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Am I missing something or is this implying that you need to work 34 hours a week at the gas station to live there. That's.... basically a normal, full-time job, right? It's a strange way of putting it.
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This is an example of a place. There are likely many such places all over the USA within a few hours drive of where your friends and family live.
So now you have to have a car? So yes this post is still unrealistic
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Rural living also looks cheaper because most people do not even remotely consider the costs of transportation. The IRS estimates per-mile deduction at well over 60 cents per mile. If you have to drive 15 miles to the grocery store and back, your grocery bill goes up $18/trip. If you need to drive 15 miles to work and back, take $90/week out of your paycheck. Then there's the fact that whoever is The Employer in that…
> Oh, and also not factored in: almost every aspect of rural life is heavily subsidized, and I don't just mean direct assistance. Couldn't you say the same for cities since they live on food produced outside of cities, energy from the Gulf and products imported from China?
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The Free State Project[1] had 20k libertarians pledge to move to New Hampshire, talking 15 years to reach the total number. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_State_Project
Only to fail to address the problem of bears because it requires the kind of public action that libertarians rejects for religious reasons.
They ain't got no clue, and will almost certainly make things worse.
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I will say, at this income level you're on Medicaid. It would be more than nothing but very basic, and if you're using government assistance than you aren't really "escaping" modernity, you're actually living off of the economic surplus of all the people working hard in the rat race. (Don't misinterpret me as saying that social safety nets are bad, I am all for them, but I'm just saying - if the author of this articl…
I think most of your points are fair ones. I also feel that it's rather cynical to drop out of the "rat race" by relying on the participation of lots of other people to pay for your Medicaid expense and so on. However, on average, there are just so few people doing this type of thing that I don't think we have to worry about free riders damaging the system. Most people who complain about the rat race aren't willing t…
> In this case, you could work just one ten-hour shift per week, and in so doing, earn more than 30% of what you need to live well at this particular house Am I missing something or is this implying that you need to work 34 hours a week at the gas station to live there. That's.... basically a normal, full-time job, right? It's a strange way of putting it.
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> But it is extremely important to point out that the American "rat race" cities 100% subsidize areas like this. It's even more important to point out that places like this grow the food and do the manufacturing that those "cities" you like would collapse without.
Yeah, but the farmers and factory workers are working more than one ten-hour shift per week.
> In this case, you could work just one ten-hour shift per week, and in so doing, earn more than 30% of what you need to live well at this particular house Am I missing something or is this implying that you need to work 34 hours a week at the gas station to live there. That's.... basically a normal, full-time job, right? It's a strange way of putting it.
Like other people here, I have my quibbles with the exact math. But the general premise is true: yes, you can live in rural poverty for cheap. The problem is the vibes. A hundred years ago, you would have a community, a place in society, and all of your family and friends nearby. In 2025, the only actual local job the author of the piece can come up with is at a gas station. Top ten occupations, 1920: Farmers, farm l…
"You could be a simple farm laborer and have a wife and kids and a place in society." You could not afford a good life as a farm laborer.