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I'm going to go on a limb and say half of the US is not living in abject poverty? Nor can I get behind the idea that quality of life for folks is on the down t

by taeric 3mo ago

I'm going to go on a limb and say half of the US is not living in abject poverty? Nor can I get behind the idea that quality of life for folks is on the down trend.

dheera 3mo ago
If you have negative net worth and the bank's money, not yours, is buying your food and housing, you are in abject poverty, just that the system is propping up your survival for a while. A lot of the US looks like they're doing great but fits into the category above. Non-poverty would look like: * You make enough money to pay for your own food, housing, and transportation in full, with enough buffer for emergencies, without needing to borrow a cent * You make enough money to be on trajectory to save up to pay for your own food, housing, transportation, and medical expenses in retirement when you are physically unable to serve the workforce
- jmye 3mo ago
  > You make enough money to pay for your own food, housing, and transportation in full, with enough buffer for emergencies, without needing to borrow a cent So you're saying I'm in poverty because I couldn't buy my house and my car outright? > and medical expenses in retirement You're saying I'm in poverty because I understand and intend to use Medicare? These are trivially poor definitions.
  - dheera 3mo ago
    Medicare is a different thing, the government should be providing medical care for everyone to begin with, regardless of what they make. My definition is if you need to borrow money to put a roof over your head, at the minimum renting, you're in poverty. There are huge chunks of the US population borrowing money to pay for rent. If your locality doesn't provide adequate public transit, then a car is a necessity, and the onus is now on the locality's economy to make sure everyone can access that; if your locality doesn't pay high enough to afford that car without borrowing money, then yes, you're in poverty. Alternatively, the locality can choose to provide adequate, safe public transit, and the bar of poverty would change. Most of the US doesn't think this way because they're delusional and have been conditioned to feed the financial system and pay for things with money they don't have.
  - ifyoubuildit 3mo ago
    > So you're saying I'm in poverty because I couldn't buy my house and my car outright? I think this isn't as unreasonable as it seems to everyone living it. It's like water to the fish. We are conditioned that everything should be fueled by more and more debt, and your dollars should constantly be devalued so you can't stop grinding. The little people can never be allowed to just work enough to accumulate what they need and then take it easy.
skulk 3mo ago
> Nor can I get behind the idea that quality of life for folks is on the down trend. There is a pretty clear down-trend post-COVID here. https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2025-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2024-overall-financial-well-being.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2025-economic-we...
digitaltrees 3mo ago
I own a Medicaid home care agency in 13 states. We serve low income families and our caregivers, who earn $12-18hr which is higher than minimum wage, absolutely struggle. We have created food banks and housing assistance because even working people are a few sick days or one car repair away from homelessness. I would encourage you to go work with average Americans in average towns. The facts on the ground are stark and eroding.
- logicchains 3mo ago
  >I own a Medicaid home care agency in 13 states. We serve low income families and our caregivers There's an extreme selection bias there. If you run an agency that works with low income families you're not going to see a representative sample of the overall population.
  - jancsika 3mo ago
    > There's an extreme selection bias there. Maybe. Unfortunately, what digitaltrees wrote here is ambiguous. It could also be read as this: Our caregivers serve low income families. Those caregivers, who are our employees, earn $12-18/hr which is above minimum wage. Our employees absolutely struggle. Our employees are the ones using food banks and housing assistance because many are one car repair away from homelessness. digitaltrees: which interpretation is correct?
    - dmoy 3mo ago
      I think the latter interpretation is correct. As in digitaltrees runs a business that does not pay its employees a living wage, who then have to rely on food banks and housing assistance.
      - digitaltrees 3mo ago
        We don’t set the Medicaid reimbursement rate so we have no control over wages either. We work to be very disciplined about unit economics and fixed costs so as much money goes to caregivers as possible but if Medicaid pays $22hr you can’t pay $20 because you won’t cover the payroll taxes, workers compensation insurance, or required clinical and other admin expenses.
jzb 3mo ago
I think “abject poverty” is probably overstating the case a bit. I do think quality of life is trending downward given the fact that housing, food, gas, medical care costs are all increasing while wages are stagnant or worse.
- gruez 3mo ago
  >I do think quality of life is trending downward given the fact that housing, food, gas, medical care costs are all increasing while wages are stagnant or worse. ??? https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N Note this is already inflation adjusted, so "housing, food, gas, medical care costs are all increasing" is already accounted for.
  - mynameisbilly 3mo ago
    That chart doesn't make the case you think it does. Real median household income rising can be explained by things like more dual earner households (more women working since the 70s), more hours worked, etc. The household income can rise while the wages can theoretically remain flat or even fall. The more relevant statistic is that median real wages have only grown by about 29% across 40+ years (~0.6% per year) Since 2000, medical care costs have risen by 121.3%, hospital services by 275%, college tuition and fees by 196%, compared to consumer goods by 86.1%. Things like TVs and electronics went way down in costs while the essentials have absolutely skyrocketed. The cheap stuff drags the average down. You need a lot more than a single graph to argue against the quality of life going down for Americans.
    - gruez 3mo ago
      >That chart doesn't make the case you think it does. Real median household income rising [...] Where are you getting household income from? It clearly says "Personal Income"
      - mynameisbilly 3mo ago
        You're right, I was mixing up the related charts. Still, this makes my case even stronger since personal controls for adding more earners to a household. If real median personal income only rose from ~$28k in 1974 to ~45$k today, that's a 60% increase. Median personal income rising by 0.9% every year over 50 years compared to healthcare rising by 3-4% every year since 2000 is not a gap you can ignore. Necessities grew at nearly 3 to 4x the income rate. So the case that quality of life is trending downward is still completely valid and shows why you can't just point at a single graph and say "see? line go up therefore quality of life fine"
mc32 3mo ago
Mississippi, the poorest state, has similar median income to Germany. I’m pretty sure 50% of the people there are not in abject poverty.
- atq2119 3mo ago
  This doesn't actually seem to be true based on a quick googling, i.e. Germany has somewhat higher median income. But in addition to the raw numbers, you have to keep in mind that they don't account for cost of living and that different countries account for various services differently, especially health care.
  - mc32 3mo ago
    Totally understand that; but it counters the assertion of “abject poverty”. Perhaps relative poverty is a better descriptor but abject poverty is someone living in cardboard tents by the riverbank. Regular poor is living in section eight housing or subsidized housing. I don’t think we have 50% of Mississippians living in abject poverty.
    - officeplant 3mo ago
      As a gulf state resident, a whole lot of us live in shitty old shotgun houses that have been patched up hundreds of times just waiting for the next hurricane to wipe us out finally. I would assume this doesn't account for Germans having different healthcare costs which will aboslutely wreck the average American household with how fucked our system has become.
      - mc32 3mo ago
        Do you believe about 50% of Mississippians live in abject poverty as put forth by GGP poster? The kind of poverty you saw in Dust Bowl era workers or Weimar era Germany or 3rd would today? Sure people may not be middle class but they are not in abject poverty where they steal chickens, shit on the street, sell their relatives into servitude and barely have two changes of clothing. At least I don’t think so. What those people live would be middle class for counties where there is lots of abject poverty. People watch too many influencers and lose track of reality -it’s not all Beverly Hills and Kardashians and Real Wives of X-town everywhere. That’s fantasyland.
olivierestsage 3mo ago
Sorry but you’re smoking crack if you don’t think quality of life is deteriorating in the US. The anxiety and misery is literally palpable.
- bongoman37 3mo ago
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by taeric 3mo ago

I'm going to go on a limb and say half of the US is not living in abject poverty? Nor can I get behind the idea that quality of life for folks is on the down trend.

dheera 3mo ago

If you have negative net worth and the bank's money, not yours, is buying your food and housing, you are in abject poverty, just that the system is propping up your survival for a while. A lot of the US looks like they're doing great but fits into the category above. Non-poverty would look like: * You make enough money to pay for your own food, housing, and transportation in full, with enough buffer for emergencies, without needing to borrow a cent * You make enough money to be on trajectory to save up to pay for your own food, housing, transportation, and medical expenses in retirement when you are physically unable to serve the workforce

jmye 3mo ago
> You make enough money to pay for your own food, housing, and transportation in full, with enough buffer for emergencies, without needing to borrow a cent So you're saying I'm in poverty because I couldn't buy my house and my car outright? > and medical expenses in retirement You're saying I'm in poverty because I understand and intend to use Medicare? These are trivially poor definitions.
- dheera 3mo ago
  Medicare is a different thing, the government should be providing medical care for everyone to begin with, regardless of what they make. My definition is if you need to borrow money to put a roof over your head, at the minimum renting, you're in poverty. There are huge chunks of the US population borrowing money to pay for rent. If your locality doesn't provide adequate public transit, then a car is a necessity, and the onus is now on the locality's economy to make sure everyone can access that; if your locality doesn't pay high enough to afford that car without borrowing money, then yes, you're in poverty. Alternatively, the locality can choose to provide adequate, safe public transit, and the bar of poverty would change. Most of the US doesn't think this way because they're delusional and have been conditioned to feed the financial system and pay for things with money they don't have.
- ifyoubuildit 3mo ago
  > So you're saying I'm in poverty because I couldn't buy my house and my car outright? I think this isn't as unreasonable as it seems to everyone living it. It's like water to the fish. We are conditioned that everything should be fueled by more and more debt, and your dollars should constantly be devalued so you can't stop grinding. The little people can never be allowed to just work enough to accumulate what they need and then take it easy.

skulk 3mo ago

> Nor can I get behind the idea that quality of life for folks is on the down trend. There is a pretty clear down-trend post-COVID here. https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2025-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2024-overall-financial-well-being.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2025-economic-we...

digitaltrees 3mo ago

I own a Medicaid home care agency in 13 states. We serve low income families and our caregivers, who earn $12-18hr which is higher than minimum wage, absolutely struggle. We have created food banks and housing assistance because even working people are a few sick days or one car repair away from homelessness. I would encourage you to go work with average Americans in average towns. The facts on the ground are stark and eroding.

logicchains 3mo ago
>I own a Medicaid home care agency in 13 states. We serve low income families and our caregivers There's an extreme selection bias there. If you run an agency that works with low income families you're not going to see a representative sample of the overall population.
- jancsika 3mo ago
  > There's an extreme selection bias there. Maybe. Unfortunately, what digitaltrees wrote here is ambiguous. It could also be read as this: Our caregivers serve low income families. Those caregivers, who are our employees, earn $12-18/hr which is above minimum wage. Our employees absolutely struggle. Our employees are the ones using food banks and housing assistance because many are one car repair away from homelessness. digitaltrees: which interpretation is correct?
  - dmoy 3mo ago
    I think the latter interpretation is correct. As in digitaltrees runs a business that does not pay its employees a living wage, who then have to rely on food banks and housing assistance.
    - digitaltrees 3mo ago
      We don’t set the Medicaid reimbursement rate so we have no control over wages either. We work to be very disciplined about unit economics and fixed costs so as much money goes to caregivers as possible but if Medicaid pays $22hr you can’t pay $20 because you won’t cover the payroll taxes, workers compensation insurance, or required clinical and other admin expenses.

jzb 3mo ago

I think “abject poverty” is probably overstating the case a bit. I do think quality of life is trending downward given the fact that housing, food, gas, medical care costs are all increasing while wages are stagnant or worse.

gruez 3mo ago
>I do think quality of life is trending downward given the fact that housing, food, gas, medical care costs are all increasing while wages are stagnant or worse. ??? https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N Note this is already inflation adjusted, so "housing, food, gas, medical care costs are all increasing" is already accounted for.
- mynameisbilly 3mo ago
  That chart doesn't make the case you think it does. Real median household income rising can be explained by things like more dual earner households (more women working since the 70s), more hours worked, etc. The household income can rise while the wages can theoretically remain flat or even fall. The more relevant statistic is that median real wages have only grown by about 29% across 40+ years (~0.6% per year) Since 2000, medical care costs have risen by 121.3%, hospital services by 275%, college tuition and fees by 196%, compared to consumer goods by 86.1%. Things like TVs and electronics went way down in costs while the essentials have absolutely skyrocketed. The cheap stuff drags the average down. You need a lot more than a single graph to argue against the quality of life going down for Americans.
  - gruez 3mo ago
    >That chart doesn't make the case you think it does. Real median household income rising [...] Where are you getting household income from? It clearly says "Personal Income"
    - mynameisbilly 3mo ago
      You're right, I was mixing up the related charts. Still, this makes my case even stronger since personal controls for adding more earners to a household. If real median personal income only rose from ~$28k in 1974 to ~45$k today, that's a 60% increase. Median personal income rising by 0.9% every year over 50 years compared to healthcare rising by 3-4% every year since 2000 is not a gap you can ignore. Necessities grew at nearly 3 to 4x the income rate. So the case that quality of life is trending downward is still completely valid and shows why you can't just point at a single graph and say "see? line go up therefore quality of life fine"

mc32 3mo ago

Mississippi, the poorest state, has similar median income to Germany. I’m pretty sure 50% of the people there are not in abject poverty.

atq2119 3mo ago
This doesn't actually seem to be true based on a quick googling, i.e. Germany has somewhat higher median income. But in addition to the raw numbers, you have to keep in mind that they don't account for cost of living and that different countries account for various services differently, especially health care.
- mc32 3mo ago
  Totally understand that; but it counters the assertion of “abject poverty”. Perhaps relative poverty is a better descriptor but abject poverty is someone living in cardboard tents by the riverbank. Regular poor is living in section eight housing or subsidized housing. I don’t think we have 50% of Mississippians living in abject poverty.
  - officeplant 3mo ago
    As a gulf state resident, a whole lot of us live in shitty old shotgun houses that have been patched up hundreds of times just waiting for the next hurricane to wipe us out finally. I would assume this doesn't account for Germans having different healthcare costs which will aboslutely wreck the average American household with how fucked our system has become.
    - mc32 3mo ago
      Do you believe about 50% of Mississippians live in abject poverty as put forth by GGP poster? The kind of poverty you saw in Dust Bowl era workers or Weimar era Germany or 3rd would today? Sure people may not be middle class but they are not in abject poverty where they steal chickens, shit on the street, sell their relatives into servitude and barely have two changes of clothing. At least I don’t think so. What those people live would be middle class for counties where there is lots of abject poverty. People watch too many influencers and lose track of reality -it’s not all Beverly Hills and Kardashians and Real Wives of X-town everywhere. That’s fantasyland.

olivierestsage 3mo ago

Sorry but you’re smoking crack if you don’t think quality of life is deteriorating in the US. The anxiety and misery is literally palpable.

bongoman37 3mo ago
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