re: The Number of Consumers Living Paycheck to Paycheck Has Increased Year-Over-Year

quote:

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People wanna complain about a living wage, and I get it. But the things people include in “needs” for a living wage are absurd, which is why people making $200k are still paycheck to paycheck. It’s a spending problem and not living within your means

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I don’t know man, the “American Dream” way of life gets absurdly expensive really quick.

I know it’s “first world problems”, but I can see how it happens.

Cars are expensive
Car maintenance is expensive
Car insurance is expensive
Gas is expensive
Groceries are expensive
Houses are expensive
House maintenance is expensive
House insurance is expensive
Electricity water and gas for a house is expensive

And all of that is not accounting for taxes or any real “luxuries” in life (I know that houses and cars are luxuries in comparison but my point is extra extravagance)

When you really taken a step back, living a suburban American life right now costs way more than it used to. It’s crushing normal families, demoralizing millennials (even those who make good money), and keeping people from having kids or large families

The last point is the worst part, because really in order to even comfortably reach that $150k-$250k mark its because both parents are working. So you add in “daycare mortgage” and private school costs if you’re unfortunate to live in a place where your tax dollars fail you on schools.

America should be prosperous, booming, safe. We have so many opportunities and resources, yet we fund an entire underclass with free shite, a bloated government (which spends a lot of our tax dollars not even on citizens). Imagine if all the tax dollars generated stayed in communities and prioritized investing in kids and families. Give illegal immigrants free everything, prioritize abolitions, yet we make families pay $40k for a round of IVF? Make adopting costs 10s of thousands? It’s all so fricked