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How poor is the average American? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by Kushia@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I've been watching a few American TV shows and it blows my mind that they put up with such atrocious working terms and conditions.

One show was about a removal company where any damage at all, even not the workers fault, is taken out of their tips. There's no insurance from the multimillion dollar business. As they're not paid a living wage the guy on the show had examples of when he and his family went weeks with barely any income and this was considered normal?!

Another example was a cooking show where the prize was tickets to an NFL game. The lady who won explained that she'd be waiting in the car so her sons could experience their first live game, because she couldn't otherwise afford a ticket to go. They give tickets for football games away for free to people where I live for no reason at all..

Yet another example was where the workers got a $5k tip from their company and the reactions were as if this amount of money was even remotely life changing. It saddens me to think the average Americans life could be made so much better with such a relatively small amount of money and they don't unionize and demand far better. The company in question was on track to make a billion bloody dollars while their workers are on the poverty line and don't even have all their teeth?

It's not actually this bad and the average American lives a pretty good life like we're led to believe, right?

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[–] dingus@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I had roommates for a few years. It was seriously one of the worst times of my life. I have a bit of social anxiety, but I had absolutely no idea how bad it would get with roommates. My roommates were generally pretty friendly and left me alone, but I had an incredibly hard time working up the courage to leave my room to eat or even go to the freaking bathroom. I was so hungry all the time, but I couldn't eat because I was afraid they would see me. I started collecting non-perishable foods and kept them in my room so I wouldn't starve. I also had issues sleeping because I would stay up at night when they were asleep so I could eat. But then lack of enough sleep or food made me paranoid as fuck thinking ghosts were out to get me. I was seriously going insane.

I get that 99.999% of people aren't like this and don't have this issue. But some of us just do really poorly living with others. Once I was finally able to move out on my own, my life changed for the better.

[–] RBWells@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yes that sounds like a you problem, not a roommate problem. Like the above poster, I had roommates until I had a family, that's pretty standard in all places/times, living alone is an unusual situation. Glad you are able to accommodate your needed living situation though, for sure.

[–] dingus@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yeah, my roommates were pretty nice. I was just nutso.

I will say tbf to some people not wanting to have roommates, sometimes people really do end up having a shit situation where their roommate ends up being a shitty person. Those are difficult to navigate. I've known some people who had gotten themselves into that situation and it can be pretty tough.

I would say in general, people in the US seem to think you're a failure if you haven't moved out by 18. But really in many other countries, it's perfectly normal to live with your parents well into adulthood. If you have a good relationship with them, it shouldn't be seen as shameful to do that either.