Report: 62% of American Consumers Live Paycheck to Paycheck

[GrandpaBernard]

What’s telling is the rise in buy now, pay later services

for clothes and shoes lol

how will this not end well

lending money to people who can’t afford clothes and shoes

[Citizen Koba]

Throughout the history of life, there have always ways been ''have nots''.
''Financial strugglers''
''McWorkers''

Nothing will ever change that.
Not everyone will be the CEO.
Not everyone will invest in their future
Would rather cry about how they've been wronged.

If everyone 'invested in their future' and worked their asses off would everyone be a CEO? Who would clean the toilets?

Try a little thought experiment - let's say you had a society comprised entirely of biologically identical clones, all equally intelligent, attractive, intrinsically capable and hard working yet just by sheer random luck some of them would be CEOs and some of them sanitation workers, whose offspring would have the higher probability of material success? What about their offspring?

Now I'm not sure there's a better way of doing meritocracy - maybe there isn't - but it's both naive to suggest that the 60ish% who 'have not' (using this somewhat dubious metric) are there simply because of their failure to apply themselves or work hard or plan for the future and equally short sighted to suggest that they shouldn't try to act to rebalance a system which they may well be justified in feeling is failing em.

After all whether you're talking the US, UK or any other 'developed' nation generations of our forebears 'crying about being wronged' is pretty much how we all got the vote, reasonable working conditons and most of the rights and freedoms we've come to take for granted today and that are in many cases being staedily eroded in different ways depending on what country you live in.

Every society and system of governance depends on the co-operation of it's citizenry - or at least a large proportion of it - and when enough of a population starts to feel that any social system is failing to meet their needs or treat them fairly then you start to get real problems.

[Citizen Koba]

But anyways I think the purpose of that study was to dispel the myth that middle class is the backbone of the u.s. economy

You know we always here it from politicians

Middle class makes up the bulk of the ppl thats why

But as far as tax income minus govt expenditures

Middle class is just around break-even

They can be the 'backbone of the econmy' in terms of spending and sustaining business whilst still not contributing as much as the wealthy to Federal or State revenues. Be interested to see the study you mention though, be curious to see their methodolgy. Tax revenue is surely a very narrow way of determining overall contribution to the economy.

[BodyBagz]

If everyone 'invested in their future' and worked their asses off would everyone be a CEO? Who would clean the toilets?

Try a little thought experiment - let's say you had a society comprised entirely of biologically identical clones, all equally intelligent, attractive, intrinsically capable and hard working yet just by sheer random luck some of them would be CEOs and some of them sanitation workers, whose offspring would have the higher probability of material success? What about their offspring?

Now I'm not sure there's a better way of doing meritocracy - maybe there isn't - but it's both naive to suggest that the 60ish% who 'have not' (using this somewhat dubious metric) are there simply because of their failure to apply themselves or work hard or plan for the future and equally short sighted to suggest that they shouldn't try to act to rebalance a system which they may well be justified in feeling is failing em.

After all whether you're talking the US, UK or any other 'developed' nation generations of our forebears 'crying about being wronged' is pretty much how we all got the vote, reasonable working conditons and most of the rights and freedoms we've come to take for granted today and that are in many cases being staedily eroded in different ways depending on what country you live in.

Every society and system of governance depends on the co-operation of it's citizenry - or at least a large proportion of it - and when enough of a population starts to feel that any social system is failing to meet their needs or treat them fairly then you start to get real problems.

My point exactly.
Poverty can be a person's destiny.
No matter what they did, the will be clearing tables.

But to sit around waiting to for the good life to be handed to a person is the stuff of fiction.

IF a person did what they could to attain knowledge, they can lay claim to being the smartest fryer in the shop.

I'm talking about throughout the existence of humans.

Master/slaves
Boss/worker

Perhaps the problem lies with workers living beyond their means ?
Wanting that high life at $10 an hr.
Or passing down terrible habits ?

What is it that made it possible for you and I to have a relatively good life, while families are eating insects because it's their only source for food ?

[Left Hook Tua]

They can be the 'backbone of the econmy' in terms of spending and sustaining business whilst still not contributing as much as the wealthy to Federal or State revenues. Be interested to see the study you mention though, be curious to see their methodolgy. Tax revenue is surely a very narrow way of determining overall contribution to the economy.

It wasn't really about the economy as much as contribution to the budget thru income taxes collected

I forgot where I read it from

It was an article/study a long time ago

It was more about the argument about "rich not paying enough taxes" that ppl complain about

Also this was an American thing

Tax brackets and taxes are different for other countries of course especially compared to Europe

Americans pay a lot lower percentage of their income than europeans. Especially lower and middle-class. Even our upper class pays lower pct I think. Some of the percentages for your middle class are higher than the pct of our richest tax brackets in America. Especially the Scandinavian countries.

[Citizen Koba]

Ha ha - FWIW it was the thread title that brought me in. Always makes me think of 'They Live' when I see human beings refered to as - or perhaps reduced to - 'consumers'


ba6c7d9d6432f97503965585119d1e45.jpg

Kinda sad that we come to accept as normal language that explicitly casts us in the role of units of consumption and production. More so if you read some around the way that the language we use in day to day life is also the language we tend to construct our thoughts and ideas about the world in, that it inevitably shapes our internal world whether we want it to or not.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...hapes-thought/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/b...-way-you-think

[Citizen Koba]

My point exactly.
Poverty can be a person's destiny.
No matter what they did, the will be clearing tables.

But to sit around waiting to for the good life to be handed to a person is the stuff of fiction.

IF a person did what they could to attain knowledge, they can lay claim to being the smartest fryer in the shop.

I'm talking about throughout the existence of humans.

Master/slaves
Boss/worker

Perhaps the problem lies with workers living beyond their means ?
Wanting that high life at $10 an hr.
Or passing down terrible habits ?

What is it that made it possible for you and I to have a relatively good life, while families are eating insects because it's their only source for food ?

And my point is that as long as enough people feel that they're better off living under a particular system and feel they're benfitting commensurately and being treated relatively fairly then it's all good even if there are some that are benefitting immensely more. Poverty may be a person's 'destiny (an iffy concept anyway) but people ain't likely to quietly lie down and accept that 'destiny' when working two or even three jobs ain't enough to pay their bills - in the words of the great Robert Nestor - A Hungry Man is an Angry Man.

Shit generally starts to hit the fan when enough people who generally are working hard, obeying the rules and trying their best to better themselves still ain't able to progress and are even finding themselves relatively less well off and atre struggling to make ends meet. That kinda **** is what causes major civil disturbance - even in extremis - revolutions.

Regardless of whether you think inequality and poverty are a direct result of individual choices (and I'd say the thought experiment I used above would suggest at the very least that's only apartial explanation - there is large amount of sheer chance and accident of birth) the point remains that a society that doesn't take care of enough of it's people - or rather one whose population ceases to perceive obeying it's norms and rules as being in their interest - is on very shaky ground.

[BodyBagz]

And my point is that as long as enough people feel that they're better off living under a particular system and feel they're benfitting commensurately and being treated relatively fairly then it's all good even if there are some that are benefitting immensely more. Poverty may be a person's 'destiny (an iffy concept anyway) but people ain't likely to quietly lie down and accept that 'destiny' when working two or even three jobs ain't enough to pay their bills - in the words of the great Robert Nestor - A Hungry Man is an Angry Man.

Shit generally starts to hit the fan when enough people who generally are working hard, obeying the rules and trying their best to better themselves still ain't able to progress and are even finding themselves relatively less well off and atre struggling to make ends meet. That kinda **** is what causes major civil disturbance - even in extremis - revolutions.

Regardless of whether you think inequality and poverty are a direct result of individual choices (and I'd say the thought experiment I used above would suggest at the very least that's only apartial explanation - there is large amount of sheer chance and accident of birth) the point remains that a society that doesn't take care of enough of it's people - or rather one whose population caeses to perceive obeying it's norms and rules to be in their interest - is on very shaky ground.

It's still considered living paycheck to paycheck.

Like you said, maybe that's how they like it.

It's fascinating how fate works.

Penniless immigrants go to a country and thrive.
Other penniless imm's go and fail.

[GhostofDempsey]

Ha ha - FWIW it was the thread title that brought me in. Always makes me think of 'They Live' when I see human beings refered to as - or perhaps reduced to - 'consumers'


ba6c7d9d6432f97503965585119d1e45.jpg

Kinda sad that we come to accept as normal language that explicitly casts us in the role of units of consumption and production. More so if you read some around the way that the language we use in day to day life is also the language we tend to construct our thoughts and ideas about the world in, that it inevitably shapes our internal world whether we want it to or not.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...hapes-thought/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/b...-way-you-think

This is one of the big differences between generations past prior to the 80s. There wasn't as much consumerism and marketing being rammed down our throats. A family of four lived in a modest sized 1,200 square foot home, they had one car that was rarely financed, one credit if any, no internet or online shopping. People bought what they needed and impulse buys could only be purchased if you were in a store or from the back of a magazine, no Amazon packages delivered to your door every day for things you don't really need. There was also no cable, internet, cell phone bills. Families lived within their means. I remember back to the 2008 crash, real estate values peaked during the 2000s, homeowners were taking out variable rate loans against the increased equity of their house and going on spending sprees for luxury items, vacations, and other things they would not have ordinarily purchased.

[OldTerry]

Don't Americans get extra income from the government to supplement their income if they're on low wages? We have that in the UK called universal/tax credits.

Even when they do it doesn't necessarily mean they are not still struggling to make ends meet.