I'm not as bad off as this woman but the difference is irrelevant in the big picture as I won't survive either. I am in my 40s with no skills, a dead CV and the expectation that if I really wanted it I would just pull on my non existent bootstraps. Over a decade ago my life was ruined by medical mistakes. It cost me my career and everything I had worked for. It started a long road of being denied assistance from disability and other programs as I fell in every crack or got unfair adjudicators. I was not able to navigate the legal system for recompense as it was loaded on the side of the doctors despite common belief.
I survived this long on a partial pension from my job, a large savings since I lived frugally, and occasional assistance from others. My health has worsened, problems and needs have piled up, the occasional assistance has tricked off mostly, and I have no hope.
Most people ignore me, some give useless advice that makes them feel like they did something, and nothing changes. In the end it comes back to victim blaming and me not trying hard enough. People who have health, security, and lives and cannot imagine what it's like to live in so much pain and have no real options love to judge.
I have tried and considered all the usual advice like "learn to code" or "just do content writing" that comes along to disabled and isolated people. At my age and with the stability issues I have it's not realistic. People don't seem to get that. I should be getting assistance but this country doesn't do it like the rest of the first world so I am expected to suffer more just to stay alive in pain. I am moving abroad to a cheaper country to try and stretch my pension but I won't survive there either without earning and I cannot find any feasible way to earn that doesn't make things worse. Seeing people talk about people like me here in terms of "usefulness to society" enrages me. I served society...I did good in the world...that life was stolen and society rejected me. We are legion.
I don't know about anyone else here, but I'd like to hear your story.
I cant help you in any way, much to my own discredit, but if you want someone to speak to, or if you ever feel like sharing publicly, I'd be interested.
I don't give this advice often since for most people it's the "moving abroad" part that's the deal breaker, but since you mentioned you're doing it already, I'll throw out teaching english as a foreign language. Depending on the country/school you might need a small certificate from a month-long-type training course, or training from the school itself, but for the most part you just need to be able to speak English and have a heartbeat.
When I did it I met other teachers from every conceivable walk of life, some with a situation that sounds similar enough to yours. It's the most realistic way that someone down on their luck can "start fresh" in this day and age (IMO). Good luck.
I cannot find it in my heart to admire the people who comment here proscriptively, without any attempt to signal empathy. Its understood few of us (myself included) will be doing anything to ameliorate this situation, and that empathy signalling is at best chest beating, but I still find the lack of compassion in the responses chilling. Yes, not smoking would reduce health risks and spend. so what? If you haven't tried to survive on minimum wage, I am very unsure your critique of their behaviour, which is essentially poverty shaming: you are only poor because [lazy | stupid] forms of logic, adds anything. If you walk over a begger muttering "get a job" you deserve contempt.
If you hate America, vote capitalist, randean individualism.
No shit. The tricky thing with this kind of work is it has to be all cash-only, under the table. Best if nobody sees you doing it, which rules out a lot of the more legitimate kinds of side work - if you're supposed to be 80% disabled, it looks a little fishy when you're out cutting lawns or splitting firewood or caretaking... I grew up on the northern end of Appalachia, and huge numbers of people there supplement their income growing a little cash crop out in the woods - you had to be a little careful in places that you didn't blunder into a plantation when you were out deer hunting. I wonder whether the recent legalization pushes are putting a hurting on that front.
Not sure why this is an article. This is just normal life in many parts of rural America from Pennsylvania to Washington to Arizona.
When I lived in West Virginia, I did note that the Washington Post had a weird fascination with the place. Whenever things got slow, you could expect some big exposé about what a bunch of uneducated, dirty bumpkins we were.
WaPo even once held a contest to come up with a new slogan for West Virginia when it didn't like seeing "Almost Heaven" on the license plates. The winner was "Almost Haiti."
That is so depressing. No wonder suicide rates are up.
You know there's a difference between "give a man a fish" and "teach a man to fish", but what do you do when the fish are just gone?
It was mentioned in the article, but not extensively discussed. I think maybe the largest distinct segment of the economy in ex-coalcountry regions is now pharmaceuticals, legal and illegal. There's the legal root and mushroom hunting, which go into supplements, but a large fraction of the people are growing marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms, collecting sassafras root bark for MDMA cooks, and reselling their prescription opioids, in addition to the older traditions of moonshining and tobacco cigarette smuggling.
And everyone is on social security disability. If all you ever knew is coal mining, that's your condition that prevents you from finding gainful employment. If you need to see what happens with bare-bones basic income, that's it. The whole community barely scrapes along, and everyone has to do some niche hustle to earn their gas money a dime at a time. If you threw out the penalty for working, most of those people would be doing something productive, even if it's manufacturing ugly tchotchkes to be sold in a tourist trap, because whatever it is would give them beef in their stew instead of just barely enough gas in the tank to keep going.
I spent several years during and after university hitchhiking all around the world. After seeing most of Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa, I had a general idea of what kind of people are driving around during the day. And then I traveled across the USA .
It turns out that benefits cheats are a very distinct category there in a way they aren’t a thing in most other countries (even Canada). With so many of my drivers, conversations would go like this: "So, what do you do?" "I’m on disability.” "Are you disabled?" "No, but I fool the government into giving me a cheque". They had nothing better to do during the day than drive around, though I have no idea how how they could afford petrol.
> If you threw out the penalty for working...
Indeed, basic income might be a better solution. It would let people claim benefits and work. And people would no longer have to be lying and deceitful to get their money; the prevalence of that kind of behaviour must have some spiritual impact on the community and trust in government. On the other hand, unlike certain countries that heavily fund culture in rural areas so that perpetually unemployed people have libraries and theatres and regional chamber orchestras to spend their time at productively, people in the complete cultural vacuum described in the linked article would probably continue to act self-destructively even with basic income.
This is replicated all over the rust belt. One of the saddest portrayals of this is the photo essay, The Ruins of Detroit[1]. These once mighty economic engines have been silenced: manufacturing, coal, etc. What happens next is that the people who depend upon these industries to make a living, and live ... do less well of a job of this.
Some argue that unions would help (they wouldn't), or anti-globalism would stop factories/industries from moving (maybe temporarily). The sad fact remains that industries are, to a degree, tied to regions, and people grow up depending upon those industries in those regions. Once the industry finds a lower cost mechanism to come to market, those dependent people are cut free.
Its the short term, profit focused mindset and all it brings that is a huge part of the problem. Note that I am a staunch capitalist, and I see this.
I don't have a solution to this. I wish I did. None of the political parties have anything close to a solution for this. Giving money directly to people may help for a while, but is likely to spark inflation, which will cause this to repeat in a few years.
I remember one of the political parties crowing about how they saved the auto industry in Michigan during the last major financial crisis. Funny, as I live there, and I remember one of the people who lives in my sub whose business was destroyed by this "saving" thanks to many long held overdue invoices at one of the car company's being zeroed out, coming to my front door, with his son to ask for help. Food specifically.
Foolish policies that do not contemplate consequences for actions, apart from the groups that the politicos favor, help decimate regions like this. Coal is evil as I've heard. And the people who mine it? They are the ones now suffering because, you know, its evil, and coal must die.
Every decision, every policy has consequences. There are never any easy solutions.
One good thing about a true basic income is that there wouldn't be conditions for receiving it so it would significantly lessen the penalty for working legitimately (obviously there would still be tax reasons to have income you don't need to report). My hope for basic income is that by simplifying how we give aid it can take out much of the ridiculous bureaucracy of it but I'm obviously no expert
This was indeed a depressing article. It would be interesting to see the data around this phenomenon - how many instances of this are occurring now vs. 10-20-30-40 years ago? Surely globalism is having some measurable impact on the capability of rural populations to find work and make a living. Curious about other factors as well.
That's a good point. I grew up poor as fuck, and there's a huge set of rules which incentivize poverty. For instance, if the family makes more than a certain amount, you lose health care.
So you wind up in a situation where you're basically discouraged from working.
I remember going to the dentist when I turned 18, and I was stunned to see the bill. I'd never seen a medical bill in my entire life.
Back in '07 got laid off. Company shut down. Lots of us tried to scramble to get jobs, and all the quick low paying jobs filled up. I got into unemployment and started collecting the $207/week. And this, obviously, wasn't enough. It certainly didn't equal to the part that was taken out of my paycheck for "unemployment insurance".
2 weeks turned into a month. Which turned into months, then into a year. Then the '08 recession hit. I saw people with graduate science degrees working at McDonalds. There was no fucking way I could get a job, even with blanketing my resumes and filling out webforms that are never responded (Thank you for submitting your application. You will never hear from us).
And im still struggling with the $207/week. So I start hustling on craigslist, doing odd jobs. Of course I'm supposed to report this. Well, guess what.... I used this money to relocate myself to a better location, and got a job.
Ideally, if you make 1$ on unemployment, you are supposed to report it, and you get $1 less. And if you do work a low paying job, then you get worked to the bone for 30 hours, and get minimum wage which is $187 after taxes. And minus gas, minus lunch, and too tired to look elsewhere. So you hold out for a better one that can get you out of the hole.
Yeah, it's just a bad situation all around. And it turns everyone into criminals.
>because disability payments on average amount to less than minimum wage, sometimes much less, ...
Why is this? How are these people expected to survive, if they are disabled to the point that they can't hold down a job, and aren't allowed to work without the risk of losing their disability payments? Busking? I know that's been one traditional job for disabled people over the centuries, but I feel like we should be able to do better.
The real shame in the article is that rent of $300 per month is being charged on an unimproved 10x20 shed, which you can buy for under $5k almost anywhere in rural and suburban areas.
Who set up that deal? How did they get a certificate of occupancy without a toilet?
> I made an account just to comment on this issue after lurking for a long time but it's surely just another pointless action because it's the same story over and over. Empathy is not common.
Three (at this time) comments that seem to be very relevant to this topic and discussion, yet all [dead].
> Most people ignore me, some give useless advice that makes them feel like they did something, and nothing changes.
If the comments are [dead] but not [flagged][dead], the account is banned. If a past commenter has been egregious enough, the mods will ban not only the main account but also put in some checks to prevent a user from creating new accounts to otherwise circumvent the ban--comments from such new accounts are also marked [dead]. As others have pointed out, if the comments are worthwhile, they can be vouched. There are differing opinions on this method of banning, but it does allow comments to be vouched for.
(edit: I finished it,as I should have the first time. Not that i change my point of view though) <s>I couldn't finish the article, not because it was too heartbreaking, but because of the stupidity of the author.</s>
..."went to the already-crowded Dollar Store and Dollar General and bought dog food, dog treats, Slim Jims, three six-packs of Milwaukee’s Best, pruners for digging roots and a backpack to carry it all."
I have been on the poverty line, I'm damn close to being there again. You have money for dog food and beer? Also earlier noted in the article smoking.
I'm not sorry to say, fucking pull your head in.
I have had to grow my own vegetables and cut lawns to feed my family (when I was 14!), None of us had money to mnoke, drink or have pets.
Oh you spent your day digging up roots? Why not plant something then?(if you're already stealing from public land, why not at least try and utilise it somehow?)
“I worked underground until I started having anxiety and I couldn’t stand to go back underground,”, I sure hope that doesn't deserve a disability payment, there are many more deserving than that. Shit I don't like underground either, doesn't mean I'm disabled, just means that I don't like the idea of that much mass over my head. I can still do other work.
My opinion on this piece is that the author was trying to pull heart strings without actually being objective.
>Oh you spent your day digging up roots? Why not lant something then?
I'm just guessing but the author may be referring to ginseng roots, which my low-income friends occasionally collect here in Appalachia. They could make hundreds of dollars in a single day.
Planted ginseng takes 2+ years until you can harvest it. I asked them about planting/cultivating, which they said wasn't really viable but they did try to harvest the wild ginseng in a sustainable way.
Your opinion is BS, because you didn't RTFA, at best you skimmed it. How about the part where the woman is a heart patient who had a quadruple bypass? And you're arguing about $20 for dog food and beer, but ignoring the fact that half her meager income is spent renting a shed?
The bottom line is that, if the people in the article were mentally and physically able to do what they needed to do to get out of poverty, they probably would have done so already. But they aren't so they're stuck trying and failing to meet very basic needs.
So to the downvoters, do you actually have a logical response, or just a knee jerk reaction?
I have been there, I grew up not knowing where each meal was coming from. I have lived next to and interacted with people who can't make logical decisions about what to do.
I have seen people pull themselves from there, to actually attain something worthwhile, (I'd like to believe I am one of those people), and I have seen and interacted with those who will use any excuse to avoid actually working, or bettering themselves.
So again, would you like to have a discussion about it? I'm more than willing.
I am disappointed about the downvotes without a good reason though, this is why we come to hn after all.
It reminds me of this incredible HBO documentary from 2009 chronicling the daily life of a (pretty crazy) rural family called "The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia":
Logan County, West Virginia, where this article is set, voted 80% in favor of Trump, giving him 10,000 additional votes. [1] The entire state of West Virginia went to Trump.
If Democrats want to change the current political landscape in this country, they might start by addressing some of these peoples' problems while they're campaigning on everyone else's problems too.
Trump (and conservatives) aren't going to do a thing for these people, but at least they mentioned them.
> Trump (and conservatives) aren't going to do a thing for these people, but at least they mentioned them.
One of Trump's campaign promises was to cut back environmental and business regulations and get the coal industry rolling again. He actually did pull out of the Paris climate accord.
Is this the right approach? Will Trump's actions help these communities? I'm not sure. But it's simply not true that he's doing nothing about the issue.
Clinton did campaign on a jobs and retraining program specifically for these people. But how can you compete with someone saying they'll hand-wave away your problems and return your old way of life?
> She lit a home-rolled cigarette and, getting to work with a mattock, tried to ignore the weather. She had lately been telling herself that she had to stop taking these risks. They were more than an hour from the nearest hospital, and what if she had another heart attack?
Yeah...she seems to be ignoring the heart-attack risk she is pumping into her lungs while she says that. I get that it's an addiction that is hard to kick, but come on. If you've already had quintuple bypass surgery, maybe it's time to give up smoking?
So why can't we invest enough time and money in these people to make them engineers and technicians? Then they might be able to start shops that make and distribute the tourist trinkets mentioned by another poster. Why is the only solution that a large company that someone else creates moves in and provides low skill jobs?
Have you personally ever tried to train a low skilled laborer into something they have little to no experience in or desire to do?
This is the same argument that I've heard from people (mainly young tech workers) that losing 1.5M truck drivers will just require "re-training". The reality that we can simple "turn a knob" and re-train people is extremely myopic.
What makes you think these people wouldn't already have jobs as engineers and technicians if they were capable of that? It even mentions in the article that the one lady lives down the road from her nephew who has a nice house with trucks and a boat. He was pulling down 100k at a coal related job, that might mean in a labor role but there's a good chance he's the type of person you're talking about; someone capable of filling a sort of lower-level engineer/technician role.
Edit: That's not to say there aren't a few capable folks that fell on rough times or came from a rough background and never quite got a good enough opportunity to make something of themselves. Certainly it would be nice to have programs to help those folks reach the full extent of their capabilities. But that's definitely not a solution for the broad majority of people in this situation.
I have been trying to find a way to earn and live remotely for a long time amidst constant instability, more medical issues, more costs, and people in general making it worse. Vocational rehab programs are a joke. Despite common belief "everyone" isn't on disability in America and many like myself are in fact rejected. I have no health coverage. No safety. I am expected to do things I cannot do just to live or create some business or job from the ether but nobody can say how except flighty nonsense like "so and so's son makes Android apps and is successful" as if that means its as simple as "learning and doing that" while totally ignoring survivorship bias, my age, my lack of resources or all of the other relevant and real issues.. I am close to giving up on life entirely as I am so far down and have no feasible plan.
the trinket economy is a race the bottom. if you get a high enough profile or successful design suddenly shipping containers start arriving filled with nearly exact copies for 1/50th of what you were charging.
and what you were charging was almost $5/hr for your labor. maybe more if you can invest in capitol equipment like a water jet.
skilled technical labor (machinist, welder, cabinetry, jewelry, etc) isn't much of a growth industry either. but people are still hiring if you already have experience
smt rework is a thing, but that seems like its inherently limited in volume.
i think its pretty tough for someone in a garage to make it work..if anyone has any ideas though..
Imagine if you as a programmer suddenly woke up at age 30 to find programming as a career was dead due to AI. The government is willing to invest time and money...into you retraining as a professional juggler, in the hope you would start your own street performing job, because the wave of the future is tourist performances.
Juggling was the farthest thing from your mind growing up, and you aren't particularly talented or skilled in manual dexterity. So for you to try to be one, you need to put in a LOT of effort, and it may be for something that you aren't good at, and will lose the few permanent positions as a employed juggler to some kid at age 20 who has made juggling his whole life and has the talent for it. You might also need to accept that you might be a contract juggler even if you do manage to retrain, and that it might all be wasted because you might be too old to be hired, or that they taught you to juggle pins when you needed to constantly update your repertoire and juggle chainsaws.
This is what retraining for STEM looks like for someone who has never considered it. Most programmers never really get that they in essence like juggling, and that's what enabled them to do their career...there is so much winnowing out even at the college level that STEM has selected for people who not only like STEM and have a lot of talent for it, they willing spend their off time working on STEM related stuff, often for free. If you don't have that powerful motivation from a young age, and need to learn or retrain for it, it's a lot grimmer, even if you are intelligent or successful in other areas. I use juggling because for most people, it's probably about as hard to be a professional at as computing is for non-STEM inclined.
The article indicates that at least some of the people doing this are well below any normal education level; and in fact, some are below functional mental health levels.
This would need to be an education process beginning with encouraging birth control + providing quality education for the children who are born in these regions... and providing enough family financial support so the children didn't have to quit school early just to help their parents survive.
Re-skilling is a great solution for any one person when their coal job went away. You don't see pictures of those people in articles about American poverty.
Re-skilling the entire mid-west is impossible. Jobs are currently a game of musical chairs. There isn't room in our economy for 15 million engineers, technicians, and shopowners.
It takes years and a huge amount of money to train a skilled worker, all of that on top of the drive needed from the worker in question. Once you're north of 30-40 with no real skills, you're up shit creek.
[+] [-] hestipod|8 years ago|reply
I survived this long on a partial pension from my job, a large savings since I lived frugally, and occasional assistance from others. My health has worsened, problems and needs have piled up, the occasional assistance has tricked off mostly, and I have no hope.
Most people ignore me, some give useless advice that makes them feel like they did something, and nothing changes. In the end it comes back to victim blaming and me not trying hard enough. People who have health, security, and lives and cannot imagine what it's like to live in so much pain and have no real options love to judge.
I have tried and considered all the usual advice like "learn to code" or "just do content writing" that comes along to disabled and isolated people. At my age and with the stability issues I have it's not realistic. People don't seem to get that. I should be getting assistance but this country doesn't do it like the rest of the first world so I am expected to suffer more just to stay alive in pain. I am moving abroad to a cheaper country to try and stretch my pension but I won't survive there either without earning and I cannot find any feasible way to earn that doesn't make things worse. Seeing people talk about people like me here in terms of "usefulness to society" enrages me. I served society...I did good in the world...that life was stolen and society rejected me. We are legion.
[+] [-] marak830|8 years ago|reply
I cant help you in any way, much to my own discredit, but if you want someone to speak to, or if you ever feel like sharing publicly, I'd be interested.
Side note, where are you moving to?
[+] [-] dougk16|8 years ago|reply
When I did it I met other teachers from every conceivable walk of life, some with a situation that sounds similar enough to yours. It's the most realistic way that someone down on their luck can "start fresh" in this day and age (IMO). Good luck.
[+] [-] ggm|8 years ago|reply
If you hate America, vote capitalist, randean individualism.
[+] [-] megaman22|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reaperducer|8 years ago|reply
When I lived in West Virginia, I did note that the Washington Post had a weird fascination with the place. Whenever things got slow, you could expect some big exposé about what a bunch of uneducated, dirty bumpkins we were.
WaPo even once held a contest to come up with a new slogan for West Virginia when it didn't like seeing "Almost Heaven" on the license plates. The winner was "Almost Haiti."
[+] [-] acdanger|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|8 years ago|reply
Plenty of people have no idea that there are people living like this in America.
[+] [-] oftenwrong|8 years ago|reply
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/12/6/best-of-2016-s...
https://granolashotgun.com/2016/08/15/suburban-poverty/
https://granolashotgun.com/2015/03/30/affordable-housing-mau...
https://granolashotgun.com/2017/08/04/the-precariat-shoppe/
[+] [-] logfromblammo|8 years ago|reply
You know there's a difference between "give a man a fish" and "teach a man to fish", but what do you do when the fish are just gone?
It was mentioned in the article, but not extensively discussed. I think maybe the largest distinct segment of the economy in ex-coalcountry regions is now pharmaceuticals, legal and illegal. There's the legal root and mushroom hunting, which go into supplements, but a large fraction of the people are growing marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms, collecting sassafras root bark for MDMA cooks, and reselling their prescription opioids, in addition to the older traditions of moonshining and tobacco cigarette smuggling.
And everyone is on social security disability. If all you ever knew is coal mining, that's your condition that prevents you from finding gainful employment. If you need to see what happens with bare-bones basic income, that's it. The whole community barely scrapes along, and everyone has to do some niche hustle to earn their gas money a dime at a time. If you threw out the penalty for working, most of those people would be doing something productive, even if it's manufacturing ugly tchotchkes to be sold in a tourist trap, because whatever it is would give them beef in their stew instead of just barely enough gas in the tank to keep going.
[+] [-] Mediterraneo10|8 years ago|reply
I spent several years during and after university hitchhiking all around the world. After seeing most of Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa, I had a general idea of what kind of people are driving around during the day. And then I traveled across the USA .
It turns out that benefits cheats are a very distinct category there in a way they aren’t a thing in most other countries (even Canada). With so many of my drivers, conversations would go like this: "So, what do you do?" "I’m on disability.” "Are you disabled?" "No, but I fool the government into giving me a cheque". They had nothing better to do during the day than drive around, though I have no idea how how they could afford petrol.
> If you threw out the penalty for working...
Indeed, basic income might be a better solution. It would let people claim benefits and work. And people would no longer have to be lying and deceitful to get their money; the prevalence of that kind of behaviour must have some spiritual impact on the community and trust in government. On the other hand, unlike certain countries that heavily fund culture in rural areas so that perpetually unemployed people have libraries and theatres and regional chamber orchestras to spend their time at productively, people in the complete cultural vacuum described in the linked article would probably continue to act self-destructively even with basic income.
[+] [-] hpcjoe|8 years ago|reply
Some argue that unions would help (they wouldn't), or anti-globalism would stop factories/industries from moving (maybe temporarily). The sad fact remains that industries are, to a degree, tied to regions, and people grow up depending upon those industries in those regions. Once the industry finds a lower cost mechanism to come to market, those dependent people are cut free.
Its the short term, profit focused mindset and all it brings that is a huge part of the problem. Note that I am a staunch capitalist, and I see this.
I don't have a solution to this. I wish I did. None of the political parties have anything close to a solution for this. Giving money directly to people may help for a while, but is likely to spark inflation, which will cause this to repeat in a few years.
I remember one of the political parties crowing about how they saved the auto industry in Michigan during the last major financial crisis. Funny, as I live there, and I remember one of the people who lives in my sub whose business was destroyed by this "saving" thanks to many long held overdue invoices at one of the car company's being zeroed out, coming to my front door, with his son to ask for help. Food specifically.
Foolish policies that do not contemplate consequences for actions, apart from the groups that the politicos favor, help decimate regions like this. Coal is evil as I've heard. And the people who mine it? They are the ones now suffering because, you know, its evil, and coal must die.
Every decision, every policy has consequences. There are never any easy solutions.
(edits to correct spelling/punctuation errors)
[1] http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit
[+] [-] tdb7893|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rgrieselhuber|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnvanommen|8 years ago|reply
So you wind up in a situation where you're basically discouraged from working.
I remember going to the dentist when I turned 18, and I was stunned to see the bill. I'd never seen a medical bill in my entire life.
[+] [-] ams6110|8 years ago|reply
Move to where the fish are. The economy isn't terrible everywhere.
[+] [-] mmirate|8 years ago|reply
Why can they not expand their knowledge?
And if they truly cannot, then ...
What productive purpose can we possibly expect them to have? Or in other words: why should we evaluate them as non-negligible?
[+] [-] occultist_throw|8 years ago|reply
Back in '07 got laid off. Company shut down. Lots of us tried to scramble to get jobs, and all the quick low paying jobs filled up. I got into unemployment and started collecting the $207/week. And this, obviously, wasn't enough. It certainly didn't equal to the part that was taken out of my paycheck for "unemployment insurance".
2 weeks turned into a month. Which turned into months, then into a year. Then the '08 recession hit. I saw people with graduate science degrees working at McDonalds. There was no fucking way I could get a job, even with blanketing my resumes and filling out webforms that are never responded (Thank you for submitting your application. You will never hear from us).
And im still struggling with the $207/week. So I start hustling on craigslist, doing odd jobs. Of course I'm supposed to report this. Well, guess what.... I used this money to relocate myself to a better location, and got a job.
Ideally, if you make 1$ on unemployment, you are supposed to report it, and you get $1 less. And if you do work a low paying job, then you get worked to the bone for 30 hours, and get minimum wage which is $187 after taxes. And minus gas, minus lunch, and too tired to look elsewhere. So you hold out for a better one that can get you out of the hole.
Yeah, it's just a bad situation all around. And it turns everyone into criminals.
[+] [-] leggomylibro|8 years ago|reply
Why is this? How are these people expected to survive, if they are disabled to the point that they can't hold down a job, and aren't allowed to work without the risk of losing their disability payments? Busking? I know that's been one traditional job for disabled people over the centuries, but I feel like we should be able to do better.
[+] [-] patrickg_zill|8 years ago|reply
Who set up that deal? How did they get a certificate of occupancy without a toilet?
[+] [-] Diederich|8 years ago|reply
Consider this person: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=hestipod
> I made an account just to comment on this issue after lurking for a long time but it's surely just another pointless action because it's the same story over and over. Empathy is not common.
Three (at this time) comments that seem to be very relevant to this topic and discussion, yet all [dead].
> Most people ignore me, some give useless advice that makes them feel like they did something, and nothing changes.
Indeed.
[+] [-] grzm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbaker|8 years ago|reply
I find that this is a good balance to keep the well-written comments that add to the discussion and deserve a second chance.
[+] [-] bittercynic|8 years ago|reply
I thought all three were well-written and illuminating.
[+] [-] marak830|8 years ago|reply
..."went to the already-crowded Dollar Store and Dollar General and bought dog food, dog treats, Slim Jims, three six-packs of Milwaukee’s Best, pruners for digging roots and a backpack to carry it all."
I have been on the poverty line, I'm damn close to being there again. You have money for dog food and beer? Also earlier noted in the article smoking.
I'm not sorry to say, fucking pull your head in.
I have had to grow my own vegetables and cut lawns to feed my family (when I was 14!), None of us had money to mnoke, drink or have pets.
Oh you spent your day digging up roots? Why not plant something then?(if you're already stealing from public land, why not at least try and utilise it somehow?)
“I worked underground until I started having anxiety and I couldn’t stand to go back underground,”, I sure hope that doesn't deserve a disability payment, there are many more deserving than that. Shit I don't like underground either, doesn't mean I'm disabled, just means that I don't like the idea of that much mass over my head. I can still do other work.
My opinion on this piece is that the author was trying to pull heart strings without actually being objective.
[+] [-] bcook|8 years ago|reply
I'm just guessing but the author may be referring to ginseng roots, which my low-income friends occasionally collect here in Appalachia. They could make hundreds of dollars in a single day.
Planted ginseng takes 2+ years until you can harvest it. I asked them about planting/cultivating, which they said wasn't really viable but they did try to harvest the wild ginseng in a sustainable way.
[+] [-] nikdaheratik|8 years ago|reply
The bottom line is that, if the people in the article were mentally and physically able to do what they needed to do to get out of poverty, they probably would have done so already. But they aren't so they're stuck trying and failing to meet very basic needs.
[+] [-] marak830|8 years ago|reply
I have been there, I grew up not knowing where each meal was coming from. I have lived next to and interacted with people who can't make logical decisions about what to do.
I have seen people pull themselves from there, to actually attain something worthwhile, (I'd like to believe I am one of those people), and I have seen and interacted with those who will use any excuse to avoid actually working, or bettering themselves.
So again, would you like to have a discussion about it? I'm more than willing.
I am disappointed about the downvotes without a good reason though, this is why we come to hn after all.
[+] [-] retromario|8 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQBiXDNVeSA
[+] [-] spitfire|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thaumaturgy|8 years ago|reply
If Democrats want to change the current political landscape in this country, they might start by addressing some of these peoples' problems while they're campaigning on everyone else's problems too.
Trump (and conservatives) aren't going to do a thing for these people, but at least they mentioned them.
[1]: http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/...
[+] [-] csense|8 years ago|reply
One of Trump's campaign promises was to cut back environmental and business regulations and get the coal industry rolling again. He actually did pull out of the Paris climate accord.
Is this the right approach? Will Trump's actions help these communities? I'm not sure. But it's simply not true that he's doing nothing about the issue.
[+] [-] 549362-30499|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amigoingtodie|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noworld|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] 24gttghh|8 years ago|reply
Yeah...she seems to be ignoring the heart-attack risk she is pumping into her lungs while she says that. I get that it's an addiction that is hard to kick, but come on. If you've already had quintuple bypass surgery, maybe it's time to give up smoking?
[+] [-] cyberpunk0|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] vmarshall23|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forkandwait|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbesto|8 years ago|reply
This is the same argument that I've heard from people (mainly young tech workers) that losing 1.5M truck drivers will just require "re-training". The reality that we can simple "turn a knob" and re-train people is extremely myopic.
[+] [-] gph|8 years ago|reply
Edit: That's not to say there aren't a few capable folks that fell on rough times or came from a rough background and never quite got a good enough opportunity to make something of themselves. Certainly it would be nice to have programs to help those folks reach the full extent of their capabilities. But that's definitely not a solution for the broad majority of people in this situation.
[+] [-] hestipod|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] convolvatron|8 years ago|reply
and what you were charging was almost $5/hr for your labor. maybe more if you can invest in capitol equipment like a water jet.
skilled technical labor (machinist, welder, cabinetry, jewelry, etc) isn't much of a growth industry either. but people are still hiring if you already have experience
smt rework is a thing, but that seems like its inherently limited in volume.
i think its pretty tough for someone in a garage to make it work..if anyone has any ideas though..
[+] [-] Noos|8 years ago|reply
Juggling was the farthest thing from your mind growing up, and you aren't particularly talented or skilled in manual dexterity. So for you to try to be one, you need to put in a LOT of effort, and it may be for something that you aren't good at, and will lose the few permanent positions as a employed juggler to some kid at age 20 who has made juggling his whole life and has the talent for it. You might also need to accept that you might be a contract juggler even if you do manage to retrain, and that it might all be wasted because you might be too old to be hired, or that they taught you to juggle pins when you needed to constantly update your repertoire and juggle chainsaws.
This is what retraining for STEM looks like for someone who has never considered it. Most programmers never really get that they in essence like juggling, and that's what enabled them to do their career...there is so much winnowing out even at the college level that STEM has selected for people who not only like STEM and have a lot of talent for it, they willing spend their off time working on STEM related stuff, often for free. If you don't have that powerful motivation from a young age, and need to learn or retrain for it, it's a lot grimmer, even if you are intelligent or successful in other areas. I use juggling because for most people, it's probably about as hard to be a professional at as computing is for non-STEM inclined.
[+] [-] blunte|8 years ago|reply
This would need to be an education process beginning with encouraging birth control + providing quality education for the children who are born in these regions... and providing enough family financial support so the children didn't have to quit school early just to help their parents survive.
[+] [-] smt88|8 years ago|reply
Oftentimes, the problem is age. Older people just finishing training still won't get a job.
Other times, the problem is that they refuse to relocate to another part of the country to get the job they trained for.
It sounds great in theory, but it requires a lot of flexibility that not everyone can have.
[+] [-] vkou|8 years ago|reply
Re-skilling the entire mid-west is impossible. Jobs are currently a game of musical chairs. There isn't room in our economy for 15 million engineers, technicians, and shopowners.
[+] [-] seabird|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway98vs|8 years ago|reply