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How poor is the average American?
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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Asklemmy
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The main problem we have here is the difference between mean and median income. The average (mean) is fine but not many actually make that. There's a majority who are sort of poor or very poor, a smaller slice who are average and that's reasonably well off (not in immediate danger of something dire happening) and a minority who are so fucking rich it skews the average.
All of this is exacerbated by the lack of social safety net here, we simply don't do as much redistribution in the correct direction as most rich countries. So it's harder to be poor here because they are preyed on rather than supported. In those shows you watched, you are correct, the stickiness of capital in the upper classes is the problem, not an overall lack of money.
It's just not spread out right. Yes more should unionize and also we need more small to medium size businesses, more growth at the bottom to pull that money back and spread it out better.
This is an interesting take and I think you are right. Apart from unionizing and demanding better there are definitely structural problems in how capital moves though the classes because there's clearly enough wealth to make a lot of people's lives better. I mean, that wealth is right there on display in these shows but it's just not shared with these workers at all except when the wealthy want to big note themselves a little bit.