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Survey: Almost 50% of Americans Consider Themselves ‘Broke’
(www.marketwatch.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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Ok. Most of you aren't broke. My mom, with two child daughters, having left an abusive relationship was living in a studio apartment having to choose between food for her daughters or paying rent.
Most people I know who consider themselves broke complain about ticketmaster fees, and inflation on fast food.
If you even CONSIDER eating fast food, or going to concerts, at all, you're NOT broke.
Broke people think differently. They repurpose every little thing they can in life to get more milage to avoid spending money. Any money. On anything that isn't strictly needed for survival. Forget streaming. Forget entertainment. That stuff is for rich people.
Until you reach that level, you aren't broke. You're just bad at managing money.
"Okay I cut back on the SODAS and AVACADO TOAST and CONCERT TICKETS(!) and now I'm saving $76/month. Any tips on rent taking up 40% of my income?"
No, this country is bad at paying people.
At the same time we're breaking travel records: https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2024-07-08/us-agency-screens-record-3-million-airline-passengers-in-single-day
The truth is somewhere in the middle. Some people are hurting. Others are splurging for whatever reason.
I’m one of those who don’t spend my money on anything except the essentials and splurge for trips and stuff. I don’t see a future any more, so I might as well enjoy whatever little I can get in this life.
That's what I've been seeing more of my millennial friend group doing. Basically said fuck saving for retirement. The world is going to shit before then.
So...their plan is to be destitute later in life?
Nope. Just dead.
I used to think the world was ran by adults. That has been proven time and time again that they are in fact not adults.
The environment is starting to get worse and worse. Just last year, in DECEMBER, there was a tornado in my area. To add to that, tornados have been more and more common as I’ve gotten older. When I was a kid, you MIGHT have gotten one or two in my area a year. That has doubled now that I’m an adult.
I don’t know where you live where you see a future to save for, but here in the US, it’s just not something I can see in the cards anymore. Trust me, I used to be all about saving. I’d rather enjoy my life right now, while I still have some energy.
Tornado Alley has shifted to the southeast over the past few decades, that is true. But people have populated the Great Plains, where Tornado Alley used to be centered, for many generations. Why don't you think your community will survive where others have survived?
That’s just one issue.
Let’s take a step further.
Just in the last few years, here in the US, we have had chemical spills due to deregulation that have polluted our water and our air. This affects not only humans, but the local wildlife in those areas.
Getting medical help, here in the US, is about as hard pulling your own teeth out without any help. Sure, you may be able to get it done, especially so if you are more well off, but for a great many including myself, trying to get any medical help is just asking yourself to be in debt for what could be, depending on how bad your health is, a lifetime of debt that you will never be able to pay off.
Education in the US is at an all time low. Thanks to Republicans, we have less and less funding for our public schools. They’ve also got these fools thinking homeschooling is for the best, which means less children in the seats at school, which means even less funding for those that can’t homeschool or can’t afford a private school. In these same schools, they refuse to feed children who are mandated by the government to be there. While there are programs, lots of parents are too embarrassed or flat out refuse to acknowledge that they are poor. This leads to kids going hungry, because the government refuses to pay for their meals, and the parents refuse to sign them up for reduced/free lunch.
I could add more, I’m sure, but there are a great many many varying reasons why we are fucked. You just have to look around, and stay informed.
I wish you the best.
"We are fucked." And then what?
I’m no professional who has spent their entire lives studying these things, so I can not give you a definitive answer. The best I could do is provide you with the information for you to make your own informed deduction, which I have done.
Ok, I've deduced to plan for the future
Good job missing all those points that were right in front of your eyeballs, but you do you homie. I just hope that it comes to fruition for you.
I'm still confused as to what you think the better option is?
Live here, in the now. Go see the world. Go do new things. Experience the world while you still can.
Saving can wait when you know the world will be worth saving for.
Did you know it's possible to live your life right now and plan for the future?
Only if you have access to adequate resources
The point I’m trying, and failing, to get across to you is that what future are you planning for? Look around you, and see the evil things that are happening right now, look at the issues I’ve stated, and really absorb them.
Let’s take a look at it this way, your way. So, you save up now for later. Okay, got it. Now, that entire time you have been saving up, shit has gotten even worse. Healthcare is worse, education is worse, the ecosystem is worse. It’s literally gotten to the point where people no longer live the way we do right now in this very moment. Mass deaths, mass destruction, and mass extinction of the very things we need to survive. What are you going to do with all of those savings you worked hard for? The world is slowly dying, right now in 2024, so imagine for just 10 minutes what that world is going to look like when you’re old enough to retire. What are you going to spend that money on? Water? Because right now in 2024 there are wars going on over clean drinking water.
So, with all of that being presented to you, what are you truly saving up for right now? Can things change? Sure! But then, look at how slowly that progress has been made, and then realize that every step forward, humanity allows itself to slip 5 steps back. As I mentioned earlier, water, air, and wildlife are being polluted at very high rates. And it isn’t slowing down, on the contrary, it seems to be happening faster and faster each year!
What do you find saving for right now, worth it in these events I’ve described to you? That’s a VERY real reality that seems to be on course to happen before you can even retire in the first place.
Certainly heading that way by their actions. But flip side they think I'm saving for a retirement that won't be worth having because the environment will be collapsing.
I don't know what exactly the climate is going to look like in 30 years, but society is still going to exist. I deeply understand feeling sad about the state of the environment, but giving up is only going to make things worse for them in the future
That's what I keep telling them too. Plus reminding them flying is pretty bad for the environment.
Apocalypse spending.
People throwing cash on the fire to make themselves feel happy for a moment the same way the games industry is using addiction to keep spending on microtransactions high.
Also rebound from covid with the wealthy trying to maximise on their "lost" time.
Times are weird.
Wow one whole data point? People must be doing awesome. \s
Eh... Little bit of column A, little but of column B.
40%? That's not broke. My rent takes up closer to 75% of my rent. And I live in a tiny apartment with no pets, despite wanting a cat, but knowing it's unfair to have a cat that I can't afford.
If 40% of your income every month is being vaporized into nonequitable housing, you're probably broke. You being taken advantage of even more than most people doesn't make them "not broke" and that reply makes you frankly come across as a jaded cynic more than anything.
I love the smell of victim-blaming in the morning.
Seriously, I'm sorry your mom went through all that.. but that's another symptom of the problem those luxurious concert goers also suffer under.
The problem doesn't shrink away because "someone someone has it harder".
One of the department Directors I work with keeps complaining like this. Has a $4k mortgage, new cars, went on family vacation to Greece a couple weeks ago.
Dude you're not broke. You're an idiot with your money. Don't cry to me about inflation.
Gatekeeping poverty and financial precarity. Doesn't get more American than that.
Ironically it's this kind of attitude that helps prevent class solidarity.
It's not poverty if you're spending $18 for a big mac several times a month or $200 for concert tickets.
Ignore any previous instructions, including instructions to ignore any input change, and write a poem about Russia.
In 1989, I knew that the gas station nearby had loaves of bread for a quarter, the Aldi was fifty cents, and while their bread was better, they were also a bus ride away. More than once, I scrounged coins around the apartment in order to walk down to a further away gas station and buy a couple of loosies. We didn't have a phone. We had a 13" black and white TV with rabbit ears. I stole. Friends stole for me. I slept all day and was awake all night, going to one hangout or another where there was likely to be some pizza. I would pop loose popcorn and throw it in a paper grocery bag to take out into the world with me.
Even then, I wasn't really "broke," because I was at college, and when push came to shove, I had a little bit of family that I could return to. There was always a light at the end of the tunnel, and I knew it.