress has votes and passes laws all the time without violence.
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Seriously, how can you possibly live through the last couple of years of Roe and associated laws and decide there is no violence??!
Our definition of ‘violence’ differs.
Literally rule 1
- Be civil
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You’re wrong, and your advocation of violence is abhorrent. Democracy does indeed work and your calls for the destruction of society over your power fantasy are awful and misplaced.
How is he “advocating” for violence? Where is his call to action?? Stop being so allergic to uncomfortable conversations. He is right. Look at all the big triumphs over tyranny that have happened throughout history, they were achieved through violence. Do you think America voted their way out of British rule? Do you think Ukraine can vote Russia out of their country?
Look at all the big triumphs over tyranny that have happened throughout history
In context, this argument makes no sense, because he is advocating violence against random wealthy people in the US.
They said nothing about the violence being random. If anything, it would take some planning.
You must not consider what the wealthy are doing to the working class to be tyrannical then
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Cut back on the caffeine big chief
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Still? That number will only grow. Trickle down economics doesn’t exist and Americans don’t understand what class consciousness is.
Ugh, poor people and their disgusting lifestyle choice of having no money.
Can’t they just dip into their trustfunds if they’re short?
Trustfunds? You think every success is a Rockefeller or something? Just ask as family member for a million dollar loan to start a business, that’s how all the modern greats have done it. (/s plz don’t hurt me)
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Remember this the next time someone says “what the market will bear.”
Unchecked capitalism is about aggressively exploiting resources. We, our time, and whatever we posses of value, are all such resources.
Really need to bring back the ‘New Deal’ era laws and regulations.
Waiting for raw Capitalism to ‘lift all boats’ just won’t happen, as only the strongest ‘boats’ survive the storms.
Capitalisms default mode is ‘let them eat cake’.
What I have seen is that the issue is now at the local economy level. In the urban areas costs have returned to pre-2020 prices. In rural areas the prices are still extremely high. Gas in a urban area is around $2.30 while in rural areas it’s $3.15. Milk prices are about a 0.75 a gallon difference as well. Life sucks if you live in the middle of nowhere, but it’s not bad if you live close to a urban area. The price difference appears to be due to transportation costs. It just isn’t worth the logistics to support rural communities anymore for most companies.
You keep saying this. Got a source?
Gas near me in my urban area is at $2.90 and milk is $3.15 a gallon. Prices are still way up on most essential goods, but they’ve stopped climbing. Wages sure as hell haven’t kept up either. And rent went up higher last year than ever.
Gas is a little under $5 a gallon in my urban area.
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I wish gas was that low. It’s still at about $3.65 here and has been for years.
Gas in my commute town in rural Georgia and nearby rural towns is around $2.90-3.20, in Macon it’s $2.70-2.80, Savannah it’s $2.70-2.80, in Augusta it’s $2.80-2.90, and in Atlanta it’s $3.20. My area has over 50k people, Macon has 234k people, Savannah 405k, Augusta 611k, and Atlanta 6.1 million. Based off of this limited data I could guess smaller urban areas have lower prices, which rise the larger they get until they eventually meet or surpass rural prices. But then you can look at Colombus with 330k population and their gas prices are $2.50-2.60, but then again it’s partially in Alabama which might explain the lower prices (Alabamans are poor af)
Not this urban area.
lol, urban prices have not gone down.
You might want to check again.
I live in Seattle. Prices have not gone down, inflation has simply slowed. You might want to check again yourself.
Isn’t that by design in Seattle?
By nature of the income class that moves to Seattle but not exactly by design.
That makes sense.
No, and in fact our city council is regularly working towards better affordability and equitable housing/income/education. I can’t say they’re especially successful overall, but that’s what they get voted in for and that’s what they try to do.
I don’t know about that. I live in a small city, but it’s a depressed community. Gas here has been under $3.00. This weekend, we went to visit my mother in a slightly larger city, but it is a desirable city, and gas was over $3.10.
So it’s not really all about urban and rural. There are urban areas people want to live in and there are urban areas that people are less interested in living in and the latter are also cheaper despite being urban.
I just looked at a good example. Gary, IN and Chicago, IL.
According to Gas Buddy, gas in Gary is around $2.75/gallon. Gas in Chicago is around $3.10/gallon. Gary definitely counts as urban.
Meanwhile, nearby but rural Winamac, IN (I picked it at random)- $3.10. Same as Chicago.
Gas prices very wildly from location to location, and probably aren’t a good indicator.
I am unable to find (and would love a link) any data on population distribution through the quintiles of income.
Does this help? This is the most recent data I found.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distribution-of-household-income-in-the-us/
This does help! Quickly cross-referencing this, it means people solidly in the middle quintile (not all, but some %) are also living paycheck to paycheck, which honestly should be talked about more.
