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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

#81

Post by mach5 »

ryanmercer wrote: post #60
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "care" I assure you kids can and do grow up just fine without an upper middle class amount of resources thrown at them. I agree with your second paragraph though.

>Define "care" If you can't put a roof over their head, and feed them, you probably shouldn't have had them. Multiple people I went to high school with have children they outright can not afford, they couldn't afford the first, or the second, one has 5 children and has been receiving government assistance (and regular handouts as food distribution from her Church) since the first was born. This sort of thing is not u…

> That's not eugenics, that's not mean, that's not classism, that's not racism, that's common sense.

it is the material conditions of classism, racism, and hate that causes the poverty in the first place, with the intentional outcome of making the lower class suffer, so the rich can have more. this IS eugenics. you say it isn't, but in the preceeding paragraph, straight up say that poor people have no business having kids. unbelievable.

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

#82

Post by helen___keller »

pxue wrote: post #70
helen___keller wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In big cities and successful metropolitan regions I'd agree. It's a consequence of how quickly housing costs have outgrown all other costs in cities that the "one-third rule" doesn't really apply anymore. On the other hand if you live in a small town, it's quite possible to make 3x your rent and still be struggling.

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

#83

Post by isabella_r »

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…

Spot on.

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

#84

Post by dsfyu404ed »

ryanmercer wrote: post #60
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "care" I assure you kids can and do grow up just fine without an upper middle class amount of resources thrown at them. I agree with your second paragraph though.

>Define "care" If you can't put a roof over their head, and feed them, you probably shouldn't have had them. Multiple people I went to high school with have children they outright can not afford, they couldn't afford the first, or the second, one has 5 children and has been receiving government assistance (and regular handouts as food distribution from her Church) since the first was born. This sort of thing is not u…

I generally agree with your sentiment but I think you're going a little too far when you say poor people shouldn't have kids. Yes, a disturbing amount of the time it just results in them leaching off society but most of them turn out fine. Nobody is ever "financially prepared" to have kids anyway. They suck up all your money if you let them.

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

#85

Post by Brendinooo »

Miner49er wrote: post #51
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…

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

"Technology" is a cell phone budget. Could you survive without a cell phone?

Plenty of families have a child care budget of zero dollars, and survive.

If the alternative was death, could you cut your housing budget in half by sharing a place with someone, or by renting out a spare room?

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

#86

Post by psynautic »

mach5 wrote: post #81
ryanmercer wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Define "care" If you can't put a roof over their head, and feed them, you probably shouldn't have had them. Multiple people I went to high school with have children they outright can not afford, they couldn't afford the first, or the second, one has 5 children and has been receiving government assistance (and regular handouts as food distribution from her Church) since the first was born. This sort of thing is not u…

> That's not eugenics, that's not mean, that's not classism, that's not racism, that's common sense. it is the material conditions of classism, racism, and hate that causes the poverty in the first place, with the intentional outcome of making the lower class suffer, so the rich can have more. this IS eugenics. you say it isn't, but in the preceeding paragraph, straight up say that poor people have no business having…

you love to see it.

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

#87

Post by LUmBULtERA »

LUmBULtERA wrote: post #73
Miner49er wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Median household income in 2015 in King County was $75,302.[0] A conclusion that half of King County's households have died off by 2017 or 2019 (or about to) seems nonsensical to me. [0] https://www.kingcounty.gov/independent/forecasting/King%20Co...

Can't reply to the reply, but Miner -- that's a good point, median household size is lower than 4... though what we don't know is whether median household income for families of 4 is higher than the overall median, which it easily could be if that statistic includes more two-income households... so this looks unresolvable with the presented data unless you delve more deeply.

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

#88

Post by maxlybbert »

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…

“Almost half of US families can’t afford basics like rent or food” is simply false.

“Almost half of US families are middle class or below” isn’t a crisis, and implies that more than half of US families are upper class.

“Almost half of US families have little to no disposable income” may be accurate and a serious problem, but doesn’t get enough clicks.

This reminds me of the charity that published a press release saying the Great Barrier Reef had died, only to have scientists dispute the press release and call it unhelpful.

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

#89

Post by isabella_r »

shijie wrote: post #35

This is quite a disingenuous title for CNN. The actual study reference in the article (and not even directly, one must go to the linked website and dig around for it) identifies a new subgroup of the US population that are "asset-limited, income-constrained, and employed," or ALICE. Nowhere does it say in the study that these people cannot afford rent and food. These people's financial stability is more tenuous, yes,…

Agree. I'm actually surprised that only 40% are considered ALICE. Is everyone else asset-unlimited, income-infinite?

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

#90

Post by rland »

ryanmercer wrote: post #71
dmitriid wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person on the internet is arguing that a landline with caller ID, call waiting and voicemail is sufficient. > You also don't need payphones to be abundant, From 1990 to 1999 (ages 5-14) I used a payphone maybe a dozen times and nearly all of those were to have discussions with friends that I didn't want my parents to hear so I rode my bike 2 blocks to Little Caesars Ah yes. The needs of a child/teen are surely the…

>Ah yes. The needs of a child/teen are surely the needs of a grown person who will need to communicate with potential employers, banks, landlords, schools etc. I've been working, taxable above the board income (google it, lots of conditions for this including paper delivery which is what I did), since I was 12 years old. I've had a bank account since I was 8. There is no realistic condition where the majority of the…

Things have changed a lot for many low wage workers since about 08 or so. Schedules are set no more than a few days in advance. They're communicated either by an app or by text message. They can be highly variable and it's expected that the employee keep up, or else miss a shift and be fired.

A cell phone is virtually required. (And never provided by the employer).

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