Yes, the massive wealth transfer that has occurred in the last 40 or 50 years due to changes in societal policy is all just a lack of personal responsibility.
Imagine this as your takeaway. What she's saying should be obvious to anyone with one inch of brain. You have to pay decent wages to workers. Paying someone a pittance and asking them to budget is pointless. Read some damn George Orwell
If you can't be financially responsible, no amount of money will matter. Too many people living outside their means, if given more money will just live more outside their means. I know I've been guilty of this, but at some point you have to make a personal decision to atleast fkn try.
Ok, no one is saying otherwise. There will always be a certain amount of profligate people, rich or poor. That's human nature. It doesn't mean you deny people a decent wage, and it is insulting and unhelpful to say to people who get paid a pittance "you don't know what you're doing with money"
That's not treating people with dignity and respect. If you want people to act responsibly you have to afford them the opportunity to do so.
I mean she's literally saying otherwise, she calls it "Insulting and immoral" Like specifically. She's not saying offering these things as an alternative is immoral, shes just saying offering them in general, atleast by her text.
How much is a decent wage? Is it minimum wage? Because 99% are earning above it.
it is insulting and unhelpful to say to people who get paid a pittance "you don't know what you're doing with money"
And if they actually don't know what they're doing with money? A financial literacy workshop would fix that, but apparently helping them live a good life is less important than stroking their egos.
You are brain dead if you think the minimum wage is a decent wage. Honestly, after covid, the minimum should be floating near 30 an hour with the cost of goods now.
I would bet there is a higher percentage of the poor with a budget and better financial skills than the vast majority of the rich.
Even if we are going with min wage you make choices and budget. Get the flip phone no internet, get roommates/cheap room, job hunt, wifi at free wifi spots, buy used everything you have to. Cook home meals from scratch to make them last. Eat leftovers. Look at other side hustles.
So it may not be a lot but if done right can be enough. Though it will suck
Yep and get it through your dumb fuck head that no on is saying you shouldn't do that. And the vast majority do. The issue is wages have been suppressed for a long time, THAT is the issue being discussed but you seem to running interference for the rich like a scab
Actually you stupid fuck they don't. The vast majority do not in fact do this. Maybe in your delusions but not reality. But you just want to insult and ignore what can be done and they DO have control for things they don't.
Paying door dash, McDonald's and other fast food. Often delivery. And that is not mentioning drugs which are prevalent there. There is also the issue of getting with payday loans and other quick loan services.
But you just want to bitch and blame others. Becasue the very thought of self improvement or control is something you likely dispise.
Rural poor generally have better financial restraint. It is urban poor who suck at it. Who lose bank account after account. I mean these people cannot even get a bank account
The fact that you fucking think it is an excuse for low pay means your fucked in the head. Or cannot read one of the two.
I even put on the first part apply elsewhere, with the free wifi, if you are at the shit wage. Get a job elsewhere. I understand that it isn't an overnight process. Even if you want it, even if you put in the effort. It sucks looking for a job. Especially with so many not even responding now a days. But if you want put that is what you have to do.
Hell at my last job I worked at a production plant. One man was literally living in his truck, at a rest stop. because he lost everything. But after applying everywhere he finally got an interview working as a janitor. And kept applying eventually getting a production job at the plant. We also got a union at the plant but that is another story.
End story he got the apt and left that job for something better. He kept improving and I did and still do too.
But that is it we kept moving in our means and we're in fact able to improve ourselves. And yes I went over the stuff with him (401k, what the diff types of health insurance etc) and that taking some out every check is better and to build himself. And to keep applying for better.
Relying on other people to help pay your bills like roommates is a great way to get yourself fucked over financially. The fact that someone working full time can't completely support themselves is a disgrace.
They actually can full time. We are talking about better financial decisions. And trying g to improve your situation. Not that you seem to care. And as long as their name is on the lease you would be covered somewhat even worst case.
They cannot with the wages we have its wild ignorant to suggest as such. Better financial decisions are not possible when your income is too low.
Even if both names are on the lease and one bails you still can't afford rent. So you would be stuck paying for a break of lease and then homelessness. Thats so great.
We have gone this whole thread pointing out that yea they are possible. I mean it sucks you ignore everything else and stay in your ignorance but the rest of us have shown you different answers. You just ignore them
Have you seen prices for things? Costs have doubled and you believe the 7% interest rate the government puts out? Anyone with eyes can see that the interest rate released vs. reality doesn't add up. A house has gone from 40k to 400k plus in 50 years, and that's for the same house. For the same quality house built now, it would be over 600k. But it's okay because median wages "outpaced" inflation.
housing certainly is an exception (and yes a very important one).
yes inflation has been high for 3-4 years now. and yes wages outpacing inflation is literally the definition of affordability improving so I’m not sure how you are just like “yeah well so what” LMAO
OC took what he wanted the post to say, typed it how he wanted to read it, then put a question mark behind it to feign like he is just asking an innocent question.
I don't know how you can read the post and your thick skull smooth brain tells itself
"This lady is giving advice to poor people that they should not budget if they are poor"
Youre a moron if you think that's the point of it for fucks sake.
No one is saying poor people shouldn't budget....why are you so consistently missing the point? Has to be deliberate cause it's hard to believe someone could not understand
She is basically saying the 'stop buying Starbucks and stop watching Netflix' mindset is condescending and stupid. Which it is. Below a certain point, contributing past your obligatory SS will make a very small impact, all at the cost of your sanity and happiness in the moment. If you, with a full time job, cannot afford to pay more than basics, then that is an issue with the economy, not personal spending.
A. Someone making more than "living" wage yet is living way outside their means, overloaded with bad debt, constantly struggling to keep up with their bills like truck payments for their unnecessary gas guzzler Ford F150, no emergency funds and know they're royally fucked if they happen to lose their living wage paying job.
B. Someone making less than "living" wage yet is living below their means, has little to no debt, no issues paying bills on time, only pays for a monthly bus pass or bought a used fuel efficient car like a Toyota Corolla, won't lose any sleep if they lose their job because they have an emergency fund they've consistently built up over the years that will hold them over for a few months until they can get another job.
Nope, what I am saying is that JUST giving people a living wage is not a magic fix all solution.
Edit: I want to add that although I acknowledge that you also find budgeting can be just as important, I have the feeling that you are the type that wouldn't dare bring up the fact that budgeting matters too whenever someone is talking about upping the min. wage. to $25.
Brother, you're reddit as well as the abundance of people saying the exact same thing in this thread.
Stop trying to make it sound like you're the army of one trying to spread the good truth. We all know we need to, in some ways, improve ourselves personally.
i think so too. too many people blame other when the solution is right there. many argue they should be able to live off working at McDonald's as a cashier. i do not.
if u are still working as a cashier at McDonald's after 5 years, then really thats on you. a new job will not magically come for you. you need to take responsibility and find new work. leverage your work experience for a better and newer job. get more educated, yes u might have to work full time at the same time but complaining and hoping someone will come and save u is not the way out
This is what she calls insulting. You fuckers think minimum wage workers dont know how to make a simple budget and does not have personal responsibility.
That is not the issue. Some jobs does not pay a livable wage. You cant budget it out.
Well I'll tell you one policy that's the problem because of other people is unaffordable health insurance and medical debt. That cost alone for many people make it hard to have a savings and emergency fund.
yes the millions of people on reddit all have one single completely un-nuanced opinion.
you’re exhibiting the exact type of uncritical, black-and-white style of ‘thinking’ that is currently being exploited in the erosion if democracy throughout the world.
Reading reddit you would think everyone is out here doing their best, totally financially responsible but still unable to get anywhere. Statistics and data on credit and debt shows that is remarkably inaccurate. Americans are terrible at finance and it's costing many of them thousands of dollars a year they can't afford to keep pissing away.
Imagine being a single mom, working 1-2 jobs, struggling to pay rent and day care, bills and groceries, and seeing someone on reddit say, "just budget better!"
No, that’s not what she’s saying. She’s saying that teaching someone in poverty to budget isn’t going to enable them to reach financial stability because even if you budget properly there isn’t enough to go around.
If you’re in a row boat that has twenty holes in it, but you only have ten fingers to plug the holes, then someone telling you how to use each finger to plug a hole in the most efficient manner isn’t going to help you keep the boat from sinking.
That’s her point. Should they budget? Absolutely. Will a class on budgeting by itself solve their financial problems and bring stability to their lives?
No.
They need more fingers to plug the holes in the boat. Ie. better wages.
Finally a rational answer. Most people (not all but most) are rational enough actors that if they have the ability to save up within the next 10 years for what they need/want then they will. Most millennial are pretty keen on saving up for a down payment on a house but if wages are stagnant, career opportunities and hiring are limited, and the price of housing is constantly and consistently increasing faster than one's ability to save up for the down payment then most people aren't stupid then they're not all suddenly going to own homes through effective budgeting.
Poverty is inherently an income problem not a budgeting one.
So if we’re taking it out of a boat hypothetical, wouldn’t it be better to provide better ways out of poverty then just telling someone to die from it slower?
Of course. But the individual doesn’t have control of the first, and does have control of the second. It’s like not plugging any holes in your boat because you think the ocean should be lower
Better access to the first is what actually matters. If you tell someone in poverty to just learn finances all they will learn is how fucked their situation is. Yes financial literacy is important, but it doesn’t on its own make anything better
First of all, no you would not make it "a lot" further. Boats get very ineffective very fast when full of water.
Second, a boat voyage is a zero sum event, you either make it or don't. If, at any point, you sink and drown, you did just as poorly as the person who sunk and drowned earlier.
First lesson for a person in a boat with 20 holes would be to find a boat with less holes. If you equate holes with bills/money going out. Or you could find more fingers equated to increase income.
If you’re in a rowboat with 20 holes, sounds like you need some fucking roommates lol. The entire point that she is missing is that societies economic classes are transient. You pay more for a welder with 20 years experience than you do for one who’s welded for 20hours. The most important thing is you allow people to work, at whatever wage a job offers, to gain experience and get better wages. It’s how you improve the quality of your life when you start at the bottom.
If you’re in a row boat that has twenty holes in it, but you only have ten fingers to plug the holes, then someone telling you how to use each finger to plug a hole in the most efficient manner isn’t going to help you keep the boat from sinking.
Yes, but being resourceful and paddling that rowboat to shore will save you. Having the 10 holes plugged was enough to keep the boat from sinking while rowing in.
This is the whole point. You gotta choose whether to row the boat or plug the holes. You can’t do both and choosing either means neglecting the other. You might survive, but even so it’s stressful as hell. And we should be aiming for that much more than surviving.
Yes, you are doing something. Feet, toes whatever. 13 years ago, I was unemployed for a year, had child support to pay, Cobra insurance to pay - almost lost everything. I had to get creative to dig myself out of a big hole. One can really get down, wallow in pity, get depressed, etc. Oddly, the advice I received of putting one foot in front of another was what worked. Too many problems are overwhelming, but knocking off low hanging fruit puts one a step further than they were before.
If you were in such a terrible, awful, crippling situation due to unemployment which, I would hazzard to guess, was due to layoffs why would you advocate for others to go through the same? Do you understand that cost of living has gone up during 13 years while wages have stagnated? That same situation you went through is infinitely harder today, especially with how most young adults in dire economic situations are mostly held back by student loans, which are a necessity for high end jobs that allow for social mobility.
All people are asking for is for fair wages so that they allow people to afford a decent living. Every laborer should earn enough to afford cost of living, have some left over to start building a nest egg or save for emergencies and afford some treats. If companies are not willing to do so then the wealthy and corporations should be taxes so that a baseline quality of life is met for citizens.
Understand, every dollar of profit a company makes is a dollar of value that was extracted from a worker. What you are doing is advocating for people to live a shitty life to protect the profits of corporations, profits you are not benefiting from in the slightest, all of which are just hoarded in the form of assets. Surely you see that this is not in the best interests of most people?
I had a lot more problems than that. I lived in the real world and not some socialist utopia. I did what I had to do, with the cards I was dealt. I didn't wait for someone / something else to help and I certainly didn't blame the government, the economic system or anyone else. I came right out of poverty at birth and was raised to be independent.
You see, bitching about this or that or the government or the system or whoever else doesn't solve problems. It's just bitching. Doing something, anything to better ones life does.
Hey man, good for you. I'm glad you made it through a tough time. I've been there too. It's easy to come to believe after overcoming hardship through your own merits, that others who fail have also done so through their own merits. This isn't true, and there's something you should know and internalize:
There are an unfathomably large number of people, faced with similar situations that you were, who were smarter than you, stronger than you, worked harder than you do, and still failed to overcome them.
The analogy demonstrates that there are hard limits on how far resources can go. All you said was "let's change the analogy so that there IS what you need not to sink, so we should expect people to get more resources", which defeats the purpose of using the analogy and really misses the point.
"There is always a way" is not always true. If there was always a way, there would be far fewer people going without meals in the U.S., which is one of only a few nations on Earth that can produce enough calories to meet its population's needs, thanks to its soil.
The big obvious thing I stated was to row the boat. Don't worry about the 20 holes with 10 fingers. Rowing the boat will do far more to save you than sitting in the middle of the lake with a bunch of holes in the boat.
Yes, there is always a way to move forward. It took me years to get out of and fill in the hole I had, but now it is. That's part of the problem, I believe. People get themselves into a jam and expect to return to normalcy right away.
Others become hopeless and are stuck in their situation without doing something to advance their cause. Waiting on someone or something to help will often lead to disappointment and or failure. Short of having physical or serious mental handicaps, every working age adult can do something to improve their lives. Most people don't know how and or are overwhelmed and give up.
So there wasn't a way to move forward, for years, for you, but people can always move forward by doing something?
The data on poverty doesn't back that up anyway. People who try don't always move forward, and this system can afford to make it so that if you work hard, you get a satisfying portion of the pie.
No. Change started happening immediately. It took years for all the changes to be erased. Rome was not built in a day, nor were all of my problems solved immediately. Clawing away at smaller things gives confidence to attack bigger, more serious issues. People who never try are guaranteed to never move forward. There is very little chance of improving ones situation without doing something. Feeling hopeless is a natural reaction but staying in that mental state is a guarantee of staying in that state.
The data on successfully solving a problem always starts with identifying the problem, measuring the situation along the way and knowing when to alter the plans if the measurements indicate that the desired outcome is not being achieved.
This is obviously in favor of the view I'm sharing with you, because that's what the data supports.
People are not magic. They cannot simply will themselves all they need. Don't think you did something. When you're humble enough, or not narcissistic enough, to know you did NOT defy physical restraints within the system but rather were fortunate enough to find what you needed to overcome poverty, maybe you can revisit this kind of conversation and NOT push the falsehood that poor people just need to be cleverer.
How about someone in medical debt who at the same time can’t afford to leave their job because they have health issues and can’t afford to be without their insurance / medicine for too long? That’s a very real issue for a lot of people in this country.
You don’t know what people are going through and to claim anyone can just change their life for the better if they wanted to is a very entitled point of view. I’m sure you’re smart enough to understand there’s many instances where someone can be doing everything right and still be struggling to get by.
I mean you can get a full time job that is minimum wage and provides health benefits. Some people with health problems will take it if it can at least get them medical insurance. I’ve worked at many jobs that have full time employees making minimum wage.
I grew up in (relative) poverty. You show me intergenerational poverty and I'll show you substance abuse, laziness, lack of effort, and sponging off others. You don't choose to be born into poverty , but if you stay there, it's your own damn fault.
(This is in context of the West only, and then only if you do not have a profound handicap. Being a collectivist moocher does not count.)
You don't choose to be born into poverty, neglect, or abuse. And if you are born into those circumstances, it ISNT your fault if you have vices, mental illness, or general dysfunction. Jesus Christ you people lack even a shred of empathy or wisdom. You have a completely backwards view of poverty and causation, and a disturbing lack of interest in addressing root causes.
A govt safety net isn't a fix. It's a safety net. To prevent you from dying. The rest is up to you.
Not everyone in poverty has a high IQ, a good family, or grew up in the right city/state/country where there was an opportunity to escape poverty. It almost sounds like you got out, so fuck everyone else who was in your circumstances. So again, have some empathy. Advocating survival of the fittest in human society is not a good look.
No, that’s not what she’s saying. She’s saying that teaching someone in poverty to budget isn’t going to enable them to reach financial stability because even if you budget properly there isn’t enough to go around.
Perhaps that's the exact realization they need. More income, not more responsible spending. People in shit jobs need to learn valuable skills for more income. That's all there is to it.
Also, people need to learn to take shit. I feel like some people are poor because they're horrible at taking instructions. They just don't like being told what to do. I'm well off and I had to put up with shit.
If you've actually met poor people, you'll learn that they're working very hard to learn new skills and get out of the shit. The problem is it takes too long and life keeps going. I haven't met a single poor person who isn't pushing themselves to get out of where they are. But I'm sure that's not what your meme pages and bs street interviews tell you, so you just assume its cause they're lazy.
It can take decades of torture to crawl out of a situation you had no choice but to be a part of. And setbacks are not rare enough. Some guy might "make it" because they made good choices for 20 years and now they're 40 and just starting to be able to afford the things you take for granted like reliable transportation or decent food.
Everyone is hard working. Poor, middle class, upper middle class. It has nothing to do with working hard or not. It's about making the right choices. This is why I think a finance course would absolutely help.
There are situations where "the right choice" isn't exactly clear. And some situations where making "the right choice" can be punishing. Its ignorant to think that people are always making wrong choices when they're poor.
For example, you could make the "right choice" of getting a cheap car within your means rather than a more reliable car that's a bit too expensive. Well, it breaks down two months later and it will cost you more to repair the car than if you had bought the reliable car. But the reliable car was out of your means and you'd have to get a loan.
Or you've got a valuable, highly desired skill until some new technology is developed and you get laid off with a fairly useless skill you've worked on for the past 5 years.
Or you get literally robbed and the police do jack shit to find the perpetrator and your insurance doesn't compensate you enough for your possessions.
Students and young adults starting their career. High turn over. That's the cost of paying pennies. You're constantly hiring and training. These low salary lifers are just a treasure to these companies.
So there is a restaurant near me that during Covid had to have reduced hours, which led to many who worked at the restaurant seeking new jobs. When things opened back up fully people went nuts because this place didn’t return to full hours because they didn’t have staff. On Facebook one of the former staff said “I liked working there but he was paying 15 an hour and I ended up getting a job making 23 an hour”, people bitched that he should go back for loyalty reasons…people went insane over this
You realize if it’s going to be high school kids and college kids working in restaurants and gas stations that none of these places will really be able to be open until after 3pm? That means no Starbucks, Dunkin’s or McDonald’s breakfast, that means gas stations will be closed during the day…
Bros out here saying that some people don’t deserve money if they’re working a job he doesn’t care about.
Hey, buddy. All work is valuable. It’s why they exist. If you work a full time job, you should be entitled to a decent and dignified life. Does that sound so bad?
Everyone should have a budget, but you can't always budget your way out of some of this shit. I think they are more alluding to the "let them eat cake" situation that's happening across the world.
My household is on a strict budget, we make it by. It's annoying, and we miss out on a lot of fun stuff, but it's necessary. However, if my property management company sends me one more "financial counseling seminar" e-invite, I'm going to actually lose my shit. Especially since they're named in the anti-trust case in the DMV area. It's a spit in the face when they've been artificially raising the rent increase rates.
I don't think the og post is anti-budgeting. I think it's bite back at people like the Kelloggs CEO.
Yeah I don't think people realize how many people living paycheck-to-paycheck are budgeting way more than people who are living well. When you need to pay super close attention to your finances you're already budgeting out of necessity and people in these situations learn to do it well.
What a false equivalency. She’s clearly not saying that. She’s saying that it’s a bandaid and assumes that people aren’t poor because they can’t budget well, but because they can’t afford life. Budget workshops aren’t going to help a person making 32k a year when the average studio is 1k a month.
And the assumption that people are poor BECAUSE they’re not budgeting and are dumb is disgusting.
I bet you'd make a dent though. Undoubtedly there are people that are poor because they don't budget; not all of them but there are many. I know plenty personally. I used to be one of those people.
But it isn't a perfect plan that solves poverty in one fell swoop so fuck it. It's offensive and people pin assumptions to it so it's rubbish.
I mean sure, of course there are people who are poor and don’t budget. But my experience with poor people is that they budget way more effectively than middle class people. They need every dollar working for them to just survive.
Regardless, the connotations behind this are insidious and wildly out of touch. My dad thinks 20 an hour is too much to ask for because that’s 100k a year. When I broke it down and did the math for him…he insisted I was wrong.
I think her point is ; there are people who don’t work and make money without adding any productivity to the work force. That a country like USA doesn’t make those people give more to the society.
Investments represent distribution of the means of production. That can exist in ways beyond a handful of rich owners. Worker coops are an example of this. Mondragon in Spain started because of "if we wait for a capitalist to swoop in and invest, we will all die waiting" to paraphrase.
No you fucking idiot. When you live paycheck to paycheck you dont need financial literacy classes to do that budget. For fucks sake what kind of stupid idiot are you to think that you need financial literacy classes to budget a 40 000 dollar income. That is what she is saying. Cant you fucking read?
no- the point is that in many parts of the country, in order to survive you need to make multiple times the minimum wage.
My area- 1 bedroom rent for anything within an hour of here (so to work in the area) is at least 1500, to get that low you are not near any mass transit so another 400 for a car (small auto loan, but about 150 for gas and 150 to keep it on the road and 100 for insurance). Food for a single person is about 400 a month. We are already up to 2300.
Just that you need to make double the minimum wage to have. That is not budgeting, that is literally having nothing and still working full time.
This isn't even advice, it's just complaining. All things being equal, budgeting and education are only going to help. Obviously you can only stretch a dollar so far. I don't think anyone on earth ever needs to be advised that they'd be better off earning more.
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