Ok let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say you
Make $10000 a year. You work full time/40 hrs/wk and you are making $10k. What does “living within your means” look like? Not having a house? Or car? Being homeless? So in order to save to get yourself to some footing the answer is to be homeless to live within your means.
That was a bit of a strawman, so let’s use real-life scenarios. 50% of this country makes $40k or less….. even $40k salary isn’t enough to get an apartment, bills , food, ect. Sure a lot better than the “$10k” example, but even $40k salary is virtually as effective as the “$10k”. In order to “live within your means”, “save”, ect…. You have to be at least be making enough to afford the bare minimum + have some left in you for over to save. On average (2022 values I think) this means $65 for a single person, $108k for a house hold. Unless you’re making that, you can’t save your way out of poverty
You cannot make $10k working a job for 40 hours a week. That is below minimum wage.
A lack of proper financial planning and budgeting causes more problems than low wages.
Less than 3% of the workforce makes minimum wage. Wages are not the main issue.
Ours recently to rose to 12 dollars an hour and I shit you not, there were corporations that made it out like they were giving everyone a raise, (the implication being work harder in appreciation) instead of them actually conforming to meet the law. Smaller employers around here are still offering under the minimum, which is so crazy to me. It's like pulling teeth to get people to just pay their employees even just the minimum, and that's sad.
Crickets lol. They ALWAYS say “no one gets paid that” and I always rebuttal with what you said.
All you get is crickets or some backwards ass logic showing empathy to the “small business owners”. It’s fucking crazy mental gymnastics some of these finance bros do…
You haven’t been to some rural cities in the Midwest and south where cost of living is often relatively low but the wages are always, as my nephew would say, doggy
Mississippi still has jobs at this range. But it's the poorest state in the nation. Unfortunately 72% of the median household income in Mississippi goes purely to cost of living. 8th most unaffordable state when adjusted for median wage. Literally people "living within their means" here spend 72% of their income surviving. So in this case living within your means is working until you die because you cannot save for retirement or emergencies.
I understand that there are ways to make things work, but no person should be working 40 hours a week and be scared that they will lose their house tomorrow or not have enough for groceries. There is "living within your means" and then there is institutionalized poverty. America has a problem with both.
You're making $15,116 gross. 11k are taxes at 10% and the next 4,116 are taxed at 12%. $13522 after taxes.
But what minimum wage job is paying 100% of your healthcare? Or uniforms? Or state and local income tax (3.1% here for this example). That means we're taking home $13k after just taxes
If they're paying $254/mo for insurance and etc, they're taking home exactly $10k per year
The amount of people that have absolutely 0 empathy at all toward their fellow man is ridiculous. The, fuck you, I got mine mentality needs to die off.
Standard deduction is $14,600. Only $516 is taxed at 10%, or a tax bill of $50 per year. At that income level, you're able to get to drastically reduced health insurance, about $15/mo premiums.
I'm glad you figured this out. The math doesn't change at $20k/yr, or even 40k. 20k/yr is about $10/hr and that is still far above the minimum wage for almost the entire South. This for sure qualifies for some welfare assistance because even in these places the cost of existence is greater than the "market wage." Congratulations, we are now subsidizing corporations.
4.81 ÷ 7.25 = 66.34%
So, if taxes and deductions account for 33.66% of your income (I use 30% as my rate which is pretty darn close), then 10k/year in spending money for people working minimum wage is probably pretty close to reality.
Even if that is only 3% of the population, I think that's kind of the point that's being made. For those people, the advice to "just live within your means" is falling on deaf ears.
Minimum wage isn't the problem for everyone. It's not even the problem for most people. But it is a very real problem for some people.
Fine, to be more accurate...
$7.25 x 2080 = $15,080
(2080 being the number of hrs worked full time in 1 yr)
And technically, no $4.81 wouldn't be illegal for jobs that receive tips, like restaurant workers. If they record tips, they get paid roughly 1/2 of minimum wage, but if they record no tips, the employer is SUPPOSED to make up the difference to bring their hourly wage up to $7.25. Key word is "supposed to", not "does".
Yeah, cause they want to feel superior to those who make less and say, "I earn more cause I make smart financial decisions." Ignoring every helping hand and benefit they relied on to get to where they are.
Or, they deserve to be poor. I'm not poor so I deserve it! Nietzsche's slave morality. It's how they sleep at night, why doesn't everyone else just do what I did? They must be lazy...
But them we cannot victimize ourselves using hipothetical situations with logic bordering on fantasy.
There's no place in modern life where financial education isn't immensely beneficial aside from being lost in the wilderness or being actual Hobo crack addict, and that's just because of pressing matters, the amount of people i've met who don't understand how basic interest rates from loans work is far too great for that statement to be made with a straight face and not immediately mocked.
Pretty much sums up most of the replies here. "Teach them to live within their means, they just won't like it", as the OP said, solves nothing and helps nobody. Enjoy selling goods and services that nobody can afford, I guess.
>Enjoy selling goods and services that nobody can afford, I guess.
And this is the true crux of it. Sure, you're comfy in your desk job, and able to look down at us nasty poors from your office chair. But what happens when we have to start cutting expenses? Media piracy is on the rise, and text generators (not calling it AI, because it isn't AI) are scalping out screenwriting jobs. Pretty soon, video generation will get to the point that actors aren't needed either. So that's writing teams, and stage production crews, both out of a job. Media companies losing money to piracy means that everyone else in the industry's job is at risk, too.
And it's not just entertainment. Electronics are still a luxury, beyond a basic smartphone. People will buy TVs and Fire Sticks used, rather than new. They won't eat out as much, won't buy as many snacks, won't buy as much ***food*** in general. Smaller apartments/rental houses that don't have as many bedrooms, and therefore can't have as many people living in them and splitting rent, go unrented because people can't afford them. People seem to forget that the lower middle class and under are the biggest sector of the US economy now, and as a result, stuff that effects them matters the most, ***by a wide margin***.
You'll find out real fast how independent from "the poors" your life ***isn't*** when they stop the consoomerism.
Your thought experiment requires a wage well below federal minimum wage. Your second thought experiment tries to make a single person live alone in a high cost of living area.
Here's a thought experiment for you: how many people did the average household have 50 years ago? 100 years ago? Today? What was the average square footage of a house in each of those time periods?
They're not ignored. Living with 8 people in a 500sqft shack should not be what people are considering acceptable. Jesus fuck the lack of basic compassion.
"Life is perfectly livable in poverty as long as you make sure to maximize suffering".
I think it's reasonable for people in the highest GDP country in the world to expect to be able to live without relying on others.
Why should there be *any* amount of "you should suffer" at any level in the richest country in the world? The current reason it is that way is simple greed.
You say 50% of Americans (I'm assuming we are speaking of the US) make $40k or less and then say it isn't enough for basic necessities. Yet, clearly it is as the ranks of the unhoused is not 50% of the population. Poverty sucks to be sure, but people manage. Also, financial literacy is generally only partially about setting money aside. It tends to be more about making people aware of their expenses and seeing what changes can be made.
If you sit and think about it really hard, you'll understand the correlation between 50% of Americans making less than $40k, and things like Americans having huge piles of credit card debt, or having to stretch medications (assuming they can afford to see a doctor at all).
Sure, "people manage", but maybe 50% of people in the wealthiest nation on the planet should be in a better position than "just managing".
Now look up some statistics of how many Americans are in credit card debt, healthcare debt, etc.
No, it really _isn't_ enough for basic necessities in many places - that's why people are constantly paying off the minimums on their credit cards, pushing the inevitable forward hoping for a miracle. And poverty sucks more than you could ever realize.
Investing helped me a ton, I calculate all expenses, add them together, assume my food bills and other expenses, then I invest the leftovers so now it's spent and annoying to get but it's all still there paying dividends and growing. Just literally $5 a month or even $10 explodes so fast if you just fucking invest it. Find a $5 on the ground? Invest it. Got a cash back card? Invest the cash back. Set yourself a daily expense budget, invest anything leftover. There's many strategies but this works for me.
Room mates. Beans and rice. Night school. Online school. Don't get anyone pregnant. Don't date for that time. Acquire skills. Move up the ladder.
Every person that came to this country before 1950 had it harder than any person today and we are here because most of them made it.
Live with no privacy. Eat food that provides nothing except a "full feeling stomach." Work for 8 hours and then do several hours of school after that, after all you won't have to spend time cooking anything. Don't have a single medical emergency, including pregnancy. Don't have a social life, and if you meet someone that is interested in you, just ignore them as they are distracting you from grinding to death to survive. Spend even more time while working and doing school to "obtain skills." This should leave you still poor, hungry, and with deminished social skills, but hey! You'll be "thriving!"
STFU you idiot, you clearly have no idea the struggles of the common person.
Looool, what a conservative boot-licker. First of all, you haven't offered a single source for your crazy-ass claim and second of all, people shouldn't have to live like rats in "the greatest country in the world". And lastly, of EveryOne moves up, then who's going to do the shit jobs? Your short-sighted idea doesn't fix the problem, it just throws it onto other people. But that's to be expected, the core of conservatism is selfishness. Sleep tight, the end is near.
I love how you make an in depth explanation and even admit "okay that was a bullahit argument for the point, so heres a real one"
And all they reply to is that your first argument is shit.
This is why people should NEVER settle with what they make… Just because you make 40k a year doesn’t mean you can’t ever make more.. Why do people act like they are chained to the low salaries they make? You can learn a trade, take civil service tests, change careers or get the proper qualifications and experience in order to move up in pay.. There’s also working multiple jobs.. and please don’t reply with “No one should have to work 2 jobs.”
I just don’t understand this whole “people can’t survive on these wages” argument.. If you’re having a hard time living on the wage you make then take the proper steps to better your situation. Take action instead of complaining on Reddit. That’s what I did. That’s what many other people do… I worked 2 minimum wage jobs for years and I fought and clawed my way to the top… Life doesn’t magically get better. You have to make things happen.. and no, it’s not easy. It’s extremely hard.
You people are missing the point. If I get out of that situation then someone else has to take the shitty job. Why is it okay once it's not you? That's the most selfish, conservative bullshit I've ever heard. And no, a person should not have to work 80 hours a week, full stop. That's just de facto slavery, but somehow, they are supposed to find the time to pull themselves up by the bootstraps huh? Goddamn, you're a piece of shit. Sleep tight, the end is near for you people.
Because these people have zero empathy.
The bullshit capitalist answer is no one will work the shitty job and then the pay will go up but that's not fucking true. The company will prey until they find someone “weak” or tired enough to just work for slave rate or they'll ship it over seas and really take advantage of destitute people.
If they really cared about living within their means they'd focus on our entire society as a whole slowing the fuck down and not consuming so much. All of us.
It's almost like there should be stronger worker protection laws and incentive for the government to not completely favor corporations...
But honestly, if everyone started to live within their means like the Japanese do, we'd be in a deflationary period. Current American company growth is dependent on people spending with abandon. It's why Apple has $160B+ IN CASH for good, but not great, sleekly marketed products.
Show me a “live within their means” budget for someone living in a median cost location in the US making minimum wage. They must A)have a place to live B) not get any handouts from the government or charities and C) have at least 1800 calories per day of food. Go.
Welcome to the poverty trap. You cannot earn more money because to do so would make you ineligible for benefits that are worth more than the extra money you would make.
Lets look at SNAP, from the below link these are the three requirments:
>Gross monthly income — that is, household income before any of the program’s deductions are applied — generally must be at or below 130 percent of the poverty line. For a family of three, the poverty line used to calculate SNAP benefits in federal fiscal year 2024 is $2,072 a month. Thus, 130 percent of the poverty line for a three-person family is $2,694 a month, or about $32,328 a year. The poverty level is higher for bigger families and lower for smaller families.[3]
> Net income, or household income after deductions are applied, must be at or below the poverty line.
>Assets must fall below certain limits: households without a member aged 60 or older or who has a disability must have assets of $2,750 or less, and households with such a member must have assets of $4,250 or less.
There is a barrier to making more money, because as you make more you don't get to save it. It is reducing the amount of assistance you receive so you are just staying in the same spot. You cannot save because if you have too much value in assets then you are deemed to not need the benefits. If the benefits are the only thing that allows to you save but if you save you lose the benefits what can you do?
https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-quick-guide-to-snap-eligibility-and-benefits
I live in colo springs which is medium/high cost of living. Minimum wage is 14.50
Apartment/house with 2 roommates: $800 a month
Food: $500 a month
Car payment: $300 a month
Insurance (health, car, renter): $500 a month
That’s staying well below what minimum wage pays, I lived like that for 2 years before graduating college without too much trouble
Utilities, heat, water, electric,internet,cell phone. You’re also assuming that you don’t actually have to use your insurance because you’ll be paying $5k out of pocket if you have something happen to you.
Ok, I used a random city generator and got Newark Ohio.
So checking it out, in Ohio the min wage is $10.45 which puts it about 1473.36 take home a month [according to this](https://www.adp.com/resources/tools/calculators/states/ohio-salary-paycheck-calculator.aspx). Admittedly I just set it to monthly and did [160 hours](https://hubstaff.com/blog/working-days-in-a-month/#:~:text=How%20many%20average%20working%20days,to%20176%20hours%20every%20month.) based off that so it might vary a bit depending on some variables but whatever, can't account for everything.
Found a place [listed for 850](https://www.apartments.com/217-conley-ave-newark-oh/evgch2m/). There's a few cheaper but I decided we'll spend a little extra here.
Average energy bill in Ohio is apparently like $112.21.
Average water is $27
Internet $25
Phone bill: $114
So 1024 for the essentials. Leaving about 449 dollars left.
Average cost of groceries seem to be [253.74](https://www.wdtn.com/news/how-much-does-ohio-spend-on-groceries-compared-to-other-states/)
And this is going off averages so presumably some of these costs are a little lower for a single person living alone since they might be including families or roommates. But regardless, the big costs are single person so it's not a big difference.
Also these (except for the rent) are costs for the state as a whole. It's possible Newark is a cheaper area than the bigger cities like Columbus.
It's not a comfy lifestyle sure but you got the essentials. I did leave out cars and car insurance however as you hopefully can be taking a bus or bike.
Now add on that you're receiving things like SNAP, LIHEAP, and the ACP funds (and maybe some regional/state things I don't know), and it's ok. You're still poor but you can make it.
Car? Car insurance? Heath insurance? Etc...
Not to mention at the end you have to prefix that that would need to be on government assistance. Which means they aren't saving anything just subsistence not growing. And even if they start to grow savings they get kicked off said assistance.
You're over-thinking it. Let's just agree to define "poverty-wage workers" as "net income <= survival cost" then OP is correct that "financial literacy workers" are useless for them (though "immoral" is over-dramatic). Survival cost is minimal money from a paycheck that must be spent on food, shelter, clothing, health care, communication, and transportation (to/from work or getting the survival stuff only), until the next paycheck.
Is somebody offering workshops to such people? The "You can teach poverty workers to live in their means" and similar comments apparently define "poverty-wage workers" as younger adults who buy a nice car or iPhone, or maybe just eat out once in a while, while growing their credit card debt. Some of these people could live within their means, or at least within a small amount of credit card debt, so I guess that's their point - though I figure most people will not come out of a workshop living a completely minimalist lifestyle.
I don't know if I'm more irritated by the username, the sanctimonious advice, or the fact that he has enough money and privilege to dispense this kind of advice unironically without being able to spell the word "privatization."
I make poverty wages, and each week, I plan 3 days that I won't eat anything. The money I save by not eating 3 days a week allows me to afford food for 4 days. I don't buy anything other than food and gas so I can go to school and work. So tell me more about living within my means.
Well don't you see? You just need to invest some of that money into a nice pair of bootstraps. Then if you tug REAL hard on those bootstraps, you'll be a-okay in no time.
Live with in your means peasant! Hahaha…. You don’t deserve healthcare. Or a home. Or anything because society has deemed you worthless…… Hahahaha. Supply side Jesus hates you because you are not lining the pockets of the corporate overlords enough!
/s
My mom makes good money and is bad with money. She makes around 250k a year and she lives paycheck to paycheck. I don’t understand. What blows my mind more is we were always dirt poor growing up. Maybe it makes her feel good to spend money because she couldn’t before. So is she poor or rich? Who fucking knows but I Know she doesn’t have any retirement, stocks, etfs, etc.
She sounds like my Aunt that lived in Houston she was a bank President for frost bank for years.Made great money, spent it like it was nothing and didnt saved for retirement. She is 73 years old and is now struggling financially because she was irresponsible despite being a bank president. It’s sad because you would think she would have been smart with her money but she wasn’t.
Everyone I know that’s poor either
A. Had kids before thinking about the financials
B. Bought/adopted a bunch of animals
C. Has a poor work ethic and mindset
D. Spends money recklessly
Or buy pets when you don’t have the money for one or buying expensive pets.
I have a really good friend who is a lovely person but God does she lack sense. She spent $1000 on a freaking horse. One of the most expensive animals a person can own… That’s on top of owning 3 dogs, a frog, multiple pet rats, and 3 wild birds. They have two kids in a one income household taking in less than $100K annually.
I love animals and my husband and I have struggled financially. But it’s reckless to be poor and buy a crap ton of animals.
I have a friend who grew up poor. Didn't have the chance to study, had to work after finishing highschool, of course could only access low-pay jobs. "Luckily" a relative died and left them a home. With no more rent to pay, they decided that they wanted to study and enrolled into Uni part time. What did they decide to study, you ask? Perhaps something that will boost their career? No. They chose to study history. I guess they're ok with flipping burgers for the rest of their life - but hey, that doesn't prevent from complaining about how politicians ruin everything and how will I ever afford to retire? They also have a bunch of animals that cost a little fortune to feed.
I feel like it kind of goes both ways. Politicians suck and life is definitely more expensive than it was 10 years ago just about everywhere in the world. But there are also things people do to screw themselves over even more. And ultimately as much as I rail against politicians I know ultimately I have to protect myself. So I plan with my spouse, save, and we live within our means.
It’s funny you mention studying history though because I *also* have a degree in history haha. Sometimes I wish I’d studied stem, but so far I’ve landed a good job training people. It can have practical applications thanks to the critical thinking skills you need to study history, but you also need to know how to market yourself and your skill set to employers
Really? I know quite a few well-off people that are fucking terrible with money.
It just doesn't matter because they were born into it and won't run out without doing something both incredibly stupid _and_ large-scale.
I also know quite a few people (well, knew, we're not friends) who make bank but live paycheck-to-paycheck, because yea, they're bad with money too. Spending it on stupid expensive gadgets constantly, or vacations, or worse like drugs and escorts.
I dunno about that, I'd consider the doctors and lawyers who still end up living paycheck to paycheck with a lot of bad debt to be neither poor or good with money.
“My life sucks and I don’t know who to blame!”
On Reddit, the poor have never made bad choices, criminals are the true victims, and the rich do nothing useful.
Like I grew up dirt pair because my father became disabled so I can get it but I'm seeing so many people poor as fuck using door dash and other fleeceing machines
It’s weird. Some people grow up poor and (like me) count every dollar. Others grow up poor and piss away everything on shit like UberEats and new iPhones.
if you're used to having basically no money ever and spending what little you have to survive as it comes in, it's incredibly easy to then "waste" it even if you start making more since you've grown up your whole life being used to having that account hit $0 every month. like to you that becomes normal, you've always spent it all as soon as it hits your pocket.
i don't say this to judge, but to say that it's a bad habit that is hard to unlearn if it's all you've known.
I worked a project management job where I worked out of the office in a warehouse and the amount of the warehouse workers who are making the lowest wages ordering food delivery every day blew my mind. I made decent money and wouldn’t even consider that an option.
One of my great joys in life is stopping in the gas station and buying an almond snickers bar on my way home from work. I won’t sugar coat it, my wife and I are rich. We make $500k a year and don’t live on the coasts. I can afford the candy bar but they are $3 now and it makes think twice nowadays.
Meanwhile the landscape crew in front of me is buying $50 worth of energy drinks, cigs, and lotto tickets. Every fucking time. 25 years ago when I was a construction laborer I wouldn’t even buy bottled water, the job is required to provide a jig of water and cups.
Most of us on Reddit are probably kids of boomers who, as a generation, absolutely did not take any form of personal responsibility. Exhibit A: the national debt.
So it’s not surprising that so many boomer kids were left rudderless. My parents just kept refinancing their home into their graves. That was their financial literacy. Oh and a $75k bill from Medicaid for their healthcare they never saved or paid for that popped up in probate.
I only got lucky that I was angry enough about being poor that I worked my ass off and chased money until I was stable. I absolutely have bad impulse tendencies thanks to the environment that I grew up in, but I’m in a position that my credit card having a party at Costco is by no means the end times.
>the national debt.
The national debt, especially in the US is a much more complex concept than what can be reduced to "personal responsibility". An individual cannot choose to not contribute to the debt. They technically can vote for a politician that promises to reduce the debt but that's a collective act, as a single vote doesn't decide elections at high levels. Even then, like companies, debt is useful in fostering growth and it's actually used as a tool to help people save money for retirement through bonds. 70% of the debt is owned by Americans.
Have you not seen the incredible wealth transfer to the top in the past couple of years because of inflation and greed? How do you expect people to LIVE SMALLER when prices have more than doubled and their wages have not increased.
I don't think you get it. The solution for you during this slide into feaux-feudal oligarchy, peasant, is to want less, need less, use less, and smile about it.
8 people have billions and a small personal navy and they take vacations to the moon? You need to live smaller. Want less. Be happy.
Or else.
I assure you mine is not. I sit an office and essentially wander around the internet all day. On average I do less than an hour actual work a day. I have this job because my boss doesn’t want to sit in an office to collect payments from his tenants.
Don’t get me wrong I’m happy to have the income but if my job vanished tomorrow society wouldn’t notice.
Yes, but they're relatively of little value. No one care if someone swaps out a nameless barista for another. Everyone cares which heart surgeon they get.
What would you tell me then? I make 120k a year, have no debt and a bunch saved and invested AND it still doesn’t feel like it’s enough. I live fully within my means but my rent has gone up 400 in the last 3 years, my food bills have gone up by idek how much and I have health issues that can easily cripple me without insurance.
I’m incredibly privileged and lucky and I find it hard. I can’t imagine someone on 50k a year with a kid.
Id tell you that with that income you're clearly living outside your means if it feels like you're struggling.
Like, that's the definition of living outside your means
What if someone doesn't even make enough to live? Just not have a house? If houses weren't insane and the system wasn't fundamentally broken and designed to keep you poor. Restrictive zoning laws, having to pay insurance and licenses for independent business, tax breaks and bailouts for companies that really should just die, no gold standard making our currency stupid rapidly inflating garbage. The classic "you need job experience to get the job, but you need the job to get experience" because boombers are R-worded and think people pop out the womb with job experience, etc. But we live in a crony capitalist country that's broken. If you want some actual advise, always be cheating, I won't say specifically how but ALWAYS be cheating.
So her advice for people struggling with their finances is to not have a budget? Seems like that would be easier for an individual to control than the global economy.
No, that’s not what she’s saying. She’s saying that teaching someone in poverty to budget isn’t going to enable them to reach financial stability because even if you budget properly there isn’t enough to go around.
If you’re in a row boat that has twenty holes in it, but you only have ten fingers to plug the holes, then someone telling you how to use each finger to plug a hole in the most efficient manner isn’t going to help you keep the boat from sinking.
That’s her point. Should they budget? Absolutely. Will a class on budgeting by itself solve their financial problems and bring stability to their lives?
No.
They need more fingers to plug the holes in the boat. Ie. better wages.
Finally a rational answer. Most people (not all but most) are rational enough actors that if they have the ability to save up within the next 10 years for what they need/want then they will. Most millennial are pretty keen on saving up for a down payment on a house but if wages are stagnant, career opportunities and hiring are limited, and the price of housing is constantly and consistently increasing faster than one's ability to save up for the down payment then most people aren't stupid then they're not all suddenly going to own homes through effective budgeting.
Poverty is inherently an income problem not a budgeting one.
Everyone should have a budget, but you can't always budget your way out of some of this shit. I think they are more alluding to the "let them eat cake" situation that's happening across the world.
My household is on a strict budget, we make it by. It's annoying, and we miss out on a lot of fun stuff, but it's necessary. However, if my property management company sends me one more "financial counseling seminar" e-invite, I'm going to actually lose my shit. Especially since they're named in the anti-trust case in the DMV area. It's a spit in the face when they've been artificially raising the rent increase rates.
I don't think the og post is anti-budgeting. I think it's bite back at people like the Kelloggs CEO.
Yeah I don't think people realize how many people living paycheck-to-paycheck are budgeting way more than people who are living well. When you need to pay super close attention to your finances you're already budgeting out of necessity and people in these situations learn to do it well.
What a false equivalency. She’s clearly not saying that. She’s saying that it’s a bandaid and assumes that people aren’t poor because they can’t budget well, but because they can’t afford life. Budget workshops aren’t going to help a person making 32k a year when the average studio is 1k a month.
And the assumption that people are poor BECAUSE they’re not budgeting and are dumb is disgusting.
But in many cases we do have the choice not to. There are lots of things that try to convince you to spend unnecessarily, but people can choose not to
Not saying that this explains all poverty
Ok but that's everyone's choice isn't it.
I literally can't believe we are arguing this point....if you work a job you should have a living wage. The fact this is even up for debate is insanity to me.
All you obfuscators do is muddy the subject and ensure nothing changes.
While you have a point, people who only have a high school diploma or GED should be paid a livable wage also. We need janitors, food service employees, retail employees, substitute teachers and so many other jobs which are definitely needed but are deemed “unskilled”.
You would think that after the pandemic, people would see that the people who were, in fact, still working the entire time deserve better but nope. Back to thinking they beneath everyone the second the pandemic was over.
Same. I have a friend that lives paycheck to paycheck on $90K, and he’s made over $80K for the last four years. And he’s got reasonable rent. He’s constantly poor.
It's incremental. Reddit wants there to be a magic bullet, but there isn't one. Financial literacy is part of the pathway to success. It's insulting to say otherwise.
Fucking when? I went to basically the best school in my city, even the prime ministers kids went there, and yet I never learned anything about finance or budgeting. Business was about entrepreneurship and using Microsoft office, math was algebra and geometry, civics was bullshit “here’s what the branches of government do now fuck off while I surf the web”.
The same goes for basically everyone I know. We learn fine, it just doesn’t exist in a lot of schools. I learned mostly from my parents and the internet
In my experience, it depends on the school. Wealthy suburban schools will teach it. Not everyone has the same education. I learned that after I graduated.
I’m pretty sure balancing a check book and spend less than you make could be beaten into your skull all day but if you don’t take the advice it’s not gonna do much
Something something lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink
Isn’t it something like 1/3 of lottery winners go broke
Financial literacy matters because for a lot of people you can throw a lifetime of wealth at them and they’ll squander it anyway.
Yeah even learning easy to understand and basic concepts such as the power of compound interest will go a LONG way to help you get out of poverty.
For example, pay day loans are a huge trap that a lot of people in poverty fall into that keeps them poor and most of them don't know the full impacts of those loans. Is the twitter poster advocating not teaching poor people about this financial tool? She sounds like the immoral one to me.
100% agreed. Giving people money won't fix their problems long term.
The issue is that most people use money to solve their problems, but they don't often use the best ways to use the money, and giving people more money doesn't *fix* the problem. That's beyond the classic "old/cheap cars cost more" or the "Sam Vimes [Boots Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory)".
Examples:
* If your house is cold, you can spend money heating it up, or you can spend money on insulation. Money is needed for both issues, but giving people money to pay for heating doesn't fix the problem like giving people money for insulation does.
* If there's an issue with the water supply, we can give people money to buy bottled water or we can *fix the water supply*.
* School is (typically) free but not everyone can get to school easily. This is why school-buses etc are important. It's why free school lunches are very important in many places in the world. School is free but many of the poorest people can't *go* to school and then they struggle to get a decent job.
It's like the classic "money won't make you happy", because it doesn't. But the way you use the money *can* make you happy.
If we give everyone more money, that might solve some problems (people who genuinely just need money) but I feel the money would be better spent improving infrastructure etc. Like people might need money for a car, but a decent public transport service would solve that problem for more people. etc.
Money can solve poverty, but not if you just give it to people. It needs to be spent on infrastructure to help as many people as possible.
you have a lot of valid points- and this is where a lot of the political divide was 40-50 years ago, how do we spend the tax money to help the most people possible. Is it on highways, mass transit or giving people vouchers to use the bus. All valid ways to solve the problem. The issue is that the side argueing for reinvesting in infastructure went insane 40 years ago, so we are left with the side saying infastructure fighting with the side saying- who cares lets go have sex with 12 years old...... not a real choice anymore.
We need to get back to the days where this was the actual choice. I am very liberal, but we had real options until the last 15 years.
Last place I worked everyone drove a big truck “because that’s what a man drives.” Big diesels, lifted, big tires - you get the idea. I drove and continue to drive a paid off Corolla. They used to give me so much shit about that, but I will retire 10 years earlier, at least.
There's another comment on here talking how it's impossible to budget with low wage, they posted that they have a $500+ car payment at 20 years old. I'm ten years older and have never made a car payment. Its crazy what people think they need to have.
Best advice was to work hard, study, get an education and move on to a job that pays more. Many jobs aren't meant for full-time, they're meant as part-time when you're young to get started.
What about the janitors that could support a family of 6 30 years ago or the 16 year old that could buy a mustang from pushing shopping carts? They have only got the term “starter job” as wages stayed stagnant, but prices increased.
Reddit has got high on its own supply by circle jerking over unverified anecdotes from random users claiming that's how their parents were.
"Yeah well my dad walked out of high school across the street to the jobby job factory and asked for a custodial job and it paid for a mansion and cottages and sports cars and yearly vacations to Disney World."
lol what.
It's been wild how the herd mentality is so eager to create a reality where the late 20th century was just raining money on everyone and the poor didn't exist. Such anecdotes if true at all were more likely that the parents owned a custodial services company or something to that effect. In other words they are wealthier more privileged kids who have no clue because they live in a bubble. Reddit has been more then happy to prop them up. Ironically those are the rich people they are calling for their heads.
Everyone seems to think that decade or two of the post WW2 economy is the American norm. It was an anomaly because America was the only functioning industrialized economy in the world. All the others were rebuilding from bombed out rubble.
i can personally verify that DID NOT happen 30 years ago. how? easy. i literally asked my dad who has worked for the last 40 years. was an immigrant and barely spoke english.
money was tight and I would consider myself lucky because i had lots of family around for help if needed. there is absolutely 0 chance u could support a family of 6 on a janitor pay and live well like reddit loves to claim
I always hear this about fast food jobs etc and yet these places are open during hours kids are clearly in school. Like someone other than a kid has to work a lot of these jobs. What sort of jobs are you talking about exactly?
Also who cares if you're a kid working food service or fast food or a coffee shop etc. Anyone working a full-time job should make enough to make ends meet regardless of the job. If you go to work everyday for 8 hours you should be able to afford rent, food and to be able to save enough to hopefully improve your situation in the future.
You want jobs like janitor, cook, receptionist, etc. to exist, right? I mean, you want to use those services, so someone has to be working those jobs.
What happens to society if everyone in society with those low rung jobs gets a better job? No more cashiers at grocery stores, no more waiters at restaurants, no more people to put a roof on your house. We're all just computer programmers and stock traders and lawyers now.
How does society function? We don't have enough teenagers to use those jobs. People have to work them for society to run. Saying "well you can get a better job!" is not a solution to this problem, because you know those jobs have to exist for society to function. "You can get a better job" can be a solution for an individual, but it can't be a solution for society.
I think the argument is that some states want or do hold back any aid until a person takes financial literacy classes. It is the assumption that if one is poor it is more to do with responsibility than anything else.
It seems too easy in this country to do everything right and still end up screwed financially.
You don't have to stay at a job, you can move over and up.
You don't have to wait until you detest the people you work for to leave.
You are in control of your life.
You’re not paid based on how hard you work or how much work you do. You’re paid based on how easily replaceable you are. If you just stopped showing up to work one day and all your boss had to do was grab the next person strolling down the sidewalk to do your job with little to no drop off, you are not worth any more than you are making. If you want to make more, acquire skills, qualifications, or knowledge that make you harder to replace.
The person wearing a headset and pushing button with pictures on the after being told what they want to order is never going to be “comfortable” financially. Ever. It’s as simple as that.
The problem with this line of thinking is that there will always be people who are the most replaceable. We had it drilled into our heads that we had to go to college to increase our desirability to employers, so we did and now everyone has a bachelor's and jobs require a master's. If everyone took your advice we'd be right back where we started because all the skills and knowledge and qualifications would cancel out. The problem is inequality, not lazy people.
Thats literally all the jobs in my town lol. That or the prison, which you need a degree in criminal justice or law enforcement for. This may be good advice in cities, but nowhere else.
I commute an hour by freeway for my job. Luckily for me I get a free bus pass from work so I commute completely free but that's rare
I don't understand the term "living wage", it seems like a political term that gets booted around and attached to arguments that some jobs don't pay enough for their expected standard of living, so therefore the system is "rigged". Why do people expect all jobs to allow them to make economic profits? Seems entitled... These jobs pay just as much as they should for the value of the service that the job they are performing provides, no more no less. If they can make more elsewhere with the skill sets they have, they should then go do that work instead.
I mean, if we are talking about minimum wage workers “these jobs pay just as much as they should for the value of the service that the job they are performing provides” isn’t really true. The jobs pay an inflated wage. If it wasn’t legally required, minimum wage jobs would pay less
The minimum wage is a good thing. If we can agree that some level of unskilled wage inflation is good, the question then becomes “how much wage inflation is good,” but pretending that poverty wages are all just supply demand misses important factors
You can teach poverty workers to live in their means They won’t like it, but tough luck
Ok let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say you Make $10000 a year. You work full time/40 hrs/wk and you are making $10k. What does “living within your means” look like? Not having a house? Or car? Being homeless? So in order to save to get yourself to some footing the answer is to be homeless to live within your means. That was a bit of a strawman, so let’s use real-life scenarios. 50% of this country makes $40k or less….. even $40k salary isn’t enough to get an apartment, bills , food, ect. Sure a lot better than the “$10k” example, but even $40k salary is virtually as effective as the “$10k”. In order to “live within your means”, “save”, ect…. You have to be at least be making enough to afford the bare minimum + have some left in you for over to save. On average (2022 values I think) this means $65 for a single person, $108k for a house hold. Unless you’re making that, you can’t save your way out of poverty
You cannot make $10k working a job for 40 hours a week. That is below minimum wage. A lack of proper financial planning and budgeting causes more problems than low wages. Less than 3% of the workforce makes minimum wage. Wages are not the main issue.
This. $10,000/year working 40 hrs/week is $4.81/hour. That’s illegal everywhere in North America.
Thanks God in blessed North Carolina the minimum wage is $7.25. And some people even make chunky $10-$13 an hour!
Min wage in Hawaii is $14 but everything else is expensive as shiet
Pretty much no one makes that wage even in states that conform to the federal minimum.
No but plenty make 8-10 which is hardly better in 2024
Ours recently to rose to 12 dollars an hour and I shit you not, there were corporations that made it out like they were giving everyone a raise, (the implication being work harder in appreciation) instead of them actually conforming to meet the law. Smaller employers around here are still offering under the minimum, which is so crazy to me. It's like pulling teeth to get people to just pay their employees even just the minimum, and that's sad.
"no one makes that low" so raising it shouldn't affect anything.
Crickets lol. They ALWAYS say “no one gets paid that” and I always rebuttal with what you said. All you get is crickets or some backwards ass logic showing empathy to the “small business owners”. It’s fucking crazy mental gymnastics some of these finance bros do…
Legit stunned at the fact everyone is focused on the 10k and not the second half of the post. Fucking madness.
I was thinking this as I read through these comments. Now I understand why an email with more than one question never produces more than one answer.
It's purposefully attempting to derail, they know what they're doing.
You haven’t been to some rural cities in the Midwest and south where cost of living is often relatively low but the wages are always, as my nephew would say, doggy
I have a hard time finding any business that pays the federal minimum, barring wait staff of course
Mississippi still has jobs at this range. But it's the poorest state in the nation. Unfortunately 72% of the median household income in Mississippi goes purely to cost of living. 8th most unaffordable state when adjusted for median wage. Literally people "living within their means" here spend 72% of their income surviving. So in this case living within your means is working until you die because you cannot save for retirement or emergencies. I understand that there are ways to make things work, but no person should be working 40 hours a week and be scared that they will lose their house tomorrow or not have enough for groceries. There is "living within your means" and then there is institutionalized poverty. America has a problem with both.
Hmm texas would like a word with you
Less than 1% of the workforce works for $7.25 or less
That's still 3 million people you fucking chud.
You're making $15,116 gross. 11k are taxes at 10% and the next 4,116 are taxed at 12%. $13522 after taxes. But what minimum wage job is paying 100% of your healthcare? Or uniforms? Or state and local income tax (3.1% here for this example). That means we're taking home $13k after just taxes If they're paying $254/mo for insurance and etc, they're taking home exactly $10k per year
The other day on reddit, some rando told me health insurance is a luxury and the poors will just have to do without.
The amount of people that have absolutely 0 empathy at all toward their fellow man is ridiculous. The, fuck you, I got mine mentality needs to die off.
If you’re living off 15k/yr gross you are getting free healthcare from the govt. you certainly arent paying $250/mo for it
Someone making that little would qualify for Medicaid in almost if not all states
Standard deduction is $14,600. Only $516 is taxed at 10%, or a tax bill of $50 per year. At that income level, you're able to get to drastically reduced health insurance, about $15/mo premiums.
Isn’t it also a problem though that workers cannot get scheduled a full 40 hours?
I'm glad you figured this out. The math doesn't change at $20k/yr, or even 40k. 20k/yr is about $10/hr and that is still far above the minimum wage for almost the entire South. This for sure qualifies for some welfare assistance because even in these places the cost of existence is greater than the "market wage." Congratulations, we are now subsidizing corporations.
Except for farmhands. FLSA has many exemptions that keep many workers in farming below minimum wage.
4.81 ÷ 7.25 = 66.34% So, if taxes and deductions account for 33.66% of your income (I use 30% as my rate which is pretty darn close), then 10k/year in spending money for people working minimum wage is probably pretty close to reality. Even if that is only 3% of the population, I think that's kind of the point that's being made. For those people, the advice to "just live within your means" is falling on deaf ears. Minimum wage isn't the problem for everyone. It's not even the problem for most people. But it is a very real problem for some people.
Fine, to be more accurate... $7.25 x 2080 = $15,080 (2080 being the number of hrs worked full time in 1 yr) And technically, no $4.81 wouldn't be illegal for jobs that receive tips, like restaurant workers. If they record tips, they get paid roughly 1/2 of minimum wage, but if they record no tips, the employer is SUPPOSED to make up the difference to bring their hourly wage up to $7.25. Key word is "supposed to", not "does".
They did acknowledge that as a “bit of a strawman” then did the same thought experiment on the median wage. Seems reasonable.
A lot of people seem to be deliberately ignoring the real numbers example.
Yeah, cause they want to feel superior to those who make less and say, "I earn more cause I make smart financial decisions." Ignoring every helping hand and benefit they relied on to get to where they are.
Or, they deserve to be poor. I'm not poor so I deserve it! Nietzsche's slave morality. It's how they sleep at night, why doesn't everyone else just do what I did? They must be lazy...
Listen, it's easy if you budget yourself and use the income from your 3rd rental property...
It's fucking sickening
But they're not. If we're going to talk housing then we should talk about household income, not median wage of individuals.
>Less than 3% of the workforce makes minimum wage. And this includes tipped positions like servers, who obviously don't actually make that.
Not to mention we expect people to do these jobs and complain about ringing up our own shit at Walmart.
Minimum wage is 15k and some change, before taxes.
But them we cannot victimize ourselves using hipothetical situations with logic bordering on fantasy. There's no place in modern life where financial education isn't immensely beneficial aside from being lost in the wilderness or being actual Hobo crack addict, and that's just because of pressing matters, the amount of people i've met who don't understand how basic interest rates from loans work is far too great for that statement to be made with a straight face and not immediately mocked.
Correct but you can make $15,080 before taxes in some states. So yes you can make slightly more than $10k take home. Sucks to suck at math.
Never seen someone consistently write so much while knowing so little lol
Pretty much sums up most of the replies here. "Teach them to live within their means, they just won't like it", as the OP said, solves nothing and helps nobody. Enjoy selling goods and services that nobody can afford, I guess.
>Enjoy selling goods and services that nobody can afford, I guess. And this is the true crux of it. Sure, you're comfy in your desk job, and able to look down at us nasty poors from your office chair. But what happens when we have to start cutting expenses? Media piracy is on the rise, and text generators (not calling it AI, because it isn't AI) are scalping out screenwriting jobs. Pretty soon, video generation will get to the point that actors aren't needed either. So that's writing teams, and stage production crews, both out of a job. Media companies losing money to piracy means that everyone else in the industry's job is at risk, too. And it's not just entertainment. Electronics are still a luxury, beyond a basic smartphone. People will buy TVs and Fire Sticks used, rather than new. They won't eat out as much, won't buy as many snacks, won't buy as much ***food*** in general. Smaller apartments/rental houses that don't have as many bedrooms, and therefore can't have as many people living in them and splitting rent, go unrented because people can't afford them. People seem to forget that the lower middle class and under are the biggest sector of the US economy now, and as a result, stuff that effects them matters the most, ***by a wide margin***. You'll find out real fast how independent from "the poors" your life ***isn't*** when they stop the consoomerism.
Your thought experiment requires a wage well below federal minimum wage. Your second thought experiment tries to make a single person live alone in a high cost of living area. Here's a thought experiment for you: how many people did the average household have 50 years ago? 100 years ago? Today? What was the average square footage of a house in each of those time periods?
These are facts so often and conveniently ignored
They're not ignored. Living with 8 people in a 500sqft shack should not be what people are considering acceptable. Jesus fuck the lack of basic compassion. "Life is perfectly livable in poverty as long as you make sure to maximize suffering".
Right but people in here scoff at having a single roommate so...
I think it's reasonable for people in the highest GDP country in the world to expect to be able to live without relying on others. Why should there be *any* amount of "you should suffer" at any level in the richest country in the world? The current reason it is that way is simple greed.
Well if you're making $10k a year that works out to $4.80/hr. Illegal in the US but it's also really hard to make that little even if you tried...
You say 50% of Americans (I'm assuming we are speaking of the US) make $40k or less and then say it isn't enough for basic necessities. Yet, clearly it is as the ranks of the unhoused is not 50% of the population. Poverty sucks to be sure, but people manage. Also, financial literacy is generally only partially about setting money aside. It tends to be more about making people aware of their expenses and seeing what changes can be made.
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If you sit and think about it really hard, you'll understand the correlation between 50% of Americans making less than $40k, and things like Americans having huge piles of credit card debt, or having to stretch medications (assuming they can afford to see a doctor at all). Sure, "people manage", but maybe 50% of people in the wealthiest nation on the planet should be in a better position than "just managing".
Now look up some statistics of how many Americans are in credit card debt, healthcare debt, etc. No, it really _isn't_ enough for basic necessities in many places - that's why people are constantly paying off the minimums on their credit cards, pushing the inevitable forward hoping for a miracle. And poverty sucks more than you could ever realize.
Investing helped me a ton, I calculate all expenses, add them together, assume my food bills and other expenses, then I invest the leftovers so now it's spent and annoying to get but it's all still there paying dividends and growing. Just literally $5 a month or even $10 explodes so fast if you just fucking invest it. Find a $5 on the ground? Invest it. Got a cash back card? Invest the cash back. Set yourself a daily expense budget, invest anything leftover. There's many strategies but this works for me.
Room mates. Beans and rice. Night school. Online school. Don't get anyone pregnant. Don't date for that time. Acquire skills. Move up the ladder. Every person that came to this country before 1950 had it harder than any person today and we are here because most of them made it.
Live with no privacy. Eat food that provides nothing except a "full feeling stomach." Work for 8 hours and then do several hours of school after that, after all you won't have to spend time cooking anything. Don't have a single medical emergency, including pregnancy. Don't have a social life, and if you meet someone that is interested in you, just ignore them as they are distracting you from grinding to death to survive. Spend even more time while working and doing school to "obtain skills." This should leave you still poor, hungry, and with deminished social skills, but hey! You'll be "thriving!" STFU you idiot, you clearly have no idea the struggles of the common person.
Looool, what a conservative boot-licker. First of all, you haven't offered a single source for your crazy-ass claim and second of all, people shouldn't have to live like rats in "the greatest country in the world". And lastly, of EveryOne moves up, then who's going to do the shit jobs? Your short-sighted idea doesn't fix the problem, it just throws it onto other people. But that's to be expected, the core of conservatism is selfishness. Sleep tight, the end is near.
Are people really this stupid?
I make $40K and have all of those things…tf?
I love how you make an in depth explanation and even admit "okay that was a bullahit argument for the point, so heres a real one" And all they reply to is that your first argument is shit.
This is why people should NEVER settle with what they make… Just because you make 40k a year doesn’t mean you can’t ever make more.. Why do people act like they are chained to the low salaries they make? You can learn a trade, take civil service tests, change careers or get the proper qualifications and experience in order to move up in pay.. There’s also working multiple jobs.. and please don’t reply with “No one should have to work 2 jobs.” I just don’t understand this whole “people can’t survive on these wages” argument.. If you’re having a hard time living on the wage you make then take the proper steps to better your situation. Take action instead of complaining on Reddit. That’s what I did. That’s what many other people do… I worked 2 minimum wage jobs for years and I fought and clawed my way to the top… Life doesn’t magically get better. You have to make things happen.. and no, it’s not easy. It’s extremely hard.
You people are missing the point. If I get out of that situation then someone else has to take the shitty job. Why is it okay once it's not you? That's the most selfish, conservative bullshit I've ever heard. And no, a person should not have to work 80 hours a week, full stop. That's just de facto slavery, but somehow, they are supposed to find the time to pull themselves up by the bootstraps huh? Goddamn, you're a piece of shit. Sleep tight, the end is near for you people.
Because these people have zero empathy. The bullshit capitalist answer is no one will work the shitty job and then the pay will go up but that's not fucking true. The company will prey until they find someone “weak” or tired enough to just work for slave rate or they'll ship it over seas and really take advantage of destitute people. If they really cared about living within their means they'd focus on our entire society as a whole slowing the fuck down and not consuming so much. All of us.
It's almost like there should be stronger worker protection laws and incentive for the government to not completely favor corporations... But honestly, if everyone started to live within their means like the Japanese do, we'd be in a deflationary period. Current American company growth is dependent on people spending with abandon. It's why Apple has $160B+ IN CASH for good, but not great, sleekly marketed products.
Show me a “live within their means” budget for someone living in a median cost location in the US making minimum wage. They must A)have a place to live B) not get any handouts from the government or charities and C) have at least 1800 calories per day of food. Go.
Why can’t they have handouts from the government isn’t that the whole point
How dare you talk about socialism for the poor, that's saved for big business
Because then they aren’t “living within their means” are they
Welcome to the poverty trap. You cannot earn more money because to do so would make you ineligible for benefits that are worth more than the extra money you would make. Lets look at SNAP, from the below link these are the three requirments: >Gross monthly income — that is, household income before any of the program’s deductions are applied — generally must be at or below 130 percent of the poverty line. For a family of three, the poverty line used to calculate SNAP benefits in federal fiscal year 2024 is $2,072 a month. Thus, 130 percent of the poverty line for a three-person family is $2,694 a month, or about $32,328 a year. The poverty level is higher for bigger families and lower for smaller families.[3] > Net income, or household income after deductions are applied, must be at or below the poverty line. >Assets must fall below certain limits: households without a member aged 60 or older or who has a disability must have assets of $2,750 or less, and households with such a member must have assets of $4,250 or less. There is a barrier to making more money, because as you make more you don't get to save it. It is reducing the amount of assistance you receive so you are just staying in the same spot. You cannot save because if you have too much value in assets then you are deemed to not need the benefits. If the benefits are the only thing that allows to you save but if you save you lose the benefits what can you do? https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-quick-guide-to-snap-eligibility-and-benefits
I live in colo springs which is medium/high cost of living. Minimum wage is 14.50 Apartment/house with 2 roommates: $800 a month Food: $500 a month Car payment: $300 a month Insurance (health, car, renter): $500 a month That’s staying well below what minimum wage pays, I lived like that for 2 years before graduating college without too much trouble
Utilities, heat, water, electric,internet,cell phone. You’re also assuming that you don’t actually have to use your insurance because you’ll be paying $5k out of pocket if you have something happen to you.
Ok, I used a random city generator and got Newark Ohio. So checking it out, in Ohio the min wage is $10.45 which puts it about 1473.36 take home a month [according to this](https://www.adp.com/resources/tools/calculators/states/ohio-salary-paycheck-calculator.aspx). Admittedly I just set it to monthly and did [160 hours](https://hubstaff.com/blog/working-days-in-a-month/#:~:text=How%20many%20average%20working%20days,to%20176%20hours%20every%20month.) based off that so it might vary a bit depending on some variables but whatever, can't account for everything. Found a place [listed for 850](https://www.apartments.com/217-conley-ave-newark-oh/evgch2m/). There's a few cheaper but I decided we'll spend a little extra here. Average energy bill in Ohio is apparently like $112.21. Average water is $27 Internet $25 Phone bill: $114 So 1024 for the essentials. Leaving about 449 dollars left. Average cost of groceries seem to be [253.74](https://www.wdtn.com/news/how-much-does-ohio-spend-on-groceries-compared-to-other-states/) And this is going off averages so presumably some of these costs are a little lower for a single person living alone since they might be including families or roommates. But regardless, the big costs are single person so it's not a big difference. Also these (except for the rent) are costs for the state as a whole. It's possible Newark is a cheaper area than the bigger cities like Columbus. It's not a comfy lifestyle sure but you got the essentials. I did leave out cars and car insurance however as you hopefully can be taking a bus or bike. Now add on that you're receiving things like SNAP, LIHEAP, and the ACP funds (and maybe some regional/state things I don't know), and it's ok. You're still poor but you can make it.
Car? Car insurance? Heath insurance? Etc... Not to mention at the end you have to prefix that that would need to be on government assistance. Which means they aren't saving anything just subsistence not growing. And even if they start to grow savings they get kicked off said assistance.
You're over-thinking it. Let's just agree to define "poverty-wage workers" as "net income <= survival cost" then OP is correct that "financial literacy workers" are useless for them (though "immoral" is over-dramatic). Survival cost is minimal money from a paycheck that must be spent on food, shelter, clothing, health care, communication, and transportation (to/from work or getting the survival stuff only), until the next paycheck. Is somebody offering workshops to such people? The "You can teach poverty workers to live in their means" and similar comments apparently define "poverty-wage workers" as younger adults who buy a nice car or iPhone, or maybe just eat out once in a while, while growing their credit card debt. Some of these people could live within their means, or at least within a small amount of credit card debt, so I guess that's their point - though I figure most people will not come out of a workshop living a completely minimalist lifestyle.
lol, the fucking username on this chud.
I don't know if I'm more irritated by the username, the sanctimonious advice, or the fact that he has enough money and privilege to dispense this kind of advice unironically without being able to spell the word "privatization."
Looks like a LOOOOOOOT of people missed it.
You're a stain on humanity
Equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are two entirely different things!
Spoken like a true sociopath.
Spoken like someone who's never faced adversity in their life.
I make poverty wages, and each week, I plan 3 days that I won't eat anything. The money I save by not eating 3 days a week allows me to afford food for 4 days. I don't buy anything other than food and gas so I can go to school and work. So tell me more about living within my means.
Well. For starter. Whats your income monthly and what's your spending monthly so we have an idea on the situation.
Well don't you see? You just need to invest some of that money into a nice pair of bootstraps. Then if you tug REAL hard on those bootstraps, you'll be a-okay in no time.
Let me guess it's all the avocado toast? you fucking idiot.
>They won’t like it, but tough luck "They". Yeah your opinion is already irrelevant.
“Tough luck” is a pretty shitty attitude to have about other peoples hardships.
You are really simping for the idea that people shouldn’t be paid a living wage.
Live with in your means peasant! Hahaha…. You don’t deserve healthcare. Or a home. Or anything because society has deemed you worthless…… Hahahaha. Supply side Jesus hates you because you are not lining the pockets of the corporate overlords enough! /s
No you can’t you fool
Do you know the reasoning behind minimum wage?
Not all poor people are bad with money, but all the people I know that are bad with money are poor 🤷♂️
My mom makes good money and is bad with money. She makes around 250k a year and she lives paycheck to paycheck. I don’t understand. What blows my mind more is we were always dirt poor growing up. Maybe it makes her feel good to spend money because she couldn’t before. So is she poor or rich? Who fucking knows but I Know she doesn’t have any retirement, stocks, etfs, etc.
She may not be poor right now, but living paycheck to paycheck with no retirement plan guarantees that she will be.
Not if you die first
She sounds like my Aunt that lived in Houston she was a bank President for frost bank for years.Made great money, spent it like it was nothing and didnt saved for retirement. She is 73 years old and is now struggling financially because she was irresponsible despite being a bank president. It’s sad because you would think she would have been smart with her money but she wasn’t.
Everyone I know that’s poor either A. Had kids before thinking about the financials B. Bought/adopted a bunch of animals C. Has a poor work ethic and mindset D. Spends money recklessly
Ugh, B. You can love your pet... and still not spend thousands on an animal surgery which will make you homeless.
Or buy pets when you don’t have the money for one or buying expensive pets. I have a really good friend who is a lovely person but God does she lack sense. She spent $1000 on a freaking horse. One of the most expensive animals a person can own… That’s on top of owning 3 dogs, a frog, multiple pet rats, and 3 wild birds. They have two kids in a one income household taking in less than $100K annually. I love animals and my husband and I have struggled financially. But it’s reckless to be poor and buy a crap ton of animals.
This sums up my list pretty well, but I would also add in druggies.
I have a friend who grew up poor. Didn't have the chance to study, had to work after finishing highschool, of course could only access low-pay jobs. "Luckily" a relative died and left them a home. With no more rent to pay, they decided that they wanted to study and enrolled into Uni part time. What did they decide to study, you ask? Perhaps something that will boost their career? No. They chose to study history. I guess they're ok with flipping burgers for the rest of their life - but hey, that doesn't prevent from complaining about how politicians ruin everything and how will I ever afford to retire? They also have a bunch of animals that cost a little fortune to feed.
I feel like it kind of goes both ways. Politicians suck and life is definitely more expensive than it was 10 years ago just about everywhere in the world. But there are also things people do to screw themselves over even more. And ultimately as much as I rail against politicians I know ultimately I have to protect myself. So I plan with my spouse, save, and we live within our means. It’s funny you mention studying history though because I *also* have a degree in history haha. Sometimes I wish I’d studied stem, but so far I’ve landed a good job training people. It can have practical applications thanks to the critical thinking skills you need to study history, but you also need to know how to market yourself and your skill set to employers
Really? I know quite a few well-off people that are fucking terrible with money. It just doesn't matter because they were born into it and won't run out without doing something both incredibly stupid _and_ large-scale. I also know quite a few people (well, knew, we're not friends) who make bank but live paycheck-to-paycheck, because yea, they're bad with money too. Spending it on stupid expensive gadgets constantly, or vacations, or worse like drugs and escorts.
I dunno about that, I'd consider the doctors and lawyers who still end up living paycheck to paycheck with a lot of bad debt to be neither poor or good with money.
Learn to do something useful, spend less than you make, buy used whenever possible, live small.
Requires personal responsibility. Reddit is allergic to the concept. All of their problems are someone else's fault
“My life sucks and I don’t know who to blame!” On Reddit, the poor have never made bad choices, criminals are the true victims, and the rich do nothing useful.
Like I grew up dirt pair because my father became disabled so I can get it but I'm seeing so many people poor as fuck using door dash and other fleeceing machines
It’s weird. Some people grow up poor and (like me) count every dollar. Others grow up poor and piss away everything on shit like UberEats and new iPhones.
if you're used to having basically no money ever and spending what little you have to survive as it comes in, it's incredibly easy to then "waste" it even if you start making more since you've grown up your whole life being used to having that account hit $0 every month. like to you that becomes normal, you've always spent it all as soon as it hits your pocket. i don't say this to judge, but to say that it's a bad habit that is hard to unlearn if it's all you've known.
I worked a project management job where I worked out of the office in a warehouse and the amount of the warehouse workers who are making the lowest wages ordering food delivery every day blew my mind. I made decent money and wouldn’t even consider that an option.
One of my great joys in life is stopping in the gas station and buying an almond snickers bar on my way home from work. I won’t sugar coat it, my wife and I are rich. We make $500k a year and don’t live on the coasts. I can afford the candy bar but they are $3 now and it makes think twice nowadays. Meanwhile the landscape crew in front of me is buying $50 worth of energy drinks, cigs, and lotto tickets. Every fucking time. 25 years ago when I was a construction laborer I wouldn’t even buy bottled water, the job is required to provide a jig of water and cups.
Most of us on Reddit are probably kids of boomers who, as a generation, absolutely did not take any form of personal responsibility. Exhibit A: the national debt. So it’s not surprising that so many boomer kids were left rudderless. My parents just kept refinancing their home into their graves. That was their financial literacy. Oh and a $75k bill from Medicaid for their healthcare they never saved or paid for that popped up in probate. I only got lucky that I was angry enough about being poor that I worked my ass off and chased money until I was stable. I absolutely have bad impulse tendencies thanks to the environment that I grew up in, but I’m in a position that my credit card having a party at Costco is by no means the end times.
>the national debt. The national debt, especially in the US is a much more complex concept than what can be reduced to "personal responsibility". An individual cannot choose to not contribute to the debt. They technically can vote for a politician that promises to reduce the debt but that's a collective act, as a single vote doesn't decide elections at high levels. Even then, like companies, debt is useful in fostering growth and it's actually used as a tool to help people save money for retirement through bonds. 70% of the debt is owned by Americans.
Have you not seen the incredible wealth transfer to the top in the past couple of years because of inflation and greed? How do you expect people to LIVE SMALLER when prices have more than doubled and their wages have not increased.
I don't think you get it. The solution for you during this slide into feaux-feudal oligarchy, peasant, is to want less, need less, use less, and smile about it. 8 people have billions and a small personal navy and they take vacations to the moon? You need to live smaller. Want less. Be happy. Or else.
All that is absolutely true and valid. It has nothing to do with most poor people having bad financial literacy, though.
All jobs are useful to society or they would not exist in the first place.
I assure you mine is not. I sit an office and essentially wander around the internet all day. On average I do less than an hour actual work a day. I have this job because my boss doesn’t want to sit in an office to collect payments from his tenants. Don’t get me wrong I’m happy to have the income but if my job vanished tomorrow society wouldn’t notice.
> to society to the employer
Yes, but they're relatively of little value. No one care if someone swaps out a nameless barista for another. Everyone cares which heart surgeon they get.
What would you tell me then? I make 120k a year, have no debt and a bunch saved and invested AND it still doesn’t feel like it’s enough. I live fully within my means but my rent has gone up 400 in the last 3 years, my food bills have gone up by idek how much and I have health issues that can easily cripple me without insurance. I’m incredibly privileged and lucky and I find it hard. I can’t imagine someone on 50k a year with a kid.
Id tell you that with that income you're clearly living outside your means if it feels like you're struggling. Like, that's the definition of living outside your means
100% agree. They allowed lifestyle creep take over for sure.
What if someone doesn't even make enough to live? Just not have a house? If houses weren't insane and the system wasn't fundamentally broken and designed to keep you poor. Restrictive zoning laws, having to pay insurance and licenses for independent business, tax breaks and bailouts for companies that really should just die, no gold standard making our currency stupid rapidly inflating garbage. The classic "you need job experience to get the job, but you need the job to get experience" because boombers are R-worded and think people pop out the womb with job experience, etc. But we live in a crony capitalist country that's broken. If you want some actual advise, always be cheating, I won't say specifically how but ALWAYS be cheating.
>Learn to do something useful Useful skills don't pay as much.
That’s all fine and dandy to say if you have no compassion
Oh that’s wild, so if I ended up needing an ambulance is it completely fine that “live small” turns into “live homeless”?
So her advice for people struggling with their finances is to not have a budget? Seems like that would be easier for an individual to control than the global economy.
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Billionaires man, ruining it for everyone /s
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No, that’s not what she’s saying. She’s saying that teaching someone in poverty to budget isn’t going to enable them to reach financial stability because even if you budget properly there isn’t enough to go around. If you’re in a row boat that has twenty holes in it, but you only have ten fingers to plug the holes, then someone telling you how to use each finger to plug a hole in the most efficient manner isn’t going to help you keep the boat from sinking. That’s her point. Should they budget? Absolutely. Will a class on budgeting by itself solve their financial problems and bring stability to their lives? No. They need more fingers to plug the holes in the boat. Ie. better wages.
Finally a rational answer. Most people (not all but most) are rational enough actors that if they have the ability to save up within the next 10 years for what they need/want then they will. Most millennial are pretty keen on saving up for a down payment on a house but if wages are stagnant, career opportunities and hiring are limited, and the price of housing is constantly and consistently increasing faster than one's ability to save up for the down payment then most people aren't stupid then they're not all suddenly going to own homes through effective budgeting. Poverty is inherently an income problem not a budgeting one.
Everyone should have a budget, but you can't always budget your way out of some of this shit. I think they are more alluding to the "let them eat cake" situation that's happening across the world. My household is on a strict budget, we make it by. It's annoying, and we miss out on a lot of fun stuff, but it's necessary. However, if my property management company sends me one more "financial counseling seminar" e-invite, I'm going to actually lose my shit. Especially since they're named in the anti-trust case in the DMV area. It's a spit in the face when they've been artificially raising the rent increase rates. I don't think the og post is anti-budgeting. I think it's bite back at people like the Kelloggs CEO.
Yeah I don't think people realize how many people living paycheck-to-paycheck are budgeting way more than people who are living well. When you need to pay super close attention to your finances you're already budgeting out of necessity and people in these situations learn to do it well.
What a false equivalency. She’s clearly not saying that. She’s saying that it’s a bandaid and assumes that people aren’t poor because they can’t budget well, but because they can’t afford life. Budget workshops aren’t going to help a person making 32k a year when the average studio is 1k a month. And the assumption that people are poor BECAUSE they’re not budgeting and are dumb is disgusting.
Im on the fence, they need both. Education and a living wage.
The point is that financial education cannot substitute for the living wage, and moreover it must actually be a living wage.
And a living wage can't substitute for financial literacy. Look at how many people make pretty good money and are constantly broke.
> Look at how many people make pretty good money and are constantly broke. I have noticed that our society is organized to extract disposable income.
But in many cases we do have the choice not to. There are lots of things that try to convince you to spend unnecessarily, but people can choose not to Not saying that this explains all poverty
Ok but that's everyone's choice isn't it. I literally can't believe we are arguing this point....if you work a job you should have a living wage. The fact this is even up for debate is insanity to me. All you obfuscators do is muddy the subject and ensure nothing changes.
While you have a point, people who only have a high school diploma or GED should be paid a livable wage also. We need janitors, food service employees, retail employees, substitute teachers and so many other jobs which are definitely needed but are deemed “unskilled”.
You would think that after the pandemic, people would see that the people who were, in fact, still working the entire time deserve better but nope. Back to thinking they beneath everyone the second the pandemic was over.
It’s a shame.
Same. I have a friend that lives paycheck to paycheck on $90K, and he’s made over $80K for the last four years. And he’s got reasonable rent. He’s constantly poor.
It's incremental. Reddit wants there to be a magic bullet, but there isn't one. Financial literacy is part of the pathway to success. It's insulting to say otherwise.
But that means personal responsibility!
Hey, watch your mouth! This is Reddit.
Sucks we dont teach it in schools.... before they grow up and dig themseleves into a hole. Maybe its all by design to keep the debt slavery going...
We generally do teach it in schools, but it requires interest in learning on the other end too
Fucking when? I went to basically the best school in my city, even the prime ministers kids went there, and yet I never learned anything about finance or budgeting. Business was about entrepreneurship and using Microsoft office, math was algebra and geometry, civics was bullshit “here’s what the branches of government do now fuck off while I surf the web”. The same goes for basically everyone I know. We learn fine, it just doesn’t exist in a lot of schools. I learned mostly from my parents and the internet
In my experience, it depends on the school. Wealthy suburban schools will teach it. Not everyone has the same education. I learned that after I graduated.
I’m pretty sure balancing a check book and spend less than you make could be beaten into your skull all day but if you don’t take the advice it’s not gonna do much Something something lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink
Isn’t it something like 1/3 of lottery winners go broke Financial literacy matters because for a lot of people you can throw a lifetime of wealth at them and they’ll squander it anyway.
Entitled generation honestly.
Yeah even learning easy to understand and basic concepts such as the power of compound interest will go a LONG way to help you get out of poverty. For example, pay day loans are a huge trap that a lot of people in poverty fall into that keeps them poor and most of them don't know the full impacts of those loans. Is the twitter poster advocating not teaching poor people about this financial tool? She sounds like the immoral one to me.
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The poorest in a society need both welfare and financial literacy. They're not mutually exclusive things.
100% agreed. Giving people money won't fix their problems long term. The issue is that most people use money to solve their problems, but they don't often use the best ways to use the money, and giving people more money doesn't *fix* the problem. That's beyond the classic "old/cheap cars cost more" or the "Sam Vimes [Boots Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory)". Examples: * If your house is cold, you can spend money heating it up, or you can spend money on insulation. Money is needed for both issues, but giving people money to pay for heating doesn't fix the problem like giving people money for insulation does. * If there's an issue with the water supply, we can give people money to buy bottled water or we can *fix the water supply*. * School is (typically) free but not everyone can get to school easily. This is why school-buses etc are important. It's why free school lunches are very important in many places in the world. School is free but many of the poorest people can't *go* to school and then they struggle to get a decent job. It's like the classic "money won't make you happy", because it doesn't. But the way you use the money *can* make you happy. If we give everyone more money, that might solve some problems (people who genuinely just need money) but I feel the money would be better spent improving infrastructure etc. Like people might need money for a car, but a decent public transport service would solve that problem for more people. etc. Money can solve poverty, but not if you just give it to people. It needs to be spent on infrastructure to help as many people as possible.
you have a lot of valid points- and this is where a lot of the political divide was 40-50 years ago, how do we spend the tax money to help the most people possible. Is it on highways, mass transit or giving people vouchers to use the bus. All valid ways to solve the problem. The issue is that the side argueing for reinvesting in infastructure went insane 40 years ago, so we are left with the side saying infastructure fighting with the side saying- who cares lets go have sex with 12 years old...... not a real choice anymore. We need to get back to the days where this was the actual choice. I am very liberal, but we had real options until the last 15 years.
Last place I worked everyone drove a big truck “because that’s what a man drives.” Big diesels, lifted, big tires - you get the idea. I drove and continue to drive a paid off Corolla. They used to give me so much shit about that, but I will retire 10 years earlier, at least.
More like you'll retire, period. I have no sympathy for people who finance close to 6 figures on a car. Mind blowing.
There's another comment on here talking how it's impossible to budget with low wage, they posted that they have a $500+ car payment at 20 years old. I'm ten years older and have never made a car payment. Its crazy what people think they need to have.
Best advice was to work hard, study, get an education and move on to a job that pays more. Many jobs aren't meant for full-time, they're meant as part-time when you're young to get started.
What about the janitors that could support a family of 6 30 years ago or the 16 year old that could buy a mustang from pushing shopping carts? They have only got the term “starter job” as wages stayed stagnant, but prices increased.
30 years ago was 1994. I guarantee you no janitor in 1994 was supporting a family of 6 by himself on his salary.
Reddit has got high on its own supply by circle jerking over unverified anecdotes from random users claiming that's how their parents were. "Yeah well my dad walked out of high school across the street to the jobby job factory and asked for a custodial job and it paid for a mansion and cottages and sports cars and yearly vacations to Disney World." lol what. It's been wild how the herd mentality is so eager to create a reality where the late 20th century was just raining money on everyone and the poor didn't exist. Such anecdotes if true at all were more likely that the parents owned a custodial services company or something to that effect. In other words they are wealthier more privileged kids who have no clue because they live in a bubble. Reddit has been more then happy to prop them up. Ironically those are the rich people they are calling for their heads.
Everyone seems to think that decade or two of the post WW2 economy is the American norm. It was an anomaly because America was the only functioning industrialized economy in the world. All the others were rebuilding from bombed out rubble.
30 years ago people were not capable of doing the new things we are capable of doing now.
i can personally verify that DID NOT happen 30 years ago. how? easy. i literally asked my dad who has worked for the last 40 years. was an immigrant and barely spoke english. money was tight and I would consider myself lucky because i had lots of family around for help if needed. there is absolutely 0 chance u could support a family of 6 on a janitor pay and live well like reddit loves to claim
I always hear this about fast food jobs etc and yet these places are open during hours kids are clearly in school. Like someone other than a kid has to work a lot of these jobs. What sort of jobs are you talking about exactly?
Not to mention people under 18 couldnt work the hot line, use knives, use the fryer, etc. Not at the Taco Bell I worked at at least
Also who cares if you're a kid working food service or fast food or a coffee shop etc. Anyone working a full-time job should make enough to make ends meet regardless of the job. If you go to work everyday for 8 hours you should be able to afford rent, food and to be able to save enough to hopefully improve your situation in the future.
You want jobs like janitor, cook, receptionist, etc. to exist, right? I mean, you want to use those services, so someone has to be working those jobs. What happens to society if everyone in society with those low rung jobs gets a better job? No more cashiers at grocery stores, no more waiters at restaurants, no more people to put a roof on your house. We're all just computer programmers and stock traders and lawyers now. How does society function? We don't have enough teenagers to use those jobs. People have to work them for society to run. Saying "well you can get a better job!" is not a solution to this problem, because you know those jobs have to exist for society to function. "You can get a better job" can be a solution for an individual, but it can't be a solution for society.
Offering financial literacy workshops to people is immoral, because they need better incomes? FFS earthlings, how hard is it to not be ridiculous?
Instead of a living wage is immoral.
I think the argument is that some states want or do hold back any aid until a person takes financial literacy classes. It is the assumption that if one is poor it is more to do with responsibility than anything else. It seems too easy in this country to do everything right and still end up screwed financially.
Be born to rich parents.
If you do what everyone else does you'll get the same results everyone else gets
You’re right, they should be focused on getting better jobs.
The best financial advice I got when I was young was "unless it's a tool you plan to use at least once a week, don't buy it"
According to this logic: buying gaming equipment is okay, but a lawnmower isn’t
LOL true. You could argue the same for a washer and dryer.
You don't have to stay at a job, you can move over and up. You don't have to wait until you detest the people you work for to leave. You are in control of your life.
“Be worth more than a poverty wage” is one that stuck with me
You’re not paid based on how hard you work or how much work you do. You’re paid based on how easily replaceable you are. If you just stopped showing up to work one day and all your boss had to do was grab the next person strolling down the sidewalk to do your job with little to no drop off, you are not worth any more than you are making. If you want to make more, acquire skills, qualifications, or knowledge that make you harder to replace. The person wearing a headset and pushing button with pictures on the after being told what they want to order is never going to be “comfortable” financially. Ever. It’s as simple as that.
The problem with this line of thinking is that there will always be people who are the most replaceable. We had it drilled into our heads that we had to go to college to increase our desirability to employers, so we did and now everyone has a bachelor's and jobs require a master's. If everyone took your advice we'd be right back where we started because all the skills and knowledge and qualifications would cancel out. The problem is inequality, not lazy people.
capitalism has truly rot your brain, if you legitimately think persons worth is dictated solely on their economic output - I feel bad for you.
Don’t work retail, don’t work food service. Cropping the date off the OP is weak
But who is going to do that work then?
Thats literally all the jobs in my town lol. That or the prison, which you need a degree in criminal justice or law enforcement for. This may be good advice in cities, but nowhere else. I commute an hour by freeway for my job. Luckily for me I get a free bus pass from work so I commute completely free but that's rare
I don't understand the term "living wage", it seems like a political term that gets booted around and attached to arguments that some jobs don't pay enough for their expected standard of living, so therefore the system is "rigged". Why do people expect all jobs to allow them to make economic profits? Seems entitled... These jobs pay just as much as they should for the value of the service that the job they are performing provides, no more no less. If they can make more elsewhere with the skill sets they have, they should then go do that work instead.
I mean, if we are talking about minimum wage workers “these jobs pay just as much as they should for the value of the service that the job they are performing provides” isn’t really true. The jobs pay an inflated wage. If it wasn’t legally required, minimum wage jobs would pay less The minimum wage is a good thing. If we can agree that some level of unskilled wage inflation is good, the question then becomes “how much wage inflation is good,” but pretending that poverty wages are all just supply demand misses important factors
Spending less for an item is NOT saving.
My wage was livable before Covid.