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Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

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Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#171

Post by spot5010 »

rtp4me wrote: post #161
Epa095 wrote: post #138

I encourage everyone to do the following simple exercise: look at the main stock market in your country, and see how far back you must go for the main index to be half of what it is today. The answer is probably somewhere between 5 and 7 years. Then find salary statistics, and see how much the average salary has increased in the same time. The answer is probably somewhere between 20 and 30%. And it really is as simpl…

Speaking as someone from the US, how is this a meaningful comparison in anyway? Honest question. Sure, wage growth sounds good in an upward trending market, but let's say the market has gone down 30% over the past five years. Would you expect everybody to take a 30% pay cut? If Walmart had a blockbuster year because their suppliers charged less (more efficient means of production), how are Walmart employee wages inte…

Layoffs contribute to the average worker taking a paycut. And we are seeing layoffs even in a market that is soaring. Why do you think that workers wouldn't be affected during a downturn?

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#172

Post by fanatic2pope »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #90
bawana wrote: post #29

According to https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... 1 out of 7 US inhabitants have food insecurity. And this is a govt website likely to underestimate the statistic

I have a bit of a gripe with this "food insecurity" metric. The stat comes from people reporting that they have felt hungry without having enough food to satiate their hunger. Totally makes sense at first pass. But here is the rub, obesity is out of control in the US, and it is especially bad in poorer populations. So now we have two conflicting stats: Poor people are food insecure while simultaneously being overweig…

Food isn't calories.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#173

Post by chermi »

tlogan wrote: post #168

That is not accurate. Research consistently shows that gas line pollution, lack of bike infrastructure, racial inequality, and climate change are the most significant stressors. \s ( Sorry for sarcasm :)

Holy crap you got me good. Did you add the /s later?

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#174

Post by bluedino »

siliconc0w wrote: post #34

Our health system is so amazingly bad. Even if you have insurance, you roll the dice getting even basic care. Very easy to end up with hundreds or thousands of dollars in bills if your provider codes something wrong or your insurance denies payment. Much less an actual medical issue that requires repeated trips to a specialist, an expensive medication (even generic), or hospitalizations.

On the other hand you can get things like million-dollar organ transplants.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#175

Post by Workaccount2 »

aoskskoans wrote: post #88
Workaccount2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to note that using credit isn't purely an indication of struggling. A lot of those payment programs offer 0% incentives, and from a purely logical standpoint, the correct thing to do is put everything you buy on a 0% loan for as long as possible.

> and from a purely logical standpoint, the correct thing to do is put everything you buy on a 0% loan for as long as possible. Only because the financial system is rigged in favor of capital owners. Targeting 3% inflation is a death sentence for the middle class when you have fractional reserve banking (coin clipping). They print money and constantly devalue labor while increasing their own wealth simply because the…

I think the biggest failure is not having economics and finance classes be part of core curriculum. The amount of confusion and misunderstanding from forcing people to personally figure out the system is totally crazy.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#176

Post by 9dev »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #112
phyzix5761 wrote: post #76

I did some math a while ago on this topic: 40 million Americans live below the poverty line of $15,000 per year. [1] Total U.S. household net worth (excluding real estate) is around $54 trillion. [2] If every household above the poverty line donated 2.5% of their net worth annually to people living below the poverty line, we could erase poverty instantly. Here’s the math: 2.5% of $54 trillion = $1.35 trillion $1.35 t…

I know you said net worth and not income, but honestly, that's what taxes should be at least partly doing.

Good thing the republicans just enacted the Big Bewildering Bill that did the absolute opposite thing, and ensures even more wealth is redistributed from the bottom to the top!

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#177

Post by basilgohar »

Herring wrote: post #152
Epa095 wrote: post #138

I encourage everyone to do the following simple exercise: look at the main stock market in your country, and see how far back you must go for the main index to be half of what it is today. The answer is probably somewhere between 5 and 7 years. Then find salary statistics, and see how much the average salary has increased in the same time. The answer is probably somewhere between 20 and 30%. And it really is as simpl…

Agreed, but I suggest that's only part of the story. For some reason, workers in the west don't organize/vote by class any more. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/why-americans-dont-v... In the US, the last time democrats tried to tackle healthcare, they lost scores of seats all down the ballot. https://www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/under-obama-democ... I remember tracking Trump's poll numbers on 538 (befo…

Now more and more people in red states are asking about healthcare. Seems like they could or should be capitalizing on this, unless the parties are going to flip on this issue to keep their power balance.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#178

Post by gotoeleven »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #142
cvwright wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The costs also used to be a lot lower - at least for most people who just pay the premium and don’t need much care. Now it’s not uncommon for a family’s health insurance to cost more than their housing. The people who are mad are those who are paying more and not experiencing the benefits.

https://penncapital-star.com/uncategorized/americans-suffer-... > In 2022, UnitedHealth Group made over $20 billion in profit. Cigna made $6.7 billion, Elevance Health made $6 billion and CVS Health made $4.2 billion. All told, America’s largest health insurers raked in more than $41 billion of profits in 2022. Universal healthcare is good. America's for profit system is bad. You have to get rid of for profit insurer…

UnitedHealth has 147 million customers, according to google. 20 billion / 147 million = $136

So they're making $136 dollars per customer in profit. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. 136 is much less than the crazy costs that people are complaining about.

Are people who like to quote these big numbers just not capable of critical thinking or is it just that they like the chance to rage at capitalism's supposed failings and they know their readers are too dumb to do division?

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#179

Post by xivzgrev »

I didn't know food was so high but I believe it.

My Costco runs used to be about $200-$300, now they're regularly $400-$500.

And yet half of the country votes for the orange one, whose big beautiful bill cut SNAP and Medicaid, basically food & health care assistance for the poor.

But hey it's really all about winning the culture war, and making sure we don't have a woman president, right?

I feel bad but I just don't know what to do when so many people vote against their own self economic interest. A good leader would make rally the country to make progress on these (like Obama did with health care), vs focused on their own grift.

Re: Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people

#180

Post by smt88 »

Herring wrote: post #152
Epa095 wrote: post #138

I encourage everyone to do the following simple exercise: look at the main stock market in your country, and see how far back you must go for the main index to be half of what it is today. The answer is probably somewhere between 5 and 7 years. Then find salary statistics, and see how much the average salary has increased in the same time. The answer is probably somewhere between 20 and 30%. And it really is as simpl…

Agreed, but I suggest that's only part of the story. For some reason, workers in the west don't organize/vote by class any more. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/why-americans-dont-v... In the US, the last time democrats tried to tackle healthcare, they lost scores of seats all down the ballot. https://www.quorum.us/data-driven-insights/under-obama-democ... I remember tracking Trump's poll numbers on 538 (befo…

The US is starting to reorganize by class, the union laborers are voting for anti-union candidates.
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