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Flash Game Simulates Living on $9/hr.
- WA 15y agoSo I made it through the month with 3$ left. It has some interesting facts, but altogether it's a bit odd that everything breaks down in a single month.
- thebooktocome 15y agoAll it takes is one bad month for someone living paycheck to paycheck to go from okay to not okay.
- StavrosK 15y agoIf you're living paycheck to paycheck, it means you're spending 100% of what you get. A bad month makes it expenses > income. The trick is to not live paycheck to paycheck in good months, and it seems like $9/hr should be enough for a bit of savings.
- thebooktocome 15y agoHow much could a person working $9/hr save during a good month? A couple hundred dollars? It would take several consecutive good months to offset a single bad month.
- ichc-werker 15y agoRent is due tomorrow. You have $3.
- ctdonath 15y agoThis sort of sociopolitical whining is exactly why I created http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com - featuring $1 meals.
- driftsumi-e 15y agoThis one hits real close to home for aspiring entrepreneurs.
- ique 15y agoThere are three things I find annoying by this game. I shouldn't be driving a car if I don't have money for it. I should sell the car and always take bus, since later in the game it says I have that option. I had to choose if I should stay with an hourly paycheck or work by the piece. I choose piece because then I thought I could put in some more work, but then it just said I couldn't work that much. Well if I had known that I would have stuck with an hourly check, that's math you can actually work out in real life before making that decision. It says I have a college degree but that wont help me, and then it says I'm probably too uneducated to help out my children with math homework. All in all some interesting facts about the american low-income society, but the choices and different aspects of it are very strange. You could do a lot more to save money as well as make more money than is presented here. Well basically, kind of annoyingly simplified.
- hermannj314 15y agoYeah, if you choose hourly (I did) then your boss just cuts your hours in half. But then later I lost a whole day of pay when I called in sick, but I don't really see how I couldn't make up that time seeing as I was only working 20 hours a week. And what state are we living in in this game? Is there a state where a single parent making $9/hour doesn't get subsidized health insurance? If so maybe this fictive character (in pretty poor health it seems) needs to move. Apparently, all of your friends and family (at least your dead grandpa and friend getting married) lived out of state, so what are doing staying put. Fun game, great info, but I agree with the over simplification. IRL, I can't pick an apartment without building an elaborate cost-benefit spreadsheet, so the slider bar abstracted away too much for my enjoyment.
- StavrosK 15y agoHe cut your pay in half, not your hours. It's stupid.
- clarkevans 15y agoWhy is it stupid? It happened to my aunt about ~3 years ago. She was making about $12.50/h doing phone ordering (very senior, trained everyone, etc.); the company was sold/acquired and she was offered her old job at $9.25/h during a fairly large layoff. Since she lives in Michigan where the unemployment rate is well over 15%, she decided not to roll her dice at job hunting. She took the 26% pay cut and went to work for the same supervisor the next day. At least her house is mostly paid off, although it's worth half what she bought it for ~15 years ago -- this was her retirement savings. I think the point of the game is that many people just can't comprehend how easy it is to have bad things happen in a very substantial way... with very little notice and being mostly powerless to do anything about it.
- mnml_ 15y agoLife isn't that depressive even with a 9$/hr job.
- djeikyb 15y agoIt easily can be. Consider a twenty-four year old fresh out of college with an animal science degree, school loan debt, dependent parents, no car, no openings in her field, forced to take fast food job. The job usually gives her forty hours a week, but scheduled so she works 10-20 days before a single day off. Rent started lower, but has been slowly jacked up to $800+ before utilities. This describes my best friend for the past year. Paying bills is tremendously difficult, much less saving any money.
- BrandonM 15y agoSo get a roommate, look for a new place, move to a cheaper area, get a different job. I've done all of these things at one time or another. I've paid as low as $125 per month in rent, but most typically in the neighborhood of $225-300 (this is in one of the 15 biggest cities in the US, a major college town, to boot). Serving/bartending you can easily make $15-25 per hour and work 25-40 hours per week. I've also worked as a valet part-time for another $10-15 per hour. Package handlers can make $13 per hour (last I saw, several years ago) working the late shift. These are jobs that generally have no degree requirements whatsoever. My roommate was once a couple grand short on tuition money. He stripped for a couple weeks and was able to pay it all off. My sister's husband brings in close to $40K in the Army, and they give money to pay off student loans, too. I've had several friends work in Teach for America or as an Americorps Vista, receiving relatively meager salaries but getting a living allowance, money toward student loans, and a resume-building experience for aspiring non-profit workers. Meanwhile, remain tenacious in seeking out opportunities that make use of that degree, and make every use of student loan deferment and forbearance until all high-interest credit cards are paid off. Enter into debt management in order to get credit card interest rates down into the 5-8% range. The only saving that should be happening is an emergency cash fund. It doesn't make sense to save until your debts are paid off, unless you can reliably invest at a higher return (e.g., your employer matches your contribution up to 3% of salary for an effective 100%+ ROI). I know how easy it is to get dejected and want to give up, but you absolutely must soldier through it. Cut costs everywhere (don't eat out, sell that car, start biking, take up cheap hobbies instead of paying for entertainment, cancel cable, etc.) and pay down high-interest debts. Things get a whole lot easier once you start having some cash margin each month. That was the main thing I hated about the quiz. Everything was so binary. Rarely in life are we constrained to a box other than the one we construct for ourselves.
- cookiecaper 15y agoI like the concept a lot but the game is just too rigid to be realistic. It's essentially a propaganda piece and the choices it gives you are no-win by design (so that the game has opportunity to lecture you on the plight of low-wage workers). Real life is not so restrictive. It seems a bit involved to get across what could have been an infographic. I'd really like to see someone take a more serious and/or interesting approach to this concept. This game plays like an old "choose your own adventure"; you have "choices", but everything is pre-determined and there are only a handful of available story routes, which in this case are designed to make it difficult to complete the game while selecting any of the presented moral options and then to show that you'll only have a few dollars left in exchange for abandonment of all principles.
- driftsumi-e 15y ago>>It's essentially a propaganda piece and the choices it gives you are no-win by design (so that the game has opportunity to lecture you on the plight of low-wage workers). Real life is not so restrictive. Agreed. From a design standpoint, it's structured closer to an advergame that way - get your point across (scraping by on a low wage while dealing with what life throws at you) and quickly before the player loses interest. The events of the game over the course of a month are more indicative of what could happen spread across a wider span of time. I think there is some value in presenting statistical data as a narrative. I love Choose Your Own Adventure!
- Natsu 15y agoI had no problem getting to the end of the month with cash left over. Of course, I also work for a factory so I know an awful lot of $9/hr workers and how they live, so it wasn't that hard. You have to make a lot of hard choices. No, it's not easy. While this is a bit overdone, there's a lot of truth to this thing. I've seen the results of an unplanned child, days people come in sick because they really can't afford to miss work, and things like that first hand. Some of the people really have dug themselves into holes all on their own, but there are other folks who are just trying to scrape by with the crappy hand they've been dealt. It depends on the person, really and I could give you examples of both.
- fiesycal 15y agoThis game seems loaded as in the message behind it. That's fine but I think its slightly misleading. I paid off registration but later I still got charged 1.5k for my car not being registered. Also is it me or for the maths question no matter what you choose does it say you got it wrong? Despite having a college degree.
- jasonkester 15y agoI find that I live a much more active life in this game than I ever have in real life. Back when I was making $9/hr, I can't remember a single week where my dog died, I got injured at work, the neighbor kid broke my window, I decided to see a therapist and one of my co-workers came down with a terminal condition. I only made it to day 13, but already I've spent more in that game than I did in real life over the last month. I realize it's trying to make a point, but all it's really doing is making me suspect that it's fibbing a bit. More realism might turn out to be more convincing.
- davedx 15y agoDo you have kids?
- StavrosK 15y agoI made it through the month with $150 to spare without sacrificing my child's education or my health. I just didn't turn down free stuff (hey, there's nothing wrong with being poor) and didn't make stupid decisions, even though the game tried to set me up (forcing me to choose between getting paid per hour or per piece without an estimate on how much per-piece would give me? I'd at least do a back-of-the-envelope calculation in real life). EDIT: Just tried it again and went with the hourly wage. The game said my supervisor cut it in half. Nice going, game. Also, who starts smoking when they can't afford it?
- dkersten 15y agoThings I didn't do/have when I couldn't afford them in real life: children[1], pets, smoking, a car, entertainment[2] [1] ok ok, I know that sometimes this is unplanned or you already have children before you have no money [2] often had to turn down things I wanted to do because I couldn't afford them
- StavrosK 15y agoSame here. I would also sometimes add "food" to that list, though very briefly. Although, I must add, I was soft-poor.
- 0x12 15y agoThis would be a lot better if it were more realistic, it banks on you not being able to make smart decisions to ram the various factoids down your throat. It would be a much better experience if the basics were spread out over multiple months with the occasional clustering of events. This 'perfect storm' of trouble is just setting you up for failure, the deck is stacked against you much further than it is in real life. You are also not given the full picture up front, nor are you given the option on which services you subscribe to. Also, if you can't afford a mobile phone you probably shouldn't have one, and if your landlord does something illegal an alternative option is to tell him to go f*ck off rather than to pay or move out. Good luck evicting me if I'm up to date on payments and the contract stipulates terms that I've lived up to. That said, it's probably a useful tool to get people to put themselves in the shoes of someone that has it worse than they themselves do.
- ljf 15y agoWhen you are living on the edge, the perfect storm can come around far quicker and more often than you'd imagine.
- 0x12 15y ago- study loan: don't get one in a field where job prospects are bad, better to go do work instead - cell phone: don't get one if you can't afford it (ditto for a regular phone) - kids: if you can't afford them, use a condom (yes, that's harsh, but that is something that really beats my understanding, people already living on the edge that decide to have one, two or even more children) - in general: if you can't afford something, don't buy it. Your prior decisions will determine to a large extent whether or not you can survive on a very basic salary when hard(er) times hit. Getting a room-mate and sharing the cost of things that you are unable to afford by yourself are good tricks to get around some of the more practical limitations that a low wage job gives you. I used my low wage job (mailroom boy) to expand my knowledge about computers which eventually landed me a higher wage job. My typical meal back then consisted of plain macaroni with ketchup, because the rent took away 5/7ths of my income, and the electricity bill another 1/7th. That left me with a grand total of 100 'credits' to feed myself for a month. Not a whole lot. I made pretty sure that there were no kids, phone bills or debts to go with that, and I did whatever was within my means to cut short that phase of my life.
- maximusprime 15y agoPolitical propaganda disguised as a 'flash game' tops hacker news... I'll bet the people behind it are laughing at their clever social engineering.
- _delirium 15y agoThat's actually what I find interesting about it. Propaganda film has been written about and practiced extensively, and we have a pretty good idea of various ways to make it, as well as analyses of how to use things like juxtaposition/framing/pacing/etc. for propagandistic effect. But propaganda games are a pretty weakly explored concept, and it's interesting to think of how to use game mechanics (rather than just in-game dialogue) for propagandistic purposes, especially since that overlaps pretty heavily with grayer-area things like "expression" and "persuasion" (propaganda is just sort of the limit case of persuasion with some poetic license). I'm not sure this is the best game in the genre, but it's an interesting entry. Here's one satirizing airport security from a few years ago, which I think comes off as a bit more honest in that its clustering of events is also more frequent than would be the case IRL, but it clearly positions itself as satire that's exaggerating to make a point: http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/airportsecurity.jsp http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/airportsecurity.jsp This is a pretty decent book on the subject, fwiw, but I think the area of game-rhetoric, of which propaganda games are a nice highlighting case, is still pretty open (and to me at least, more interesting than stuff like gamification): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262514885/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=abxxm-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0262514885 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262514885/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... Submitted separately, a 2009 blog post analyzing six ways to use game mechanics for rhetorical effect (which can of course mean propagandistic effect): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3070404 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3070404
- hugh3 15y agoIn fairness, the vast majority of the comments are pointing out how rigged and unrealistic the game is. I think people are just upvoting it to criticise it. And fair enough too, there's some good quality discussion here.
- elliottcarlson 15y agoI saw this on fark.com about a week ago, and decided not to cross post it here because it's far too biased. I understand what it's trying to do, but I don't think it's successful in doing so. My biggest complaint is that it attempts to show that it's not only about making poor choices - but the choices that the character has obviously taken prior to getting to the point where I control it were poor choices, and now I am trying to deal with it. My second complaint is that the simulation should have been one day longer - so you would have to pay rent again - that's when the real issues start happening. Even with the odds against me, I was able to finish the simulation a few times with over $1200 available (thus being able to pay the rent on the following day).
- revorad 15y agoThis was a very interesting exercise, but some of the numbers don't seem very realistic. For example, is $600 really the cheapest rent a poor person has to pay? Even in a city like London, I've lived on $300 per month, including food, when times were tough for me.
- ljf 15y ago$300 including rent? I thought I was doing well (in far east London) renting a room in a student share house for £257 a month, 9 years ago. Plus bills.
- revorad 15y agoI'm really cheap, but to be fair that was 5 years ago. But I'm sure if I had to, even now I could live on very little money.
- alttag 15y agoI concur. In metro Atlanta (USA), my mortgage+taxes+fees is rather less than in this game (and what I assume would be a smaller place in-game.) Having a dog and a high-end cell plan, among other expenses seemed incongruous. Visiting schools, given the evening job (and only one job!) should have been trivial, as school are open in the a.m. The food shopping choices were awful too. For a more realistic look (if several years old), a former colleague of mine took the "Food Stamp Challenge", and ate on a budget that could be purchased with food stamps, in response to claims the rate was too low. http://www.dynamicrange.org/2007/05/food_stamp_chal.html http://www.dynamicrange.org/2007/05/food_stamp_chal.html
- i_c_b 15y agoMy hunch is that they had to cartoon up the expenses a bit because a more realisitic version would have had cheaper prices but probably x10 the number of economic transactions, which would have bogged the game down. Same with the amount of bad luck situations. As an example, the player did have really bad luck - but no starting credit card debt, or rolling payday loan debt, or student loan debt from incomplete schooling...
- CGtM 15y agoSomeone needs to check their numbers. A little research suggests that 275$/month health insurance premium is really high. A good emergency coverage should be closer to 50$. 60$ for internet? I get mine, high-speed, for half that. 75$ phone bill? That's the average for -smart phones-, basic services should only cost 10$. And I managed to finish with 1157$ anyways. Clearly low-income people need to learn to be frugal. :)
- shiftpgdn 15y agoI live in Texas and currently pay $780/month for health insurance through my employer. Over 1/4 of the people in the state have no health insurance at all. So no, that number isn't very high.
- mulletbum 15y agoThat would be almost $10k a year. I work for a large manufacturing company and I pay $40/month. You have got to have messed something up there.
- shiftpgdn 15y agoNot at all, though I did leave out that I am insuring myself, my wife our child. This doesn't include the deductible of $10,000 out of pocket per year.
- rick888 15y agoI just bought my own health insurance because I'm self-employed and I'm only paying $80/month. I can pay $150 and have doctor visits/prescriptions mostly covered. You must have had lots of health problems in the past or your are lying about that number.
- shiftpgdn 15y agoI imagine you're a single white male under the age of 30 with no prior health issues. I'm insuring a family (wife & child) as well as myself which drives up the cost. If I were to leave them uninsured then I would pay $0 out of pocket.
- latch 15y agoThis flash game (ok, flash video) is a much more awesome way to show the same thing: http://www.popmodal.com/video/1251/BILL-COSBY--Economics-Lesson-With-Monopoly-Money http://www.popmodal.com/video/1251/BILL-COSBY--Economics-Les...
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- scotty79 15y agoToo bad the game doesn't allow you to ditch the car. Car falling apart is huge money sink. First thing I'd do is to get rid of it.
- scotty79 15y agoHeh. You can loose your car if it isn't "road legal". But this caused me to loose a job (probably because I was living far away). This didn't stop them from firing me second time in the same game when I tried to join union.
- dkersten 15y agoMade it through the month with $411 left, a root canal to pay for and apparently I owe a collection agency money for a car. Wasn't terribly impressed with the choices I was given though, because I've been in similar situations in the past and, while it may be very different in the US, I have never had any significant problems. Also, why do bills like car registration cost more if I choose to pay them later? In real life I once had to pay my electricity bill a month late because I didn't have the money - I called them up and they deferred the payment by a month. They didn't suddenly charge me extra. EDIT: Just played it again and made it through the month with $274, with no outstanding bills.
- binarymax 15y ago"Nickel and Dimed" was mentioned in one of the fact-bubbles. I highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to learn more about the decisions people face when in situations like this. I was spent for a time (about 10 months) being unemployed and lived on about $40 per week, skirting my rent, not having phone/internet, and getting my power cut (twice). Even though I ended up taking a job I didn't like, it payed well and I pulled myself out of that situation. Never Again.
- allwein 15y agoI had the same problem with "Nickel and Dimed" that I had with this game. She made a series of completely irrational decisions which resulted in expenses larger than they needed to be. As a counter to this, I highly recommend Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061714275/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=keysofgeni-20 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061714275/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... The summary, from Amazon: Adam Shepard graduated from college feeling disillusioned by the apathy around him and was then incensed after reading Barbara Ehrenreich's famous work Nickel and Dimed—a book that gave him a feeling of hopelessness about the working class in America. He set out to disprove Ehrenreich's theory—the notion that those who start at the bottom stay at the bottom—by making something out of nothing to achieve the American Dream. Shepard's plan was simple. With a sleeping bag, the clothes on his back, and $25 in cash, and restricted from using his contacts or college education, he headed out for Charleston, South Carolina, a randomly selected city with one objective: to work his way out of homelessness and into a life that would give him the opportunity for success. His goal was to have, after one year, $2,500, a working automobile, and a furnished apartment.
- binarymax 15y agoThanks for the recommendation - looks like a good read. Its been a while since I've read Ehrenreich's book but am curious - which decisions of hers did you find irrational? I will say that a fundamental flaw in Nickel and Dimed, (and most likely in Shepard's book as well) - is that she ultimately had a choice. Many people in these situations have no choice. Many of them have children. Many of them have no college education to fall back on. I count myself among the lucky.
- cantlin 15y agoGreat. Playful (asking you to solve a "train a travels at 70mph..." question when you say you can help your kids with their homework) and creatively designed (cute distance-from-work slider for picking where to live). Of course it's propaganda, but regardless of the realism it does do a good job of simulating the low-income mindset, where every decision ("The ice-cream truck rolls round. Can your kid have an ice-cream?") ends up about money.
- michaeldhopkins 15y agoQuite a silly game, but it does a decent job of showing how all the options are not always considered by the people who most need to consider them. It's easy to say "I would make a fun homemade gift, take advantage of charitable dental programs, get a roommate," etc., but the people in hard situations often don't have the mindset to do this.
- csomar 15y agoThis describes the life of around 50% (may be more) of Tunisians. The probability of bad things occurring to you is increased by the bad infrastructure, evil government, the general hardness of life and the chaos the country is living on. So for me, this is completely realistic. Just drop the costs (and also the earnings) around 10 times (for poor people) to adjust for the living expenses.
- Iv 15y agoTime for an anti-American rant. You buy premium healthcare but still need to pay the doctor ? You don't have unemployment aids ? You can get fired for talking to a union guy ? (if that happens to you in France, that is your way to wealth through court action)
- smoyer 15y agoC'est la vie ... curiously, I have no desire to move from the U.S. to France but I'm glad you're happy where you're living. We all should be or we should move!
- CWuestefeld 15y agoYou should probably do some research before ranting. You buy premium healthcare but still need to pay the doctor? That obviously depends on the provisions of the healthcare contract. It's common to pay a deductible and/or token co-pay. But these plans can always be tailored to address the needs of the buyer, and of the provider. (I might rant about the problems with enforcing a one-size-fits-all plan.) You don't have unemployment aids? Yes, we do. There is unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, disability insurance, and so on, to provide a safety net. You can get fired for talking to a union guy? No, you cannot (labor regulation in America is absurdly skewed in favor of the workers). The employer is forbidden from interfering with any labor attempt to organize. However, our Democrats have been attempting to pass a regulations called "card check" [1] which would take away the workers' right to secret ballots when voting for unionization. (And the Democrats are supposed to be the ones standing up for the little guy?!?) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_check
- runako 15y ago>> You buy premium healthcare but still need to pay the doctor? Yes. That's the short answer. The longer answer is that there are plans without co-pays, etc., but that they are to the best of my knowledge not available to purchase by individuals or far too expensive for our hypothetical $9/hr worker (think more like $1000/mo). >> token co-pay In the context of a $9/hr job, "token" co-pays probably shouldn't be called "token," when they can easily run over $40 for a single visit. I certainly don't consider 4+ hours of my compensation to be a token amount. >> You can get fired for talking to a union guy? The short answer is yes, you can be fired for talking to a union guy. As in your employer will not be stopped from firing you on the spot, and it's then your turn to try to get reinstated/compensated through legal channels. You're right that legally you can't be fired for organizing. But in the calculus of business and the working poor, it's actually fairly common for low-wage employees to be fired for attempts at organizing. The employer wagers (usually correctly) that the person who just lost his $9/hr job today will have more immediate priorities than finding an attorney he can't pay to take a case he'll probably lose due to being able to only secure the services of one lawyer and not a team of the best money can buy.
- rane 15y agoCool, but apparently I have a kid and a family pet. At what point did I make those decisions?
- sramam 15y agoIt's interesting that almost all comments thus far uniformly criticize the game for propaganda bias and that real-life is not this hard. A special-ed teacher I work with has a dimmer view than most of the US education system - because she sees so many of its failures and that for a living. I can easily see how the propaganda perception by an outsider is just the everyday reality in the eyes of http://www.umdurham.org/ http://www.umdurham.org/, one of the two game sponsers. IMHO the game does a good job of creating a forcing function to make decisions that atleast I haven't had to make in a long while, if ever. Imagining myself as the game designer, suspect I too would favour inciting empathy to accurate "real-life"-ism.
- smoyer 15y agoI sit at a keyboard all day typing and earn 100% of my living via the computer. Funny that I couldn't pass the typing test. I'm pretty sure the problem is that I don't have practice copying the text ... my time is spent typing words (and code) that's flowing from my brain. Does anyone still take dictation? Are there really jobs like this? I had an AA at my last job and in the nine years I was there I don't remember ever having her type up notes, etc.
- cbr 15y agoI think this part is actually quite realistic. Temp jobs have typing speed requirements and when you go in to sign up as a temp they find out how fast you are. They also measure how fast you can use word, excel, etc.
- randomdata 15y agoThey also measure how fast you can use word, excel, etc. Like the parent, I also spend my days in front of the computer developing software and doing general business-running activities. But I'm almost certain I would fail this test. I think I used Word once in high school and that is about where my experience ends. I have never found a use-case for an Office suite. There are always better tools for any job that it might be able to tackle. For it to be a prerequisite for finding a job outside of the software industry is kind of frightening and sad.
- cbr 15y agoSomeone looking to hire a secretary to temp for a week to cover a vacation cares that the temp will be productive. This means that that secretary can teach the temp what they need to do for the week, and the temp will be able to do it quickly and efficiently using the templates and tools that the office uses. If they keep track of accounts in excel, you need to be able to quickly enter data into excel to use their system. They're not going to switch to something better just so they can employ you for a week. This doesn't mean you're unemployable outside of software, just that this heuristic suggets you are a poor candidate for a temporary secretarial position.
- ctdonath 15y agoI played the game, and came out $199 ahead...and that when faced with absurdly limited options (say, the rowdy roommate would see a Mosin/Nagant ($29!) instead of the landlord when told to leave, so no extra $100 cost there). No risky sacrifices (medical bills paid, job attended to), no luxuries until affordable (and sentimentality is a luxury). I should have taken copious notes (maybe I will on another pass) and comment how, instead of viewing it all as crushing poverty, it is indicative of living in a luxurious society. Opt for the $1 hamburger, and be told "that's why so many poor are overweight"? WTH? If it's got that many calories then cut it in half and eat it across two meals! If you're obese, you're not poor; talk to the half of the world's population which lives on less than $2/day. So, coming out a couple hundred dollars ahead, I could run this "poverty" scenario for 4 months and have enough to buy a refurbished MacBook Air and join the Apple Developer's Program, with which I could bootstrap an iOS App-writing business. Seems some others played, came out over $1000 ahead, and could jump in to app-writing in one month flat. Read between the lines in the game, and see the opportunities that abound. Sell the car and take the bus. Focus the kids on learning entrepreneuring instead of sports. Take in a decent paying roommate (and throw out the rowdy one bodily if need be). Use the library for education and internet businesses. Eat the $1 hamburgers featuring caloric abundance. Heck, save the $1 and make two 1.5lb loaves of great bread (coming to my blog soon!). Organize with other "poor" to leverage opportunities (carpooling, babysitting, etc.). First-world problems indeed. ETA: Downvoters, take a stand and tell me why this post is wrong.
- 351215255 15y agoTotally agree with you here (except one thing). The world in this game is binary in nature. If you don't do that, then this will go wrong. Things like that, that is not how I would see it working. The one thing that I don't agree on is that So, coming out a couple hundred dollars ahead, I could run this "poverty" scenario for 4 months and have enough to buy a refurbished MacBook Air and join the Apple Developer's Program, with which I could bootstrap an iOS App-writing business. Seems some others played, came out over $1000 ahead, and could jump in to app-writing in one month flat. You are not coming out a couple hundred buck ahead. Tomorrow the landlord will require rent so minimum $800 in that, even if you are in a good job you have $200+$300, so you owe a little back rent of $300. But I doubt every single month will be so bad. I mean, my pet, friend and grandfather can die only once right?
- Hisoka 15y agoI quit in the first scenario: "Find a Job" or "Quit".. Anything but a job!
- agentultra 15y agoI think this game is pretty interesting. It's not realistic by any stretch, but it does get your attention more than yet-another-infographic-with-statistics-on-it. It's a simulation in the very slightest sense of the word, but you probably would have ignored the infographic.
- Tichy 15y agoReminds me of a game about trying to survive as a peasant in Haiti. Might have been this one: http://ayiti.globalkids.org/game/ http://ayiti.globalkids.org/game/ Same problem that it had only options rigged for failure to chose from.
- bennesvig 15y agoNot quite how I remember making $8/hr at an internship right out of college for 6 months.
- TamDenholm 15y agoMorgan Spurlock did an episode of his 30 Days with him and his girlfriend living on minimum wage, it also very well illustrates the same thing.
- pnathan 15y agoI've lived on $7ish an hour. It is very, very hard to break even. Any fluctuation in your hours can result in a savings decrease.
- shawndumas 15y ago"A definition for wealth is spending less than your income." --http://www.dynamicrange.org/2007/05/food_stamp_chal_6.html http://www.dynamicrange.org/2007/05/food_stamp_chal_6.html
- dbingham 15y agoIf you want to see another take on the whole problem, go to Netflix and watch the 30 Days episode called Minimum Wage. It's the same guy who did Supersize Me. He and his girlfriend try to work and live on minimum wage for a month. Doesn't go much better for them than it does for players of this game.
- hugh3 15y agoAn experiment like that proves nothing if it's being undertaken by somebody who starts out with the agenda of proving how damn hard it is to survive on minimum wage. It's far too easy to make deliberately stupid decisions, like the $40 belt mentioned elsewhere as a feature of Nickel and Dimed. What I want to see is the opposite -- someone who goes to live on minimum wage for a month in order to prove it's not all that bad, and we can see what happens to them. They have the incentive to try hard to make it all work. I know this has been done at least once. I could do this experiment... if I thought it was likely to sell me some books. First thing I'd do, though, would be to move the hell away from the San Francisco Bay Area. I don't know where exactly, but aiming for a combination of low unemployment and low housing costs I think I'll choose Iowa. Cedar Rapids sounds nice (never been there, it just has a good name). Now, minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and let's assume I only work 40 hours a week -- that's $1284 a month. I assume I'm not paying significant taxes. Looks like I can rent a decent place for $500 a month. Fifty bucks a week for groceries. Yeah, I can do this.
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- pbhjpbhj 15y ago>Fifty bucks a week for groceries. Yeah, I can do this. // It's actually not hard, IMO, to live on a low income for a short period. It's when your living accommodation starts to fall apart, the clothes you've been wearing for 10 years are all holed and worn out, you're missing meals, you always have to say no to your kids, you never get a trip out, you never get a change from cheap food, poorly made clothing, a cold house, etc., it's knowing you have to work if you're sick, have no pension, no savings. It's the dull drudgery of it that wears one down, erodes ones hope.
- efsavage 15y agoThe game is actually fairly accurate in my experience. I came out with $350 left, without starving or killing my dog, making similar choices I made when I was in similarly dire financial straits in real life. My parents kept me healthy and safe growing up, but I did have to miss out on some things that "everyone else" was doing, and I think if anything I'm better for it, especially if things get bad again.
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- c0nsilience 15y agoThere are too many people here saying that this is not realistic, and that major problems are condensed into one month. The point you may be missing is that there really are some months like that, and a paltry income isn't going to get you through. And even if you were to have a problem-free, stress-free month, try living on $9/hour anyway. Just see how many luxuries (eating out, going to the movies/concerts, drinks with friends, etc.) you'll have to cut out of your life. You're basically working just to scrape by.
- joebo 15y agoLike many others, I also ended the game ahead at the end of the month with a fair amount to spare. It was't necessarily easy, I had to critically think about each decision. I also consider myself fairly 'financially fit' in making decisions. Many of us are problem solvers and entrepreneurs so the fact that we can 'beat' the game says nothing about the difficulty less educated have in real life.
- tylee78 15y agoin America you are still in a first world country!! have you ever lived in Calcutta??? Oh please come on, stop the whining!
- singlow 15y ago$1500 to recover your vehicle after getting pulled over for expired registration? I've gotten a half dozen tickets for expired registration in Texas and the result is you pay an extra 30 bucks when you register and a 10 dollar fee to waive the ticket if you register within 10 days of the citation. What state impounds your car?
- hugh3 15y agoThe same state where internet is $60, the power bill for your tiny apartment is $100 a month, where landlords increase your rent the day after you move in, and where you can't get an apartment for less than $800 a month.
- rhplus 15y ago$225 gas/electic bill on day 6. Do they charge for utilities in advance and without a grace period in Durham?
- emehrkay 15y agoWay too depressing to play right now as it hits too close to home (or used to). Good game
- xenophanes 15y agowhy did i -- as a person with no marketable job skills -- start with 7300 in credit card debt? and why didn't i get a roommate for my apartment i can't afford?
- kstenerud 15y agoMeh. I got to day 25, but there were so many dumb economic choices it forced me to make that it was essentially impossible to win the game scenario. There were a great number of future benefit choices to make, but the game forces you to think only for the moment, which is the prime reason why poor people remain poor. Like, whoa! Suddenly $225 in utilities bills ($225? Seriously??? It doesn't even cost that much in Tokyo!) that I somehow didn't know about to be able to plan for. And whoa! my car starts acting up, and I can't even think to park it and take the bus for awhile until I can afford to fix it (you know, rather than running it into the ground and wasting even MORE money). And whoa! that leak in my sink has become a huge nightmare because I didn't handle it when it was a small issue and it was obvious the landlord wouldn't do anything about it. And why the hell do I remain unemployed for so long instead of taking some part time work to keep my savings up while I look for a real job? Seriously, a little planning ahead goes a LONG way.
- hugh3 15y agoWell, there's already a lot of comments here pointing out that he game is unrealistic and rigged. But I'd like to add to this a bit, and to say that the memes which the game is rigged to spread are not only wrong but pernicious. There are two views of poverty in rich countries. One view holds that poverty is caused by poor people who make bad decisions, and that it's possible to lift yourself out of poverty by making good decisions instead. The second view holds that poverty is caused by external factors, that it's a trap that poor people can't escape, and that the way to solve poverty is by giving ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer-funded free stuff to the poor until they stop being poor. The cartoon versions of each of these extremes are silly, and there's a bit of truth in both of them. The real trick, though, is that the first belief, the belief that poor people can pull themselves out of poverty, is true only to the extent that they actually believe it. A poor person who believes he can get out of poverty by making sensible decisions will make those decisions. A poor person who believes his poverty is the fault of, and can only be solved by, other people will not. Convincing a poor person that someone else is responsible for their situation is just about the worst thing you can possibly do for them. Those who want to support increased welfare are openly hostile to the idea that poor people can take responsibility for their own decisions and start making better ones to solve their problems. And this, I think, is a huge factor in perpetuating poverty. I want to help the poor, really I do, but I'm certain that teaching them the correct values is far more important than handing them cash.
- dbbo 15y agoThe game is a lot easier if you act like a total sociopath (e.g. don't buy your mom's medicine, let your pet suffer, etc.)
- cglace 15y agoFor the first year and a half after starting my company I made considerably less than this and got alone just fine.
- clistctrl 15y agoIt's hard to simulate poverty. Of course I can make the right decisions. I'm not hungry, and this is a game. Sure I'll choose to buy the cheapest, and healthiest food I can. Real life is different, after being hungry for a while my decisions would be different. I don't feel this game highlighted how the mentality of the situation compounds itself.
- Dove 15y agoMy major reactions while playing the game tended to follow a theme: Game: Mobile phone bill's due. Me: I have a mobile phone?? Game: Landlord wants pet rent for the dog. Me: I have a dog?? Game: Car payment's due. Me: I have a CAR??? Game: How about some $60 internet? Me: How about the $20 non-broadband type? Game: You lost your car, so you lost your job. Me: No, see, that's why I paid extra to live close. We call them bikes.
- zach 15y agoA "let's gain empathy by playing being poor" game seems like a horrible idea overall. If it was a decent game and let you learn and succeed by smart choices, it would only give you a feeling of superiority to poor folks. If (as it does) it inflicts you with pre-existing poor decisions and random "the gods are angry" punishments, it seems to impart a feeling that poor folks are somehow hopeless and cursed, which isn't really helpful either. Wouldn't it be a lot more helpful to teach teenagers and pre-teens real-life strategies for independent living? Things like showing you how much money you end up paying to rent furniture or lease a car? Maybe something like the old board game Pay Day? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_Day_(board_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_Day_(board_game)
- hugh3 15y agoOr the old Sierra game "Jones In The Fast Lane". Something like that (more sophisticated, with more detail, and more opportunities to make dumb and smart decisions) should be compulsory playing for young kids. Much like astronauts training for their missions, I reckon that by the time kids get old enough to make their own life decisions, they should have done it in the simulator hundreds of times. I'm being somewhat facetious, of course, you can't make a simulator anywhere near as detailed as real life. Still, I think life-simulation games have a part to play in teaching children good values like delaying gratification and so forth.
- zach 15y agoI am a huge fan of this line of thinking. I love your astronaut example which I hadn't heard before. Nor had I heard of Jones in the Fast Lane which is exactly the kind of game rarely seen today. I'm a career game programmer and web developer. In the last five years, I was on two game shows in the last five years and before each one, knowing I only had one shot, I made software to help me simulate the experience and work out the strategies I would use. I did well in both cases and am convinced that simulating things really helped. So I'm really sold on simulation being a great way to impart practical knowledge. There's a lot of stuff out there that could really use that treatment and I agree with your enthusiasm for it. Let's get in touch and see if there's some way to push this forward.
- GiraffeNecktie 15y agoMeanwhile in India, the government is wondering if 60 cents a day would be a reasonable poverty line for urban areas (somewhat less for rural areas) http://the-diplomat.com/indian-decade/2011/10/04/govt-backtracks-on-poverty/ http://the-diplomat.com/indian-decade/2011/10/04/govt-backtr...
- epicviking 15y agoThis reminds me of one of my favorite flash games! Third World Farmer! http://www.mofunzone.com/online_games/3rd_world_farmer.shtml http://www.mofunzone.com/online_games/3rd_world_farmer.shtml
- Unseelie 15y agoI don't want to simply reply to a comment, there's a theme flowing through this thread, that capitalism makes everyone better off in a society, that our choices lead to where we are. I think you're ignoring a fundamental truth. There aren't unlimited opportunities for every person who works hard...just opportunities for those who work harder, on the margin, than others. Capitalism isn't about working hard and getting rewards, its about being better on the margins and getting rewards.
- jrockway 15y agoThis is depressing. But I'm not sure how donating $5 to some mission is going to solve these problems; the game itself says poor people are wary of accepting handouts, and that's all this will be, right? I'm also not sure I'm comfortable subsidizing people's bad choices. If I have to support someone, it's my nature to micromanage their lives to make sure they are using the money efficiently. No cell phones. No Internet. No music downloads. No nights out drinking. In the end, I try to imagine how I would act if I were poor, had a child, and had no marketable skills. The first thing would be to find the smallest living space available, to save on rent, heating/cooling costs, and electricity. That means sleeping on mats that come out of the closet at bedtime, washing dishes by hand, cooking everything on the stove, and taking a bath with my kid every night to save hot water. If rich people in Japan can live this way, poor people in America can live this way. I would try to live close enough to work to not need a car (cars are nice, until they break), but if that's not possible, I'd use a car for commuting and a bike for errands. I wouldn't have a cell phone or Internet access; I'd queue up my Internet needs (buying household essentials in bulk online, resyncing my CPAN mirror, whatever) and go to the library. This would also be a good time to get some public-domain music and some books to read for the week. It sounds primitive but I know I could make it work. If you're dumb, lazy, and have kids, guess what, life is not going to be the same as those Hollywood stars on TV. You don't get to buy everything you want. You don't get to have fun with your friends. You get to work, cook, read, help your kids with school, and keep your bicycle in good working condition. And honestly, I don't think that's a life that's missing anything at all. You get human relationships (family), a chance to contribute to society (work), education (reading), a hobby (cooking), and exercise (cycling). So I guess the problem is: how do we convince people to want what they can have, rather than to want what they can't have? It's a cultural thing, and it's going to be a very hard problem to solve. We may be able to give people free healthcare, but where will they live, what will they eat, and how will they get to work? (And I know what you're all thinking: the reason I'm not poor is because I can think things through and be analytical enough to make smart choices. Yes. That's why "solving poverty" is a very, very, very difficult problem. Feeling bad and giving someone money is not the solution. Deep changes to our educational system and our cultural values are probably the only way to make things work.)
- justin_vanw 15y agoWhat a joke. In the month, I got sick twice, had two 'best friends' get married, had a grandfather die, needed a root canal, wrecked my car (even though I chose to pay the max rent and live 5 miles from work, it told me I still had to to have a car), had my sink break (and the landlord refuse to fix it), got caught hiding pets in my apartment (why do I have a pet? I can't afford a pet, that is just a bad decision.). I get it, they are trying to make a point. However, the point they are making is crap. It is very hard to live on $9 an hour. However, making $9 puts you in the top 1% of all humans who have ever lived. There are lots of social programs that will help a little. They don't make you rich, but they help a little. The first thing I ask anyone who complains about being unemployed or underemployed: "Do you have a TV? Do you have cable or satellite tv?" You wouldn't believe how hostile people are when you suggest that they might benefit from turning off their tv and using that time to study or learn a new skill. As a child my family was on food stamps and welfare. My mother raised 4 boys on her own. As it turns out, I am now in the top 1% of wage earners in the US, but I don't have time to watch TV. I have never taken a real vacation. I suffered through 6 years of Army Reserve so I could pay for college. Every free minute I have is spent working, hustling, studying, experimenting. I don't believe the hype. If you are willing to work your ass off, if you show up to work on time and aren't high or drunk, and you don't steal, it is very easy to get a job, today. It's easy to get 2 jobs. Working 80 hours per week isn't something that you want to do, but it's a walk in the park compared to the conditions our ancestors lived in. It's really hard to take care of kids when you are a single parent and you can't get childcare, especially if you don't have family that is willing to help. Maybe we should do more for people in this situation, not to help them, but to at least give the kids the opportunity to do better. For everyone else, I say stop whining, throw away your tv, and stop being so entitled and lazy.
- lionhearted 15y agoVery good comment Justin, much respect from me. A small point though - > I have never taken a real vacation. I used to be like this. I'd work, literally, about 362 days per year and take 3 off. It didn't max out my productivity, it didn't max out my income, it didn't max out my quality of life, it didn't make me better able to serve customers and clients. Really, I was just suffering because I had an identity of "being hardcore." I still do, to some extent. But I'm taking more time off lately and doing better than ever. I work less, but my decisions are sharper. To wade in, try taking off 2-3 days and go somewhere nice that's only ~100 to ~200 miles from where you live, or less. That's a short pleasant train ride, a 30-60 minute flight, or a few hour drive. Hang out in a cabin by a lake, or the beach, or whatever. Refuse to work unless you get hyper-inspired. You might, actually - get hyper inspired. Then it's okay. But if you step back and get some perspective instead of constantly grinding it out, you might actually increase your income, productivity, ability to serve and deliver for your staff and customers, and your own quality of life. It does require giving up an identity of "I'm hardcore and suffer because that's what I do" though - and I don't say that in a snarky way. I've got that identity. But again, I suspect it might actually be counterproductive to income, productivity, service, and quality of life.
- alorres 15y agoAlthough people are saying this isn't that good of a simulation because of all the events that happen so fast together, as the saying goes, "There's always someone who has it worse." Just a simple what-if would be fine for this, and this was well-well done (note the double well :] ). Kudos to the creators. :)
- georgieporgie 15y agoI have an undisclosed pet, an $80/mo cell phone plan, and both my gas and electric bills are over $100. Also, I'm adamant about keeping my car, even though I'm right by work. I make very, very poor decisions. (honestly, I learn more about difficult lives by watching Judge Judy and similar)
- antihero 15y agoWhy in the hell does the bottom rung pay so much tax? That is ridiculous. Even in the UK we have a "lower cap" of tax free earnings, so that people who have bugger all money aren't paying tax.
- BCounsell 15y agoThis is only for a month. Being broke usually lasts a lot longer. Anyone have any ideas on how to hack this kind of situation?
- bane 15y agoI don't know what kind of crappy restaurant they're modeling in this game, but you can make much better money at most places waiting tables than what they are claiming. Also, I like how every decision, no matter if its a good one or not ends up with a "Surprise! You made a good choice that should be free in real life, but we're going to charge you an arbitrary cost anyway!" When I lived on less than this, I sure don't remember these oddball things. And obviously cheaper choices, living further out, are still discusses like they are penalties, "but you still have to pay for gas!" Duh, but it's still a ton cheaper. Opting in to Health Insurance = you don't get sick, but opting out and I got sick twice. How about this one? "Two bills are due today. What do you want to do?" 1) Pay mobile phone bill 2) Pay car insurance 3) Pay both 4) Ask a friend where's my #5? Don't pay either? Also..why the hell do I have a mobile phone and a car? I don't remember that being a choice. I'd rather not have a phone and ride the bus. ack...ridiculous. Oh, and $843 left at the end of the month.