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Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

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Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#121

Post by e4e78a06 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #89
e4e78a06 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People feel like they _have_ to live in NYC/SF/LA when they make peanuts. If those people moved to the Midwest they'd have much lower CoL and probably still around the same pay. Amazon pays $15/h wherever you are.

The problem is that, if everyone took your advice, who would pick up the garbage and make the lattes? The other problem is that if you want to "better your life" and stop working at Amazon for $15/hr, historically you had to go somewhere where those better jobs are (often NYC/SF/LA, depending on industry). Maybe with remote work becoming more common this will change, but telling people to live in low CoL areas unless…

Maybe wages would go up if there were less people chasing the "dream" of living in SF/NYC/LA on a Starbucks barista career. If everyone took my advice the people left would get higher wages. That's supply and demand.

> historically you had to go somewhere where those better jobs are

There are plenty of good paying (maybe not FAANG's 500k salary but 6 figures nonetheless) jobs in Chicago, Atlanta, North Carolina RTP, Columbus, etc. The biggest contributor to social mobility is getting a good degree at a good school. If you get any engineering degree from any decent state school - doesn't matter mechanical or computer or chemical or whatever - you're making good money.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#122

Post by joe_the_user »

LiquidPolymer wrote: post #88

I’m a relative newcomer to a comfortable, middle class life in the U.S. One of my biggest terrors is falling back into poverty. However, most of my friends and colleagues are all too happy to live beyond their means. People I know who have large, immaculately well cared for homes with gardeners and German cars in the driveway live paycheck to paycheck. One realtor I know never sets aside enough money to pay her subst…

A software engineer might not need to impress anyone to advance their career. But I think some careers do require a person to first look successful in order to be successful (sales(real estate), management, law, many kinds of consulting). I don't know how much someone has to spend on appearance in those situations but maybe the people themselves don't know either and so over-spend just to be sure. Maybe the $1000 jeans would help your friend impress the truly wealthy and maybe they wouldn't.

Which isn't saying that some people don't compulsively and unnecessarily spend. But in mid-level careers, determining how much is over-spending may be hard (which increases the temptation to spend, naturally).

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#123

Post by giantg2 »

TMWNN wrote: post #115
giantg2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that depends on exactly who you talk to. Quite a few people I've discussed this with believe it would be a complete replacement, even for employer based insurance. There a certainly some areas of interest to be address, like how to protect from bankruptcy even when someone has insurance, or what edge cases many of these uninsured people fit into that aren't covered by employers, the exchange, CHIP, Medicaid,…

>There a certainly some areas of interest to be address, like how to protect from bankruptcy even when someone has insurance Only 4% of US bankruptcies are because of medical bills ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/0... >). A tipoff that [insert large percentage here] of bankruptcies aren't actually because of medical costs is that only 6% of bankruptcies by those without health insurance a…

I agree that it's not a big issue, but it's certainly something I would like to see addressed. If I'm paying for protection from crushing costs by buying insurance, then I would hope that would protect me from any cost associated with lifesaving actions that would bankrupt me, and have tools to ensure the less urgent stuff is going to be covered.

Of course sometime to comes down to people making medical coding issues on a bill. I've been dealing with that for 6 months now.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#124

Post by JaimeThompson »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #34
JaimeThompson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem for a lot of the poor and middle class is their elected officials will not talk to them since they don't donate to them. Take Texas for example it is rare for the Texas Senators to actually talk to normal people anymore.

It's a hard problem. Texas has 27 million residents. And 2 Senators. If they spent an hour a day talking to constituents and spent 15 minutes with each one, it would take 16,875 years to talk to each one, once.

Even in their public forums they typically vet those allowed in. Donors don't have much of a problem talking to them.

They forget they represent everyone, not just those who fund them.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#125

Post by giantg2 »

legitster wrote: post #120
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the rampant insane cost of healthcare in the US is due to lack of any regulations on costs and spending, meaning big pharma, doctors and hospitals, etc. will shake down as much as they can get way with from the insurance companies and patients, in borderline fraudulent ways, without any accountability. Plus the expenses of becoming a doctor in the US and the high cost of management and bureaucracy in the…

Sure, but it's a different conversation about how wasteful American medical expenditures are. I've been on state Medicaid in the US. I've also been on a single payer in Europe. People really have no point of comparison on how much more luxurious Medicaid is. You are still visiting the oil-sheik mansion, but with no out of pocket and no limitations on how much or often. Hospital will still shake you down for all your…

"You are still visiting the oil-sheik mansion, but with no out of pocket and no limitations on how much or often."

I generally agree. But I have heard that they will push lower priority (non-life-threatening) operations to the back in order to get other insurance holders to the front of the line. Basically because the reimbursement rate from other insurance tends to be higher than Medicaid.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#126

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

legitster wrote: post #120
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the rampant insane cost of healthcare in the US is due to lack of any regulations on costs and spending, meaning big pharma, doctors and hospitals, etc. will shake down as much as they can get way with from the insurance companies and patients, in borderline fraudulent ways, without any accountability. Plus the expenses of becoming a doctor in the US and the high cost of management and bureaucracy in the…

Sure, but it's a different conversation about how wasteful American medical expenditures are. I've been on state Medicaid in the US. I've also been on a single payer in Europe. People really have no point of comparison on how much more luxurious Medicaid is. You are still visiting the oil-sheik mansion, but with no out of pocket and no limitations on how much or often. Hospital will still shake you down for all your…

>I've been on state Medicaid in the US. I've also been on a single payer in Europe. People really have no point of comparison on how much more luxurious Medicaid is.

I don't doubt it. In the US, doctors and hospitals are incentivized to treat you like a cash cow and to do as many tests or procedures as possible, even unnecessary ones, knowing that your insurance company or the government will foot the bill no questions asked.

Whereas in Europe, the doctors and hospitals in the public system are incentivized to do as much cost cutting as they can by doing as little tests and procedures as necessary, to reduce costs and waiting times, and have strict regulations on when they can refer you to specialists or more expensive test, needing to justify it when they do.

This means that sometimes you can end up with some undiagnosed condition going chronic on you because the public doctor didn't want to, or wasn't allowed to refer you to an MRI scan when you first showed some light symptoms, because your light symptoms weren't severe enough to warrant such an expensive test. I sh*t you not, this happens more than I'd like to hear. It's why health tourism is booming in Europe, where people from richer EU countries go to the Eastern states for private tests or treatments since preemptive care in the European public system is failing people big time and they can't afford the private system in their wealthy countries.

Sometimes, having a fully private health system, really does have its benefits.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#127

Post by gaspard234 »

ozzythecat wrote: post #9

These kinds of articles tell maybe half the story. In my early 20s, I was earning $120K a year while living in rural Texas. I had an expensive apartment (3 bedroom), a leased Lexus IS, and spent lavishly. I also got a second car (a Honda Fit) for grocery store runs. If this sounds absurd, yeah I know. 2 years of this and I had some 401K savings but no after tax investments. I wasn’t even maxing out the company match.…

Texas is very diverse. I was born in El Paso in west Texas where my high school peers making $70k can still buy a house and support a stay at home parent. Median home price is $182k and meals and labor are so much cheaper.

Most of my college peers moved to Austin or Dallas where cost of living and housing is extremely different. Austin median home price is now $575k in the city and $480k for the 5 county metro region.

Growing up in a working class family (dad worked at a kitchen, mom as a part time hair dresser) we always had a maid from mexico come in once a week for $60 for ~8hours. She cleans, does laundry, and even cooks a meal and makes a big pot of beans during her time. In Austin I pay $150 for a 2hr cleaning session with no extras.

Re: Despite rising wages, 61% of Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

#128

Post by amrocha »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #70
barbazoo wrote: post #5

> Even among those earning six figures, 42% said they were living paycheck to paycheck, the survey of more than 3,000 adults found. I know there are areas with extremely HCOL, inflation, housing crisis... However, sometimes I do wonder though what some people's budgets are like that they are literally unable to save any money (paycheck to paycheck) making >$100k. Do we know what part lack of financial literacy or sim…

Taxes are also a big factor. Depending on your location, you could see 35-40% of that 100k disappear in taxes, and anther 40% for hosing in high cost of living areas and you are looking at 20k per year residual location.

Nowhere in the US has a marginal tax rate of 40% let alone actual rate at 100K.

I'm also very suspicious that it would cost 40K per year to rent a reasonable place for 1 or 2 people anywhere in the US except maybe SF

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