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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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[–] axont@hexbear.net 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The aversion to housemates represents a breakdown in social trust in general, plus people are just more precarious. You've got to hope your housemates can pay rent when all of you hold tenuous employment. One person losing their job is a disaster for everyone else. One person moving out can also be a crisis.

I lived with housemates around 2010 to 2016 and it was a constant struggle to keep bills paid, plus we'd have to share vehicles and that was difficult since sometimes one of us would work nights, some of us days. Also revolving door of girlfriends/boyfriends who'd come in and eat our food or borrow cars.

Not great experiences. Honestly some fun times looking back on it all. Was nice to be around friends or do movie nights. But otherwise it was a struggle to keep together.

[–] Roopappy@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This may be unpopular to hear... but most of the justifications for not having roommates are like the ones in this thread. People say they can't have roommates because they have social anxiety or other people are just jerks.

To an older person it sounds like "My generation can't have roommates because we don't get along with other people, and they don't get along with us." That's not an economic problem.

It's actually far far more worrying than that. What happens to a generation that has no ability to coexist with other people? What happens to the world when they are in charge of it?

[–] axont@hexbear.net 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I do see it as an economic problem. Precarity is going to induce loneliness and tension. People are working more hours and there's simply less ability to connect. There are fewer "third spaces" (places outside of work or home) these days, so people have reduced capacity to develop bonds with one another. All of that is going to generate mistrust and lack of friendship among people.

Political tensions are high too, for instance, I would refuse to live with someone who expresses casual transphobic because I wouldn't trust them to be around me.

Furthermore this is a niche internet forum with a lot of nerds who have general social anxiety. Probably not a good cross section of a population.