<story><title>All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class</title><url>http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/white-working-class-poverty/424341/?utm_source=SFFB&amp;amp;single_page=true</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>746F7475</author><text>Completely off-topic, but whenever I see these amounts I feel like either I don&amp;#x27;t understand how U.S. economy works or I&amp;#x27;ve been living in poverty my whole life. I&amp;#x27;m recently graduated B.Sc in compsci and I&amp;#x27;m doing software testing and to me 30k&amp;#x2F;year is plenty. Like I have money to buy all kind of unnecessary stuff for my hobbies. Is 30k&amp;#x2F;year really low salary in U.S.? Or am I just being under paid? I always though my family was above middle class, but I guess we&amp;#x27;ve been under it or something...</text></item><item><author>randycupertino</author><text>I feel you.  My brother is a restaurant manager in the middle of Kansas making 30k a year.  And he is a smart guy who was a MATH MAJOR at a state school!  He could come out here and get a job at a startup and make 80k easily.  But he won&amp;#x27;t leave his inlaws family, so he&amp;#x27;s stuck in Kansas.&lt;p&gt;There is some strain and resentment in our relationship over our income differential, sure... especially when I want to complain that I&amp;#x27;ll never be able to afford a 1.4 million dollar house on the Peninsula because I only make 150k.  It&amp;#x27;s just pointless to even bring that up to him because I know I will come off as an ass.  However in some ways, he has it better than me.  He and his wife bought a nice 4 bedroom rancher on a half-acre lot with an inground pool for 120k-  which I will never ever be able to afford around here in my lifetime barring some unicorn ipo.</text></item><item><author>jurassic</author><text>This level of inequality makes me sad. Really sad. I know I can&amp;#x27;t be the only working stiff in the valley whose poor siblings and family think they are rich for earning in the $100-150k range. Nevermind that I can&amp;#x27;t afford to buy a house here. I can&amp;#x27;t enjoy my success because of the near-desperate financial situations I see my relatives enduring.&lt;p&gt;My sister gave me a $50 gift for christmas, and it brought tears to my eyes because she&amp;#x27;s a single mother making the federal minimum wage of $7.15&amp;#x2F;hr. That comes out to $290&amp;#x2F;wk, before taxes, if she&amp;#x27;s lucky and gets a full week&amp;#x27;s worth of hours. To earn that pittance, she is physically laboring and might have to work 7 days a week to get enough hours in the schedule.&lt;p&gt;It makes me feel like a douche every time I think about it. Me sitting there in my Aeron chair, eating free snacks while reading code. And making ~10x what she does. When I really think about it, from similar beginnings, only a relatively small number of key decisions separate our two economic outcomes.&lt;p&gt;I try to give generously to assuage my guilt. But I&amp;#x27;ve found that there are limits to what can be given without stirring resentment, or provoking attempts at reciprocity. That&amp;#x27;s how this $50 gift came about... I bought some nice stuff for her kid, and she wanted to show her gratitude.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bane</author><text>The U.S. economy is geographically spread out and &lt;i&gt;enormous&lt;/i&gt;. However, due to various historic reasons, the population is mostly focused at the coasts, and for other historic reasons, the north-west and north-eastern coastal areas are the wealthiest and densest. More people and more money means more demand and higher prices.&lt;p&gt;In the rest of the country, which is fairly sparse, you can find high standards of living, minus some of the extras you&amp;#x27;ll find in the rich, dense, coastal areas (extras usually in the form of various culture and activities). However, due to the lack of local demand, the prices are lower.&lt;p&gt;This creates hugely variable economic conditions on the order of the differences between London&amp;#x2F;Paris and Budapest.&lt;p&gt;Housing, like anywhere, dominates living expenses after taxes $30k&amp;#x2F;yr income looks more like $22k&amp;#x2F;yr. There are single bedroom apartments, not fantastic, but pretty nice, around where I live that are $2k+&amp;#x2F;mo. Now you have no money for food, transport, clothing, hobbies, etc. You can find cheaper places for around $1.5k+&amp;#x2F;mo (there are no housing options here under $1200) but that still leaves you pretty thin with $4k left to spread across the entire &lt;i&gt;year&lt;/i&gt; for other necessities.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, in Omaha, Nebraska, I found some comparable apartments at $500&amp;#x2F;mo. Which gives you a little more than $1k&amp;#x2F;mo for the rest of the year. You&amp;#x27;ll probably blow through half of that on food and half of that on car expenses (cheap housing in the U.S. implies almost no public transport options) and now you still have no money for savings or hobbies.&lt;p&gt;The median income in the U.S. is ~$54k&amp;#x2F;year (about the same as Europe but a hair higher). But that also means children, a couple income earners and so on.</text></comment>
<story><title>All Hollowed Out: The lonely poverty of America’s white working class</title><url>http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/white-working-class-poverty/424341/?utm_source=SFFB&amp;amp;single_page=true</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>746F7475</author><text>Completely off-topic, but whenever I see these amounts I feel like either I don&amp;#x27;t understand how U.S. economy works or I&amp;#x27;ve been living in poverty my whole life. I&amp;#x27;m recently graduated B.Sc in compsci and I&amp;#x27;m doing software testing and to me 30k&amp;#x2F;year is plenty. Like I have money to buy all kind of unnecessary stuff for my hobbies. Is 30k&amp;#x2F;year really low salary in U.S.? Or am I just being under paid? I always though my family was above middle class, but I guess we&amp;#x27;ve been under it or something...</text></item><item><author>randycupertino</author><text>I feel you.  My brother is a restaurant manager in the middle of Kansas making 30k a year.  And he is a smart guy who was a MATH MAJOR at a state school!  He could come out here and get a job at a startup and make 80k easily.  But he won&amp;#x27;t leave his inlaws family, so he&amp;#x27;s stuck in Kansas.&lt;p&gt;There is some strain and resentment in our relationship over our income differential, sure... especially when I want to complain that I&amp;#x27;ll never be able to afford a 1.4 million dollar house on the Peninsula because I only make 150k.  It&amp;#x27;s just pointless to even bring that up to him because I know I will come off as an ass.  However in some ways, he has it better than me.  He and his wife bought a nice 4 bedroom rancher on a half-acre lot with an inground pool for 120k-  which I will never ever be able to afford around here in my lifetime barring some unicorn ipo.</text></item><item><author>jurassic</author><text>This level of inequality makes me sad. Really sad. I know I can&amp;#x27;t be the only working stiff in the valley whose poor siblings and family think they are rich for earning in the $100-150k range. Nevermind that I can&amp;#x27;t afford to buy a house here. I can&amp;#x27;t enjoy my success because of the near-desperate financial situations I see my relatives enduring.&lt;p&gt;My sister gave me a $50 gift for christmas, and it brought tears to my eyes because she&amp;#x27;s a single mother making the federal minimum wage of $7.15&amp;#x2F;hr. That comes out to $290&amp;#x2F;wk, before taxes, if she&amp;#x27;s lucky and gets a full week&amp;#x27;s worth of hours. To earn that pittance, she is physically laboring and might have to work 7 days a week to get enough hours in the schedule.&lt;p&gt;It makes me feel like a douche every time I think about it. Me sitting there in my Aeron chair, eating free snacks while reading code. And making ~10x what she does. When I really think about it, from similar beginnings, only a relatively small number of key decisions separate our two economic outcomes.&lt;p&gt;I try to give generously to assuage my guilt. But I&amp;#x27;ve found that there are limits to what can be given without stirring resentment, or provoking attempts at reciprocity. That&amp;#x27;s how this $50 gift came about... I bought some nice stuff for her kid, and she wanted to show her gratitude.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjc50</author><text>Comparing salaries across countries and regions is hard if you compare at exchange rates. It&amp;#x27;s better to use &amp;quot;purchasing power parity&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;To a first approximation, how much house does your $30k income buy&amp;#x2F;rent you where you live?&lt;p&gt;(Even within the UK, I went from &amp;quot;choice of buying 2 bed flat or renting a 3 bed one&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;4 bed detached house&amp;quot; at the same salary by moving further away from London).</text></comment>