Same article from decades ago. This is nothing new, it’s not gotten better, it won’t get better anytime soon.
And somehow these CEOs are still talking about pandemic money 3 years later.
The “pandemic money” is the $2,000 I was given 3 years ago? No, I still have that squared away in case of a rainy day.
They are. And it would be funny if it weren’t such utter bullshit. As if the sizeable chunk of the population that lives paycheck to paycheck could actually afford to hold on to a couple thousand dollars in stimulus funds. When shit is waaayyyy more expensive than it was 3 years ago and wages haven’t really climbed that much.
The $800 stimi will never be forgotten.
My employer got $600,000 in ERC. Meanwhile, I haven’t had a pay increase in over 2 years. Been with the company for over 10 years.
My company was really arrogant and gave all the employees a one time bonus, basically our own little stimulus, thinking the pandemic wouldn’t impact us. Fast forward a year and they laid a bunch of people off to save money. I would have much rather them kept the money and not laid those people off.
“Rich men North of Richmond” intensifies!
Nah, fuck that enlightened centerist, both sides bullshit.
You obviously don’t understand the class struggle.
That guy doesn’t understand his own lyrics. He says he’s not a Republican and is upset that Republicans are using his song, but he’s using all their talking points.
He’s upset rich men profit off of keeping the working man down. Have you even listened to the song?
I’m guessing no, or they don’t comprehend it.
10’s of millions of people love the song, it hit #1 overnight, and it’s a twangy country/bluegrass song so it must be a evil GOP anthem.
Bro, I listen to real country. This ain’t it. This is propaganda.
Johnny Cash would have whooped this dude’s ass.
The song is not about “rich men” in general but about politicians in Washington DC. Those are, specifically, the “rich men north of Richmond” he is discussing.
His claim is not that business owners pay too little, but that the government is taking too much, and giving it to welfare queens.
You may want to consider reading the actual lyrics.
Yes that is one of the things he talks about, among many. funny enough he only mentions the word politician once when talking about miners and doesn’t call them rich men. almost as if he wrote the song that way on purpose. Which is why it’s so damn popular with people of all classes, colors, and political leanings.
He mentions politicians every time the chorus comes around. That is what “rich men north of Richmond” means. That’s why he isn’t calling out wealthy people south of Richmond. DC is north of Richmond.
I can’t tell you why the song is popular, but I can definitely parse the meaning of the lyrics, which you seem to be struggling with.
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain’t shit and it’s taxed to no end
Cause of rich men north of Richmond
This is explicitly about politicians. The entire song is.
The only other lyrics with any content are
Well, God, if you’re 5-foot-3 and you’re 300 pounds Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds Young men are puttin’ themselves six feet in the ground ‘Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin’ them down
Lambasting “welfare queens” and taxes.
Needless to say, this song isn’t popular with me, because I am capable of understanding both the lyrics and how taxes and welfare work within the context of the economy.
At no point does he decry wealthy business owners or anything of the sort, which sort of takes away from your “any political leanings” argument. This is very explicitly one political leaning, and from a person who isn’t very knowledgeable.
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This is why predatory payday loan companies still exist.
That’s no bueno
The land of the fee.
First it was 40%, now it’s 63%
Employers could pay their employees’ student loans, stop forcing them to commute, and pay them well
America is kinda fucked up. Seeing it from the outside, nothing is surprising, the solutions are fairly obvious. If nothing else, the direction in which to go. Yet, it’s just dumb and dumber.
You had a real shot at change with Bernie Sanders. At least one of the three pieces. At this point, you’ll have a revolution within the next 5-10 years that changes the two party system, or it’s lights out.
Neither of these options is going to happen. The country will not fail, and there will be no revolution.
Whatever happened to Andrew Yang? Been praying for my universal income
He has aligned himself with the Freedom Party. They are starting out by looking to get some traction in more local elections and their first primary goal is to push for ranked choice voting, which they think will help move beyond the 2 party system, as the winner take all idea goes away. It also should, in theory, stop candidates from playing to the extremes and force them to come together, as if you aren’t someone’s number 1 choice, you’d rather be number 2 than down at the bottom.
They aren’t looking to run anyone for president in 2024, but we’ll see what happens after that.
Yanggang is still around, but it’s not looking likely we’re getting any kind of party nomination. I think it’s microwaved Bidem for dinner this round.
I work full time for CVS and I have 26 cents in my bank account, nevermind 500. I literally cannot save, every cent is expenses. When an emergency happens I am straight up fucked every time.
An emergency happened for me in june and I was homeless by July, working fucking full time. Thank fuck I have a family I can stay with.I fucking hate this country. Literally standing in line to donate plasma for gas money. Christ.
Americans live above their means.
God forbid I treat myself to something nice once a year.
You can treat yourself to something nice as long as it’s within your means. It’s not much of a treat if leaves you in a more vulnerable position.
Yeah. Too much avocado toast. /s
I still see LOTS of people with massive trucks, muscle cars and SUVs though.
Next time you see one of the fancy lifted “brodozer” trucks, pay attention to the tires. Often times they’re in bad shape, nearly worn out.
That’s because they bought this thing for $700 per month and never took into account that the fancy tires are $300+ each.
Yeah 63% seems way too high. The median wage in the US is like $50k. That’s not a ton of money, but half the population should definitely be able to find $500 in an emergency.
I’m curious how much of this is a budgeting, debt dependence, and responsibility problem, more than anything else. I had $500 saved up in high school when I was making $5.15/hr. At one point in college I ended up down at $300 and my bank charged me for not having enough money, I freaked out, started working more, didn’t buy shit for a while, and that never happened again.
These days I see a lot of people who make less than me (but still do well enough) in way nicer cars and way bigger/nicer homes. They can spend their money how they want, but if they end up in this stat it’s a them problem, not a system problem.
True, financial literacy is pretty lacking, but that’s more of an education issue than “their fault”
Most dealerships and banks will happily approve a loan that’s too high to be realistic. It’s predatory, I make $20/hr and got approved for up to $300k for a mortgage. I bought a house worth half that and it’s still a lot. Just feel like banks really shouldn’t let people sign loans worth 80% of their monthly income
I agree with that. The bank told me what kind of mortgage they’d approve me for and I responded, “that sounds really irresponsible.” It seemed like something they should hear, lol. I think the loan I ended up with with was 20% of the big number he threw out. I wasn’t interested in becoming house poor.
You mentioned 80% of their monthly income, that’s generally gross as well. They always ask for gross and then pretend taxes and other stuff don’t come out of the check before someone gets it. It seems like they should be asking what someone’s net pay is. To make the payment on a house they were talking about I’d be stopping my 401k, cancelling my health insurance, and would still be having trouble putting food on the table… and I’d be doing that for 30 years, praying I never lost my job or had to take a pay cut. I think their view is people are going to pay their mortgage before any other bill they have, so they can eat it all up and people can just deal with it. I thought after 2008 they wouldn’t be like that anymore, but they are.
I’ve always been a saver and naturally wanted a bit of a financial buffer. I guess I assume everyone has that or should have it, but that’s probably a bad assumption on my part. I remember even when my parents gave me a little allowance growing up (it wasn’t a lot, we got our age per month from probably age 10 until around 16 when we could work), I never remember running out and spending it, I saved. My sister, who grew up in the same house with the same parents spent everything she got. I can only assume we got very similar financial education and modeling up until that point in life. I remember when she was 17 or 18, she got an $80 ticket for running a red light and borrowed money from me, her little brother, to pay for it so she didn’t have to tell the parents about it.
Financially illiteracy is a point; but it’s not a point for 50+% of the US. Median wage is $50k/year, which is far too low to ever purchase a home, so they’re affected by the median rent being $1,383. which is half their net income.
$500 is savings is a much lower bar than buying a home.
How employers may help change that? PAY YOUR FUCKING PEOPLE MORE MONEY.
As a non American can I ask about your monthly budget? I’m really curious as to what’s really going on and how much it’s costing because everyone from different states are talking differently.
Check out Caleb Hammer on YouTube, he goes over people’s finances who aren’t doing well financially. Digs into their spending and stuff and generally rips them a new one. People don’t know who to budget and they love debt.
Thank you I’ll check.
to an extent, it really does differ by state. however, housing costs went up significantly for both buying a house or renting in the last 2 years.
I live in the greater Seattle area, but not in Seattle, which is fairly expensive. I make about $50k per year, which is about $3400/ month take home after taxes and paying for health insurance. $1550 of that goes to rent. internet costs me $60/ month; I could get cheaper, crappier internet, but this way I also get to work from home a few days a week and enjoy online video games. power varies, depending on if I need to run the heat. for the summer, it’s about $60/month, in the winter it might go up to $200/month. I don’t do well in the cold, I could save money but sleep poorly and risk getting sick by not warming up so much. my brother has a deal for phone service, so we share a family plan where my share is $30/ month. I don’t have a car now, I ride the bus generally. that’s about $50/ month, but varies if I need to be in the office more or go more places than my usual sedentary habits.
if you’re keeping track, that’s about $1600/ month left after allocated expenses. I haven’t talked about food or other household necessities, or any fun leisure stuff. you’ll also notice I don’t have any student loans or medical debt or a car loan. I did spend a full year unemployed during covid, and ran up my credit card staying afloat. so I’ve got about $20k debt that I put at least $500/ month toward.
getting a car would be prohibitively expensive here - in addition to the cost of the car, I’d also be paying $100/ month to park it, +gas, +insurance. I’ve lived in other states where not having a vehicle meant you couldn’t work, because there was no effective public transit. usually those places didn’t have the parking expense, but gas and insurance alone are more expensive than my transit costs here usually are.
I’m pretty ok for this area. my rent is pretty cheap for a studio apartment (no bedroom, just living area, private kitchen, private bathroom). my debt is fairly low, and my credit remains pretty good, so if I need a loan it’s an option.
Thanks for the detailed information.
The US is massive and each state and city can have wildly varying costs of living and pay.
So it’s a bit hard to compare someone from NYC to someone who lives in Austin Texas.
Generally on the north east coast the cost of living is high due to density and so wages/salaries tend to be higher than somewhere with a lower cost of living. As you move into the mid west and central US things tend to come back down before going up again on the west coast.
How much has the price of milk gone up in the last 4 years?
What the fuck is this? “How employers might help change that” Answer: they wont, they just might be forced to let employees give themselves a fee-free loan from their own retirement account, oh and here’s a slightly different new emergency savings account. It’s still all just your money…What the actual fuck?
What about the half of US workers that don’t have a retirement account? I guess fuck them?
Isn’t the answer simple? HIGHER WAGES.
Man, this made me incredibly angry.
Higher wages or lower costs, but lower costs would kill the stock market
And if you’re in a HCOL city the municipality is probably thriving off the property taxes.
Property taxes actually need to be raised in most cities, especially for single-family homes.
Everyone in the suburbs should pay a property tax premium for that benefit, for instance, to address the externalities of having suburbs.
Maybe in the US but not in Canada.
Canada also has spiking housing rates and thus would also benefit
Paying higher wages doesn’t get people to start bank accounts, much less retirement accounts.
Many people on the poorer end of the spectrum literally hide money in their walls/mattresses rather than get bank accounts - I know many of these people firsthand.
A bank account isn’t going to magically make you richer.
Not having one does make you poorer, but this is neither here nor there.
My point is, someone hiding money in their mattress isn’t going to put much value in 401(k)s and likely does not have one.
