On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't • Hacker News Board

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#281

Post by hardwaregeek » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #180

burlesona wrote: post #167

This is a great write-up, and as someone who spent time being poor-ish, it really resonated. What I realized from my own life experience: the US sawed the bottom rungs off the ladder in the 1950s when it suburbanized. There is no affordable housing or transportation in 95% of the North American land area, and virtually every societal problem we deal with either stems from this or is made worse by it. Then the healthc…

I sometimes wonder if that event horizon is encroaching higher and higher up the economic ladder over time. Most of the people in my personal cohort - with university degrees and good careers - have no problem living a good life in the US. But with the rapid inflation of the cost of healthcare, higher education and housing, I wonder how that lifestyle can possibly become accessible to people who weren't essentially b…

Definitely. At least in my generation it feels like the boat is sinking and everybody's scrambling to be above deck. The majority of my high school class is going into tech or tech-adjacent industries for that reason.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#282

Post by newswasboring » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

throwaway846 wrote: post #251

throwaway-0987 wrote: post #174

Throwaway because I don't want my co-workers to know. I was poor. My father left home when I was a kid in middle school. My mom worked part time cleaning houses and left us when she found a new husband. I dropped out of high-school in the 9th grade and went to work. Low paying jobs. I lived with my aunt on the bad side of town. Fast-forward 35 years. Today, I make about 200K per year. I got a GED, went to trade schoo…

Similar story I'm now late 30s; father left when i was 2 died of aids when I was 6 Mother washed dishes then was unemployed from age 12-now and we bounced around her boyfriends houses My metric (edit: for myself) "have you been poor" is gathering extra condiments from a gas station and having mustard on bread for a meal. We had food stamps, and a small social security check. I always had a bed, and food, but barely a…

> My metric for "have you been poor" is gathering extra condiments from a gas station and having mustard on bread for a meal.

Do you really mean that or is that hyperbole? Because if you really mean that, thats a bit gate keeperish, isn't it? What if someone had their own mustard but dinner was still bread mustard? Its a ridiculous example, I know, but so is this yardstick.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#283

Post by DataWorker » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

Many live in daily terror of becoming homeless or worse. I feel like social isolation matters more than wealth in making people feel secure. Many homeless people had money, good jobs, education, but most lacked community. Some say they find a family on the streets, for better or worse. It’s not all social, neither is it all financial.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#284

Post by refurb » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #113

And what boggles the mind even more than this sorry state of affairs in the USA is that a significant part of these "working poor" are voting for a party that angrily rejects any notion of a European-style welfare system that would help improve this situation as "socialism"...

Agreed. Not only are they poor but apparently quite stupid! I mean, who vote against a European-style welfare system? Who doesn’t want to be just like Europe?

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#285

Post by jschwartzi » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

skinkestek wrote: post #260

> it seems like they hardly lie awake at night thinking about their iffy alternator much, if at all. Sometimes someone can help someone and score big at the same time. Here's a story that I heard from someone who was there: There was a small company that was in a position where they made money but not a lot so they saved on everything. At one point the owner caught whiff that one of the employees, - a master craftsma…

The employees who would be jealous are operating with a different definition of "fair." The common definition is that everyone gets the same thing, but a more humane definition is that everyone gets what they need. And if you switch from the former to the latter then the owner's decision becomes very fair. Everyone benefits from having the specialist focused on work. And the specialist gets what he needs too.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#286

Post by throwaway846 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

newswasboring wrote: post #282

throwaway846 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar story I'm now late 30s; father left when i was 2 died of aids when I was 6 Mother washed dishes then was unemployed from age 12-now and we bounced around her boyfriends houses My metric (edit: for myself) "have you been poor" is gathering extra condiments from a gas station and having mustard on bread for a meal. We had food stamps, and a small social security check. I always had a bed, and food, but barely a…

> My metric for "have you been poor" is gathering extra condiments from a gas station and having mustard on bread for a meal. Do you really mean that or is that hyperbole? Because if you really mean that, thats a bit gate keeperish, isn't it? What if someone had their own mustard but dinner was still bread mustard? Its a ridiculous example, I know, but so is this yardstick.

Metric for myself; not others. I can't pretend to know what "line" people have in their mind that gives them anxiety around money. (I'll edit for clarity)

It ends up being a discussion point with my wife for lots of topics where I'm not picky about the quality of food because it's not mustard on bread.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#287

Post by schrectacular » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #187

cableshaft wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the US healthcare system basically means you have to be a multimillionaire when you've retired if you want to have any semblance of a comfortable retirement, because any serious injury or health issue (which will happen at some point) will do a damn good job of sucking up most or all of that money away super fast. If you're younger at least you might get lucky with GoFundMe "insurance", but that requires your st…

I thought everybody over 65 in the US got free national healthcare?

They get free national health insurance, but it doesn't cover everything and dealing with the bureaucracy is a non trivial amount of effort. And there are still out of pocket deductibles to pay even with this national coverage. As a result people often purchase supplementary insurance.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#288

Post by sandworm101 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

tangjurine wrote: post #223

sandworm101 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I'm upper middle class and I've been able to save so much money by getting rid of my car. Because you probably have job at a desk with a computer. You don't physically do much and so your per-minute presence at work isn't mandatory. If you are a few minutes late the world is not going to end and your workday rarely starts before 5am. You can handle the ins and outs of public transportation and/or you can afford to…

What about a motorcycle? Cheaper and insurance not required.

>> ... insurance not required.

Where exactly is insurance not required for a motorcycle? Or do you mean moped? And it was -12c with two inches of snow on my car this morning. Anything on two wheels would be lethal. Good luck even riding a bicycle with two inches of new snow over a season's worth of compact ice.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#289

Post by hc-taway » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #187

cableshaft wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, the US healthcare system basically means you have to be a multimillionaire when you've retired if you want to have any semblance of a comfortable retirement, because any serious injury or health issue (which will happen at some point) will do a damn good job of sucking up most or all of that money away super fast. If you're younger at least you might get lucky with GoFundMe "insurance", but that requires your st…

I thought everybody over 65 in the US got free national healthcare?

It's the US, so of course "free healthcare" still leaves you with lots of large bills if you actually use any healthcare. Usually one pays for "gap coverage" insurance, running low-hundreds of dollars per person (consider: married couples) to cover things that aren't covered, or are poorly-covered, by Medicare[0] and those still don't mean you aren't going to have a substantial hospital bill if anything goes wrong (as they usually don't cover 100% of a bill, just like normal US health insurance)

[0] Medicare is our insurance program for old people, and I think also kicks in for those who are disabled at younger ages. Medicaid is the name for our HC program for the very poor. People get these mixed up because the names are so similar. Then of course there's our coverage for the active military and their families (Tricare) and VA healthcare coverage for retired military. And programs for other government employees, and their families. By the time you add it all up, a huge percentage of the US population is already covered by government healthcare schemes, actually, which is reflected in our spending enough on publicly-funded healthcare that we should be able to cover everyone with just that money, if our costs were similar to the rest of the OECD. Instead we still have the costs of private insurance and bills to individuals even when covered by healthcare (these can run into the five figures per year, easily, on top of insurance costs) and, for some of the above, huge expenses in addition to the costs of the government portion of the HC program.

[EDIT] Medicare gap coverage tends to run low-hundreds of dollars per person per month, in case that wasn't clear.

Re: On the Experience of Being Poor-Ish, for People Who Aren't

#290

Post by sethammons » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #76

bregma wrote: post #67

This is interesting. My wife is a case worker for the county welfare office. She deals with "those" people for a living and sees first-hand every day all the real and imagined shit spouted by righteous ideologues. She tells me that amongst those living in poverty, wealth is measured in terms of friends and family. Any money you come into is spent immediately, often on gifts to build status within your social network.…

The reason you spend money as soon as you get it when you're poor is 1) because when you're poor you accumulate debts, both formal and informal, and 2) when you're poor you know other people who are poor and who need things. Thinking poor people like being poor because they value what's really important - friends and family - is like poverty version of the "magical negro" trope. Poor people value friends and family b…

> Thinking poor people like being poor because they value what's really important - friends and family - is ...

I didn’t read that poor people like being poor - I read they have a different value system (and reading into it, the different value system being rooted in being poor). You are injecting something else into the narrative.