If one paycheck is all that stands between half of the people and homelessness, can it really be called the “middle” class?
There was an article with a pretty compelling argument a while ago that basically said the true poverty line in the US is over 100.000$/year family income (when you look at what that number was originally supposed to measure). Below that you’re getting fucked left and right.
Every dollar a family earns between 40k and 100k makes them poorer, because it triggers benefit losses (like health care & child care) that exceed income gains.
So what the US reports as “the middle class” are actually the working poor
I was reading Michael Roberts’ blog the other day, and he pointed out something similar. The official calculations for inflation significantly understate it for various reasons. However, if you look at actual labor hours needed to cover the essentials of life, and you use the median income amount from 1950 (for the US), then that number comes out about $102k per year. Said another way, for a standard of living based on real life, to have the standard of the median American in 1950, you would need to earn over $100k today. But if you take that 1950 median income and just adjust it for official inflation, you only get to like $42k.
So I learned it this way:
Upper Class - can live a luxurious life without working at all, and even have domestic employees etc.
Middle Class - can live comfortably but only if they work
Lower class - cannot live comfortably even if they work, and can very easily end up homeless (no social safety net)
The dude who taught me this was my Sociology of Work teacher over twenty years ago.
Middle: in between homelessness and millionaires
Median class? Mode class?
Yeah cuz the lower class don’t get paid at all. Homelessness is rampant all over the states
It’s better to think of working, middle, and upper class in terms of how much of their income derives from labour vs capital.
Working class = majority of income from working.
Upper class = majority of income from owning capital, i.e. can afford not to work at all.
Middle = somewhat evenly split.
Traditionally working class was associated with “lower” jobs such as labourers, and those working cushy office jobs usually earnt a high enough income to accumulate enough capital to become middle or upper class.
This is more aligned with the British definition, where their “middle class” is more equivalent to the US “upper middle class.” Make no mistake though, with many jobs not paying enough to accumulate capital, professionals such as teachers, accountants, and nurses would firmly be considered working class, because they you know, need to work.
I mean, the “middle class” doesn’t usually refer to the poorest 50%. The Lower class has always been the majority, Middle a large minority, and Upper a vanishing minority.
is xi santa now?
isnt that a silver fox flying a plane backwards?
Hence why some of the US simply CAN’T protest. If they miss a single pay check-- or get fired for missing work-- they’re fucked. Insurance is also tired to work.
Financial slavery
it all started in the city of Wurms in the year 1000
Or get injured and end up with a bunch of medical bills. Or about any number of other things that can go off the rails.
get injured and end up with a bunch of medical bills
especially when having health insurance
The decoupling of employment and insurance needs to be possible
Fuck it. Chips on the table, china taking over america would be a net positive at this point. I’ve never bought into the “country bad because ideology different” bullshit we’re fed here in the us. As I can see from here, just about any other large nation assuming control would bring me everything I ask my government for as a default.
Trading late stage capitalism for mid stage capitalism and a pre-existing merger of state and corporate power doesn’t sound like a permanent fix. Also, deposing a strongman in favor a system that has reestablished it’s leadership as a strongman is not an improvement.
I think you underestimate the term “improvement”. Lossing two fingers instead of three is an improvement. 8inches from the ledge is better than 4inches from the ledge even if either measure isn’t even one whole step. If in never going to see best then I’ll take any better I can get.
Yeah but any invasion probably pushes half of the country over the edge before the war would be over.
I wouldn’t wanna risk death and destruction for a mere potential 4" further from the edge.
My dude, you’re on a federated platform. You don’t think you’re going to dodge being lumped in with all the political dissidents and “terrorists” when they run out of trans kids to gas? It’s literally a death risk either way, this way just means you get to watch tv until they get you.
I’m one of the trans
kidsadults, I’d be fucked anyways. Just wanted to illustrate that being invaded, if you welcome it or not, is usually a pretty rough affair.War is brutal, I don’t know if I would be willing to suffer through one, just for stuff to be slightly better afterwards, maybe. Provided I had the choice in the first place ofc.
A permanently better world is possible so why settle for a temporary better situation with little hope for further improvement? Why insist people have to lose fingers when no one losing fingers is achievable and not at all far fetched?
Because they’re moving there? No one said there should be no more progress?
That’s like insinuating that I refuse to lose weight because I can’t lose 60lbs today. I’m literally saying I will take any movement what so ever if it means movement.
It’s more like offering someone a weight loss pill that will work for a couple months and then make you gain more weight than you started with.
Sold. We just have to switch to a different pill before that two months is up. Literally 1% better is still better.
“Unless you’re creating an instant utopia you should not change to the status quo”
What part of creating a mixed capitalist society run by an authoritarian regime leads to an utopia on any time frame? Spell it out for me because history suggests it will end poorly.
See here for a possible solution to turning a global China into a sustainable hybrid of communism and capitalism: https://philosophyofbalance.com/blog/new-monarchy/
Gross
Been waiting over a year!
My dudes, you have nothing to lose but your Chains.
So, workers of the world need to unite?
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This is what happens when instead of material analysis you default to mainstream media to be honest about its geopolitical enemies.
No one is saying we’ll like it if China does bad shit in other countries, but they haven’t invaded anywhere in decades even when provoked. Meanwhile the US bombs a few countries a year, and launches a full on invasion every few years, not to mention the unilateral illegal sanctions they impose which kill over half a million people every year. When China does nearly a tiny fraction of that we can talk. In the meantime you’re just repeating western propaganda. China develops our countries, the US coups or invades them.
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IDK, maybe because they got like 800 million people out of poverty in ~40 years? Meanwhile, the USA just accepted 50 years ago that 10-15% of their population will be poor regardless of being the richest country by GDP in the world since before then.
Maybe.
Their first emperor is a fucking dragon.
Your first president is an ungrateful British colonist.
In what way is China an empire?
If you think China is worse than the US, you’re just admitting you don’t think the lives of non-Westerners matter.
China gets mad praise on Lemmy as long as you say US bad in the same sentence
Just keep working harder! It’ll trickle down!
What’s the context?
Source?
I’m not in/from the US. I haven’t been one paycheck away from homelessness since I was a student.
Enough savings to last half a year without income has always been a rule of thumb.
lol wtf
Not a meme, why you even post it? I forgot, we speak only politics here. USA USA USA!!!
Edit: if you don’t know what a meme is, don’t post.
It is a meme. It plays on the cultural idea that the West should rescue X or Y country (that they destroyed btw), jokingly mentioning that the living condition for US people is actually worst than that of a lot of third world countries. If you have any issues with the amount of memes regarding politics being posted, you can participate sharing non political memes.
So it’s politics, because one to understand it, needs to be into politics + not a meme.
Yes, you need to be into a topic regarding a meme to understand a meme. And again, it IS a meme, maybe you think a meme is an image with text on the top and the bottom. That’s not the definition of a meme, a meme can have many different forms.
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Lol. How dare those commies take over their own community…
Y’all have no idea what you’re asking for
Y’all have no idea what you’re asking for
I’ve got a pretty good idea: Death to America
You’re on lemmy.ml
This has always been a Tankie instance for people that hate the west but don’t have the balls to move to the countries they simp for.
