8 ms·

I’ve worked hard my whole life and I can’t afford food

44 points by nithinj 3y ago

bombcar 3y ago
> Nowadays, at 69, I receive $1,700 a month from government assistance, $232 from the Canada pension and $1,500 from old-age security. My partner, brings in about $1,200 a month. We still can’t afford to buy food. This is $4,632 a month. Something needs to change if that’s not enough to buy food. Perhaps spending less on candles. Edit: Apparently the numbers are doubled up so we’re at 2,932
- maribi 3y ago
  [dead]
- tjr225 3y ago
  [dead]
- cupcake-unicorn 3y ago
  I noticed this as well. I'm also on benefits and have subsidized housing, although in the US as a single person, and I don't have this issue with food insecurity - although now that the public health emergency has ended I lost roughly 400 dollars a month from programs that were extended. It would help if she broke down her monthly budget. Maybe she has some kind of scenario with past debt, or if she was in the US medical stuff, but that shouldn't be the case in Canada. Still confusing
- woodruffw 3y ago
  The subject of the article mentions having multiple medical conditions, some of which (to my knowledge) require specialists. It's not inconceivable that those consume a significant portion of their take-home, even in a country with socialized medicine.
- gwill 3y ago
  they also said that their rent is 1100 a month. where could it be going when they only list their phone, internet and transit bills.
- throwaway106382 3y ago
  [dead]
- passwordoops 3y ago
  No it's $2,900 a month. The $232 and $1500 are the breakdown of the $1,700 a month referred to above. The editor missed a semicolon. Still, she has a really low rent by Toronto standards of $1,100, leaving $1,800 for all other expenses, which given her medical conditions and the fact that provincial governments are cutting, I can see a lot of that getting eaten up pretty quick.
  - Insanity 3y ago
    Yeah, that rent is incredibly low for Toronto. But also, 1800 for all utilities, potential medicine, transportation,… does not get you too far. My wife and I do shopping for a full week at Farm Boy (not the cheapest) and this runs to about $300 for a week of food. Does not include other things such as detergent, toilet paper, etc..
    - iopq 3y ago
      you're talking about expenses that are like $5 there and $10 there $1800 for everything shouldn't be starving
      - passwordoops 3y ago
        Where do you live that utilities, public transport, and niche medical expenses are $5 here and there?
        iopq 3y ago
        Beijing, China
  - sp332 3y ago
    Thanks for pointing that out. It confused me too.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    If that’s correct (and it seems it is) there still seems to be some room, especially for applying for additional assistance (but I don’t know how Canada handles it, the USA would likely grant SNAP).
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jshorty 3y ago
  The punctuation of the sentence is a little odd, but I take it to mean $1732 + $1200 = $2932. Less $1100 of current rent, that’s $1832 per month to cover all other costs for two people. Few would elect to be traveling 6 days a week obtaining food assistance if there were easy expenditures to cut.
- toadi 3y ago
  Maybe the location becomes a problem? In my home country life is expensive too. Moved to a lower cost one. Bought land, build a house have a big garden. Raise animals and grow my own crops. I build solar panels and have my own waterwells. I have almost 0 cost. Just my internet. I would never ever be able to this all in my home country without going into debt so much I would be paying for that well into my retirement. I was working in a well paid IT job almost living from pay check to pay check. Now I work remote for a lower pay and most of it just goes in my retirement savings. Not sure what my point is but there are alternatives...
  - bombcar 3y ago
    It’s somewhat understandable that people being “forced” to move from where they have always been is annoying, but sometimes it’s the best option.
    - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
      It takes a fat wad of ready cash to move. Twenty years ago it cost $4k for a local do-it-yourself move (inexpensive state), after the last everything was totaled. Today it's common to compete with dozens->hundreds of applicants for a rental. We just did a similar move to that $4k of yesteryear (same region, modest house, local move) and it was about $16k.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    That's sort of the point, location in a city? Yeah. But an entire city or country where $4k/mo isn't enough for food? Sounds like the people of the country got scammed by politicians and corporations.
    - voisin 3y ago
      Welcome to Canada comrade, where interest rates, monetary policy, corporate consolidation, and corrupt politicians combined to create a country where house prices became obscenely unaffordable first in a few major cities and then in recent years in every podunk town in every province in the country. And with obscene housing prices comes obscene cost of living. $4k/mo doesn’t get you anything close to a reasonable lifestyle.
- tarxvf 3y ago
  Is it possible that's meant to total up to $2900 a month, where the $232 and $1500 are meant to be a breakdown of the $1700 a month figure and it got garbled?
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Yeah, looking back that seems most likely, but the number 1700 not being exact and then having exact numbers following was confusing.
- strken 3y ago
  Perhaps it's meant to read "I receive $1,700 a month total from government assistance: $232 from the Canada pension, and $1,500 from old-age security." I'd probably buy rice, beans, and frozen veg rather than salad, but if the majority of her expenditure is medical then I'm not sure it matters.
  - the_third_wave 3y ago
    Doesn't Canada have a socialised medical system like the NHS in the UK? Why then does she have so many medical expenses?
- balderdash 3y ago
  a quick web search would say seem to indicate that the most someone her age could receive from old age security is $700/month? aslo I personally wouldn't describe old age security and Canadian pension as "assistance" as I imagine its more of an entitlement rather than an something needs based which I would consider more of assistance. https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/publicpensions/cpp/old-age-security/benefit-amount.html https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/publicpensions/cp...
throw9away6 3y ago
Journalists and math…
lmm 3y ago
I think it's ok to have to choose between renting in Toronto and eating dinner. Thanks to decades of the boomer generation's "build nothing" housing policies, millions of young people can't afford to live near where they work. Yet that same generation feels entitled to take up space in one of the most in-demand cities on the planet for their retirement life of socialising and volunteering. They'll complain about being "forced" to move out of a home they've lived in for 10 or 20 years (and paid below-market rent the whole time!) when the rest of us are lucky to be able to hold onto a place for half of that. And their response to their unaffordable lifestyle catching up to them is to ask for more and bigger handouts, funded by those same working people who they're keeping out of the city.
- sneed_chucker 3y ago
  You misread the article, it says "North York", which is in Canada
  - lmm 3y ago
    Thanks, edited - point stands though.
- jacknews 3y ago
  Sure, we should just construct 'poor towns' for those priced out of cities by financial speculation.
  - lmm 3y ago
    Financial speculation is an easy scapegoat but has very little to do with it. The fundamentals of supply and demand matter more. (Though, if you hate property speculators, the best way to burn them would be to suddenly legalize massive amounts of homebuilding. It's win-win). I have a lot of sympathy for those priced out of the cities - that's exactly why I think there should be more homebuilding and better prioritisation of the limited supply, rather than those who were fortunate enough to be born earlier getting to hold onto subsidised housing units forever at everyone else's expense.
- 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xupybd 3y ago
This really brings home the need to save for retirement. I don't think I'm saving enough. Not in my 40's yet but the sole breadwinner for my family and wages are not as good here in NZ for devs as they are in FANG companies. I hope that I have enough to get my kids through school and provide a comfortable retirement for my wife and me.
- foogazi 3y ago
  40 years from now when the Auckland Herald does a profile on you someone will comment that that is the expected result - and people will ask why you never worked for FAANG companies
antisthenes 3y ago
These kinds of feel-bad articles always bury the lede and it's tiring. > Making minimum wage at 55 30+ years seems like enough time to pick up some skills to earn above minimum wage > Not saving anything your entire life This one is debatable, but at some point you have to learn enough life lessons to understand that retirement is going to _suck_ if you don't save anything. Most people manage to learn this before ~40 y.o > I’m only 69, mobile and otherwise healthy. But what will happen as I get older and need care? Same thing that happens to all of us. We get sicker and more frail and eventually die. Billions will die in less privileged conditions than receiving $2900/month and living in a country that has free healthcare. I don't say this lightly, but my dad worked just as hard, probably several times harder and his living conditions aren't anywhere as good as these. It's just that the country he retired in is much more poor. But luckily I can help him, because I have no plans to make minimum wage at 55. Where's his article?
- green_man_lives 3y ago
  Your sense of injustice, while not unwarranted, is misplaced. Both the person in the article and your father are the victims of unfair systems. Poverty exists in the first and third world. I think that, hypothetically, if you wanted to engineer a world in which everyone was taken care of, empathy and a sense of solidarity would be the foundation of it. It's not productive to point to someone worse off. I think the author should have tried to improve their situation a bit more given that they lived in a prosperous time and place. But regardless they worked every single day and contributed to society. Is that not enough to at least be ensured a comfortable death?
  - ChatGTP 3y ago
    Especially considering no one actually owns the earth, not Jeff Bezos, not anyone, yet almost every single bit of wealth (significant wealth) was generated from it's exploitation. through mining and pollution, and will continue to do so. Where do we think the bots and EVs will come from? Our ass? Therefore, realistically, everyone is entitled to a piece of wealth, whether you like this truth or not, given a significantly more intelligent way of seeing things, this would be the only conclusion that can be made. But we've drawn borders and set up law enforcement to protect the ridiculous wealth inequality that seems like it will never end.
balderdash 3y ago
I honestly feel for this person, but the pragmatist in me kind of thinks of this as the expected outcome. You have a person that sounds like they never pursued a career/ was working minimum wage jobs their whole life, never planned for their retirement, decided to live in a relatively high cost area, has health conditions, and their partner seems to make below minimum wage - isn't a subsistence situation sort of to be expected?
- green_man_lives 3y ago
  Expected? Yes. Tolerated? No. Someone who contributed to the system their whole life shouldn't be left out in the cold.
  - luxuryballs 3y ago
    they have already been compensated for their contributions though, sounds like they re-contributed them instead of saving some for later
    - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
      Perhaps the most common US scenario is that minimal bills and income are so close, you'd have to set aside funds from food, utils, rent, etc. Right behind that are folks with income being 80% of minimum bills. After three decades of working closely with folks of every possible income bracket, I found maybe 1 in 15 had income so high that they could afford to save for retirement.
      - voisin 3y ago
        > After three decades of working closely with folks of every possible income bracket, I found maybe 1 in 15 had income so high that they could afford to save for retirement. How can this be the case? What decisions are being made that 14 / 15 people across tax brackets can’t save?
        3y ago
TMWNN 3y ago
Inflation is a worldwide phenomenon right now, but it doesn't help that she is living in Canada. Why Canadians pay much more and have access to less despite living in a country that is 95% culturally, economically, and politically identical to the US, I do not know. I didn't fully understand the disparity until I read the amazing stories in a /r/canada discussion. victorn72's account <http://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1ueai3/why_are_our_prices_so_much_higher_than_the_us/cehewa1?context=3 http://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1ueai3/why_are_our_pr...> caused my jaw to drop open.
eimrine 3y ago
I have an unpopular opinion that the problem described is fine because of overpopulating of the world. Something must to stop us from multiplying even more. Especially I have no sympathy for those who has not bought any bitcoins, because those just seems to continue believing to a wrong guy or in a wrong force.

44 points by nithinj 3y ago

> Nowadays, at 69, I receive $1,700 a month from government assistance, $232 from the Canada pension and $1,500 from old-age security. My partner, brings in about $1,200 a month. We still can’t afford to buy food. This is $4,632 a month. Something needs to change if that’s not enough to buy food. Perhaps spending less on candles. Edit: Apparently the numbers are doubled up so we’re at 2,932

maribi 3y ago
[dead]
tjr225 3y ago
[dead]
cupcake-unicorn 3y ago
I noticed this as well. I'm also on benefits and have subsidized housing, although in the US as a single person, and I don't have this issue with food insecurity - although now that the public health emergency has ended I lost roughly 400 dollars a month from programs that were extended. It would help if she broke down her monthly budget. Maybe she has some kind of scenario with past debt, or if she was in the US medical stuff, but that shouldn't be the case in Canada. Still confusing
woodruffw 3y ago
The subject of the article mentions having multiple medical conditions, some of which (to my knowledge) require specialists. It's not inconceivable that those consume a significant portion of their take-home, even in a country with socialized medicine.
gwill 3y ago
they also said that their rent is 1100 a month. where could it be going when they only list their phone, internet and transit bills.
throwaway106382 3y ago
[dead]
passwordoops 3y ago
No it's $2,900 a month. The $232 and $1500 are the breakdown of the $1,700 a month referred to above. The editor missed a semicolon. Still, she has a really low rent by Toronto standards of $1,100, leaving $1,800 for all other expenses, which given her medical conditions and the fact that provincial governments are cutting, I can see a lot of that getting eaten up pretty quick.
- Insanity 3y ago
  Yeah, that rent is incredibly low for Toronto. But also, 1800 for all utilities, potential medicine, transportation,… does not get you too far. My wife and I do shopping for a full week at Farm Boy (not the cheapest) and this runs to about $300 for a week of food. Does not include other things such as detergent, toilet paper, etc..
  - iopq 3y ago
    you're talking about expenses that are like $5 there and $10 there $1800 for everything shouldn't be starving
    - passwordoops 3y ago
      Where do you live that utilities, public transport, and niche medical expenses are $5 here and there?
      - iopq 3y ago
        Beijing, China
- sp332 3y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out. It confused me too.
- bombcar 3y ago
  If that’s correct (and it seems it is) there still seems to be some room, especially for applying for additional assistance (but I don’t know how Canada handles it, the USA would likely grant SNAP).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jshorty 3y ago
The punctuation of the sentence is a little odd, but I take it to mean $1732 + $1200 = $2932. Less $1100 of current rent, that’s $1832 per month to cover all other costs for two people. Few would elect to be traveling 6 days a week obtaining food assistance if there were easy expenditures to cut.
toadi 3y ago
Maybe the location becomes a problem? In my home country life is expensive too. Moved to a lower cost one. Bought land, build a house have a big garden. Raise animals and grow my own crops. I build solar panels and have my own waterwells. I have almost 0 cost. Just my internet. I would never ever be able to this all in my home country without going into debt so much I would be paying for that well into my retirement. I was working in a well paid IT job almost living from pay check to pay check. Now I work remote for a lower pay and most of it just goes in my retirement savings. Not sure what my point is but there are alternatives...
- bombcar 3y ago
  It’s somewhat understandable that people being “forced” to move from where they have always been is annoying, but sometimes it’s the best option.
  - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
    It takes a fat wad of ready cash to move. Twenty years ago it cost $4k for a local do-it-yourself move (inexpensive state), after the last everything was totaled. Today it's common to compete with dozens->hundreds of applicants for a rental. We just did a similar move to that $4k of yesteryear (same region, modest house, local move) and it was about $16k.
- _8j50 3y ago
  That's sort of the point, location in a city? Yeah. But an entire city or country where $4k/mo isn't enough for food? Sounds like the people of the country got scammed by politicians and corporations.
  - voisin 3y ago
    Welcome to Canada comrade, where interest rates, monetary policy, corporate consolidation, and corrupt politicians combined to create a country where house prices became obscenely unaffordable first in a few major cities and then in recent years in every podunk town in every province in the country. And with obscene housing prices comes obscene cost of living. $4k/mo doesn’t get you anything close to a reasonable lifestyle.
tarxvf 3y ago
Is it possible that's meant to total up to $2900 a month, where the $232 and $1500 are meant to be a breakdown of the $1700 a month figure and it got garbled?
- bombcar 3y ago
  Yeah, looking back that seems most likely, but the number 1700 not being exact and then having exact numbers following was confusing.
strken 3y ago
Perhaps it's meant to read "I receive $1,700 a month total from government assistance: $232 from the Canada pension, and $1,500 from old-age security." I'd probably buy rice, beans, and frozen veg rather than salad, but if the majority of her expenditure is medical then I'm not sure it matters.
- the_third_wave 3y ago
  Doesn't Canada have a socialised medical system like the NHS in the UK? Why then does she have so many medical expenses?
balderdash 3y ago
a quick web search would say seem to indicate that the most someone her age could receive from old age security is $700/month? aslo I personally wouldn't describe old age security and Canadian pension as "assistance" as I imagine its more of an entitlement rather than an something needs based which I would consider more of assistance. https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/publicpensions/cpp/old-age-security/benefit-amount.html https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/publicpensions/cp...

throw9away6 3y ago

Journalists and math…

lmm 3y ago

I think it's ok to have to choose between renting in Toronto and eating dinner. Thanks to decades of the boomer generation's "build nothing" housing policies, millions of young people can't afford to live near where they work. Yet that same generation feels entitled to take up space in one of the most in-demand cities on the planet for their retirement life of socialising and volunteering. They'll complain about being "forced" to move out of a home they've lived in for 10 or 20 years (and paid below-market rent the whole time!) when the rest of us are lucky to be able to hold onto a place for half of that. And their response to their unaffordable lifestyle catching up to them is to ask for more and bigger handouts, funded by those same working people who they're keeping out of the city.

sneed_chucker 3y ago
You misread the article, it says "North York", which is in Canada
- lmm 3y ago
  Thanks, edited - point stands though.
jacknews 3y ago
Sure, we should just construct 'poor towns' for those priced out of cities by financial speculation.
- lmm 3y ago
  Financial speculation is an easy scapegoat but has very little to do with it. The fundamentals of supply and demand matter more. (Though, if you hate property speculators, the best way to burn them would be to suddenly legalize massive amounts of homebuilding. It's win-win). I have a lot of sympathy for those priced out of the cities - that's exactly why I think there should be more homebuilding and better prioritisation of the limited supply, rather than those who were fortunate enough to be born earlier getting to hold onto subsidised housing units forever at everyone else's expense.
3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

xupybd 3y ago

This really brings home the need to save for retirement. I don't think I'm saving enough. Not in my 40's yet but the sole breadwinner for my family and wages are not as good here in NZ for devs as they are in FANG companies. I hope that I have enough to get my kids through school and provide a comfortable retirement for my wife and me.

foogazi 3y ago
40 years from now when the Auckland Herald does a profile on you someone will comment that that is the expected result - and people will ask why you never worked for FAANG companies

antisthenes 3y ago

These kinds of feel-bad articles always bury the lede and it's tiring. > Making minimum wage at 55 30+ years seems like enough time to pick up some skills to earn above minimum wage > Not saving anything your entire life This one is debatable, but at some point you have to learn enough life lessons to understand that retirement is going to _suck_ if you don't save anything. Most people manage to learn this before ~40 y.o > I’m only 69, mobile and otherwise healthy. But what will happen as I get older and need care? Same thing that happens to all of us. We get sicker and more frail and eventually die. Billions will die in less privileged conditions than receiving $2900/month and living in a country that has free healthcare. I don't say this lightly, but my dad worked just as hard, probably several times harder and his living conditions aren't anywhere as good as these. It's just that the country he retired in is much more poor. But luckily I can help him, because I have no plans to make minimum wage at 55. Where's his article?

green_man_lives 3y ago
Your sense of injustice, while not unwarranted, is misplaced. Both the person in the article and your father are the victims of unfair systems. Poverty exists in the first and third world. I think that, hypothetically, if you wanted to engineer a world in which everyone was taken care of, empathy and a sense of solidarity would be the foundation of it. It's not productive to point to someone worse off. I think the author should have tried to improve their situation a bit more given that they lived in a prosperous time and place. But regardless they worked every single day and contributed to society. Is that not enough to at least be ensured a comfortable death?
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  Especially considering no one actually owns the earth, not Jeff Bezos, not anyone, yet almost every single bit of wealth (significant wealth) was generated from it's exploitation. through mining and pollution, and will continue to do so. Where do we think the bots and EVs will come from? Our ass? Therefore, realistically, everyone is entitled to a piece of wealth, whether you like this truth or not, given a significantly more intelligent way of seeing things, this would be the only conclusion that can be made. But we've drawn borders and set up law enforcement to protect the ridiculous wealth inequality that seems like it will never end.

balderdash 3y ago

I honestly feel for this person, but the pragmatist in me kind of thinks of this as the expected outcome. You have a person that sounds like they never pursued a career/ was working minimum wage jobs their whole life, never planned for their retirement, decided to live in a relatively high cost area, has health conditions, and their partner seems to make below minimum wage - isn't a subsistence situation sort of to be expected?

green_man_lives 3y ago
Expected? Yes. Tolerated? No. Someone who contributed to the system their whole life shouldn't be left out in the cold.
- luxuryballs 3y ago
  they have already been compensated for their contributions though, sounds like they re-contributed them instead of saving some for later
  - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
    Perhaps the most common US scenario is that minimal bills and income are so close, you'd have to set aside funds from food, utils, rent, etc. Right behind that are folks with income being 80% of minimum bills. After three decades of working closely with folks of every possible income bracket, I found maybe 1 in 15 had income so high that they could afford to save for retirement.
    - voisin 3y ago
      > After three decades of working closely with folks of every possible income bracket, I found maybe 1 in 15 had income so high that they could afford to save for retirement. How can this be the case? What decisions are being made that 14 / 15 people across tax brackets can’t save?
      - 3y ago

TMWNN 3y ago

Inflation is a worldwide phenomenon right now, but it doesn't help that she is living in Canada. Why Canadians pay much more and have access to less despite living in a country that is 95% culturally, economically, and politically identical to the US, I do not know. I didn't fully understand the disparity until I read the amazing stories in a /r/canada discussion. victorn72's account <http://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1ueai3/why_are_our_prices_so_much_higher_than_the_us/cehewa1?context=3 http://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1ueai3/why_are_our_pr...> caused my jaw to drop open.

eimrine 3y ago

I have an unpopular opinion that the problem described is fine because of overpopulating of the world. Something must to stop us from multiplying even more. Especially I have no sympathy for those who has not bought any bitcoins, because those just seems to continue believing to a wrong guy or in a wrong force.