• Ileftreddit@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    60% is a majority, right? The article was working really hard to downplay it. “The bottom 60%” that’s more than half the country… social unrest will be the least of their worries

  • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Also nothing new, they did a big news report in Reno like 20 years ago and cost of living was about double what the average income was for the city. You had a two income family or roommates, or live at home.

  • hark@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Credit is doing a lot of heavy lifting. If credit seizes up, then it all falls apart. That’s why interest rates have been held low for so long.

  • dullbananas (Joseph Silva)@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    To convince more people, it may help to have an analysis that doesn’t include celebratory dinners, eating out, physical television, etc. The inclusion of those things are either a drop in the bucket or have good enough rationales, but too many Americans are too dumb to accept that.

    • reiterationstation@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      If Americans stopped doing that the economy would crash, people would lose their jobs, and most people wouldn’t be able to afford to live.

      So it’s the same thing in the end.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      IMO gini coefficient is more comprehensive. Some millionaires like doctors actually earned it. But you can’t become a billionaire without being a parasite.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Looks like it’s time to eat the rich.

    They have too much power and resources now. We aren’t going to get a better quality of life through peaceful means.

    • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 days ago

      There’s a relatively nonviolent solution America can do, but it would be complex to organize. Stop. Anyone that can stop working for even a day, or a week. Just pick a starting point and stop working, buying, consuming. They can’t fire everyone.

      • Omega@discuss.online
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        3 days ago

        I agree. Only 5% at most would follow through, and most of that 5% are non-vital employees, you don’t even have a union culture to organise this, and the best the democrats have done is stay silent.

        Again, I agree, this would work if we organise it.

      • reiterationstation@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        I’d love to see it but I think they could outlast us and would love at the chance to buy up failing small businesses and property during that time.

  • KMAMURI@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    But you have millionaires who play kids games on tv and billionaire celebrities made famous by their looks or money, that go on to play government in real life in all your major political offices. Multi millionaire actors and starving paramedics. What an advanced society.

  • mechoman444@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Y’all needed a study to find this out! Y’all could have just asked me and saved a whole bunch of time!

    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      Studies like this are important so that politicians can’t as easily dismiss it, at least in theory. In practice it’s so that those doing the study can shout “Called it” when shit inevitably hits the fan. Still useful though.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    Hunter Thompson wrote “Hell’s Angels” in 1967.

    There’s a passage about the economics of being a biker/hippie/dropout.

    In those days, a biker could work six months as a union stevedore and then hit the road for two years. A part time waitress could could support herself and a live-in boy freind

    Then Nixon/Reagan came in to save us.

  • jimbel@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    “For the bottom 60% of U.S. households, a “minimal quality of life” is out of reach”

    Is this for real? Sounds odd to me.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      4 days ago

      Your experience isn’t everyone’s experience. Where you are 60% probably looks different than innercity 60%.

      Confirmation bias for you situation.

      • jimbel@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        That is why I asked.

        But still, they write “out of reach” so I it means 60% of people are well beneath minimal life qualitiy. I wonder what minimal life quality actually means tough.

        • rumba@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          The linked report is super clear https://lisep.org/mql

          They split up the necessities of life into 8 buckets, then calculated how much money you need to spend on them per year.

          But the actual meat of the report is geared toward the moving trend for items,

          poingint out that food, rent, choldcare and medical are becoming more expensive at a rate that’s quickly surpassing wages.

      • fireweed@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Or rural experience. Wages are still shit but ever since covid rural housing and food costs have gone through the roof.

        • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 days ago

          And so many rural Americans being in food desserts doesn’t help at all.

          Gotta drive 30+ minutes to the store just to buy some over priced trash food. Gotta keep insurance on the crappy car you struggle to maintain, gotta keep gas in the tank, etc. It’s a snow ball that once it starts rolling it just keeps going downhill faster and faster.

  • VitoRobles@lemmy.today
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    4 days ago

    I have friends in their 30s who were surprised about maxing out their IRA because where are they going to get an extra $6k?