4 ms·

Disclaimer: I live in a relatively prosperous community. My perspective is skewed accordingly. Your numbers seem fictitious to me. 78% of Americans living payc

Disclaimer: I live in a relatively prosperous community. My perspective is skewed accordingly. Your numbers seem fictitious to me. 78% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck? Look at what they are spending their paycheck on. One car per person. 2.1 people per house. 3.2 game consoles per person. A new laptop every 15 months. A new car every 36 months. A new $800 smartphone every 11 months. Every low-income 10 year old I see is carrying around $1000+ of electronics and treating them like they're disposable. But our school district offers free breakfast to 100% of the students. We have student parking lots for 16 year old kids. We're all living paycheck to paycheck, but I claim there is still huge excess. Giant houses for average families, computers, ATVs, boats, cars, TVs, 2 movies every night, 4 Amazon deliveries a week, direct access to Chinese suppliers, personal juice presses, occasional cruises. Air-bnb and uber are not luxuries for 1%ers. These are basic human rights chiseled into the constitution. There are, of course, truly poor people in the population. But our definition of poor sure has changed a lot in 50 years. Show me any random collection of 10,000 Americans and I will show you $2 million/year of disposable income without sacrificing a single smartphone or smart TV.

digitaltrees 7y ago
Your view of people's buying patterns is not accurate. I own a home care agency with 500 employees that live on low income (the government sets the Medicaid reimbursement rate so we have no ability to raise wages). NO ONE is buying a new car, let alone every 36 months. Half our employees don't own a smart phone. We pay $10hr, in rural North Carolina, so lots of people live on even less. Please research this issue and go and meet people in this income bracket, you will see a different picture. I also encourage you to read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. The truth is most American's wages have gone to Health Insurance, College, and Housing. See https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/this-chart-is-the-best-explanation-of-middle-class-finances-you-will-ever-see/ar-BB10k9S7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/this-chart-i...
- listenallyall 7y ago
  By definition, you're the one with a narrow perspective -- your employees are all low-income workers in a rural town. The parent never said NOBODY is poor -- in fact, he specifically acknowledged that there are poor people. His claim was that he doubted that 78% of the American population is. Additionally, many (many, not ALL) who technically are "poor", still find money to purchase expensive electronics.
  - godelski 7y ago
    1) It doesn't matter if you're rich and living paycheck to paycheck. This is argument actually supports the idea that UBI won't cause inflation because clearly there is still inefficiencies in market capture if people are rich AND living paycheck to paycheck. (like I said above, inflation doesn't really happen when you don't have full market capture). 2) Selection bias is a thing. While there are rich Americans living paycheck to paycheck, most of the people in this situation are not rich. 3) I'm not sure I'd consider a smartphone an expensive electronic. You can get one for under $100 and a plan that is <$20/mo. This isn't exactly breaking the bank... 4) I also wouldn't call a cell phone a luxury item in today's society. Even a smart phone. You can't get a job without a phone number, which now usually means texting included. A smart phone just means you have a single device that can also get you on the internet. Again, we're talking about a purchase that is well under $1k, has high utility, and is being held onto for years. Sure, this isn't poor like poor in Africa, but does that really matter? We don't live in Africa. We live in a rich society, I'd like to live in a wealthy society. One where our poorest can get shelter and food. If our definition of poor becomes having constant access to housing, food, health care, and are able to do so on 40hrs/wk, and nothing more, I'd call that a success. But we're clearly not there yet. If we have that, I don't care if someone has a trillion dollars and can buy rocket ships because we're in a post scarcity society (maybe not world, but society).
    - listenallyall 7y ago
      Take it up with supportlocal4h. I never even used the phrase "paycheck to paycheck." Nor did I specify "smartphone" when mentioning electronics.
  - 7y ago
tyg13 7y ago
> Show me any random collection of 10,000 Americans and I will show you $2 million/year of disposable income without sacrificing a single smartphone or smart TV. That's $200/year on average. Not exactly a compelling argument.

digitaltrees 7y ago

Your view of people's buying patterns is not accurate. I own a home care agency with 500 employees that live on low income (the government sets the Medicaid reimbursement rate so we have no ability to raise wages). NO ONE is buying a new car, let alone every 36 months. Half our employees don't own a smart phone. We pay $10hr, in rural North Carolina, so lots of people live on even less. Please research this issue and go and meet people in this income bracket, you will see a different picture. I also encourage you to read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. The truth is most American's wages have gone to Health Insurance, College, and Housing. See https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/this-chart-is-the-best-explanation-of-middle-class-finances-you-will-ever-see/ar-BB10k9S7 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/this-chart-i...

listenallyall 7y ago
By definition, you're the one with a narrow perspective -- your employees are all low-income workers in a rural town. The parent never said NOBODY is poor -- in fact, he specifically acknowledged that there are poor people. His claim was that he doubted that 78% of the American population is. Additionally, many (many, not ALL) who technically are "poor", still find money to purchase expensive electronics.
- godelski 7y ago
  1) It doesn't matter if you're rich and living paycheck to paycheck. This is argument actually supports the idea that UBI won't cause inflation because clearly there is still inefficiencies in market capture if people are rich AND living paycheck to paycheck. (like I said above, inflation doesn't really happen when you don't have full market capture). 2) Selection bias is a thing. While there are rich Americans living paycheck to paycheck, most of the people in this situation are not rich. 3) I'm not sure I'd consider a smartphone an expensive electronic. You can get one for under $100 and a plan that is <$20/mo. This isn't exactly breaking the bank... 4) I also wouldn't call a cell phone a luxury item in today's society. Even a smart phone. You can't get a job without a phone number, which now usually means texting included. A smart phone just means you have a single device that can also get you on the internet. Again, we're talking about a purchase that is well under $1k, has high utility, and is being held onto for years. Sure, this isn't poor like poor in Africa, but does that really matter? We don't live in Africa. We live in a rich society, I'd like to live in a wealthy society. One where our poorest can get shelter and food. If our definition of poor becomes having constant access to housing, food, health care, and are able to do so on 40hrs/wk, and nothing more, I'd call that a success. But we're clearly not there yet. If we have that, I don't care if someone has a trillion dollars and can buy rocket ships because we're in a post scarcity society (maybe not world, but society).
  - listenallyall 7y ago
    Take it up with supportlocal4h. I never even used the phrase "paycheck to paycheck." Nor did I specify "smartphone" when mentioning electronics.
- 7y ago

tyg13 7y ago

> Show me any random collection of 10,000 Americans and I will show you $2 million/year of disposable income without sacrificing a single smartphone or smart TV. That's $200/year on average. Not exactly a compelling argument.