Half of Americans Are Effectively Poor Now. What The?

[hedda_foil]

https://eand.co/half-of-americans-are-effectively-poor-now-what-the-c944c518db6a

America’s Collapsing Because it’s the World’s First Poor Rich Country

There are days I feel like I read dystopian statistics for a living. And then there are day when the dystopian statistics take even my jaded breath away. Here’s one: 43% of American households can’t afford a budget that includes housing, food, childcare, healthcare, transportation, and a cellphone. Translation: nearly half of Americans can’t afford the basics of life anymore.

<snip>

The folks that did the study above call this new class of people ALICE, for “asset limited, income constrained, employed.” It’s a sharp way to think about American collapse. Let me translate this term, too: the people formerly known as the American middle class.

<snip>

Now, you might object. Are Americans really becoming “poor”? What else would you call people that struggle to afford food, housing, childcare, and healthcare? You can’t call them rich, and you can’t call them middle class. They are poor in the sense that they are deprived of the basics of life, and deprivation is what poverty is. Even far poorer countries, I’d wager, don’t have such dire outcomes — bigger percentages can afford the basics — because medicine or rent or childcare in Pakistan or Nigeria doesn’t cost so relatively much. Americans are indeed growing effectively poorer and poorer now — and it shows in their depression, stress, anger, rage, anxiety, falling longevity and health, not to mention classic turn towards authoritarianism.

<snip>

But it’s a new kind of poverty too — or at least one unseen since the Weimar Republic, really. It’s the poverty of decline, degeneration, decay. It’s the poverty of a middle class becoming a new poor. It’s the reversal of an upwards trajectory — not the failure to launch. It’s people who expected to live better and better lives finding themselves in the grim, unfamiliar predicament of never being able to reach them, no matter what they do. Except maybe sell out and become one of the predators. What happens when that takes place? Something strange, something difficult, something paradoxical and backwards.

<snip>

American poverty — a middle class falling into ruin, the majority of people now effectively poor — is what gave rise to today’s problems: Trumpism, extremism, fascism, theocracy. It’s what drives religious fervour — save me, someone! It’s what ignites the spark of racial hatred all over again.

…more

https://eand.co/half-of-americans-are-effectively-poor-now-what-the-c944c518db6a

[Firestorm49]

1. It's a classic way to keep people under control.

[marylandblue]

2. It's why I think Warren's message may resonate in unexpected places.

People will start blaming their poverty on minorities and immigrants--their competitors for a few crumbs needed to survive -- unless they are given a viable solution that brings real economic security.

[democratisphere]

3. Already starting to control the population with the food supply.

Nothing lower than THAT! Very little to be "proud" about anymore.

[sop]

4. But, the stock market is at an all-time high, employment is the highest it's been in 50 years,

and taxes rates on the 1% are the lowest in decades. Things must be going great since the top 10% in this country have never had it so good; they're driving expensive cars, living in gated communities and sending their kids to the best schools. That proves everyone's doing great, doesn't it?

As someone (I forget who, maybe Bernie?) noted about America's economic statistics: it's like putting 99 homeless people in a room with Jeff Bezos, everyone in that room would have an average net worth of well over a billion dollars. On average, we're all rich!

[KPN]

8. Yup, "on average, we're all rich!"

It's all as simple as that. Yet we have very intelligent people who defend the current system despite the fact that they are not particularly rich themselves, but sufficiently well off and detached from those who are not to actually think things are great -- as long as we keep the druggies, criminals and lazy from draining MY future.

Intelligence does not equate to thought.

[3Hotdogs]

5. This is the biggliest, bestest, most stupendist stock market, EVER !

So now that 'merica is great again, there's no need to re-elect Trump.

[Sherman A1]

6. This is why I support Universal Basic Income as proposed by Andrew Yang

[aidbo]

29. Yang has said his UBI will do away with the social safety net.

I'm not in favor of a UBI that kills Social Security and other things like TANF.

[Sherman A1]

32. Not from my understanding

From what I have heard him say it is a case of taking either UBI or the benefit that is being received (assuming the person is receiving some social safety benefit). An individual receiving say $700.00 per month from some program could take either and logic would dictate they take the UBI. A person receiving $1300.00 per month from a program could likewise take either, but logic would dictate that they remain with what they are receiving as that is the greater amount.

It would not apply to or replace Social Security as the UBI runs from the ages of 18-65.

[JCMach1]

7. Academic who returned to an America that

Doesn't hire older experienced workers and most of the jobs are low-paying, no benefit adjunct jobs.

Consequently, I work outside of my field for peanuts.

Without family help, I couldn't survive.

[SWBTATTReg]

19. Sorry to hear this regarding your situation. I just talked to a friend in his 50s, same predicta-..

ment, an economist, let go, never able to find a job since (in America)...with the tight employment field, you would think that people like him and you would be able to pick up a job in your field immediately. No.

The problem is still age discrimination. Sustained and continued age discrimination.

The economist above had to sell his home and move into a small condo that he brought for his disabled sister (using life insurance proceeds parents left him, sister needs care but still), otherwise things would have been grimmer.

Best wishes to you on your long term job hunt. Thank goodness you do have family help.

[Sherman A1]

33. Age discrimination is very, very real

and very hard to combat in our rigged economy. Suffered from it myself, but in the long run I screwed them as I was pushed out the door.

[SWBTATTReg]

36. Good. Creeps deserved it (getting screwed). It is hard to combat. Got to prove it ...

and that's the hard part,especially when one is a job seeker, who with minimum of resources have to prove discrimination of ex employer(s) against older ex-employees and also proving motive of ex employers was actually age discrimination.

Take care.

[JCMach1]

35. Irony is I was tenured outside the US ... I returned

To take care of aging parents and ran head on into the shitshow that is higher ed in America at the moment.


Academic hiring was especially rough on Gen X. When I was young, boomers always hired more boomers (I.e. people like themselves but who finished school later). Now that they are clinging on before retirement, they are only hiring adjuncts and freshly matriculated millenials.

[SWBTATTReg]

37. Shaking my head in sadness. It's too bad that you couldn't have taken a prolonged leave of leave...

with regard to parents, especially in an overseas situation. Even here in the US, I looked at taking a prolonged leave to help take care of my dad, but it was too short (the amount of leave), and I would have lost my standing in the company (pretty well would had to start over from scratch, if I was rehired back into the company where I worked already for 27+ years...I retired early instead. The time I spent w/ my dad was worth it.

Take care JCMach1...

[JCMach1]

38. Thanks...

I am also an only child which makes parental duties all the more difficult

[SWBTATTReg]

40. I suspected as much...a very difficult place to be...my best friend is an only child and he went...

through the whole experience w/ both of his parents with the whole range of different experiences each while getting older (mom passing on, dad remarried (in his 70s of all things), dealing w/ new family (gold diggers all), etc.).

Again, take care and my best to you.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread hedda_foil.

[hedda_foil]

24. You're welcome, Uncle Joe.

[Backseat Driver]

10. I am sitting here in tears at this "triggering" article.

I'm an early boomer, and somewhere along the line I fell into the rabbit hole called America. I ask myself, aka ALICE, what was the criteria for deciding who would fail at success in this country: name; color, sex and/or orientation, zip code, education, religious beliefs, political affiliation, occupation, birth order or size and nature of familial social networks??? I just can't figure out why my accomplishments or small rewards were systematically stripped away and continue down the slippery slope of that hole except as a more grain seed full of potential for the threshing and grinding.

You know, I know the GOP thinks seniors are now "useless and entitled eaters," but I have yet to hear a Democratic candidate speak to what was done to boomers who had just enough but didn't pursue the almighty dollar for the sake of financial wealth but considered richness in a daily life of family and community to be enough, to have enough, to do enough to enjoy arising each day without worry it would be the day one's life would be thrown into the landfill of poverty. Just what the H happened???

Years ago, Elizabeth Warren, explained nearly exactly the course of my life of one step forward/two steps back. I wish she would now explain the further steps along that ugly path to falling down that rabbit hole. Perhaps it too will match up and explain to me what happened. Why should I hide my despair that there is no way to recoup - I've already been stigmatized and named ALICE by those trying to explain it all.

Whatever did happen, I know I will NEVER ever vote for a single Republican. But neither will I ever again work to make a corporate CEO richer or be the author of financial debt, if that is what is required to buy a home, a lease that sucks up more than I can be held accountable for payment, a trayful of prescribed pills to ward off the diseases of older age, anything that smells like "new" car. I can't even buy a television for cash or go to a genuine salon for a haircut. Since plan A for self-sufficiency as a senior has gone down the rabbit hole of charade and now being described as hubris instead of trust, I will try another false action plan to be as grateful, tolerant, generous, and as expensive to PUKES and corporate power as I can be (which probably and certainly won't be enough - see the cognitive dissonance in that plan?). I can't afford a health policy stacked against my pre-existing conditions or devices that are never covered nor a pre-paid funeral plan though I do have a LW&T. I'll end up stacked up in a morgue until the GoFundMe is enough to really end it all in flames and ashes. What I treasured in life means nothing to the kids, but perhaps the next burned out family in town will make good use of all not ready for the junk heap just yet.

I have to go now - but the tears are still flowing...

[lambchopp59]

16. This Gen X'er started out homeless

Will be able to look back proudly on a body of compassionate work I poured my heart and soul into.
And will be a homeless retired person living in WalMart parking lots and rest stops in an RV.
All the years of earning an "above average" income? Worthless in a society so incredibly leveraged for the super rich, rendered inert after getting mugged and requiring many surgeries pre-Obamacare and kicked off my Blue Cross plan for failing to return a time-sensitive form... ahem... WHILE I was HOSPITALIZED. Cost me my entire lifetime retirement savings just to go back to work.
Oh, Driver, do I ever know the one step forward, two back.
I've watched it happen ever since Reagan.
And still these MAGA idiots idolize the rich.

[Backseat Driver]

30. I'm thinking that our preferences in the primary would work well

together, either way, as a team. I would sort of like to see a woman and/or a person of color elected to one of the top two slots as a reminder of values in America currently under siege by any of America's obstructionist GOP would-be opponents.

[lambchopp59]

34. And I'm joyful to see Elizabeth Warren surging in the polls

Even though I'm a Pete supporter for now, as exactly a candidate of the minority as an in-your-face "screw you, GOP", I believe his chances to win the elections in 2020 are slim for now, and probably very lucrative in future elections. He'll be around quite a while and run again.
Eventually I'll go with Warren as my primary contender choice here on D.U., and gladly vote for her. Joe Biden would "restore normality" if elected. But as I've posted frequently here: Joe does not excite or motivate the youth vote, and that's taking a chance on four more years of the Rich Orange Idiot.
But with Elizabeth as our candidate? Watch the nation's youth turn out in unprecedented numbers to vote for her!
I don't want our youths to wind up in the low-wage, unaffordable housing, stuck in quagmire perpetual student and medical debt like me.

[progressoid]

26. ...

[RVN VET71]

11. The things we are still proud of are the things they hate

Compassionate hearts that care about human life and work to improve it. People willing to help one another without expecting recompense or fame.

Those are the very categories that Trump and all Republicans and all Republican voters -- not just the Proud Boys and Nazis -- hate. They absolutely hate human compassion. They believe conscience is a con because there's no profit in it. They believe that those who claim to care about poor people have a hidden agenda -- it may be communistic. It may be a desire to level people regardless of ability and intelligence. (As if Trump got where he is because of his intelligence.) Or just a desire to marshall the forces of the poor to cast out white people from seats of power and mete out vengeance on them for their racial depredations, blah, blah.

Sadly, the Dems seem reluctant to call them out as racist thieves, heartless murderers, and traitors to the principles which, although we've never consistently lived up to them, gave Americans a guiding beacon through the darkest times.

For the record, I like Joe Biden but am disturbed by his expressed desire to work with the thugs, thieves, frauds, and murderers of the GOP. Maybe I don't like his message because he's trying to put a cap on a volcano by insisting the Dems -- under his leadership -- could accomplish much working with the other side. Maybe I don't agree the volcano can be capped -- or even should be capped -- because the other side is no longer deserving of the trust of decent people.

Regarding the GOP -- at the national, at the state, at the local level -- the words of Voltaire resonate: Ecrasez L'infame. That done, we can set about rebuilding the country that they have labored so hard to destroy.

[Wellstone ruled]

12. 48% living at Poverty Level.

Next 12% are just above Poverty level. Well reality is,60% of our Nation has been left behind and are losing life expectancy daily due to lack of proper Diet and Health Care.

[CaptYossarian]

15. He said we'd be sick of winning. We're just sick of him.

[Wellstone ruled]

17. It is only going to get worse.

Have been following some of the new Rules as to Public Benefits Cuts that are coming by Executive Implementation in the proposed Federal Budget. Going to get f---n ugly for the 60%.

The Clueless and Hate Filled get to make up the Rules.

[CaptYossarian]

28. How will the 90% of Appalachia vote in 2020 if he does that to them?

He'll still say he digs coal and he'll still be an overt racist. But what about their safety net?

[Wellstone ruled]

31. Well,sad to say this,

I along with many of us Oldster's here,remember the so called good old days pre LBJ and the Great Poverty Programs that were specifically targeted to Appalachia and other pockets of mega poverty. To this day,do remember the likes of Nixon and other Rethugs yelling from their Congressional Offices how those folks will become lazy and won't look for employment and the Socialist State will take over. Sound fimiliar.

Until we fix the Ignorance issues in our Country,we will keep on seeing these same idiot's running our Country into the ground all in the name of the Mega Rich.

[lambchopp59]

13. Trend that will continue until we can get Faux Noise Faithful to wake up to the facts that

Trickle down economics never worked, never will.
Accepting at some twisted notion that the rich are too poor and the poor too rich makes me want to puke.
"Deregulation" has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with one's individual rights!!!!!!
8 billion humans on earth cannot be driving individual luxury vehicles without laying waste to the planet.
And defending the notions of the rich to hide tremendous amounts of currency in overseas accounts further widens the gap.

[Snarkoleptic]

14. Yet we are constantly barraged with media accounts of how great the stock market is doing.

[dsc]

18. I can't read this as it is behind a pay wall for me

but that said, I tracked down the original source and there is no real definition of this statistic. It is hard to figure out what this is supposed to mean given that.

[csziggy]

22. The information is from the United Way ALICE project

ALICE: A NEW LENS FOR FINANCIAL HARDSHIP

This effort provides a framework, language, and tools to measure and understand the struggles of the growing number of households in our communities that do not earn enough to afford basic necessities, a population called ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed).
https://www.unitedforalice.org/national-comparison

[reACTIONary]

23. Detailed Methodology

A link to the most detailed description of their methodology.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6i8o6q3apxeo492/19UW_ALICE_Project_Methodology_2019_06_17.pdf?dl=0

[reACTIONary]

20. Cell Phones?

Last edited Sun Jun 23, 2019, 02:53 PM - Edit history (1)

American households can’t afford a budget that includes .... a cellphone?

Umm, no. The actual report states:

ALICE, an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, represents the growing number of individuals
and families who are working, but are unable to afford the basic necessities of housing, child care, food, transportation, technology, and health care.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6i8o6q3apxeo492/19UW_ALICE_Project_Methodology_2019_06_17.pdf?dl=0

As for cell phones:

Mobile phone ownership over time

The vast majority of Americans – 96% – now own a cellphone of some kind. The share of Americans that own smartphones is now 81%, up from just 35% in Pew Research Center's first survey of smartphone ownership conducted in 2011.

https://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/

[MarcA]

25. Transforming U.S. from democratic governance to feudal oligarchy n/t

[SMC22307]

27. "Unique" because America was on an upward trajectory...

then it all got shot to hell. When did that happen? Ronnie Raygun, at least.

[BlueWI]

39. So what's the set of policies that can address this?

And which candidate is best positioned to lead on this issue?