Posted on 08/28/2018 6:39:27 AM PDT by EdnaMode
Four in 10 Americans are struggling to pay for their basic needs such as groceries or housing, a problem even middle-class households confront, according to a new study from the Urban Institute.
Despite the U.S. economy being near full employment, 39.4 percent of adults between 18 and 64 years old said they experienced at least one type of material hardship in 2017, according to the study, which surveyed more than 7,500 adults about whether they had trouble paying for housing, utilities, food or health care.
The findings surprised researchers at the Urban Institute, who had expected to find high levels of hardship among poor Americans but hadn't predicted so many middle-class families would also struggle to meet their basic needs. That may illustrate that a middle-class income "is no guarantee" of protection from hardship, said Michael Karpman, research associate at the Urban Institute's health Policy Center and a co-author of the report.
Against the backdrop of President Donald Trump's boasting about low unemployment and strong economic growth, the research adds nuance to the problems facing American families. Middle-class households tend to struggle with paying their health care bills rather than utilities, for instance. Health care costs have outpaced wages and inflation, pushing more Americans into high-deductible plans, which can backfire when serious health problems arise.
"A lot of people are looking at the fact that wages aren't keeping up with household costs as one reason families are having difficulty making ends meet," Karpman said. "Even for families with health insurance, they may be facing high deductibles that leave them facing high costs."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Golly! Things were so much better under Obama ... right??
1 In 2 Working Americans Make Less Than $30,000 A Year
https://dailycaller.com/2015/10/25/1-in-2-working-americans-make-less-than-30000-a-year/
More Than Half of U.S. Wage Earners Make Under $30,000 a Year, According to a Shocking New Report
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/more-than-half-of-u-s-wage-earners-make-under-30000-a-year-according-to-a-shocking-new-report/
I think you have a point. CBS seems to be making the argument of a systemic problem out of a personal responsibility problem.
Life’s a struggle. Get over it.
Sorry, but not even coming close to believing anything coming from the MSM. Especially from the Dan Rather network.
Trump can’t lower regressive state and city taxes that target the poor.
Of course the enormous cost of big government, all those bureaucrats living off of the churn and producing no goods or produce as money is shifted around, has nothing to do with people running short of cash. /s
“Almost half of Americans can’t pay for their basic needs
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Who/What are referred to here as “AMERICANS””???????
Invaders? Paid actors? Etc????
**************
GyG@PlanetWTF?
@Stranger In A Strange World!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From See-BS.
Horse hockey. Funny you never saw these stories when Obama was in the White House.
So you walk into the house, and here’s what you see. They have cable TV and apparently get the premium package for $100 a month. Everyone in the house over the age of ten has a cellphone. There’s a minimum of two computers/laptops in the house. One out of every four young ladies you bump into (over the age of 18)...has $2,000 of tattoo work on themselves.
Sorry, but I generally buy this story anymore. You’d have to open the door to the house and let me examine their lifestyle. I know poverty and readily saw it in the 1960s. I see very little of it today.
We don’t all live in LA or New York City where the cost of living is so high.
Yes. Obamacare really sucks.
You pay too much when you don’t need it and pay too much when you actually have to use it.
The DNC media is desperate to undermine public perception that the economy is doing well.
It’s like how the Left used to discover the homeless every few years.
If that is all true now, it must have been more so under Obama. Yet we heard precious little then.
I can’t recall headlines like that between January 2009 and January 2017 while bammy was systematically sapping money from producers and giving it to slackers and America-haters.
Why are people who are just scraping by walking around with a $1000 smart phone? It reminds me of the days when the explorers would travel to jungles and trade cheap beads and trinkets with the ignorant natives in exchange for gold and other valuables.
The Urban Institute.
Nuff said.
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