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[Frumple]

Ever tried the Midwest? Because I've seen better than what you just described, better by far, and it was on 50-70k income. I don't know where you're pulling your numbers from, but I've seen plenty of people in that income range living in better conditions than you claim possible.

Spoiler: this mess got (click to show/hide)

You'll note I wasn't saying much about possible, exactly, especially in that particular range. Also being pretty careful to not say shit's fait accompli. Trying to anyway, which ain't saying as much as it might have a couple years back.

Circumstances willing a lot of things can go right or go wrong that leaves any particular person coming out differently, but most of what I'm pointing at is it takes a certain threshold before circumstances start having a strong inclination towards talking about their interest in a situation. From what I've seen that threshold is around 50k for two or three people, after which things get increasingly unsteady as it goes lower. You start going from walking down a road to walking a tightrope, which can be more than a little unpleasant when you're not terribly inclined towards tightrope walking.

50-70k is lower middle class for a single person. For a couple that's from about minimum wage to a bit over and both working (40k range or lower probably means one or both are either working below minimum, or part time). Round and about that, yes, you can manage comfortable and sometimes better, depending on your situation, and can even tank some hits, such as decently lengthy unemployment or one or two major medical expenses, without things going to hell. But as you note, the cushion that's softening those blows is not that thick, particularly if you don't make the great financial decisions that living in the conditions that tend to get fostered in that general economic range like to make real difficult.

And even then, sure, it might not be an economic death sentence if something goes wrong. It "just" gets real gorram uncomfortable real sodding fast, then maybe slides into an economic or more direct BAD END.

... also I'm totally not describing just-above-abject-poverty with that description. Just above abject poverty can get a lot nastier, heh. It's not comfortable basically at ruddy all. Talking more "within spitting distance of upper end poverty", if anything.

What places are actually that horrible?

Most of my direct experience has been rural north florida. Two caution light town with a three digit population in a county with about a third the population living below the poverty line, twenty, thirty minute drive to the nearest hospital, most of the surrounding land either farm or timber, so on, so forth. It's not particularly unusual as rural poverty goes -- better than a good number of places, really. Family's all over the state and surrounding areas, though, and they've had relation working and otherwise with teachers in particular, but other folks of that nature too, all over the country.

Beyond the normal shit with rural areas (which actually tend to have pretty notable crime issues, they just keep quieter about it -- north florida in particular has a good lot of drugs moving through the back country, ferex, but you wouldn't know it without encountering the right sort of dirt and a good bit of it never really gets reported in a way it'd show up in crime stats), cities can end up their own brand of nasty. There's a specific city or two (three, whatever) I constantly forget the names of somewhere within a few hours of here that have parts that are basically half to completely abandoned by law enforcement, among other problems.

All that said, I'm pretty sure we got a midwesterner or two around the forum that lived in lower end conditions for a while that could probably chip in, if they haven't forever abandoned the ameripol thread and don't have zero interest in the conversation regardless.

Upstate New York. Have all of the things you mentioned in the last paragraph. I'm not supporting a family myself, of course, but I grew up (in the area) on <$30k/year, with my mom still able to save a significant portion which I have slowly been convincing her to move into investments that have recently pushed her up a tax bracket (which is incredibly annoying, btw). She'd tell you herself that she never had financial problems and never even carried a credit card balance.

Spoiler: way too long (click to show/hide)

Eh. A parent saying something like that and then crying over money issues when the kid isn't around or has left the house, or quietly getting another job (or two, or pursuing any number of alternate income sources) when things get tight, or being on any number of anti-whatever medication, or so on, and so forth, is common enough to be a stereotype for a reason. Particularly single parents, which it sounds like you're talking about (incidentally, mine could check off all three of those at one point or another, ha). Living on your own also obviously enough distorts a lot of the considerations involved... though it also tends to be less secure even if the per-person income involved is more or less identical. Extra set of hands can make a difference even if they're not bringing in more money.

It's entirely possible it actually went well for you folks (and in which case damn sincere congratulations -- no one should have to deal with the shit that crops up in these economic brackets at the rate they do), but it's stupid easy for it not to for people in that situation (particularly as more dependants get involved) and there's pretty close to precisely fuck all they (your mother included) can do if things go the sort of south they very easily can, if there's not someone (government, if it comes to it) able and willing to bail them out. Sub 30k a year, one 300k medical bill the insurance company (you hopefully have) wiggles out of and you just flat lost the gross income of a decade plus, assuming you can find a way to cover it... and while that's high end of the holy shit catastrophe range, something in the five digit range over the course of a year (i.e. potentially sending a year plus's gross income up in smoke) is much less so. It might be exaggerating somewhat, but frankly about the only way you're going to find much comfort in that sort of fiscal situation is ignorance, bleh, because you are very seriously one step from ruin in many, many, cases.

You can still live pretty happily, if it comes down to it, but it's generally real damn contingent on luck or having some other source of aid. Nonexistent gods be with you, there's actually official support systems of one sort or another in your area that you can take advantage of if it happens, but... this is the US, and that ain't exactly a guarantee.

And I mean I'm only 25, so it's not like this has changed much (and since I still live in the area I can say that it hasn't). Anyway some of the neighbours have piles of kids and seem to be doing fine, although I don't pry into their incomes. Incidentally, our schools are decent, too, especially if your kids are athletic.

Good for y'all, such as it is. Decent school really does help, particularly if they're actually getting funded instead of being gutted by whatever bullshit the local conservatives have spearheaded this time. Thaaat said, seems to be doing fine is... well, real easy to be wrong when the doors close and whatnot. Met more that a few dysfunctional as all hell, never mind the cases of actual abuse of one sort or another, families that looked just fine from a distance. People can put a fair bit more into appearances than they do into health, yeh, or just have stuff going on that's hard to notice without fairly close interaction.

I think we might have a major disagreement on what constitutes "rural", though. In particular the idea of "rampant thievery or gun fights going on in the neighborhood" implies something more suburban at minimum to me.

... sure, which is why that was a somewhat oblique mention of specifically the worse off of suburban and urban areas, where lower cost housing can at times have the downside of having good reason to dodge the occasional bullet or make sure you got real good locks (or real bad ones, so it won't piss off whoever's decided to filch yer shit).

Rural doesn't tend to have much open gun fighting or thievery anyone will talk about, just theft people don't talk about or report 'cause they know the folks involved, domestic violence and/or homicide, and your occasional bit of effective or explicit suicide (though the latter two are totes city problems, too, of course), heh. Among whatever else is or isn't shared between the two.

[SalmonGod]

Ever tried the Midwest? Because I've seen better than what you just described, better by far, and it was on 50-70k income. I don't know where you're pulling your numbers from, but I've seen plenty of people in that income range living in better conditions than you claim possible.

Everywhere I've lived and heard of in the Midwest, outside of cities there's not much in the way of troubles with crime, 50-70k is a middle-class income, not just-above-abject-poverty like you seem to think it always is, and you can live perfectly comfortably on said income with multiple cars, a good house, and some amount of safety cushion (Though the cushion can be thin if you didn't make great financial decisions earlier-on in life). Even going unemployed isn't a financial death sentence, I've seen people recover without losing everything, or almost everything, as you seem to think must happen.

So seriously, where are you getting your information from? What places are actually that horrible? You've successfully gotten me interested, albeit in a minorly horrified way.

Lived in Indiana most of my life, here.  Dead center of the midwest.

I grew up in a very small town in Indiana from ages 8-16.  Like... drive through it in less than 5 minutes, and outside of that you are in get-in-your-car-to-talk-to-neighbors territory.  There is not a single stop light anywhere.  There's a gas station at either end, an elementary school, and it barely qualifies for its own post office.  Fillmore, IN if you want to Google Maps it - I believe the place hasn't changed much in 20 years.  Deteriorated further from what I've heard.  The high school I went to was a 30 min drive away.  Collected students over a huge geographic area.  And only had about 640 students grades 7-12.  So I can tell you from personal experience that rural people in Indiana are quite violent, and drug problems are rampant, especially meth and heroin.  Authorities in such places operate very much on a good ol' boy club basis, and those who fit in with the culture there could and did get away with doing just about anything they wanted with those who didn't.  The school had a 60% graduation rate (40% for women), was infested with cockroaches, and everything was horribly outdated.  I could also name at least one teacher who was definitely a pedophile, and someone I knew back then has pictures of the principal hitting on a student.  The house I lived in there was ~130 years old and full of holes, including a giant gaping hole above my bed that I could feel breeze through from outside.  The plaster in the walls had horsehair in it.  It was heated by woodstove.

But yeah... it's cheap to live in places like that.  My dad's an incredibly intelligent, hard-working guy, and my mom did a great job supporting his ability to focus on career.  They saved money living out in the middle of nowhere, while he worked his way up the ladder.  He just had a 45 minute one-way commute to deal with every day, but this was back when gas was half the price it is now.  In the winter, that meant it sometimes took him a couple hours to get home through unplowed rural roads.  A few times, he took a shovel with him, and had to dig his own way through.

My dad's now soon to retire from being global head of a small department of a major corporation.  When I was 16, my parents bought a nice big house in a prosperous Indianapolis suburb.  Where I was seen as the bullied weird-but-genius kid in Fillmore, I suddenly felt stupid going to school here.  It was great until I had to move out on my own.

I was making just under $30k when I moved out with a wife and kid, and living in this area was not cheap.  Gas prices had doubled over the last few years, so a ridiculously long commute wasn't worth it anymore.  Plus, I was commuting not just to work, but still going to school at the same time at a commuter campus in downtown Indianapolis.  And we didn't want our kids to get the same kind of abysmal education experience I described above.  So we moved into the cheapest apartments around.  We witnessed drug busts, and kids threatening each other with guns.  There were break-ins and rapes in our neighborhood.  My wife tried to get work, but could never find anything that wouldn't require paying for daycare, which would cost more than she would make.  So we lived on my income alone, and wracked up $50k in student loans to make up the difference.  And the job I was working made me horribly, horribly depressed.  As in, I kept a log of how I spent every minute of my time to protect myself against metric-based micromanaging, and often spent my days floating through violent suicide-just-to-make-the-motherfuckers-feel-bad fantasies.

I graduated in 2008.  The official year of the great recession.  So I ended up fearfully stuck where I was, while everyone around me was getting laid off or taking quit-with-severance options.  It's by sheer luck that I'm doing better now.  A co-worker friend found another job in the same industry, and with his recommendation, I was able to follow.  Then the team I was placed on suffered a morale crisis and everyone quit, so less than 2 years in, they promoted me to manage the team and re-build it from scratch.  Which I did very well.  It just involved giving my life up entirely to work.

I'm now squarely in that 50k-70k bracket we're discussing.  I won't say what I actually make, because it's standard in the industry I work to fire anyone who has been found sharing information about what they make... and one of my bosses actually used to play DF.  I'm doing better materially than almost everyone else in my social circle.  Who I rarely actually see, because I don't have time for them.  I keep loosely in touch by scrolling Facebook a couple times a day and trading comments.

So we just bought our first vehicle of our own last year, because the old junker my parents let us use was reaching the end of its life.  We also bought our first house last year.  We had no fucking choice, because rent has skyrocketed about 50% over the last few years.  And we wouldn't have been able to do that if my parents hadn't agreed to help us with down payment.  We would have been truly fucked.  Now by appearances, we have all the trappings of being a successful family.  But car payment + mortgage is literally half of my income, even making as much as I do.  And remember that if we were still trying to rent, it would be worse.  On the rest, we're just able to get by rotating minimum payments on debts wracked up in the past, and still eat decently well/see a movie or something once in a while.  I haven't been to a dentist in 4 years.  My wife drives on a suspended license, because she got a ticket a few months ago we haven't been able to pay.  When she's even physically capable of driving, because of aforementioned back issues that we can't pay to tend to.  The last 3 neighborhoods we've lived in have all been middle-class-ish... but... we still see lots of drug activity and have been broken into and robbed twice.  I strongly suspect there was some human trafficking going on a couple houses down from us the last place we lived.

I can't say we're not doing great.  We're making it.  Until something happens that fucks up the delicate balance we've been able to maintain so far, thanks to a couple major strokes of luck in my career, being born to successful parents, living in a low cost of living state, etc.  Otherwise, we'd be fucked.  And we're still one bad stroke away from being fucked, always.  Like say my diabetic kid's medical costs go up, or I'm put out of work for more than a week for any reason.  But yeah... making it so far.

But like I said before.  What a fucking pathetic situation we're in, where my story is a decently successful one for my generation.  It makes me angry to know that this is what success by hard work and a lot of luck looks like.  To know people who work even harder and are more capable than I am who are doing worse in their lives.  There's no excuse for it.  And this isn't a warzone.  We're not a country that is only beginning to modernize.  This is simply a country that's been losing its class warfare for far too long. 

And the midwest is a shithole that I've longed my entire life to escape.  Just had to illustrate that for you.  I'm sure if I lived in rural Indiana on 50-70k, I could live like a king... but how the fuck do people actually live out there.  There's no work.  And I'd have to live in the truly middle-of-nowhere outside of town, because those small towns are violent drug pits of despair.  Suburban Indiana is cheap by most U.S. standards, but not comfortable on this income for someone with kids or who comes into a middle-class position from less than ideal previous circumstances.  And I still have to worry about getting robbed or my children kidnapped.

[Max™]

Seen all but a handful of states, lived in three--not counting the month I slept under a church porch when I got stranded on MV--and let me say there are heartbreakingly gorgeous places in the US...


...and then there's the midwest: holy shit guys, is that ANOTHER corn field? WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

[Maximum Spin]

Eh. A parent saying something like that and then crying over money issues when the kid isn't around or has left the house, or quietly getting another job (or two, or pursuing any number of alternate income sources) when things get tight, or being on any number of anti-whatever medication, or so on, and so forth, is common enough to be a stereotype for a reason.

I'm sure it's common enough to be a stereotype, but it also definitively wasn't my home life. I realise nothing I say will make you not assume that, but I was actually paying attention and involved in my parents' finances, I saw their bank statements, I had my own bank account wherein I had saved over ten thousand dollars of my own personal money by the time I was 14. My mom had exactly one job that I was quite familiar with, knew the schedule, and visited several times. She still has that job, having had it since I was 6 or 7. Also she doesn't really believe in lying to children, especially since I've always been vocally against it. And as for medication, I couldn't convince her to get on medications for things she actually needed until just the last few years, because she's the kind of person who doesn't accept help, especially from doctors. You underestimate both my parents and me.

Extra set of hands can make a difference even if they're not bringing in more money.

I was a very helpful child, of course. I was raised well.

there's pretty close to precisely fuck all they (your mother included) can do if things go the sort of south they very easily can, if there's not someone (government, if it comes to it) able and willing to bail them out.

I mentioned the savings, right? My mom saved on average about half of every paycheck and taught me to do likewise. We had plenty of emergency buffer.

Sub 30k a year, one 300k medical bill the insurance company (you hopefully have) wiggles out of and you just flat lost the gross income of a decade plus, assuming you can find a way to cover it...

Medical costs are relatively cheap here compared to the national average, and also, excellent credit, even if it weren't for the savings.

you are very seriously one step from ruin in many, many, cases.

Sure, but, by my standards, those cases count as "bad with money". Living somewhere you can't afford, for example. And man, since we're discussing my childhood, if I told my mom about this conversation... She scoffs so hard when people say things like this.

You can still live pretty happily, if it comes down to it, but it's generally real damn contingent on luck or having some other source of aid. Nonexistent gods be with you, there's actually official support systems of one sort or another in your area that you can take advantage of if it happens, but... this is the US, and that ain't exactly a guarantee.

Good for y'all, such as it is. Decent school really does help, particularly if they're actually getting funded instead of being gutted by whatever bullshit the local conservatives have spearheaded this time.

you know they're not like that everywhere in the country, right
The (R) party are actually in charge in this area and you know what? The schools are fine, and they don't seem to have any problem with that.

Thaaat said, seems to be doing fine is... well, real easy to be wrong when the doors close and whatnot. Met more that a few dysfunctional as all hell, never mind the cases of actual abuse of one sort or another, families that looked just fine from a distance. People can put a fair bit more into appearances than they do into health, yeh, or just have stuff going on that's hard to notice without fairly close interaction.

Do you think I don't know that? But if they do have problems, well, that's not my problem. I don't know if all of them do well or not, I'm just saying I know that some do, and I know that they could.

... sure, which is why that was a somewhat oblique mention of specifically the worse off of suburban and urban areas, where lower cost housing can at times have the downside of having good reason to dodge the occasional bullet or make sure you got real good locks (or real bad ones, so it won't piss off whoever's decided to filch yer shit).

yeah if you try to break into a house here you'll probably get shot. If both parents work, by their kids.

Rural doesn't tend to have much open gun fighting or thievery anyone will talk about, just theft people don't talk about or report 'cause they know the folks involved

Again, this isn't "tight-knit farming community", this is a scattering of people separated by woods. There has actually been a spate of thefts of tools left outside along this road lately, which has been reported by several individuals (there are theories going around among the locals as to who is responsible, too), and the police also don't give a shit. Locking up your tools solves the problem. Of course I know that urban "projects" are usually pretty flimsy construction, but here breaking your way into a building is too much effort for these people to go to for such paltry gains, especially since you'll probably get shot by the kids.

domestic violence and/or homicide, and your occasional bit of effective or explicit suicide

sure but how is any of that my problem. And why are you lumping suicide with actual crimes? It's not a bad thing.

[misko27]

you are very seriously one step from ruin in many, many, cases.

Sure, but, by my standards, those cases count as "bad with money". Living somewhere you can't afford, for example. And man, since we're discussing my childhood,

Let me ask you something: how, given a person is one step from ruin, are they supposed to move somewhere cheaper? Regardless of how they got to that situation, when they are there, then what? Move, with the money they don't have?

I could go on, but screw that nonsense. This single point is enough to illustrate something quite important: being poor is expensive. A well-off person looks at the amount of money and says to themselves, "I can live on that!", but this presupposes certain conditions: education, good health, the ability to plan ahead for the situation (what precisely is one to do when they are merely born into poverty, like most people?). When you have initial money, you can afford to save: you can afford to look for bargains, for example. But what if someone simply doesn't not have the money to buy the more cost-efficient option due to an absolute lack of money? One is forced to take short-term cheaper options because they are the only option.

The question of poverty is not about saving money, it's about an absolute limit to your means. That there are simply somethings that are more than you can afford; the well-off read this as referring to luxuries, but don't realize it refers to necessities as well.

if I told my mom about this conversation... She scoffs so hard when people say things like this.

I swear to god when I read stuff like this...

I'm as capitalist as anyone else, and definitely more so than most members of the forum, but comments like that make me wonder if Reelya's Maoist insurgency is still recruiting.

[Maximum Spin]

Let me ask you something: how, given a person is one step from ruin, are they supposed to move somewhere cheaper? Regardless of how they got to that situation, when they are there, then what? Move, with the money they don't have?

They're not. When a person is one step from ruin, that person has already lost.

(what precisely is one to do when they are merely born into poverty, like most people?)

Then one is likely to suffer, I imagine. This is the world, as it is, as it should be, as it must always be.

[misko27]

But that's the thing! Losing is an end-state; but what happens if you're there? Then what? Are you just supposed to off yourself or something? No, you go on, stay lost forever, have children who are themselves already lost, etc.

And you can lose for reasons very much out of your hands. I was raised in this situation; my family ended up in it for only one reason: my father robbed my mother of everything and completely ruined her financially. For years we lived essentially off-the-grid: no ids, no bank accounts, nothing. We're better now, but only marginally.

What are people like myself supposed to do? And I do want to emphasize that even for all this, I'm still quite fortunate, at least in one respect: my mother's sister, who is quite wealthy and otherwise has nothing to do with us (which is an outgrowth of having nothing to do with my father, which is hard to fault), pays for my college tuition. Were it not for that, I don't even know what I'd be doing.

[Maximum Spin]

But that's the thing! Losing is an end-state; but what happens if you're there? Then what? Are you just supposed to off yourself or something?

shrug That's up to you. Everything is a choice. I don't recommend having children who are themselves already lost, though. Avoid that if possible.

What are people like myself supposed to do? And I do want to emphasize that even for all this, I'm still quite fortunate, at least in one respect: my mother's sister, who is quite wealthy and otherwise has nothing to do with us (which is an outgrowth of having nothing to do with my father, which is hard to fault), pays for my college tuition. Were it not for that, I don't even know what I'd be doing.

You can do whatever you want. Obviously not in the literal sense – some things you'd have to pay for, of course – but I mean there is nothing tying you to anything. You could join a street gang, or become an ascetic, or try to find a rich person to marry, or... I don't know, what do you want to do in your life? For me the choice is "live a relatively simple life in the woods", but I don't know what appeals to you. If you could move anywhere, where would you like to go? Have you tried asking your aunt to help you move somewhere? Or anyone else, for that matter? Hell, I'd take you in if I had room (actually, as a matter of fact, I'd like to build a cabin but the regulatory burden for that kind of thing in this state is D: ); you seem stable enough. To ask what you're supposed to do, though, is a very open-ended question.

[SalmonGod]

I don't recommend having children who are themselves already lost, though. Avoid that if possible.

I love when people say this.  Because the next step in this logic is only the wealthy should have children.  Social darwinism to a literal point.

It's especially delicious when those same people complain that millennials have no family values and are ruining the country by not having children.  Which they're not doing because they know can't afford it.

[Maximum Spin]

I love when people say this.  Because the next step in this logic is only the wealthy should have children.  Social darwinism to a literal point.

Yep. Yes it is.

Edit: Let me expand. Having children in such circumstances, and many others, is incredibly immoral, it's causing suffering for no reason, it's simply outright unforgiveable child abuse. We spay and neuter stray animals because we believe they deserve better lives than that, but apparently human children don't.

[deathpunch578]

...and then there's the midwest: holy shit guys, is that ANOTHER corn field? WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

hey you're wrong about the cornfields, illinois is just cornfields and chicago.

[MrRoboto75]

We spay and neuter stray animals because we believe they deserve better lives than that, but apparently human children don't.

We do that for the same reason people regularly butcher cats in DF.  We hate having stray cats everywhere.  Not because we think the cats "deserve" better or some moral bullshit.

[EnigmaticHat]

I love when people say this.  Because the next step in this logic is only the wealthy should have children.  Social darwinism to a literal point.

Yep. Yes it is.

Edit: Let me expand. Having children in such circumstances, and many others, is incredibly immoral, it's causing suffering for no reason, it's simply outright unforgiveable child abuse. We spay and neuter stray animals because we believe they deserve better lives than that, but apparently human children don't.

I could address this, or I could say, "we did this before.  It was awful."

[Maximum Spin]

Haha, I'm not saying spay and neuter the poor, it was a metaphor.

Mind you, I'm not saying don't, either. I'm neutral on the issue.

[MrRoboto75]

sounds like we have our first volunteer