this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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So... what's currently happening and has always happened? The current average social security payment is $1800. Which isn't even enough for rent and bills in most places. There are a lot of old people that worked blue collar or service jobs, payed taxes their whole life, saved what they were told and could. But they retired at 65 and planned on dying at 75, the average life span. Now they're 80.
So here’s the thing- social security shouldn’t be your only source of income. That’s what savings are for. That’s what investments are for.
I’m not saying it’s great or I agree with it, but saving for retirement is something that should be a priority from the beginning
Ooh la la, look at Mr. Money Bags over here with extra cash to save for retirement.
If you go all the way to retirement age without ever saving a dime, there is some self reflection to be done
Not necessarily your fault. Some careers just don't pay anything, and some areas only ever have low paying jobs, and some people are disabled etc etc.
A lot of people are born poor, live poor, and die poor. Getting out is the exception.
Right?! All these people who think that there are just well paying jobs, that cover your expenses plus some, are just sitting there while we ignore them and choose to be poor.
I'm in my 40's going back to school again trying to do better. I've changed jobs roughly every 4-6yrs to get better pay and hours. I got stupid lucky to find 2 people to buy a house with right before the market went to shit. I'm making better money than ever in my life but still living the same. Gas, taxes, food kept a steady rise, along with the school loans I never made the promised income for (from the schools recruiters, career aids, etc) thus am still repaying.
Poor people aren't lazy. We're just poor.
Imma bet most of us are the kind of people that would never take advantage of someone else for our personal gain. Most old acquaintances I've met back up with who are doing much better off, I can't say that I would do what they did for it. I've been called things and scoffed at when I've said I have personal morals, and told how it interferes with making real money. Absolutely not saying anyone making good money isn't moral. It does narrow down the scope of opportunities though.
(Addressing the US because I live there) Even people with "middle class" incomes are living paycheck to paycheck these days. How can you contribute to a 401k when you can't even maintain a balance in your savings account? Let alone other investments, etc, even if you do know what you're doing with the various financial instruments.
The cost of living is beyond the pale right now anywhere in the US where you actually stand a chance at making decent money, so your choices are to A: suffer now under severe self-imposed austerity, saving a pittance for retirement knowing that you'll still almost certainly wind up destitute in old age, or B: enjoy your youth to the extremely limited degree that you're able to, have the odd nice coffee or dinner with friends, and then also still become destitute in old age.
Frankly, a huge percentage of the US population are simply fucked, and given the political landscape where you are given a choice between the "do nothing" party on the center right and the "eat the poor: serfdom now" party on the far right, you can't blame people for having absolutely zero hope. As for me, I'm extremely privileged to be a dual citizen of the UK/US so I'm going to be running back to Scotland as soon as humanly possible. Come what may, at least Scotland's position on poor people isn't to let them die on the streets like it is here.
I've long maintained that if every US citizen got to experience the basic social safety nets that even the UK provides, politicians would find themselves strung up by their intestines in short order. I think people here just really lack context as to how truly distopian this country is.
They've already normalized people living paycheck to paycheck. A lot of jobs are offering daily pay now, where you can pull out your wages from the previous day for a small surcharge. They're trying to normalize living shift to shift next.
Getting out may be an exception but self-defeating right away, like a lot of people in this thread, isn't the way to become the exception.
100% agree.
Exactly. Boomers spent all their money in the 80s and are now broke and surprisingly not dead yet. They should have saved more.