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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

#221

Post by supertrope »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #85
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…

The problem is not a "twisted form of capitalism". The problem is us . In the 1950s, a family could live on one blue-collar salary. You could probably live on a single blue-collar salary today, too - but you'd live like people did in the 1950s. You would eat out very rarely. You wouldn't have college debt because you wouldn't have a college degree. You'd only have one car. You'd have only one TV for the whole house.…

That is a significant factor. Houses are bigger than ever for less kids. The kids not sharing a bedroom each has a cellphone faster than a 1950 supercomputer. People take flights yearly.

For a few things a 1950 standard of living is literally illegal. Medical care - no NICUs. Seat belts, leaded gasoline, crumple zones.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#222

Post by bfuller »

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…

Wow thank you for this deeply personal comment

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#223

Post by _ptgt »

There is astonishingly little actual data in this article. The only non-anecdotal justification of the headline is from a study that received its own article when it was originally published quite a while ago.

Makes me wonder why WaPo decided this article needed to be published.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#224

Post by supertrope »

RickJWagner wrote: post #109

We are mostly tech people here, right? Given that, I have a suggestion. We should all be smart, compensated well, etc. If you worry about things like this, study what's been said by Warren Buffet, Jack Bogle, and Ray Dalio. These guys have won the game and explain clearly how anyone (yes anyone) can slowly accumulate wealth. It really does work. The site Bogleheads.org is full of helpful ideas and people that will gu…

That's a few steps beyond someone who spends down their checking account each pay period (or runs deficits at times).

You have to have something to invest first.

Budgeting and/or landing a better job probably would come first.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#225

Post by walshemj »

wccrawford wrote: post #13
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…

It's human psychology. Below a certain level, your mind will simply talk itself into spending your available money to make you happy. You don't need that car. A car half the price would have been plenty good enough. But you did it anyhow. You don't need fancy breakfast cereal that costs twice what the generic stuff at Aldi costs. You don't need all those electronics and toys. You don't need to eat out that much. If y…

Aldi and Liddle's cheap food is I would say a false economy.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#226

Post by walshemj »

scarface74 wrote: post #48
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…

It’s not “fear mongering” when 800,000 people aren’t getting paid purely because the President was getting bashed by right wing media.

And the US is an outlier any other democracy not getting a budget though would result in a vote of no confidence and a new election at the least a new government.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#227

Post by dragonwriter »

danieltillett wrote: post #186
dragonwriter wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The trouble is, in America the bigger mortgage often comes with a better school district. That's because our metric for school and school district quality largely is a measure of effects of socioeconomic status of the students, not anything the schools actually produce. So, yes, the schools in areas that have a higher buy-in cost have better marks, because they have on-average students better set-up for success. Th…

It is actually more due to the students who are not there. Yes it is true that the actual teaching is little better between districts, but the number of disruptive students that prevent any learning is vastly less in the expensive districts. If you have the ability to kick out any student who is disruptive you can turn any school in any area into a high quality school.

> the number of disruptive students that prevent any learning is vastly less.

The evidence doesn't really support that, though; students in a “bad” district don't have worse performance than students with similar background in a “better” district (whether because of distraction or any other reason), “better” districts just have more students with backgrounds which are correlated with educational success, of which the strongest factor is parental education.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#228

Post by zozbot123 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #146
zozbot123 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite is the case. High rent is a localized problem (mostly found in relatively dense cities) and UBI would go a lot farther in a low-cost-of-living area where rents are low as well. So, people who have no use for living in the city (not hyper-productive or anything) would gradually opt to spread out and rents would fall.

High rent is localised? The whole of the UK has high rent AFAICT, our very poor city has high rent. Rental means paying the costs of property plus paying profit to someone who is already well off enough to front some capital (or at least to get a mortgage) plus paying profits for the bank ... how could renting ever be reasonable priced in a system that requires those without capital to pay those with capital just bec…

Economically, the "cost of property" is a kind of rent (okay, mostly rent - you can subtract the actual cost of physically building the structure. But most of what you're paying is the pure rent of land.) It is this rent that decreases when the demand for being in a particular place falls.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#229

Post by Aeolun »

WalterSear wrote: post #110
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh for God's sake. Have a child, get dumped/divorced, now you're a single parent. Parents are supposed to be omniscient? God already has a job (and parenting didn't work out so good then either)

> Parents are supposed to be omniscient? The majority of single parents haven't fallen from some perfect baby making situation. They make a risky, selfish choice, usually after the fact. You shouldn't breed if your situation isn't stable. You shouldn't breed if your partner isn't 100% committed to having children. You shouldn't breed if you are living paycheck to paycheck already. Babies aren't magical. Parents aren'…

Everyone should breed. That’s evolution.

Re: Living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common

#230

Post by HarryHirsch »

dragonwriter wrote: post #227
danieltillett wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is actually more due to the students who are not there. Yes it is true that the actual teaching is little better between districts, but the number of disruptive students that prevent any learning is vastly less in the expensive districts. If you have the ability to kick out any student who is disruptive you can turn any school in any area into a high quality school.

> the number of disruptive students that prevent any learning is vastly less. The evidence doesn't really support that, though; students in a “bad” district don't have worse performance than students with similar background in a “better” district (whether because of distraction or any other reason), “better” districts just have more students with backgrounds which are correlated with educational success, of which the…

The OECD report (this one: http://www.oecd.org/education/school/programmeforinternation...) would like you to believe that student background does not determine student performance. They do find a correlation, but it varies substantially between countries, suggesting that other factors are at play.

According to that report the important factors are student and teacher discipline and school atmosphere, and on can easily understand why all of these might be better in an affluent suburb.

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