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Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

money.cnn.com

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Re: Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

#61

Post by Brendinooo »

CabSauce wrote: post #33
LUmBULtERA wrote: post #16

>"For instance, in Seattle's King County, the annual household survival budget for a family of four (including one infant and one preschooler) in 2016 was nearly $85,000." An $85,000 "budget" is needed for a 4-person household's "survival" in King County? Otherwise they're dying? Maybe United Way's underlying data explains this better, but CNN's conclusions don't seem well explained or supported. Edit: What's weird i…

>"households don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone" Literally the first line of the article.

Yeah, but dig into the specifics. OP's link allocated $586 a month for food - my family is bigger than the example, and we spend about half of that on groceries. We'll eat out to make up some of the difference, but if we're getting fast food once or twice a week, I wouldn't say we are in a "survival" scenario.

Child care is also assumed here, but is not necessary in a two-parent home. Take that off the board and you free up around $15k, as well as some of the tax money as well. And does that tax estimate include the $2k/kid child tax credit?

What is "Miscellaneous"?

The hourly wage assumes a 2000-hour work year. So theoretically two people could work $15.50/hour jobs and meet this requirement, or you could knock the food budget in half, drop child care, and get the total hourly wage down to $21.50 an hour. That could be one parent working 20 hours a week at $10/hr and another working 40/week at $17/hr. Or someone could earn extra hours to get some spending money. I do that to supplement my family's income.

I dunno. "Survival" is such a strong word, and I'm really skeptical that it applies here.

Re: Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

#62

Post by taborj »

wedn3sday wrote: post #55
algaeontoast wrote: post #2

In many of these cases it seems like having kids may have been an ill-advised life choice. Having kids is always a choice not a right.

In many places in the US having kids is actually not a choice but an obligation forced on women by lack of funding for reproductive service clinics by ignorant politicians and repeated attacks on the right to an abortion by right wing extremists. This is a very loaded conversation at the moment, but there are politicians who've said things like, if a woman is raped and becomes pregnant she should accept the gift that…

> This is a very loaded conversation at the moment

And your choice of words to describe the situation certainly aren't helping. In fact, they're causing more harm than good, as you present one side as good and kind, and the other side as evil incarnate.

In other words, this is a complex situation, and you're part of the problem.

Re: Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

#63

Post by Miner49er »

LUmBULtERA wrote: post #56
Miner49er wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's that different then a standard definition of survive? Everything listed there is needed to survive.

If that's the case, you're literally saying that families of 4 in King County earning less than $85,000 are dying. I don't think this is the case.

Seems right to me. If you don't have housing, food, or healthcare, you're gonna die a lot quicker then someone that does. Sure, you can survive for a while homeless, or without healthcare, or even without food, but your definitely dying faster then people with.

Re: Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

#64

Post by deogeo »

ryanmercer wrote: post #42
deogeo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cell phone could be necessary for many jobs (like deliveries). And cell phone + mobile data can be a cheaper alternative to computer + landline internet, which is pretty essential nowadays. Even if you argue you can do without, the money you'd spend on transportation to do in person what you'd otherwise do online would outweigh the price of a cell-phone. Not to mention the time you save, which can be used to avoid ne…

>Cell phone could be necessary for many jobs (like deliveries) Then it should be provided by the employer. I don't know how old you are but, we got by without mass adoption of cellphones in the 90's just fine. You had an answering machine, people called you and if they didn't get you they left a message and you got home and pressed play. We also survived just fine without GPS and digital maps, people actually knew ho…

> Then it should be provided by the employer.

Unfortunately they don't live in should-be land. And when an employer asks them to send them a CV via e-mail, or to install the app which they use to send delivery pick-up/drop-off locations, "I didn't need these things in the 90s!" won't fly.

Re: Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

#65

Post by Brendinooo »

llamataboot wrote: post #41
LUmBULtERA wrote: post #16

>"For instance, in Seattle's King County, the annual household survival budget for a family of four (including one infant and one preschooler) in 2016 was nearly $85,000." An $85,000 "budget" is needed for a 4-person household's "survival" in King County? Otherwise they're dying? Maybe United Way's underlying data explains this better, but CNN's conclusions don't seem well explained or supported. Edit: What's weird i…

I'm not sure whether you are arguing in good faith or not, so I'd say just bypass all the 'survival' stuff you are stuck on and essentially replace it with 'middle class'. Now you may also be pedantic and say that middle-class is supposed to be the middle , so 50% is about right. But what you can't argue with is that nearly half of Americans simply cannot build any wealth or get out of any debt and likely can't meet…

I don't think you can just swap out the word "survival" with "middle class". Survival is a really powerful word, "the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances." So the claim is that you need $85k in King County in order to continue to live.

This isn't pedantry. If people are scraping by in that area with less family income, then this metric is flawed and either the numbers should be revised or it should be renamed.

Re: Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

#66

Post by wedn3sday »

hnaccy wrote: post #45
bachmeier wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Human beings will always make bad choices. There is nothing wrong with helping them when they do. 2. You can't blame children for mistakes made by their parents.

>Human beings will always make bad choices. There is nothing wrong with helping them when they do. You're forcing others to help them by threat of force.

Forcing the wealthy to help the poor is how we avoid a surge in the guillotine construction industry.

Governments use the threat of force all the time to make people perform pro-social actions, if I park in a handicap zone I get a ticket. What is that ticket besides the threat of force if I dont pay it? What is any contract between any two parties besides a threat of force? On a fundamental level the government exists to threaten force against rich people in order to help poor people, which allows those poor people to go on living and not take up arms to take what they need from the wealthy.

Re: Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

#67

Post by mach5 »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #40
mach5 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so only the rich should reproduce? absolutely disgusting mindset. nobody chooses a life of poverty, and the overwhelming inequality of our current society both perpetuates and exacerbates it.

If you can't care for your child, you shouldn't have one. The natural order is that children from unfit parents die. There are too many humans on this planet as it is. If you're impoverished in your thirties, it is probably the result of a long history of poor life choices. You can get dealt a horrible hand with lots of tragedy and disadvantages and still be able to make it on your own in your thirties, as long as yo…

complete conjecture, there is a giant cohort of people older than 30, crushed by debt and medical bills, stuck in menial jobs because their parents couldn't afford college. you're telling me that the janitor that cleans your office isn't hard working? or the factory-worker that makes your clothes? are they all just lazy morons that don't deserve to reproduce?

please, just go mask-off, be true to yourself, and admit you just want eugenics. you're already A-OK with the death and suffering of children.

Re: Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

#68

Post by mbostleman »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #5

If "Nearly 51 million households don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone" Is true does that mean those households do without those things? Or are they subsidized via other methods? Medicare/medicaid for health insurance for example. Such programs often have income maximums that households may be attempting to optimise for. We o…

At least with census data there has been a well known gap for some time between data on income vs. data on consumption, with the latter generally being higher. Census poverty data does not count a number of benefits including food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Re: Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

#69

Post by hnaccy »

wedn3sday wrote: post #55
algaeontoast wrote: post #2

In many of these cases it seems like having kids may have been an ill-advised life choice. Having kids is always a choice not a right.

In many places in the US having kids is actually not a choice but an obligation forced on women by lack of funding for reproductive service clinics by ignorant politicians and repeated attacks on the right to an abortion by right wing extremists. This is a very loaded conversation at the moment, but there are politicians who've said things like, if a woman is raped and becomes pregnant she should accept the gift that…

If you can't afford condoms don't have sex.

23% of those 18-30 aren't having sex and they're not dying.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-ame...

Re: Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food

#70

Post by pxue »

helen___keller wrote: post #36
fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #5

If "Nearly 51 million households don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone" Is true does that mean those households do without those things? Or are they subsidized via other methods? Medicare/medicaid for health insurance for example. Such programs often have income maximums that households may be attempting to optimise for. We o…

I strongly recommend viewing the actual source information instead of the cnn article https://www.unitedforalice.org/home The 51 million households aren't literally on the verge of starvation, they are "Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed" (ALICE) which is similar to being paycheck to paycheck in that they can survive but not thrive: >When funds run short, cash-strapped households are forced to make impossibl…

one of the most important key stat is defining housing spend to be "no more than one-third of income"

if you make >3x your rent i'd say you are cruising in life.

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