Almost 90M American Adults Struggle to Make Ends Meet, Census Says

[charliea0]

I’d be interested to see how this broke down by income decile. My impression is that spending usually expands to meet income. Americans have a lot of access to short-term credit and use that to cover unexpected expenses.

Unfortunately, it looks like a bunch of Americans end up carrying debt month to month.

[jandrewrogers]

There is a lot of elasticity in American expenses, per both US BLS and Federal Reserve studies. The percentage of households that struggle with necessary expenses is ~12%. That is still a large number but a lot more plausible. I would take “struggling to make ends meet” with a large grain of salt.

The 38.5% threshold in the article is perhaps not coincidentally right around the percentile where Americans have excess income even after accounting for all ordinary lifestyle expenses (iPhones, nice cars, etc). The median US household has ~$12,000/year in income leftover after all of these expenses.

[jart]

That's the elephant in the room. There's a lot of people who struggle to sustain a bourgeois lifestyle. However for every American like that, there's an immigrant living in an expensive city making minimum wage who somehow manages to send 50% of their income back to old country.

[slaw]

It is not that people are making not enough money. It is prices in US are insane, especially housing.

[simonsarris]

Why do you say especially housing in the US? The price-to-income ratio for the USA is actually better, often far better, than every OECD country. In other words, as bad as you think it is in the US, its worse pretty much everywhere else.

https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_count...

[web3-is-a-scam]

That’s the same thing.

[Dudester230518]

But why?

[friend_and_foe]

What do we expect? We demonize saving as "hoarding", talk about "stimulating the economy" by increasing spending, then in the next breath describe the exact same phenenon in negative terms when we talk about people living paycheck to paycheck.

We disincentivize saving systemically by debasing currency as a rule in order to disincentivize saving.

When the money is cheap the people and the culture become cheap.

[clipsy]

Turning arms and munitions that we’ve already manufactured and stockpiled back into money is surprisingly difficult.

[wilg]

Yeah, the government has to pay for multiple types of things. We also spend trillions a year in welfare and other programs to help Americans, in addition to expenses related to foreign policy.

[m3kw9]

Yeah Ukrainian aid helps America being number 1 and keeps your dollars stay afloat. Don’t read other people’s one liners, it does sound good but it makes no sense to America in many ways to not help them. If they cower and not do enough, it will mess them up long term as the worlds number 1 power

[joshocar]

Teachers are funded by local taxes, usually property taxes.

[vaidhy]

The truly sad part is that it is not one or the other. Inspite of all the talking points, govt can and does create money. The idea of a balanced budget is true for a business, not for the federal government. Obviously, there are side effects and you should not overdo it.

Majority of states do not want to pay people for work and that is why we are in this situation. WA recently hiked the pay for teachers and other states can also follow the same if they desire.

On the last note, most of that assistance went as equipment and armaments, not as cash.

[seanmcdirmid]

Aren’t your teachers paid locally? You might just live in a really bad state/or county, but the people vote for the local officials that align with their spending priorities.

[garciasn]

There are ~4MM teachers in the US. 117B / 4MM is around $30K. Will +$1,500 ($125) over 20 years help them make ends meet? How about $3,000 ($250/month) over a decade?

Maybe it will! But, maybe just maybe, you should be complaining to your local officials and fellow constituents who continue to shirk tax increases and levy approvals instead of HN.

[electic]

most of the federal budget is actually used for entitlement programs.

[kzrdude]

Military spending is also a "domestic jobs program" albeit I'm sure it's not as effective as alternatives where the material costs much less.

[okamiueru]

Why is it I see this comment so often? It makes absolutely no sense to me. The US is overspending on a lot of things, and teachers struggling is also due to a lot of things. Way, way down on that list, is actually money being spent to help out in Ukraine.

So, pardon my cynicism, but your type of comment seem to always trace down to foreign interest influence. Either be that Fox, Trump, or just straight up Russia.

Focus on wealth inequality, systematic racism, etc, instead of one of the few actually valid and commendable efforts by US foreign military involvement. Especially those that probably end up net benefitting domestic US interests.

I'd bet good money that you consume a lot of fox news. And, take this however your want. But, looking at the US from the outside, it truly is troubling because of the propaganda and lies that network spreads. It's doing what any opponent of the US could only dream of. And, I am sincere about this. I'm sure I might be suckered into it if roles were reversed.

[smileysteve]

Coincidentally, 1 US federal political party is opposed to both (even tax deductions for these teacher's expenses in favor of other tax deductions); while the other political party is in favor of both (even a child tax credit).

[quickthrowman]

The US Government contributes about 8% of public school funding, the rest comes from about half local and half state funding. Look to your state and local governments as to why teachers aren’t paid enough where you live.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_funding_in_the...

[superchroma]

Why are you writing here instead of writing an email to your political representative?