76% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck

[Nigerianwonder]

honestly its not there fault, its not something that is not taught in schools and it should, if they spend half the time teaching money management instead of bullshyt ass algebra a lot of us would be in better shape financially. That shyt gets passed down to if your parents are bad with money you will almost ceartnily be horrible with it too, I just started learning how to be good with money the past year, funny thing its not that difficult

Dont buy shyt you need, spend money when you dont have to
Pay your bills on time or ahead of time
Save the rest

Easy to say.. but the reality is that it takes money to save money. The average American income (28K per year) does not allow for any real savings regardless of what they do. No amount of financial planning will help someone making 28k. Even if they pinch pennies and manage to get 1 or 2 grand saved a year it's pretty much pointless if your only saving at that level (you will never have enough to retire).

People need to be honest with the whole saving, and investing dialogue. Whenever I read those how to save for retirement articles they always assume a person is making something like 50k+ year and advise them to save 5 - 10k per year. But the average income is much lower (28k). There is no scenario that will work for them and that's over half the population.

 

[Trip]

Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody, and they meet at the bar.

 

[Trip]

Easy to say.. but the reality is that it takes money to save money. The average American income (28K per year) does not allow for any real savings regardless of what they do. No amount of financial planning will help someone making 28k. Even if they pinch pennies and manage to get 1 or 2 grand saved a year it's pretty much pointless if your only saving at that level (you will never have enough to retire).

People need to be honest with the whole saving, and investing dialogue. Whenever I read those how to save for retirement articles they always assume a person is making something like 50k+ year and advise them to save 5 - 10k per year. But the average income is much lower (28k). There is no scenario that will work for them and that's over half the population.

People that top out at 50k a year arent retiring either unless they work for the gvt

 

[MidwestD]

Of course the deck is stacked against the citizens (America's Koch problem, rethugs doin what they can to eliminate upward mobility, etc.) But one thing that could help is a large overhaul of what is taught at public schools. One semester in HS of basic personal finance and repeating the lie "just keep working hard and you'll make it" is helping turn the country into 30k or less salary and loaded w. debt serfs.

 

[Berniewood Hogan]

WE CAN SOLVE THIS PAYCHECK PROBLEM BY PAYING EMPLOYEES IN SCRIP WHICH THEY CAN SPEND AT THE COMPANY STORE, BROTHER!

 

[DEAD7]

now why in the ever blue fukk would those have to be my only choices?

I just want to now which you would prefer between those two options? I'm sure you would want some happy medium between the two that has never and will likely never exist.

we don't need less government
we need actual government and lots of it
the farce bough to us by corporate lobbyists is not government

When you take the rose colored glasses off and look at the history of govt. you will see what we have is real govt. and it sucks. Only a really really smart person can ignore/rationalize/justify govt's track record throughout history and continue to opine that we need more.

I thought it was lack of intelligence for a while, then i realized dumb people actual get it quickly, its really intelligent people that cant see it for what it is.

it happened once before, it was called slavery

Govt. wasnt part of slavery?

Spoiler

 

[Wild self]

lol not even that but most people who are struggling with 1-2 kids decide to go ahead have the 3rd and 4th

I blame religion and people being indoctrinated into thinking that it is still the 1950s where you can have mad kids and still ball out. Having kids under the age of 25 also means debt slavery.

 

[Wild self]

What do you mean "we"?

You must mean wall street bankers, corporate shareholders, defense contractors, politicians, government officials, and the CEOs of Forbes 500 companies...ie that obscenely weatlhy bunch that really makes things happen, and that's a really small percentage of the American population that controls the majority of the wealth distribution.

"WE" (as in the average person that's just living day to day) don't rule anything! And with the path that the previous generations have chosen, they obviously want to make sure we never will!

"WE" are practically slaves in this country. We're just given a dream, told to go to college and go into debt to finance it, and everytime we think we are closer to achieving that dream, they just move the goalposts farther and farther back...

Saving 2gs in the realms of thing ain't shyt. Penny pinching ain't gonna do shyt in the long run. I rather see people suicide bomb Wall Street Tyc00ns

 

[*L*E*G*A*C*Y*]

10 years from now that 76% is going to be atleast around 92%.

Mark my words.

I really, and sadly, just can't imagine it getting any better at this point, and that's not even me trying (like I have to try at this point...lol) to be a pessimist, but just realizing how things have gone over the years. It will only get worse before it gets better.

 

[Wild self]

10 years from now that 76% is going to be atleast around 92%.

Mark my words.

I really, and sadly, just can't imagine it getting any better at this point, and that's not even me trying (like I have to try at this point...lol) to be a pessimist, but just realizing how things have gone over the years. It will only get worse before it gets better.

Technology and the over-abundance of college grads killed the income gap. Everyone competing for scraps.

 

[DEAD7]

I blame religion and people being indoctrinated into thinking that it is still the 1950s where you can have mad kids and still ball out. Having kids under the age of 25 also means debt slavery.

As bad as religion can be, the emphasis on marriage and a two parent home, is the single greatest weapon against poverty.

 

[Wild self]

As bad as religion can be, the emphasis on marriage and a two parent home, is the single greatest weapon against poverty.

Yeah, but women are popping out kids for the sake of having kids and not thinking about their futures.

 

[kevm3]

They had a study that said if minimum wage kept up with inflation, it'd be around $20. Now if you offer the average man a $20 job today, he'd say that was a nice paying job unless he lived in some super expensive city like New York. In reality, that's what minimum wage WAS. Inflation is greatly outpacing salary increases, and you couple that with companies shipping jobs overseas and making more applicants compete for less jobs, you have wage depression on the other end. Is it any surprise that people are living paycheck to paycheck when wages are going down and yet the cost of living is steadily increasing?

 

[Street Knowledge]

Technology and the over-abundance of college grads killed the income gap. Everyone competing for scraps.

What's their major? For example everyone I know in a stem field is eating and got a job with a good pay right out of college. People I know who took garbage degrees are making less then 30K or working at a Starbucks near you

 

[Type Username Here]

10 years from now that 76% is going to be atleast around 92%.

Mark my words.

I really, and sadly, just can't imagine it getting any better at this point, and that's not even me trying (like I have to try at this point...lol) to be a pessimist, but just realizing how things have gone over the years. It will only get worse before it gets better.

The worse it gets, the faster it will go away.