Re: "The Secret Shame of Middle Class Americans"

IamMrsG · ‎08-29-2010

@physicsnut wrote:
I don't think that many people are living above their means. I think most people are living paycheck to paycheck - especially the past 7 years. Good paying FULL TIME jobs with benefits are hard to find and rising healthcare premiums - food - housing expenses are outrageous. Most people are just trying to survive wihile others are living off ot those of us who are working 2 and sometimes 3 jobs. Food stamps - unemployment checks - are all being abused...by some - not by all - but we have more people on these than any other time in our history...

Living "paycheck to paycheck," is living above your means.

Strive for respect instead of attention. It lasts longer.

MacDUFF · ‎05-29-2015

@gardensla wrote:
Wage snagnation is killing the middle class.

@gardensla

Wage snagnation...this is when you live in a country where the powers that be snag your wages before you even see 'em.

~~~ I call dibs on the popcorn concession!! ~~~

RoughDraft · ‎03-09-2010

@physicsnut wrote:
I don't think that many people are living above their means. I think most people are living paycheck to paycheck - especially the past 7 years. Good paying FULL TIME jobs with benefits are hard to find and rising healthcare premiums - food - housing expenses are outrageous. Most people are just trying to survive wihile others are living off ot those of us who are working 2 and sometimes 3 jobs. Food stamps - unemployment checks - are all being abused...by some - not by all - but we have more people on these than any other time in our history...

Oh, I think it goes back farther than 7 years. It actually took about the last 7 years to pull our economy out of the abyss with what the banking and investment companies did to a lot of hard working people's savings and investments. But I DO agree with your first sentence.

~The only difference between this place and the Titanic is that the Titanic had a band.~

Moonchilde · ‎05-23-2010

The purchasing power of the middle class wage-earner, the severely lowered amounts of cost of living wage increases, as well as heavy layoffs, much of which had started even before the recession but was worsened by it, have hurt this country's working heart so badly I don't really believe it will recover - not in my lifetime, and maybe never.

When you don't get, or get only a micro c-o-l raise for 10-20+ years while rents, food, clothing and utilities (not to mention the price of homes) continue to rise higher while income doesn't, many people have been close to drowning just keeping a roof over their head and food in their stomach. That's hardly living above one's means when any less "means" would be lining up at the soup kitchen. And try "saving for a rainy day" for 20 years while living in a figurative downpour.

Life without Mexican food is no life at all

Moonchilde · ‎05-23-2010

@Ms X wrote:
Quite simply, this is what happens when companies would rather hire cheap foreign labor than Americans. Had enough of this? I have!

Except that whether people have had enough of it is irrelevant. It's not going to change, in reality, no matter who promises what. Talk is cheap.

Life without Mexican food is no life at all

fuzzball76 · ‎12-17-2015

For those in the Sandusky Ohio area in relation to this topic...KBI factory shutting down end of 2016. Basically, they were on strike a couple of months ago, the workers "claimed" victory by getting their demands in. Translation: the veteran workers on the inner circle knew this was coming, got what they could, retire and move on. The union leaders and crooked city officials who are on the take get to "remain the middle class" while the rest are screwed.

lucymo · ‎12-13-2010

@RoughDraft wrote:
This is not the result of people "expecting" the government to bail them out. We can't blame everything wrong with this economy on a literal handful of people who might be abusing the system. This is a complex, heavy load for the lower to middle class, most of whom haven't seen an increase in wages in years and suffer the stress of job security to boot.

If one is fortunate enough to have existed on this planet without a major illness/accident/household catastrophe that takes a giant bite out their income or savings...they are lucky. It takes a good long strech of "nothing going wrong" to be able to build a nest egg to fall back on.

@RoughDraft Very well said.

Mominohio · ‎08-08-2010

@IamMrsG wrote:
@physicsnut wrote:
I don't think that many people are living above their means. I think most people are living paycheck to paycheck - especially the past 7 years. Good paying FULL TIME jobs with benefits are hard to find and rising healthcare premiums - food - housing expenses are outrageous. Most people are just trying to survive wihile others are living off ot those of us who are working 2 and sometimes 3 jobs. Food stamps - unemployment checks - are all being abused...by some - not by all - but we have more people on these than any other time in our history...
Living "paycheck to paycheck," is living above your means.

@IamMrsG

The portion I highlighted is a pretty bold statement to make and won't be popular. But it is very true.

I remember in the early years, when we couldn't make enough money for the mortgage (less than any rent in the area), utilities food gas and insurances, we got second and third jobs. We spent no money on anything that wasn't essential, were cold all winter to keep the gas bill down, wore clothing only from the thrift store, and ate a lot of hotdogs and mac and cheese. We didn't have TV (and all this technology didn't exist), we didn't ever eat out, we didn't travel. Our lives existed around work and taking care of the house and yard, with visiting local friends or family as our only social life.

Many people today won't cut back or work more. Some can't because of health reasons or total lack of skills or opportunity, but a good portion of the people who have no 'cushion' at all, are in that position because the choose to be, by the decisions they make with their money and their work (or not) choices.

deepwaterdotter · ‎03-09-2010

Guess I'll just be content living my shameless, lower-class lifestyle.

Ms X · ‎09-13-2012

@Moonchilde wrote:
@Ms X wrote:
Quite simply, this is what happens when companies would rather hire cheap foreign labor than Americans. Had enough of this? I have!

Except that whether people have had enough of it is irrelevant. It's not going to change, in reality, no matter who promises what. Talk is cheap.

Why don't you think it will change, Moonchilde? China has pegged its currency to the US dollar for decades as a way to make their products and workers more competitive. In this way, they have taken our jobs and undercut American products. This is currency manipulation. Even as our government makes trade agreements that flood the USA with Chinese products, China has not similarly opened up its markets to us. Why make such agreements if they are to our detriment?

In terms of taxes and regulations, the US is not competitive with much of the rest of the world. Do you think nothing can be done about this? If so, I strongly disagree.

This is a very complex situation involving taxes, regulations, currency manipulation, varying standards of living, the cost of transporting goods halfway across the world, and a number of things I haven't mentioned and probably don't even know about. Suffice it to say that more could have been done, CAN BE DONE about this than our "public servants" have seen fit to try.

Let's do something for the American worker and for American companies for a change.