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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

#91

Post by dsfyu404ed »

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…

Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by ignorance.

There's far more indication that the wealthy just don't know/care about the plight of the poor. Sure a few billionaires might promote what can be seen as anti-poor policy but it seems as though most of them think it's actually good policy.

Your comment is equally bizarre and extreme as the one you're replying to, but extreme in a different direction.

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

#92

Post by sdinsn »

chungleong wrote: post #77
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…

According to https://www.givingwhatwecan.org , an income of $85,000 in the US would put a household of four in the top 3.5% of the world's population.

Which is irrelevant.

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

#93

Post by oceanghost »

fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #31
oceanghost wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a poor area of Southern California. I'd say the majority of the town receives state benefits. There are also stands that give away free cell phones and service (some state program). I have no idea how it works, but its there.

I have similar programs near me for all the items mentioned. I wonder if this metric actually means anything, if you did a similar survey in Europe I suspect you'd find many that can't afford private health insurance but since healthcare is often provided by the state that is meaningless as a barometer of human suffering.

Anecdotally, I've seen very nice cars in areas with subsidized rent-- nicer than my working-class area.

There's a saying in diplomacy that, "All aid is military." Meaning, feeding a dictator's citizens only enables him to buy weapons with money he would have otherwise spent on food. This just being an expression of the fungibility of money.

However, in California, at least, the various medicals, unemployment, etc., monitor your income pretty closely. If people are subsidizing their income with these programs, it would seem to imply there's an untracked (cash) economy with which to do that. All of my income comes in as 1099* I can't hide a cent.

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

#94

Post by Miner49er »

Brendinooo wrote: post #85
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.

"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?

I don't think you can survive without a cell phone, no. I recently broke my phone when applying for jobs, and had to rush to get it repaired, or I would've missed emails/phone calls that I needed to respond to in order to get hired. Once working, don't basically all companies now a days use email or text or calls to communicate with employees?

How do you work a job without childcare? This isn't just a family of four, it's a family of four with kids not old enough for public school. Someone has to cover that cost. This is just the cost to survive. Maybe some people are fortunate enough to have extended family that can provide child care, but if you don't you have something like that you have to pay that cost. This article doesn't say that these people aren't subsidized by the government or others. It's just the actual cost of survival.

You can survive living in terrible conditions, sure. But is it actually surviving? At a certain point death becomes a better option for many people then just "surviving". If you'd rather be dead then "surviving" are you truly surviving?

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

#95

Post by mach5 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #91
mach5 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by ignorance. There's far more indication that the wealthy just don't know/care about the plight of the poor. Sure a few billionaires might promote what can be seen as anti-poor policy but it seems as though most of them think it's actually good policy. Your comment is equally bizarre and extreme as the one you're replying to, but extreme in a different direction.

yes, we all know what hanlons razor is, thanks. that indication does not matter in the least, nor is it in any way provable. the rich completely ignoring their domination over the poor does not make them less culpable. it's almost worse, in a way.

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

#96

Post by chrisseaton »

Brendinooo wrote: post #61
CabSauce wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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…

> What is "Miscellaneous"?

It's defined in the report.

"10 percent of the budget total (including taxes) to cover cost overruns."

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

#97

Post by bryanlarsen »

nostrademons wrote: post #58
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…

The methodology is described here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ne0s04q4wfhuih6/19UW_ALICE_Project... The standards they use are not lavish (renting an efficiency apartment for a single person or 2BR for family of 3 or more, home daycares, "thrifty" meals), but there are some statistical quirks that make this headline a little misleading. They set the housing budget at "the 40th percentile rent", health care at "average…

Most of your comment is spot on, I thought I'd just nit-pick a bit. In America, it's generally only the rich that have the luxury of walking to work; the rich can afford to live where it's convenient. The poor live where it's cheap, which is rarely close to where they work.

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

#98

Post by tastygreenapple »

anarchy8 wrote: post #8
tastygreenapple wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people entitled to consequence free sex? We may as well fund single payer prostitution.

What kind of deranged argument is that?

It seems like the natural next-step of the blithering "you have a right to pleasure".

"You have the right to healthcare" == single payer healthcare

"you have the right to pleasure" == single payer prostitution

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

#99

Post by Brendinooo »

Miner49er wrote: post #94
Brendinooo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

I don't think you can survive without a cell phone, no. I recently broke my phone when applying for jobs, and had to rush to get it repaired, or I would've missed emails/phone calls that I needed to respond to in order to get hired. Once working, don't basically all companies now a days use email or text or calls to communicate with employees? How do you work a job without childcare? This isn't just a family of four,…

>I don't think you can survive without a cell phone, no.

Landlines are an option, as are cheap, no-data plans. I saw a plan for unlimited talk and text for $15/month. Spend double that on a monthly plan for a phone, and you've still cut the technology monthly cost in half. There might be a library nearby you can use for free Internet.

>How do you work a job without childcare?

7% of dads stay home, 28% of moms stay home. I don't now for sure but I'm guessing that those numbers climb if the stay-at-home-ish parent has a part-time job. This is not an insignificant figure.

>Someone has to cover that cost.

Others can and do cover that cost and thus survive with less income. I don't share the base assumption that every family should be independent on their own and thus would not be expected to survive if they aren't. Some people don't have family (or friends, I guess?) to help with childcare. This is unfortunate, and can be helped via various means of social welfare, but I don't think it needs to be the standard for everyone.

>You can survive living in terrible conditions, sure. But is it actually surviving?

Based on the definition of the word? Yes.

[0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-hom...

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

#100

Post by Brendinooo »

chrisseaton wrote: post #96
Brendinooo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> What is "Miscellaneous"? It's defined in the report. "10 percent of the budget total (including taxes) to cover cost overruns."

Thank you for this! Seems like a reasonable thing to include.
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