Posted on 07/08/2016 8:29:44 PM PDT by dynachrome
Retailers have blamed the weather, slow job growth and millennials for their poor results this past year, but a new study claims that more than 20 percent of Americans are simply too poor to shop.
These 26 million Americans are juggling two to three jobs, earning just around $27,000 a year and supporting two to four children — and exist largely under the radar, according to America’s Research Group, which has been tracking consumer shopping trends since 1979.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
A few years ago, I was making $29k at a little gov-co job and it was just me.
I sort of lived a basic existence. $5 a gallon fuel didn’t help.
I am at about double that and at the end of the of it all, feels about the same. Inflation is the cruelest tax of all.
Hopefully it gets better for you after the fall election. The problem you have is the private insurance market is so small that many voters don’t know what kind of living hell one can be caught up in. I have coworkers and friends thank think it is a great backup plan if they lose their job or healthcare. They have no clue whats in store..
Well around here I know several people with big families who are struggling to pay their bills while working a low wage job. Of course when they planned their families they had great jobs working in the coal industry.
One of the guys I know has now let his house go back to the bank (no choice) while his wife and kids stay with her mom. He has ranged all over the tri-state looking for work. He finally found a job in his field (he is a certified electronics tech that works on controllers for mining equipment etc.) in Texas. He is down their now working and saving up to bring his family down but it is really sad because they have lots of family in the area they must leave.
See sometimes people get caught up in bullshit politics and lose their jobs not because they chose it. Obama destroyed the coal industry around here and it is going to take years for this area to recover.
You reach an age when you have most of the things you want in life, the only things left are taking trips. IF you have the income to do so. To many rely on just SS and didn’t put much or any money away for old age. Cost of living has increased, and spending on unnecessary items goes down. I am seeing people who never used a coupon in their lives using them and trying to figure out what product it applies to. Looking for more bargains for every day items, not just the Black Friday junk.
Roof over head, meds, food come first before any thing else. Those grocery store sales flyers are now the most looked at. And price matched if they can be. Gas points given for buying groceries is another. Kroger’s gives them, and they are twice the points on the weekend thru July 31, or they put gift cards at 4 times the gas points on sale. That is when we get eat out cards or Lowe’s for home improvement stuff. I shop Amazon with them because they are double the gas points, then get 1% cash back from Discover. Pay the bill in total at the end of the month.
Hubby just filled the Equinox for $.99 a gallon coming back home from Niagara Falls from visiting his 90 yr old brother who had a 40 yr old horse trample him and broke his hip. He won’t fly as he sets off all the bells and whistles because of metal in knee and shoulder. 2 nights in a reasonable motel, the rest spent at his brother’s visiting relations between the hospital visits. Also cheaper to drive than to fly even with the 2 motel stays.
Here in NJ one would struggle on three times $27K to raise a small family. My wife and I bring home far more than $27K, and for the most part we are “too poor to shop” for anything of consequence. A lot of no-frills foodstuffs, Wal-Mart shopping for groceries, etc. - but no major purchases (including vacation this year). We should have been living like this years ago, but few people understood how much the dollar would be de-valued back then.
If I worked for 1,000 tons of grain 10 years ago, today (even with annual raises) I’m working for 900 tons...
Actually my errands take longer. I now run to 3 different grocery stores for their weekly sales. And I found the cheapest gas along the way.
I’d have more to say if not for my employment, but two things:
$27k is more than enough to live on if you don’t have a mortgage or other debt, and if you don’t live in an area where the property tax is high;
$27k, with 2-4 kids at home, means you’re eligible for numerous govt benefits, including several hundred per month for the feeding of the children, and probably a thousand a year for heat, a free phone, 8hrs/day babysitting (public ed), free school lunch, subsidized housing...etc.
That income ($27k) falls below the WIC threshold requirement for a family of two, so your daughter may have some atypical disqualifying factor. A family with 2-4 children and $27k income is well below the threshold.
>so your for contraception or abortion?
How ‘bout just personal responsibility?
If one is so ‘poor’ to worry about shopping (I didn’t read what they defined that as...necessities vs. niceties), you don’t making ANOTHER mouth to feed.
You SURE as sh!t don’t go from 1 to 2-3+ and cry ‘Whoa is me’.
Holy SH!T this site has taken a dive recently, away from logic a/o our Constitution/Republic.
Kudos! But you missed a step!
Step #1: Uphold and follow our Constitution or finally do away with the charade we’ve had for the last 100+ yrs.
As for the ‘bleeding hearts’:
Write up the same story and cry me a river once the govt shrinks down to its rightful size and we start keeping our own $$ (ala 4/5/13th) and we *ALL* pay our share of the ACTUAL job govt was instituted (border-illegals/protect our Rights).
Breeders gonna breed & there’s *NEVER* been want of poor in the history of the world. You are more than welcome to give YOUR property away to those you deem. Don’t go thieving, by govt force, in my back pocket.
Let's give an example of how $27,000 income comes from three jobs (effectively the “worst case” from this article).
Job 1: Clerk at small grocery store $9/hr for 30 hours a week for 52 weeks. This provides a gross of $14,040.
Job 2: Work at a gas station for $10/hr for 15 hours a week. This provides a gross of $7,800.
Job 3: Work as wait staff on weekends for $7/hour for eight hours. This provides $2,912.
Total them up and you get $24,752 gross from three job worked 53 hours every week of the year.
I leave it as an exercise for the reader (you) to determine net after taxes, including 0care.
We have over 94 million Americans not working, and those working less skilled jobs are not employed full time most of the time. Large numbers of people have lost their better-paying jobs in their cities and rural communities and are making ends meet the best they can, in place. Their families and friends are all in these communities and serve as a much-needed social net, helping each other.
Those people who have 3-4 kids that you should be mad at are those working NO JOBS and getting by on welfare and money “on the side” that doesn't get counted as income for any official stats.
Think before you speak, Kit Cat. There is a reason Trump is appealing to so many, everywhere. Why diss your fellow Trump supporters?
I’m sorry, but you don’t know the circumstances of these people, plus, this is their net income.
Step out and get to know people in rural areas and you will see this “is possible.”
This is “very possible,” but “very difficult.”
Because they know that other taxpayers will help support them.
Took the grandson back to school shopping yesterday. Looked at a few items for myself and put them all back.....I don’t need that. lol
” ... Who works 3 jobs to make $13/hour for the given 8 hour work day? ... “
A whole bunch of folks do. And, there hasn’t been an 8 hour work day for anyone but tax-dollar check-takers for quite some time.
If you don’t get paid from tax dollars, you’re job prospects have been vanishing for years.
Lots of folks work FOR those who get a government check.
Roofer putting shingles on a Teacher’s house. Plumber adding a new sink for an LEO’s home. Car salesperson selling a new/used to a power/water/municipal employee. CPA/Accountant crunching numbers for a local town employee.
Many being put out of business by the Illegals they used to hire, many being put out of work by technology.
If you get a tax-dollar provided check, you make twice what the private sector makes with NONE of the risk.
The reality is, the economy has been in a death spiral for years.
Add in to the mix; some folks pay more than 75% of income for housing. Doesn’t leave much for anything else.
What I didn't do was knock up some harpy because I couldn't keep my pants on or think I needed a new car or television, furniture, etc. I even slept on the floor until someone gave me a bed.
And whether you go to college or not you need a marketable skill: plumber/electrician/construction/whatever takes more than 15 minutes to do. I am highly educated and do bleeding edge work, and while I am highly paid, I have family members in trades who are doing better than I am.
If you have a marketable skill, minimum wage is irrelevant.
One thing artificially high wages will do is drive automation to do unskilled labor. $10 an hour is $20K per year, and in many cases already you can purchase a robot that will do the work of five unskilled laborers for the cost of one that will itself last at least five years.
With that kind of economics, the minimum wage becomes irrelevant.
First, hussein killong the coal industry and then the slowdown in fracking. We are hurting bad.
That's a completely different thing than you said, which was about the poor having kids.
Also, given the manifest war against the middle class gy our government, it is rather obvious that they intend to make us all poor.
It is an unchristian thing to commit fornication and pump out kids without being married!
Granted, but that wasn't even implied in your post.
Hence the built in strain on our social nets upon a society given over to sin...our society either repents or it will be destroyed...generally by our own actions but let’s not forget what the bible says in terms of God raising up nations and throwing them down!
This is true.
However, I think some/most of it is being pushed on our society rather than being produced by it. A recent example would be the transgender/bathroom crap, another one would be ObamaCare, a third would be "homosexual marriage".
It's true that society hasn't gotten up in arms over these, but as our Declaration says: people tend to endure evils while they are bearable. — Even now we're still striving for peaceful resolutions to these injustices, for we know that the bloodshed route carries a heavy price.
And, also, we should remember that God is merciful, ready to forgive. (Remember Nineveh.)
“Colorado is a boom area”
The western slope is tanking. Huge influx of border crashers. No jobs.
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