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Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#21

Post by Entalpi »

elif wrote: post #9
anoncoward111 wrote: post #4

Not even 200 years ago, most people exchanged labor for food. Currency was not used, as you most likely lived on the farm you worked for. There was no form of advancement to be seen, but also no rent, student loans, medical bills, child care etc. There was also no Whole Foods or freedom of speech. But how much farther have we really come in 2018? We have more things, but if you stop working, you will starve or go ill…

Definitely true in america. In countries such as the netherlands, if you lose your job, you get up to 38 months of 70% salary, rent benefits, child care benefits, and of course your illness will still be treated.

Bringing previously hard working people back into work is hugely benefitial to society.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#22

Post by [deleted] »

tjr225 wrote: post #2

"They work in big cities and rural towns. They’ve tried to save — but rent, child care, student loans and medical bills get in the way." Yikes. I'm not exactly living paycheck to paycheck, but I can relate to this. It's really funny - my wife and I make quite a bit of money - whatever twisted form of capitalism we currently live in has been designed in such a way to extract most of it away from us. One begins to wond…

[deleted]

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#23

Post by damnhungry »

perfmode wrote: post #6

Don’t discount the weight of emotional trauma and the self-sabotaging habits it has the potential to engender. Most people are slaves to their limbic systems. Most people don’t have self-education or resources to seek the help they need to fix these underlying problems. Society does them no favors. Media and advertising are designed to promote consumption. And not even healthy consumption. The idea that we are black…

That really echoes with me. Great that you are making improvement.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#24

Post by vailprogrammer »

jumbopapa wrote: post #5

> certified car seat installer I think I found your issue.

Is everyone just supposed to be as smart as us programmers? Is it peoples' own fault if they're stupid? Do they deserve no sympathy or humanity?

Right now I make $13/hr in an expensive city. I'm working to find a software job, but the people I work with... they don't have anything else. They're just happy to hold down a steady job. How do you suggest these people magically gain the intelligence and/or self-control/self-discipline and free time and knowledge of a solid path to improve their situation? Because they sure as shit can't afford to go to nursing school, but do they even know what to type into google to start teaching themselves marketable skills?

I feel bad for people like you who lack empathy to such a degree. Just literally disconnected from such a large portion of humanity.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#27

Post by leoedin »

perfmode wrote: post #6

Don’t discount the weight of emotional trauma and the self-sabotaging habits it has the potential to engender. Most people are slaves to their limbic systems. Most people don’t have self-education or resources to seek the help they need to fix these underlying problems. Society does them no favors. Media and advertising are designed to promote consumption. And not even healthy consumption. The idea that we are black…

I think the very fact that people in wildly different circumstances are living paycheck to paycheck is a huge flag that this isn't as simple a problem as "they don't get paid enough".

Income and expenses are intricately linked by psychology. It's almost irrelevant what your paycheck is, if you're prone to this problem then somehow expenses will always rise to meet it.

If expenses weren't actually determined by paycheck, the number of people living paycheck to paycheck would be a really small number. Everyone else would either be building a surplus each month or going further into debt.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#28

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

As someone who didn't learn the very basics of personal finance at the optimal point in life, I feel like it should be part of our standardized education. I'd like to think that would make things at least marginally better.

Another thing I'd love to see, would be for banks to fundamentally reorient themselves to be their customer's advocates/financial guardians, instead of being yet another party encouraging people to borrow more than they ought to. Wishful thinking, I know. My bank knows how much I make, it knows how often I get paid, it knows how much I spend and on what - they have all the info they need to develop a plan to ensure my financial security and advise me where I can do better. Why don't they and why isn't it a standard part of opening account(s)? I'd love to see more innovation around encouraging proper saving habits and budgeting, like what simple.com is doing - but it needs to go even farther than what they currently have, IMHO.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#29

Post by todipa »

esotericn wrote: post #15

I'd like to read more about the history of the people in the article. The biggest issue as far as I can tell is that it's easy to 'lose' at any stage. You can make a ton of decisions starting from about age 15-20 that influence your degrees of freedom at age 40 (in the article there's a family of 3 that seemingly have little savings, for example). If you were born to a non wealthy household, the reality is that you s…

I agree with this and that is why we are focusing on funding our child's 529 account to the max without endangering our retirement.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#30

Post by Larrikin »

fromthestart wrote: post #20

From the executive summary of the Federal Reserve report linked in the article: >When asked about their finances, 74 percent of adults said they were either doing okay or living comfortably in 2017—over 10 percentage points more than in the first survey in 2013. >Individuals of all education levels have shared in the improvement over the past five years, though the more educated still report greater well-being than t…

All of those statistics appear to be feeling based and not actually grounded in any meaningful numbers.
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