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All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

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Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#151

Post by Shivetya »

philsnow wrote: post #110
yummyfajitas wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be more sad if her salary went up to $15/hour (~2x), but yours went up to $210/hour (~3x, assuming you started from $70 ~= 10 x $7)? If this would not make you sad, then inequality isn't really the problem.

In terms of relative buying power, going from $7.50/h to $15/h is a much bigger jump than going from $70/h to $210/h. This is sort of a sick twist on the idea that "the house always wins" or "the market can remain illogical longer than you can remain solvent": at lower incomes, it sometimes only takes one car maintenance, one unexpected trip to the dentist, before you have to start picking and choosing what bills to…

Inequality suggests people who are skilled to perform a job are not paid equally to others for similar skill sets. Is someone working your local fast food restaurant suffering from inequality compared to a software engineer earning ten times as much when one cannot ever hope to do the other persons job?

Besides pay one of the largest burdens the poor face are all the government fees and indirect taxes that most of us don't notice in our daily lives. That twenty dollar tag fee renewal to me is nothing, but if you have to have a car and aren't clearing much twenty bucks can mean beans and rice.

Government already has the ability to track all fees paid it directly and can make assumptions about indirect fees so that the working poor; far different from the non working poor; can be relieved of some of the burden.

The only other option for solving inequality as many bemoan is to take from those earning so much so they really don't see the point and eventually everyone ends up poorer.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#152

Post by throwaway999888 »

jurassic wrote: post #94

This level of inequality makes me sad. Really sad. I know I can't be the only working stiff in the valley whose poor siblings and family think they are rich for earning in the $100-150k range. Nevermind that I can't afford to buy a house here. I can't enjoy my success because of the near-desperate financial situations I see my relatives enduring. My sister gave me a $50 gift for christmas, and it brought tears to my…

Ah, I see things are working as planned. The upper middle class and lower feeling guilt at their salaries, even though it's just a pittance in the larger pool.

But I've been thinking about how much money I really need. I could have indulged in some expensive hobbies, but I can also get by with lesser equipment and practice the same hobbies, as long as I don't obsess over how "bad" that equipment is. And there are a lot of hobbies that either cost little to maintain, or that benefits other people. So there seems to be a lot of potential for reducing spending on oneself ones immediates and funneling some of it elsewhere (either through money, labour or time).

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#153

Post by bane »

746F7475 wrote: post #124
randycupertino wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel you. My brother is a restaurant manager in the middle of Kansas making 30k a year. And he is a smart guy who was a MATH MAJOR at a state school! He could come out here and get a job at a startup and make 80k easily. But he won't leave his inlaws family, so he's stuck in Kansas. There is some strain and resentment in our relationship over our income differential, sure... especially when I want to complain that…

Completely off-topic, but whenever I see these amounts I feel like either I don't understand how U.S. economy works or I've been living in poverty my whole life. I'm recently graduated B.Sc in compsci and I'm doing software testing and to me 30k/year is plenty. Like I have money to buy all kind of unnecessary stuff for my hobbies. Is 30k/year really low salary in U.S.? Or am I just being under paid? I always though m…

The U.S. economy is geographically spread out and enormous. However, due to various historic reasons, the population is mostly focused at the coasts, and for other historic reasons, the north-west and north-eastern coastal areas are the wealthiest and densest. More people and more money means more demand and higher prices.

In the rest of the country, which is fairly sparse, you can find high standards of living, minus some of the extras you'll find in the rich, dense, coastal areas (extras usually in the form of various culture and activities). However, due to the lack of local demand, the prices are lower.

This creates hugely variable economic conditions on the order of the differences between London/Paris and Budapest.

Housing, like anywhere, dominates living expenses after taxes $30k/yr income looks more like $22k/yr. There are single bedroom apartments, not fantastic, but pretty nice, around where I live that are $2k+/mo. Now you have no money for food, transport, clothing, hobbies, etc. You can find cheaper places for around $1.5k+/mo (there are no housing options here under $1200) but that still leaves you pretty thin with $4k left to spread across the entire year for other necessities.

On the other hand, in Omaha, Nebraska, I found some comparable apartments at $500/mo. Which gives you a little more than $1k/mo for the rest of the year. You'll probably blow through half of that on food and half of that on car expenses (cheap housing in the U.S. implies almost no public transport options) and now you still have no money for savings or hobbies.

The median income in the U.S. is ~$54k/year (about the same as Europe but a hair higher). But that also means children, a couple income earners and so on.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#154

Post by Wildgoose »

sangnoir wrote: post #138
Wildgoose wrote: post #115

Not just America, America is just leading the pack. And from an English perspective I certainly wouldn't eulogise the Unions in the way this article does either. My father (now retired) was a member of the EETPU (Electrician's Union). It was seen as a "right-wing" Union because its constitution banned communists from holding any positions within the Union - but that was because communist activists and their aggressiv…

> The EETPU dealt with the problem, other Unions, the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) did not. It was their aggressive confrontational policies that wrecked worker solidarity in private industry. I'm not English, but from my (lefty, somewhat uninformed) point of view - wasn't it Maggie Thatcher who "wrecked worker solidarity in private industry"? Or at least wasn't the downfall of unions around her time? Aside: I…

Notable (Labour Party) left-winger Barbara Castle tried to address the problem of excessive Union militancy with a proposal "In Place of Strife" as early as 1969. It failed and the problems only got worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Place_of_Strife

So, instead of the Labour Party dealing with the problem it ended up being Thatcher's Conservative Party.

Let's just say, one extreme to the other.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#155

Post by humanrebar »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #137
vinceguidry wrote: post #77

I will never miss an opportunity to trot out my favorite quote: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” - Ronald Wright Americans are just going to have to get over themselves and figure out how to cooperate with their peers. We will take any opportunity to lash out at the ones we love. Dude's wife left him aft…

Years of lies, propaganda and rhetoric have been internalized. The greatest trick in politics has been the ability to convince people to vote against their own interests. > it's why the unions left in the first place If it was that simple, why are antilabor and unionization laws passed or pushed upon areas that allow freedom of assembly? Many physical laborers recognize the importance of unions and are members. If la…

> The greatest trick in politics has been the ability to convince people to vote against their own interests.

This is more or less the argument Trump fans make when they argue for a border wall, tougher immigration laws, cracking down on Chinese trade, and other protectionist measures.

Wishing other people were smarter (like us!) is a terrible thought process and very closed-minded. It's part of the reason partisans talk about each other instead of with each other.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#156

Post by cmdkeen »

sangnoir wrote: post #138
Wildgoose wrote: post #115

Not just America, America is just leading the pack. And from an English perspective I certainly wouldn't eulogise the Unions in the way this article does either. My father (now retired) was a member of the EETPU (Electrician's Union). It was seen as a "right-wing" Union because its constitution banned communists from holding any positions within the Union - but that was because communist activists and their aggressiv…

> The EETPU dealt with the problem, other Unions, the NUM (National Union of Mineworkers) did not. It was their aggressive confrontational policies that wrecked worker solidarity in private industry. I'm not English, but from my (lefty, somewhat uninformed) point of view - wasn't it Maggie Thatcher who "wrecked worker solidarity in private industry"? Or at least wasn't the downfall of unions around her time? Aside: I…

Folk mythology isn't always based on underlying facts. Thatcher wasn't perfect but the decline in British manufacturing and mining had been happening long before - the graph of employment in British manufacturing is essentially a 45 degree downward slope from 1961 going back to the same (absolute) number of people in 1991 as were in employed in 1891. In the same way Thatcher didn't shut the largest number of pits.

Britain was the "sick man of Europe" during the 70s, we got bailed out by the IMF in 1976 - unions gave us the Winter of Discontent. Far too many confrontational unions protected Spanish Practices and demanded unjustifiable pay increases which bankrupted companies - not to mention earned a dire reputation for quality. I see a lot more "worker solidarity" in things like German work councils than 70s British trade unions, they didn't seem to have any concept of creating a sustainable business and ultimately wanted everything nationalised in order to separate pay from profits.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#157

Post by humanrebar »

colechristensen wrote: post #80
Spooky23 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people yearn for purpose, family, and community. I think of my grandparents and how they lived their lives. My mom's dad was a NYC Sanitation worker, among other things. They lived frugally and eventually had a small summer cottage in the country. He had an 8th grade education, because his family in Ireland couldn't afford more. Yet he taught himself calculus up to the calc 2 level. That whole cohort of grandpar…

We lost religion because the morals and beliefs it was pushing seemed ridiculous. In that we threw the baby out with the bathwater. The community and purpose went out and didn't get replaced. Some people didn't lose religion, but replaced it with something with equal devotion. You can see many of the same behaviors (including the negative ones) with people and their zealous appreciation for political parties, sports…

> ...but people struggle to see the real problems and replace the void properly with positive things.

I'm not sure how you do that without some sort of "religion" (loosely defined to encompass environmentalism, scientism, salvation-through-politics, hedonism, etc.).

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#158

Post by Wildgoose »

toyg wrote: post #141
Wildgoose wrote: post #115

Not just America, America is just leading the pack. And from an English perspective I certainly wouldn't eulogise the Unions in the way this article does either. My father (now retired) was a member of the EETPU (Electrician's Union). It was seen as a "right-wing" Union because its constitution banned communists from holding any positions within the Union - but that was because communist activists and their aggressiv…

You have some points right, others are very rose-tinted. I've been living in England for 16 years (after several long trips over the previous 15); I've seen plenty of people getting smashed in pubs as well as in clubs, never "out of sight" from anyone. Beer consumption has gone down because of shifting consumer taste (alcopops didn't even exist in your '70s workers' paradise). The smoking ban absolutely did hit tradi…

My "70s workers' paradise"? Please don't put words in my mouth, I made no such claim.

I was referring to traditional local pubs, not the town-centre "vertical drinking establishments" which replaced them.

"Right-to-buy" schemes weren't the problem - my in-laws live in an ex-Council House which they bought. This was actually a good thing in that one of the problems with large out-of-town Council Estates was that they ended up containing a monoculture lacking in good visible role models for the children growing up on them. Private purchases on those estates improved that situation.

The problem wasn't "Right to Buy", it was "Right to Build" - Councils should have been allowed (and encouraged) to use the money raised from Sales to build replacement housing.

I find it interesting that you describe my pointing out mistakes that have been made as "romanticising the past". On the contrary, if you want to improve things then the very first thing you have to acknowledge is when and where things have gone wrong.

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#159

Post by VLM »

analyst74 wrote: post #85

As a foreigner, I have to ask, is life very different for non-white working classes? Is it better, worse or equally suck in different ways?

The crime stats are wildly different and in the rural poor white area my mom retired to (life is actually excellent there if you have retirement money) the crime blotter is exclusively alcohol and drug related or inspired or "powered by", whereas all manner of criminality goes on in the non-white areas.

Aside from type of crime, there's also intense "blame the victim" in the poor white areas, because "sure he was wrong to hit you, but you've grown up with him for decades how can you pretend not to know he's the village's violent drunk, best avoided?" or "sure the guy who crashed into you was drunk and thats wrong, but you've lived here for decades how can you not know after dark the roads are only for drunks?" Whereas "most" non-white area crime is anonymous, someone just walked down the wrong street or parked in the wrong spot or walked into a gunfight they had nothing to do with.

Generally speaking affirmative action means the non-whites have a chance for the future even if they don't deserve it leading to optimism, and also means that at least some of the whites who do deserve it won't get a future, leading to pessimism which also does wonders for race relations (sarcasm).

Re: All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class

#160

Post by ozim »

johnloeber wrote: post #125
746F7475 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely off-topic, but whenever I see these amounts I feel like either I don't understand how U.S. economy works or I've been living in poverty my whole life. I'm recently graduated B.Sc in compsci and I'm doing software testing and to me 30k/year is plenty. Like I have money to buy all kind of unnecessary stuff for my hobbies. Is 30k/year really low salary in U.S.? Or am I just being under paid? I always though m…

Software testing is not software engineering. Testing generally doesn't pay as well. Be careful: if you're doing an engineer's job, then you deserve an engineer's wage. 30k/year would certainly be very low for a software engineer with a degree. For a software tester, it still appears low. According to glassdoor[0], the median US wage for a software tester is $67k. If you're making $30k, then you're probably being und…

60k for recently graduated? I think with 5yr experience maybe and 30K for first job looks ok.
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