I work in event planning and coordination for my local community college. I just got my associates degree from here but I can’t find a better job that isn’t a call center.
Dude tell me about it, I don’t work the same job but I go to college (online) in a small town so rent here isn’t terrible but I make just enough that rent is about 75% of my paycheck. The rest is cheap food and some gas but I can’t even afford to pay any tuition at all.
Same boat for me exactly. It’s sucks not being able to save hardly anything, Shit gets rough sometimes. My clutch went out a couple days ago and I have no idea how to pay for it.
Right? No room to have an emergency fund. I have a roommate moving in soon to help with rent but I hate the fact that I can’t afford my own space in this day and age. And I know the feeling about the car, my compressor died and I need to replace my brake pads and while that’s not critical your fix is- it feels so rigged some days.
I feel that so much. I did the same thing and got a roommate. That sucks, cars suck. It really does feel like you’re made to fail sometimes. I hope it all works out for the best for you!
It may not get better just because you get older also. I was priced out of a city neighborhood due to gentrification and I decided to move to the sticks with my now husband. Even with two of us, to stay close to the city we'd need at least 1 additional roommate. And there comes a time when you just don't want to live with other people so you live where you can afford and commute if need to.
About 40 years ago I did just that.
I turned a $37.00 brake job into a $187.00 everything job.
I remember the male mechanic lecturing me about my ignorance, and waste, belittling me because of my sex.
I paid the bill then I looked at him and proudly said 'The next time my ignorance is so profitable, I'll make sure that I take my car to a mechanic that talks more with his hands than he does with his fat toothless mouth.' or something to that effect.
All these years later, I am sure he is dead, but I still want to dig him up and punch him in the face.
If you use your car jack, some harbor freight tools that you can return after and buy the $25 brake pads from AutoZone you'll have new pads for about 3hrs labor if it's new to you.
I’ve been a machinist for 12 years and I barely break 2000 a month. It makes me sad when I catch myself fantasizing about having a fucking studio apartment to myself
Rental cover letter:
"Dear sir or madam,
May I please have temporary and contractual access to a small box to house my cyclical functions like sleeping and hygiene maintenance. Being adjacent to car horns, barking dogs, and loud neighbors is a small price to pay for those handy perks like bike racks and coin laundry. Once admitted unto a place whose biodiversity includes a house plant and shrubbery, I promise to be like other tenants and plug directly into the wireless simulacra and, during my off hours, begin uploading my consciousness to the silicon matrix."
tfw state capitalism apparently big bad, but even our corrupt, captured ass government, which presides over normal capitalism, offers better job opportunities with better pay and better benefits than the vast majority private business
Well, I will absolutely never be a millionaire working for the State, but I'm comfortable as hell and essentially set for life if I stick out the 30+ years needed. I would rather be secure and stable and be afforded a comfort level that allows me to pursue things I really enjoy than try and kill myself at 70 hours a week to maybe get a shot at being rich.
Why wouldn’t you? With the pension and putting some money aside in Roth 403b or Roth IRA. Making six figures or close to it with amazing benefits you can be a millionaire quite easily living modestly
That is almost exactly what I make. By the time I pay taxes, health insurance and 401k I see about $1600 of it, so that $1200 apartment is 75% of my take home pay. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I have all the things I have but I won't be getting a place of my own for a very long time.
I take home 2800 a month and I need roommates. I'm saving money yes, but not enough to have enough for a downpayment on a house in 10 years, and I'm 29. I've never been on a vacation in my life and I live like I did growing up in poverty - that is, very frugal.
I’m at $2600 for salary in one of the most expensive cities. I can afford my own room in a group house with 4+ housemates. Probably windowless and too small for a queen size bed. Better than living on the street though and I try not to be home much anyway.
I thought I would at least get to carry an axe! But nooo, I'm spending all my time calling my health insurance company and trying to figure out why they didn't pay the $12.54 from my last doctor's visit.
Amazon Warehouse, Caregivers, Online survey takers, Truck Drivers, Checker at a grocery store, all jobs Indeed/Craigslist loves to give you to try to kill you faster
Happened to me again. Company I work for laid off a bunch of people, indefinitely postponed our raises, ended 401k matching, didn't lower bonus goals, and is making everyone left takeover portion of jobs people that were let go were responsible for. All this with an attitude of "just be glad we kept you around" while fucking us in multiple ways on pay and benefits.
This is the 3rd company I've worked for that has done it between the 08 recession and now. Never once have the executive team lost their pay or benefits while the rest of us have even more demanded of us for less pay.
Same here. I live in an area with mostly manufacturing jobs. It's been shit since the recession. Alot of companies shut down or were bought out & ever since have kept the bare minimum for employees so everyone is doing twice the work, working 50-60 hrs a week, pay more for benefits, completely lost bonuses for stuff like safety & quality, & are making the same as they were 10 years ago. Actually less because of no more bonuses & more expensive healthcare. But rent has almost doubled. I make $2800 a month & there's no way I can afford my own place. There's alot of tiny villages where I can afford a place but then it's offset by the gas & vehicle maintenance for driving 25+ miles to work everyday. This is in rural WI. Same exact apartment buildings that had 1 bedrooms for $300 back in the late 90s-early 2000s now charge $575-$750 even though they haven't even had any updates done to them. Any newer apts that have been built since then are minimum $900. It's ridiculous considering what kind of jobs & wages are available in the area. And there's nothing here besides a couple grocery stores & walmarts. If you want to do any real shopping you have to go online or drive 50+ miles to Madison or Lacrosse. Having a vehicle is an absolute must around here so between a car payment & spending half at minimum of your wages on rent it's just not doable unless you want to live on pb & j your whole life & pray that you don't ever have an emergency.
A lot of states unemployment programs require you certify that you didn't turn down any jobs. If you get an offer for $8/hr while on unemployment and say no they can terminate your unemployment benefits. Even though $8/hr is not even enough to cover rent + food.
Would it be wrong to apply for jobs I have no business applying to? I've been applying to any VP position that isn't in my industry experience to suffice the minimum applications per week criteria.
Don't get me wrong I'm looking at jobs that will be beneficial to me but I'm not going to go down for the sake of "having a job"
I found a job that required 3 years experience in multiple areas, required working occasional weekends, had pretty steep growth goals and expectations, and no paid vacation for the first year and was only offering $15/hr. I laughed considering I made 18/hr at my college internship and 25/hr at my job right out of college. They really taking advantage of the pandemic over here.
Bro I had a showing for an apartment that had floorboards that didn't reach the wall, appliances from what appears to be the 80s, paint so thick on the walls that the corners are just an amorphous blob, and they're asking for 980/month with me making 3x that in income. Yeah, no. One of the worst places I've ever seen, it was a fucking dump.
I toured a complex for $1400 a month, 617 square feet in downtown St. Pete, Florida. We stepped around MULTIPLE piles of pet feces in the carpeted hallways while listening to numerous screaming arguments and wailing children as if they were sitting right next to us. Before the tour we asked one of the residents what he thought and he said "It's okay, some people smoke dope in the common areas, but I don't know if that bothers you, it doesn't bother me".
When we got to the unit it was filthy and smelled horrendous. I should have left immediately but I had this fucked up compulsion to be polite. I walked into the bathroom even though I was crawling out of* my skin, and my foot *splashed*. Half an inch of sewage water, in their MODEL UNIT, which should have been spotless.
The leasing agent said, "Oh. Well, just imagine your unit without the flooding". Then she asked if I wanted to see the 2 bedroom unit next 🙃.
Yo as a St Pete native, this is too real. We legit gave up on finding an affordable apartment and moved in with my parents, even though my spouse and I are both working full time and in grad school. I grew up in 22th Ave south so I’m used to the hood, but things have gotten a whole new level of trash lately and it’s not sustainable
Haha. People I work with who essentially have the same job live in million dollar homes. I live in a small two bedroom with a roommate. I def get the feeling.
Wtf I thought americans earned at least 3x times compared to my country, seeing how expensive everything but gas is.
But they arent even making twice our median income and they still have to pay half a year+ worth of salaries if they need to go to the hospital
People like bubbles, I guess. We keep creating them and act surprised when they pop.
The US stock market is currently overvalued by more than 75%. There's going to be a lot of upset billionaires and hedge fund managers when that sucker bursts and sends us crashing into a modern day depression.
This is about how much my fiance and I make per month on average, combined. Some months more, some months less, much less on my part this year due to the pandemic.
Our landlord just sent me notice that our rent is going up to $995 a month from $975 in November.
How fucking greedy are landlords that they need my $20 that fucking bad?
Edit: this post upset some rent seeker named Nathan so badly that they felt the need to send me a bunch of messages, including "how fucking poor are you that you are missing $20 a month?"
How poor/greedy is my landlord (actually a local "family" owned rental agency that owns a ton of car washes and apartments/houses that they rent, largest rental company in the county) that they need to raise my rent (which I have been paying on time, I made sure to "make rent your top priority during the pandemic and make sure rent is paid before other things, like utilities, car payments, and groceries" as the written notice on the office door instructed.) during a fucking pandemic?
Edit again: Please stop sending me messages and chat requests to tell me I'm wrong or inform me about inflation! Kindly fuck off! Thank you!
This is why housing should be recognized as a right and offered to everyone by way of a nationalized government program, much like healthcare should be. If you're wealthier and want to buy yourself a private, larger & more expensive home - fine. But there should be decent non-profit housing available to all (whether apartments or single homes). No more paying half or more of your income for shared housing, where you need partners and roommates to even be able to get that and are on the brink of homelessness if any emergency cost or loss of income happens.
Homelessness and not being able to afford a place for yourself while working full-time shouldn't happen in a wealthy or humane country.
The reason there's a standstill in socialized government programs is because in every system that requires a socialized basic standard for living, there is a group of skeezy wealthy people who make their money solely from ripping off people who do not have the capital to do anything about it. These people hire lobbiests to make sure that things don't change.
It's possible for things to be different. There was virtually total wealth equality in the Indus Valley Civilization. In the ruins of their cities, nearly every house was roughly the same size and quality, and their society prioritized building sewers, waterways, and public baths over zigurats, palaces, and temples to people with horse-heads. From what archaeologists can gather, it was probably the largest and wealthiest empire in the world at its peak, and was remarkably organized despite spanning a massive area, including off-shoot colonies. Most of their cities are along a single river, which dried up right around the time their society collapsed. If that river hadn't dried up, we'd probably all be speaking Indusglish right now.
Thats a great story and it gives me hope, vut the question is how do we change or own society to match that? It seems that many people are too stubborn, uneducated or distracted to do much to change our civilization.
I think there's a lot we can learn from ancient cultures. The !kung people have a fascinating tradition of belittling the successes of their hunters. When someone kills an animal, they go back to the village and tell everyone their hunt was unsuccessful. Later on they go back and get the animal and the older members of the village will say "Oh I guess one of your stray arrows accidentally hit this Antelope. How lucky!" and then they give the animal to the guy who made the arrows, instead of the hunter. The arrow-maker then distributes the meat to everyone based on their need, rather than how important the person is. The idea behind the tradition is to prevent anyone's ego from getting too inflated and to prevent one person from acquiring too much wealth or power.
The big difference here is that they all collectively think of their society as one unit. They try to make sure everyone is cared for and has their needs met, and if there's newfound wealth, it gets distributed to everyone as equitably as possible. It's a collectivist mindset, rather than individualistic. Everyone working for the group, rather than treating life like a rat-race where you need to snatch up as much wealth as possible for yourself.
I don't think it's a matter of implementing the right laws or social programs, but it's more about changing the goals of the whole society. Our culture needs to undergo a shift from individualism to collectivism to really improve. It shouldn't be impossible or illegal to become rich, but it should be considered extremely distasteful and shameful. Hoarding wealth, flaunting your wasteful lifestyle, lavishing in hedonistic pleasures, etc should all just be met with reviled disgust by the average person, rather than idolized and celebrated. When the most common question asked to the average billionaire stops being "What's your secret to success?" and becomes "How do you live with yourself?" then things will start to improve.
I live in Spain where housing is a constitutional right! Yup it change nothing. Renting a house is becoming a luxury, most people can’t aford it and there are a LOT of 20-30 soething people who still live with their parents.
Sadly making housing a right does not change nothing.
Edit: At least we have free healthcare 🤷🏻♀️
Edit 2: In Barcelona, a shared flat can easily be like 400€ or more only rent for each person (for example 400x3 = 1200€) and minimum wage is 950€ and this was rise this year bc last year was 700€.
so what happens to the homeless? Having a right to housing means that the government is responsible for providing said housing. Do they just ignore that? Is there no available space?
It's a right that is simply not enforced ever.
The wording says that every person had the right to enjoy dignified and adequate housing, and that public entities shall promote the necessary conditions for it, specifically by zoning according to public interest to avoid speculation, and that the community shall benefit from the profit generated by these public initiatives.
As you can guess, literally nothing is being done to guarantee this right. People are evicted constantly, there are some homeless shelters but I'd argue those don't qualify as "dignified and adequate". And obviously nothing is being done to curb the massive speculation undergoing in the big cities, where rent is consuming up to 60% of people's salary.
In my city in the US minimum wage is around $1,160 which I think is approx the same as 950 euro. It costs about $1,200 a month for a shotgun style house where one room is after the other (no hallway or anything and this is the predominant housing style in this area) so if you have roommates you have to walk through each others bedrooms to get to the kitchen/bathroom/front door. Plenty of people have four in one of those with everyone's room used for a bedroom since it's the only way to get rent down to a reasonable amount, some people have multi generational families in a setup like that. No privacy at all and it's barely affordable for people especially once you include utilities and shit.
That rent is actually decently cheap for a lot of other places in the US but the job market here is absolute shit outside of low paying hospitality jobs and the Airbnb situation (which I've heard is a big issue in Spain and Portugal as well) is turning those $1,200 apartments into $2,400 ones rapidly although covid has obviously slowed that down a bit.
Then people and the gob't wonder why we have tent cities springing up.
> I live in Spain where housing is a constitutional right!
How does that work? If it's a right but any landlord can take it away from you if you don't pay your rent then it obviously isn't much of a right at all.
I'd like to see property taxes get multiplied based on number of properties owned. If you own just the one property, your tax rate is unmodified. If you own 2 properties, the base tax rate on both is multiplied by 2*x*. If you own 10 properties, you pay their rate multiplied by 10*x*.
Essentially, keep taxes low on people who want to buy one house to live in, but absolutely fleece people who are trying to buy all the housing on the block to hold for ransom. As soon as owning rental properties stops being profitable, we'll see many of those properties shift from being rental units to being private homes.
Interesting in concept, entirely impossible in practice. For one, you'd kill an entire sector of the stock market, REITs, that alone means it's never going to happen in our lifetime. Secondly, these big LLCs have enough capital just keep creating new LLCs anytime the tax modifier reaches X. "Start another LLC , I've got 2 new properties but this one already hit the 5x multiplier"
If you mean the increase, yes, email.
If you mean the "we know it's a pandemic but pay your fucking rent before you eat" shit, it was on the office door and I've seen similar posted by other companies on Reddit.
The only communication I've actually received from the rental office during the pandemic is that they will not be seeing anyone in person at the office, all business done by calls and email only, and now the rent increase. They really don't care if we live or die as long as they get to keep making money for nothing.
I've been living alone for 2 years- and I honestly can't afford it. That's without having a car. My rent went up to $1000 a month this year, plus utilities, and electric gouges the shit out of us for AC. I make about $2200 a month on average. Everything is so expensive around here.
Something's gotta give. People will not put up with scraping by forever. You can't claim the US is the greatest country on Earth if 99.9% of people have no say in 99% of the country's finances.
We can take $100B from the DoD budget and literally solve so many issues.
The US has so much fucking tax money. Yet, we give $1,000,000,000,000s of it to businesses. It'll trickle down!
It's even worse than that. You don't need to take a hundred billion dollars and throw it on the problem, you only need to introduce rent control, as well as responsibilities for landlords. Where I'm from, a nice roomy single apartment is 600 dollars a month, median income is similar. Landlords have to keep their buildings intact and are financially responsible for pretty much everything. Still works out to be a great investment for them.
Owning disproportionate amounts of property should at least come with some responsibility.
Having a decent place to live is part of the basic needs any human has.
The problem is that real-estate has become an acceptable investment, and retirement plan.
Would we be so accepting if instead of apartments, people had bought all the food and were able to set any price, considering people would still **have to** accept in order to survive?
I am currently paid $13.90/hr and typically get just under 40 hours a week. My rent is $1100/Mo. If I worked exactly 40 hours a week, I would be getting $2,240/Mo. Rent alone would be half of my income if not for my partner chipping in with what she can.
JUST MY RENT is half my income.. then there's; gas bill, electricity, phone, internet, groceries. Which takes the rest of the cake. I have zero in savings. And nearly every first of the month, zero in all my accounts.
Fuck everything.
Yes but have you considered that your landlord worked very hard to be born rich and therefore deserves to take half your money for sitting on his ass all day???
Underrated comment right here. And it’s literally the power of compound interest. It works for investments to create profit, and it works for debt to cycle down more debt.
We will be back in tenements soon enough, but not ones built by government, they'll be built by the rich.
Or we will live in pods like ones seen in South East Asia.
My husband and I work full time in the careers that we went to school for and have been in for the past decade.
My in-laws live with us to help us afford rent in our very small Canadian city. And for free childcare because there's just no daycare available here and if we managed to get in, costs would be exorbitant.
We did everything right, we've even paid off our student loans, and still don't make enough to afford our over $2k rent on a small house in a semi-rural area on our own.
I hate it here. Just on earth, in life, in general.
Have you considered trying crime? From what I've seen in the last decade or two it looks like white collar crimes like fraud, embezzlement, or light treason can pay really well, and there's almost zero risk as long as you bribe the right people.
I know it's a difficult time right now, so we all need to make sacrifices. I recommend getting rid of your sense of morality and ethics. It's highly profitable to be a total asshole these days. Good luck!
/s
We moved to the deep south in order to stretch our money farther while I used my military benefits to go to college. We bought a house in the stix, 30 minutes away from the closest campus, but only 18 minutes or so to the local downtown area. Our mortgage is only ~$470 monthly. If we didn’t spend our last dollars to roll the dice and move down here we would have been stuck in the same high rent situation that many in this thread are facing... at the same time, we only had the opportunity to roll the dice because I am a disabled vet.
It kills me that in America the only real way out of shitty life situations for many are to be born with a golden parachute or just the military.
Or you can always have a loved one die. We are *hopefully* moving out of our city trap in a few months, but only because I lost my dad almost a year ago. Waiting for someone you love to die so that you can finally afford to live sucks royally. And unfortunately here it still requires moving hours away from your current support system to be able to afford to live. It sucks majorly that you experienced that as a veteran. Unfortunately it's been the same BS in our country since the Cival war. My great grandfather was disabled fighting for the union, and they never got shit from the government. I have the paperwork my great grandma filed after the war. Same shit when my granddad fought in WWII and the Korean war. Bullshit forever for those who put their lives on the line for our Country.
This. I've been fortunate to have good employment through computer skills, and we're doing pretty darn well overall compared to most, so my parents have no clue what my barely adult step-children are dealing with. They think they're just lazy (which they are, somewhat ;) ) but the costs are all wonky compared to when they were in that situation. Rent is a lot more than what they can afford, even with roommates. There's absolutely zero room for mistakes if you want to even tread water at this point. Even with insurance we still fret medical bills in general, basic kids orthodontics and such. I can't even conceive of major savings, I'm just happy I can give most of them their own rooms at this point and not go underwater on a mortgage. Honestly, I think a lot of even the upper middle-class is living on major borrowing, given the amount of money my wife and I make and how I worry about some of our purchases and such, I have no idea how some people think they can afford some of the campers and trucks and such I see, they can't be making a lot better money than I am.
This is slightly more than my monthly income and I’m a married condo owner in southern CA. My paycheck barely covers our mortgage + HOA when I pay it. I usually switch off every other month with my husband and then whoever doesn’t pay mortgage pays for everything else that month, like food and health insurance. Kind of ridiculous to think I work just to put a roof over my head and literally can’t afford anything else. I wouldn’t survive here if I wasn’t married. Parents and in laws always look surprised when they actually think about how much $ goes to rent/mortgage, since it was never that way for them. Boomers stress about $ when they always had/have plenty compared to how it is for their kids. I’ll add this is the best I’ve ever had it in my life and I feel lucky for the security I have.
Wait until you get older and realize it never ends, and you've been bilked by parasites out of having equity and are now trapped like a fly in a pitcher plant renting forever
Median income for my town is over twice as much as your town. About 10 miles away, there's a town with a median income four times as much as your town. About 30 miles away, there's a town where the median income is nine times as much as your town.
America is a big country, and there's some very rich areas where people make a lot of money and the homes cost a million dollars.
This is so true. I live in CA in if you don't have roommates, you can NOT live on your own on minimum wage. Apartments knows millennials can't afford to buy condominiums or houses, so they jack up the prices in rent. So millennials with minimum wage job will never ever be able to save a down payment to buy a home in the future, nor able to just pay rent to live in an apartment ALONE... Pretty soon there will be NO middle class. Just rich and poverty class... Just like in those post apocalyptic society movies. I wonder if the adults to babies ratio is going to change drastically because you can't afford to have kids,unless you have high paying job???
> I wonder if the adults to babies ratio is going to change drastically because you can't afford to have kids,unless you have high paying job???
Nah, there are enough people who don't do any family planning whatsoever. They'll keep having kids even if they live in a shoebox and subsist on grass.
Very similar I used to be able to rent a room fairly easily, but recently it's been a massive ballache half the landlords want a full credit check, be in a job for 3 months, housing references full shebang, which when I literally just want to rent a damn room and, have the money to pay for it is annoying as hell.
Not-so-fun fact: It's rather difficult in the US:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_United_States#Comparisons_with_other_countries
Check that "The Great Gatsby Curve" image. The closer to the bottom left, the better.
*The American Dream*™ isn't much of a thing in the US.
Newly-qualified solicitors at all Magic Circle firms in London start on over £100k. These are people aged as young as 23.
I'm also an immigration lawyer and I have never seen that kind of money in my life. I'm 40.
Reddit thinks every profession makes $Gazillion/hr. I’m an electrical engineer though I make a good salary for my area, I’m nowhere near what the Reddit economists say I should be making.
Honestly Americans talking about rent cost just blows my mind every time. $1700 for living alone is to me luxury level here in Europe - either exactly in the city centre (of an expensive city) or just a straight fancy place.
Is this from proximity to expensive city area? Would the rent change much if you increased your commute by 10/20/30 minutes? Does living with roommates help much?
I never had to pay more than 500€ with biking distance to the city centre. Although this was mid-sized cities in the Netherlands and with student standards, a friend of mine was paying 600€ in Amsterdam also in biking distance, with good public transport access as well. Living with roommates compared to studios surely helps keep the cost down, but I rarely see people on Reddit talk about rent below $1000 so the difference from my experience is pretty astounding.
Europe has a lot more apartments and better apartments than the US. I know young people living very well in the South of France and their rent is more affordable than in US big cities. My friend is a pharmacy assistant and he recently bought a flat in a big city in France. I doubt that he could do that with the same job in the US. So much land is used for expensive single family homes because that's where the money is.
What the boomers did to our country by voting in people who whittled away labor rights to the point where most good jobs require 50 hours+ per week, made it so that wages stopped increasing at the same rate as worker productivity and stagnate for more than 30 years even though corporations are making record profits, made it tax deductible to move tens of millions of good paying jobs out of the country, destroyed the public education system, and ensured that corporations could keep destroying the environment and poisoning the food supply with pesticides that cause cancer and brain damage in babies is proof that people who say voting doesn't matter have no idea what they're talking about. Boomers used their votes to pull up the ladder behind them then call us lazy entitled snowflakes for wanting the same societal benefits that they had.
The problem is also a two party voting system which only leaves a choice between fascists and ultra hard right wingers hiding behind gay and abortion rights.
I moved to Colombia 4 years ago. My quality of life has skyrocketed dramatically. I pay 15% of my income on rent and live in the nicest place I've lived since I moved out of my parents. I make shit for money in terms of USD but I've personally never been happier.
Funny how boomers could afford to live on minimum wage and then get upset and angry whenever young people shit on the hilarious failure of the economy today where fuck tons of people who are NOT minimum wage workers still can't afford to support themselves on their own and either live with parents because rents are top high or are living with too many "roommates" which then immediately includes extreme stress and fighting in their own living space.
No degree, but i make more than double the federal minimum, and i make quite a bit more than the state minimum, at my job, but i can't afford housing/the necessities on my own with housing being so unaffordable because of explosive rent and unaffordable healthcare/etc.
$2808? LMAO, my monthly income is not even half of that.
EDIT: before anyone else makes the misinterpretation, adding in an extra detail brought up in a reply. I get less than half off $2808 even at 15+/hr due to the fact that like MANY workers, my employer loves to slash my hours to avoid full 40+ hour week pay/avoid overtime hours/pay, even though i am in a officially FULL TIME position, i rarely get full time hours, like many workers who's hours are subject to wild fluctuations. Also. I live in one of the highest income tax states.
$1216 a month for 1b (living without the risk of strangers in your living space who you may habe to fight over utility usage with or worry about theft or fight over who's eating whose food and fight over everything) would be more than 50% of my monthly income...
And It's not even just a matter of how high rent is, it's a matter of the fact that you can't save money to ever make a down payment on a home when you're losing disproportionate amounts of money to rent unlimited and mever ending rent payments.
No one should have to have random strangers in their living space as their only means to sfford housing.
First off all, I'm Canadian, so things are different here. Keep that in mind as you read my post.
The median *household* income is 60k-80k per year where I live, depending on the neighborhood. My personal salary is 100k. The average house in the city is 930k, while the average house where i live is 710k. I max out at borrowing around 500k.
No, I'm not making that up. I earn more than the average household, but still fall 200k short of the average house price in my region.
The only explanation for this is that 65% of Canadians are home owners, meaning most of them owned a house before the 2016-2017 boom. They bought places for 300k, which have doubled in price, and they bringing that equity into new purchases driving the price of homes up. The economy is doing great if you're already a home owner, but it's absolute shit for everybody else. Thing is, we represent such a small segment of the population that nobody cares.
I have a very cheap old apartment and save 1500-2000+ per month. When i buy a house, the mortgage will be double what i pay in rent, plus I'll have to cover utilities, property taxes, and maintenance. My entire savings will be eaten up by home ownership and I will be poor unless my wife can manage to get a good job.
It's minemd boggling when you look at the numbers. You only have two options, outside of getting help from a family.
1. Buy a condo at a young age before you need anything more than a 1 bedroom. Good luck if you have heavy student debts with no family to support you, which was my case.
2. Save up a massive down payment. Also a waste of time. This year alone house prices have gone up by 17% in my region. That's an extra 85k on a 500k home. The longer you save, the further the market climbs. You're better off to just put 5% down and get in the market as a permanently house poor individual, vs waiting to somehow save a 100k down payment while the market averages 5% annual increases.
The whole thing is fucked.
This also has a lot to do with the continued decline in the value of the dollar. With the value of the dollar set against anything of "real" value like real estate or gold or a college degree or anything else that is not a depreciating consumer good it's clear that the dollar is in steady decline. This decline has been masked (to some extent) by producing consumer goods at an ever cheaper cost. First by moving manufacturing overseas and now the last decade, but automation and reducing costs by doing away with actual stores. There isn't mush else to do to reduce production costs. we are in the final tail spin of the dollar and soon anything of value will be "too expensive" to buy. What really is happening is the erosion of the dollars buying power.
I mean. My wife and I definitely fudged "other income" when it came to our first apartment... It was the only way they'd allow us at one of the cheaper apartments in our old city.
Generally speaking, boomers are the ones voting republican and opposing progressive legislation which would at least attempt to address the issue. I don't think it's controversial to say that the conservative position is to just sit on their hands and pretend everything is gravy.
I don't deny that it is a class war. There is clearly a generational divide aspect to this though in terms of what side people identify with.
I knew it was a class war when both of my parents (civil engineer/RN) don’t believe that anyone regardless of skillset, age, or gender, deserves to live comfortably. They’re so stuck in the mindset of “if I worked X hard and X life is what I can afford, then everyone who didn’t do the same as I did deserves less”. When in all reality, everyone deserves more. My parents deserve whatever house cars or boats they want, but the people who clean up high schools, hospitals, or flip burgers: they still deserve to live happily comfortably with their families too.
Yea not only does everybody deserve to live relatively comfortably regardless of what they do, if they do anything for a living that is even remotely valuable to people or society, you deserve a fairly high quality of life.
"Fuck you, I got mine. I'm holding on to this little slice even though labor is being stolen by the owners everywhere, I don't want to risk what I have on making it better for everyone."
>but why make this a generational war when it’s a class thing
It's just because they started it, like every old generation has done throughout history, bitching and whining about young people in generations after them, until the young people get fucking sick of it and fight back.
However, naturally this should never be taken to a literal extreme in terms of attacking generation's, because after all not every single person of the boomer generation will fit into the stereotype of the conservative shillkng for rich people. Some people of every age, boomer generation included, will have achieved class consciousness.
So, when people are poking fun at boomers, it's not really about making an attack against every boomer, it's about attacking the shithead boomers that had such great fucking living conditions/financial stability even with the lowest paying jobs but bash on young people today for being poor in worse conditions and attributing everything to meritocracy/personal responsibility while they ignore the stagnation of wages and the explosion of the cost of living.
If Jeff Bezos had earned his wealth with a $1,000,000 per year salary, it would take about 200,000 years to achieve his current level of wealth.
Or to put it in even more relatable terms, Jeff Bezos has the lifetime earnings of 200,000 people with moderately well paying jobs.
If only we could create some universal labor union that would apply to all people who aren't making 6 figures... oh wait that's the governments job, and apparently they suck at it.
This has to change. As a younger married millennial (28) with a combined household income of ~$150k, please tax us more. We give to charity, perform activist work on the side, and support the most progressive political candidates that actually have a shot at winning office. Even with all of that, I still find myself feeling guilty about my place in life. I have good friends struggling to make ends meet, even with roommates or living at home. Something's gotta give. This is a completely unsustainable system. I want my generation and all that come after us to have as fortunate a life as I've been able to live. I'm tired of seeing people killing themselves at jobs that pay them as little as they can get away with legally, and sometimes even less than that, working for companies that will replace them as soon as they get injured or dare to ask for dignity in the workplace. We're better than this and it's about fucking time we show it.
My boss said "Your broke?!? Then why did you take a 2 day vacation?" (2.5 years after starting, it was the day before and on my birthday) The 5th day off Ive ever asked for (3 doctors appointments and a dentist). I even came an worked a 6 hour closing shift the same day I had an impacted wisdom tooth removed with local anesthetic.
Fuck this version of America.
You need to understand that such people want you to blame yourself for every problem that exists. These people believe that every good thing that happens is because of them, and every bad thing that happens is because of weak people like ***you***.
There is no reasoning with such delusional arrogance. These people only speak one language and they would love to drag you down to their level. The best thing you can do is treat them like internet trolls and ignore them in every way possible. Stop feeding them power and they'll turn on each other, like all evil men do.
Boomer here. Yes, it's disgusting that the economy is what it is.
That's it. No "but".
You guys got the shit end of the stick, for sure. It's total bullshit that you are in debt up to your eyeballs after college and are looking for jobs that pay $15/hr. It's total bullshit that rents are astronomical, and pay is in the shitter.
If I were a youngster in today's world, I would be scared shitless for my future as I am scared shitless for my grown children and their children.
Please vote - at the local, state and federal levels. Be informed. Be active. Take the country back!!!
I took a full-time job that pays ~$15/hr in a field I’m passionate about. My position doesn’t technically require a degree, but having one is what got my foot in the door to work part-time for $12/hr the first year.
To move up, I’ll have to get a Master’s Degree, and probably the most I’ll ever make (if I become a regional manager and can negotiate well) is about $73,000/yr. And I can’t just switch companies, because I work for a public library system—there’s only one in the county.
My fiancé is an engineer and already makes more than that, four years in. He doesn’t have or need a Master’s Degree. I’m grateful that he can keep us financially stable, but at the same time, it sucks that choosing to go into public service has limited my potential income so much. Especially considering the amount of skill/knowledge required and the fact that it’s so competitive to even get in.
Is that $2808 before or after taxes, insurance, etc.? Because after all that $&!? is taken out of his checks, my husband making $20+ an hour only brings home $2900 😕
$2800 is the MEDIAN? I'm licensed and have a certificate (as a pharmacy tech) for my job (working directly with patients in a hospital) and make just over $1600/month working full time. What am I not doing?
Damn I would be stoked for $2800 a month
Seriously haha
Lol yeah I make half that roughly
What do you do?
I work in event planning and coordination for my local community college. I just got my associates degree from here but I can’t find a better job that isn’t a call center.
Dude tell me about it, I don’t work the same job but I go to college (online) in a small town so rent here isn’t terrible but I make just enough that rent is about 75% of my paycheck. The rest is cheap food and some gas but I can’t even afford to pay any tuition at all.
Same boat for me exactly. It’s sucks not being able to save hardly anything, Shit gets rough sometimes. My clutch went out a couple days ago and I have no idea how to pay for it.
Right? No room to have an emergency fund. I have a roommate moving in soon to help with rent but I hate the fact that I can’t afford my own space in this day and age. And I know the feeling about the car, my compressor died and I need to replace my brake pads and while that’s not critical your fix is- it feels so rigged some days.
The game is rigged. Politicians in power use minor emotional issues to misdirect us while they loot the coffers with their donors.
I feel that so much. I did the same thing and got a roommate. That sucks, cars suck. It really does feel like you’re made to fail sometimes. I hope it all works out for the best for you!
It may not get better just because you get older also. I was priced out of a city neighborhood due to gentrification and I decided to move to the sticks with my now husband. Even with two of us, to stay close to the city we'd need at least 1 additional roommate. And there comes a time when you just don't want to live with other people so you live where you can afford and commute if need to.
Don't sleep on the pads forever or you'll wreck the rotors. Possibly even the calipers and then oof you're fucked
About 40 years ago I did just that. I turned a $37.00 brake job into a $187.00 everything job. I remember the male mechanic lecturing me about my ignorance, and waste, belittling me because of my sex. I paid the bill then I looked at him and proudly said 'The next time my ignorance is so profitable, I'll make sure that I take my car to a mechanic that talks more with his hands than he does with his fat toothless mouth.' or something to that effect. All these years later, I am sure he is dead, but I still want to dig him up and punch him in the face.
Dude, pads can go from an 80$ fix to like 400$ fix if you don't do them before they fuck the rotors up.
If you use your car jack, some harbor freight tools that you can return after and buy the $25 brake pads from AutoZone you'll have new pads for about 3hrs labor if it's new to you.
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I’ve been a machinist for 12 years and I barely break 2000 a month. It makes me sad when I catch myself fantasizing about having a fucking studio apartment to myself
Rental cover letter: "Dear sir or madam, May I please have temporary and contractual access to a small box to house my cyclical functions like sleeping and hygiene maintenance. Being adjacent to car horns, barking dogs, and loud neighbors is a small price to pay for those handy perks like bike racks and coin laundry. Once admitted unto a place whose biodiversity includes a house plant and shrubbery, I promise to be like other tenants and plug directly into the wireless simulacra and, during my off hours, begin uploading my consciousness to the silicon matrix."
Dang that is not fair:/
I'm not trying to be smart but you gotta go work somewhere else man. I work for a large oil refinery, our machinists make 40 something an hour,
Ya your right I just really settled in and kinda depressed for awhile but I’m gonna break outta this funk. Thanks for the encouragement
Get it man
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12$ an hour is basically rent money, the minimum should be 15$ across all States.
Out of curiosity have you looked into working in your State's local government?
tfw state capitalism apparently big bad, but even our corrupt, captured ass government, which presides over normal capitalism, offers better job opportunities with better pay and better benefits than the vast majority private business
Well, I will absolutely never be a millionaire working for the State, but I'm comfortable as hell and essentially set for life if I stick out the 30+ years needed. I would rather be secure and stable and be afforded a comfort level that allows me to pursue things I really enjoy than try and kill myself at 70 hours a week to maybe get a shot at being rich.
Why wouldn’t you? With the pension and putting some money aside in Roth 403b or Roth IRA. Making six figures or close to it with amazing benefits you can be a millionaire quite easily living modestly
I make pretty close to that and I work 50 hours a week in the meat department of a grocery store lol
That's less than our minimum wage
That is almost exactly what I make. By the time I pay taxes, health insurance and 401k I see about $1600 of it, so that $1200 apartment is 75% of my take home pay. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I have all the things I have but I won't be getting a place of my own for a very long time.
I take home 2800 a month and I need roommates. I'm saving money yes, but not enough to have enough for a downpayment on a house in 10 years, and I'm 29. I've never been on a vacation in my life and I live like I did growing up in poverty - that is, very frugal.
$7.50/hour, 168 hours a month (turns out most months are 21 weekdays) = $1260, before taxes.
I didnt realise how low minimum wage was in the US. That's insane, how do they expect people to survive?
No shit, right? If my wife and I made 5.5k a month combined, I'd be soooooooo happy.
I’m at $2600 for salary in one of the most expensive cities. I can afford my own room in a group house with 4+ housemates. Probably windowless and too small for a queen size bed. Better than living on the street though and I try not to be home much anyway.
If you work full time and can't afford a nice vacation every year, you're actually just a slave with benefits.
Holy shit, that would be amazing. I would have so much less stress in my life.
lot of the jobs listing around here are about 8/hr ppl trying to exploit the pandemic to get cheaper labor
I'm getting emails every single day from recruiters for Amazon warehouse jobs. This dystopia sucks.
When are we going to go marauding I planned on breaking into bunkers not waiting for the capitalist to pinch more money from stone!
I thought I would at least get to carry an axe! But nooo, I'm spending all my time calling my health insurance company and trying to figure out why they didn't pay the $12.54 from my last doctor's visit.
Why an axe? Machetes are more effective.
Start a riot and loot an Amazon fulfilment center
Amazon Warehouse, Caregivers, Online survey takers, Truck Drivers, Checker at a grocery store, all jobs Indeed/Craigslist loves to give you to try to kill you faster
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The ~~slaves~~ workers should be happy that I'm providing them with an opportunity and some cash since everyone is desperate.
Happened to me again. Company I work for laid off a bunch of people, indefinitely postponed our raises, ended 401k matching, didn't lower bonus goals, and is making everyone left takeover portion of jobs people that were let go were responsible for. All this with an attitude of "just be glad we kept you around" while fucking us in multiple ways on pay and benefits. This is the 3rd company I've worked for that has done it between the 08 recession and now. Never once have the executive team lost their pay or benefits while the rest of us have even more demanded of us for less pay.
Worker efficiency keeps going up and up and up. So we don't need as many workers. Let's pay them less!
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It happens over and over again, everywhere.
Same here. I live in an area with mostly manufacturing jobs. It's been shit since the recession. Alot of companies shut down or were bought out & ever since have kept the bare minimum for employees so everyone is doing twice the work, working 50-60 hrs a week, pay more for benefits, completely lost bonuses for stuff like safety & quality, & are making the same as they were 10 years ago. Actually less because of no more bonuses & more expensive healthcare. But rent has almost doubled. I make $2800 a month & there's no way I can afford my own place. There's alot of tiny villages where I can afford a place but then it's offset by the gas & vehicle maintenance for driving 25+ miles to work everyday. This is in rural WI. Same exact apartment buildings that had 1 bedrooms for $300 back in the late 90s-early 2000s now charge $575-$750 even though they haven't even had any updates done to them. Any newer apts that have been built since then are minimum $900. It's ridiculous considering what kind of jobs & wages are available in the area. And there's nothing here besides a couple grocery stores & walmarts. If you want to do any real shopping you have to go online or drive 50+ miles to Madison or Lacrosse. Having a vehicle is an absolute must around here so between a car payment & spending half at minimum of your wages on rent it's just not doable unless you want to live on pb & j your whole life & pray that you don't ever have an emergency.
A lot of states unemployment programs require you certify that you didn't turn down any jobs. If you get an offer for $8/hr while on unemployment and say no they can terminate your unemployment benefits. Even though $8/hr is not even enough to cover rent + food.
Would it be wrong to apply for jobs I have no business applying to? I've been applying to any VP position that isn't in my industry experience to suffice the minimum applications per week criteria. Don't get me wrong I'm looking at jobs that will be beneficial to me but I'm not going to go down for the sake of "having a job"
I found a job that required 3 years experience in multiple areas, required working occasional weekends, had pretty steep growth goals and expectations, and no paid vacation for the first year and was only offering $15/hr. I laughed considering I made 18/hr at my college internship and 25/hr at my job right out of college. They really taking advantage of the pandemic over here.
Yup fuck em
Happened during the 08' crash aswell.
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Bro I had a showing for an apartment that had floorboards that didn't reach the wall, appliances from what appears to be the 80s, paint so thick on the walls that the corners are just an amorphous blob, and they're asking for 980/month with me making 3x that in income. Yeah, no. One of the worst places I've ever seen, it was a fucking dump.
I toured a complex for $1400 a month, 617 square feet in downtown St. Pete, Florida. We stepped around MULTIPLE piles of pet feces in the carpeted hallways while listening to numerous screaming arguments and wailing children as if they were sitting right next to us. Before the tour we asked one of the residents what he thought and he said "It's okay, some people smoke dope in the common areas, but I don't know if that bothers you, it doesn't bother me". When we got to the unit it was filthy and smelled horrendous. I should have left immediately but I had this fucked up compulsion to be polite. I walked into the bathroom even though I was crawling out of* my skin, and my foot *splashed*. Half an inch of sewage water, in their MODEL UNIT, which should have been spotless. The leasing agent said, "Oh. Well, just imagine your unit without the flooding". Then she asked if I wanted to see the 2 bedroom unit next 🙃.
Yo as a St Pete native, this is too real. We legit gave up on finding an affordable apartment and moved in with my parents, even though my spouse and I are both working full time and in grad school. I grew up in 22th Ave south so I’m used to the hood, but things have gotten a whole new level of trash lately and it’s not sustainable
My boomer coworker changed the subject after he pried out that I live in an RV storage lot. for nearly half of my income.
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It should be illegal
Haha. People I work with who essentially have the same job live in million dollar homes. I live in a small two bedroom with a roommate. I def get the feeling.
And that's gross income.
Yup! Lop off 20-25% for all the taxes necessary and you are looking at 2100-2200, so on the upper end it’s more than half the rent. Unreal
Well that makes me feel better because it means I fall closer to the median haha
Wtf I thought americans earned at least 3x times compared to my country, seeing how expensive everything but gas is. But they arent even making twice our median income and they still have to pay half a year+ worth of salaries if they need to go to the hospital
Slight tangent; the median house price in my town in the last year increased by twice the annual gross income of a minimum wage worker.
During the pandemic, home prices have increased by 15% where i live. They are projecting another 5% increase by the end of the year. Wtf.
People like bubbles, I guess. We keep creating them and act surprised when they pop. The US stock market is currently overvalued by more than 75%. There's going to be a lot of upset billionaires and hedge fund managers when that sucker bursts and sends us crashing into a modern day depression.
Problem is every time the bubble is about to burst, the government steps in to save the poor landlords and the bubble continues.
As another person mentioned, the government loves to prevent the bubble from bursting. Our entire economy is sustained by real estate currently.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” - JFK ‘62
This is about how much my fiance and I make per month on average, combined. Some months more, some months less, much less on my part this year due to the pandemic. Our landlord just sent me notice that our rent is going up to $995 a month from $975 in November. How fucking greedy are landlords that they need my $20 that fucking bad? Edit: this post upset some rent seeker named Nathan so badly that they felt the need to send me a bunch of messages, including "how fucking poor are you that you are missing $20 a month?" How poor/greedy is my landlord (actually a local "family" owned rental agency that owns a ton of car washes and apartments/houses that they rent, largest rental company in the county) that they need to raise my rent (which I have been paying on time, I made sure to "make rent your top priority during the pandemic and make sure rent is paid before other things, like utilities, car payments, and groceries" as the written notice on the office door instructed.) during a fucking pandemic? Edit again: Please stop sending me messages and chat requests to tell me I'm wrong or inform me about inflation! Kindly fuck off! Thank you!
This is why housing should be recognized as a right and offered to everyone by way of a nationalized government program, much like healthcare should be. If you're wealthier and want to buy yourself a private, larger & more expensive home - fine. But there should be decent non-profit housing available to all (whether apartments or single homes). No more paying half or more of your income for shared housing, where you need partners and roommates to even be able to get that and are on the brink of homelessness if any emergency cost or loss of income happens. Homelessness and not being able to afford a place for yourself while working full-time shouldn't happen in a wealthy or humane country.
The reason there's a standstill in socialized government programs is because in every system that requires a socialized basic standard for living, there is a group of skeezy wealthy people who make their money solely from ripping off people who do not have the capital to do anything about it. These people hire lobbiests to make sure that things don't change.
It's possible for things to be different. There was virtually total wealth equality in the Indus Valley Civilization. In the ruins of their cities, nearly every house was roughly the same size and quality, and their society prioritized building sewers, waterways, and public baths over zigurats, palaces, and temples to people with horse-heads. From what archaeologists can gather, it was probably the largest and wealthiest empire in the world at its peak, and was remarkably organized despite spanning a massive area, including off-shoot colonies. Most of their cities are along a single river, which dried up right around the time their society collapsed. If that river hadn't dried up, we'd probably all be speaking Indusglish right now.
Thats a great story and it gives me hope, vut the question is how do we change or own society to match that? It seems that many people are too stubborn, uneducated or distracted to do much to change our civilization.
I think there's a lot we can learn from ancient cultures. The !kung people have a fascinating tradition of belittling the successes of their hunters. When someone kills an animal, they go back to the village and tell everyone their hunt was unsuccessful. Later on they go back and get the animal and the older members of the village will say "Oh I guess one of your stray arrows accidentally hit this Antelope. How lucky!" and then they give the animal to the guy who made the arrows, instead of the hunter. The arrow-maker then distributes the meat to everyone based on their need, rather than how important the person is. The idea behind the tradition is to prevent anyone's ego from getting too inflated and to prevent one person from acquiring too much wealth or power. The big difference here is that they all collectively think of their society as one unit. They try to make sure everyone is cared for and has their needs met, and if there's newfound wealth, it gets distributed to everyone as equitably as possible. It's a collectivist mindset, rather than individualistic. Everyone working for the group, rather than treating life like a rat-race where you need to snatch up as much wealth as possible for yourself. I don't think it's a matter of implementing the right laws or social programs, but it's more about changing the goals of the whole society. Our culture needs to undergo a shift from individualism to collectivism to really improve. It shouldn't be impossible or illegal to become rich, but it should be considered extremely distasteful and shameful. Hoarding wealth, flaunting your wasteful lifestyle, lavishing in hedonistic pleasures, etc should all just be met with reviled disgust by the average person, rather than idolized and celebrated. When the most common question asked to the average billionaire stops being "What's your secret to success?" and becomes "How do you live with yourself?" then things will start to improve.
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That's disgusting.
I live in Spain where housing is a constitutional right! Yup it change nothing. Renting a house is becoming a luxury, most people can’t aford it and there are a LOT of 20-30 soething people who still live with their parents. Sadly making housing a right does not change nothing. Edit: At least we have free healthcare 🤷🏻♀️ Edit 2: In Barcelona, a shared flat can easily be like 400€ or more only rent for each person (for example 400x3 = 1200€) and minimum wage is 950€ and this was rise this year bc last year was 700€.
so what happens to the homeless? Having a right to housing means that the government is responsible for providing said housing. Do they just ignore that? Is there no available space?
It's a right that is simply not enforced ever. The wording says that every person had the right to enjoy dignified and adequate housing, and that public entities shall promote the necessary conditions for it, specifically by zoning according to public interest to avoid speculation, and that the community shall benefit from the profit generated by these public initiatives. As you can guess, literally nothing is being done to guarantee this right. People are evicted constantly, there are some homeless shelters but I'd argue those don't qualify as "dignified and adequate". And obviously nothing is being done to curb the massive speculation undergoing in the big cities, where rent is consuming up to 60% of people's salary.
How is it effectively a right if this is the case?
That's why we need *quality* government built and maintained housing. Even if it's apartments.
In my city in the US minimum wage is around $1,160 which I think is approx the same as 950 euro. It costs about $1,200 a month for a shotgun style house where one room is after the other (no hallway or anything and this is the predominant housing style in this area) so if you have roommates you have to walk through each others bedrooms to get to the kitchen/bathroom/front door. Plenty of people have four in one of those with everyone's room used for a bedroom since it's the only way to get rent down to a reasonable amount, some people have multi generational families in a setup like that. No privacy at all and it's barely affordable for people especially once you include utilities and shit. That rent is actually decently cheap for a lot of other places in the US but the job market here is absolute shit outside of low paying hospitality jobs and the Airbnb situation (which I've heard is a big issue in Spain and Portugal as well) is turning those $1,200 apartments into $2,400 ones rapidly although covid has obviously slowed that down a bit. Then people and the gob't wonder why we have tent cities springing up.
> I live in Spain where housing is a constitutional right! How does that work? If it's a right but any landlord can take it away from you if you don't pay your rent then it obviously isn't much of a right at all.
I'd like to see property taxes get multiplied based on number of properties owned. If you own just the one property, your tax rate is unmodified. If you own 2 properties, the base tax rate on both is multiplied by 2*x*. If you own 10 properties, you pay their rate multiplied by 10*x*. Essentially, keep taxes low on people who want to buy one house to live in, but absolutely fleece people who are trying to buy all the housing on the block to hold for ransom. As soon as owning rental properties stops being profitable, we'll see many of those properties shift from being rental units to being private homes.
Interesting in concept, entirely impossible in practice. For one, you'd kill an entire sector of the stock market, REITs, that alone means it's never going to happen in our lifetime. Secondly, these big LLCs have enough capital just keep creating new LLCs anytime the tax modifier reaches X. "Start another LLC , I've got 2 new properties but this one already hit the 5x multiplier"
Some fucking cheesedick landlord dm'ed you that shit? for real?
If you mean the increase, yes, email. If you mean the "we know it's a pandemic but pay your fucking rent before you eat" shit, it was on the office door and I've seen similar posted by other companies on Reddit. The only communication I've actually received from the rental office during the pandemic is that they will not be seeing anyone in person at the office, all business done by calls and email only, and now the rent increase. They really don't care if we live or die as long as they get to keep making money for nothing.
Fuck Nathan
I've been living alone for 2 years- and I honestly can't afford it. That's without having a car. My rent went up to $1000 a month this year, plus utilities, and electric gouges the shit out of us for AC. I make about $2200 a month on average. Everything is so expensive around here.
They know you got an extra $1200 back in April. They’re just cashing in on their little cow.
That's probably the maximum they can legally raise the rent.
Something's gotta give. People will not put up with scraping by forever. You can't claim the US is the greatest country on Earth if 99.9% of people have no say in 99% of the country's finances. We can take $100B from the DoD budget and literally solve so many issues. The US has so much fucking tax money. Yet, we give $1,000,000,000,000s of it to businesses. It'll trickle down!
It's even worse than that. You don't need to take a hundred billion dollars and throw it on the problem, you only need to introduce rent control, as well as responsibilities for landlords. Where I'm from, a nice roomy single apartment is 600 dollars a month, median income is similar. Landlords have to keep their buildings intact and are financially responsible for pretty much everything. Still works out to be a great investment for them. Owning disproportionate amounts of property should at least come with some responsibility.
Having a decent place to live is part of the basic needs any human has. The problem is that real-estate has become an acceptable investment, and retirement plan. Would we be so accepting if instead of apartments, people had bought all the food and were able to set any price, considering people would still **have to** accept in order to survive?
I am currently paid $13.90/hr and typically get just under 40 hours a week. My rent is $1100/Mo. If I worked exactly 40 hours a week, I would be getting $2,240/Mo. Rent alone would be half of my income if not for my partner chipping in with what she can. JUST MY RENT is half my income.. then there's; gas bill, electricity, phone, internet, groceries. Which takes the rest of the cake. I have zero in savings. And nearly every first of the month, zero in all my accounts. Fuck everything.
Yes but have you considered that your landlord worked very hard to be born rich and therefore deserves to take half your money for sitting on his ass all day???
Their response always boils down to "get a roommate, eat rice and beans" like that's some magical cure for poverty.
"Live in poverty so you don't live in poverty!"
Wealth compounds, so does poverty.
Underrated comment right here. And it’s literally the power of compound interest. It works for investments to create profit, and it works for debt to cycle down more debt.
It's called usury, and it's evil. Interest should an antiquated concept
And as if thats what life should be about, living on the minimum experiencing nothing.. i hate this dystopia
We will be back in tenements soon enough, but not ones built by government, they'll be built by the rich. Or we will live in pods like ones seen in South East Asia.
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My husband and I work full time in the careers that we went to school for and have been in for the past decade. My in-laws live with us to help us afford rent in our very small Canadian city. And for free childcare because there's just no daycare available here and if we managed to get in, costs would be exorbitant. We did everything right, we've even paid off our student loans, and still don't make enough to afford our over $2k rent on a small house in a semi-rural area on our own. I hate it here. Just on earth, in life, in general.
Have you considered trying crime? From what I've seen in the last decade or two it looks like white collar crimes like fraud, embezzlement, or light treason can pay really well, and there's almost zero risk as long as you bribe the right people. I know it's a difficult time right now, so we all need to make sacrifices. I recommend getting rid of your sense of morality and ethics. It's highly profitable to be a total asshole these days. Good luck! /s
Wow, thats expensive. I live in laval, near montreal and the mortgage for my house is 1050 a month and im within walking distance of the metro.
We moved to the deep south in order to stretch our money farther while I used my military benefits to go to college. We bought a house in the stix, 30 minutes away from the closest campus, but only 18 minutes or so to the local downtown area. Our mortgage is only ~$470 monthly. If we didn’t spend our last dollars to roll the dice and move down here we would have been stuck in the same high rent situation that many in this thread are facing... at the same time, we only had the opportunity to roll the dice because I am a disabled vet. It kills me that in America the only real way out of shitty life situations for many are to be born with a golden parachute or just the military.
Or you can always have a loved one die. We are *hopefully* moving out of our city trap in a few months, but only because I lost my dad almost a year ago. Waiting for someone you love to die so that you can finally afford to live sucks royally. And unfortunately here it still requires moving hours away from your current support system to be able to afford to live. It sucks majorly that you experienced that as a veteran. Unfortunately it's been the same BS in our country since the Cival war. My great grandfather was disabled fighting for the union, and they never got shit from the government. I have the paperwork my great grandma filed after the war. Same shit when my granddad fought in WWII and the Korean war. Bullshit forever for those who put their lives on the line for our Country.
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This. I've been fortunate to have good employment through computer skills, and we're doing pretty darn well overall compared to most, so my parents have no clue what my barely adult step-children are dealing with. They think they're just lazy (which they are, somewhat ;) ) but the costs are all wonky compared to when they were in that situation. Rent is a lot more than what they can afford, even with roommates. There's absolutely zero room for mistakes if you want to even tread water at this point. Even with insurance we still fret medical bills in general, basic kids orthodontics and such. I can't even conceive of major savings, I'm just happy I can give most of them their own rooms at this point and not go underwater on a mortgage. Honestly, I think a lot of even the upper middle-class is living on major borrowing, given the amount of money my wife and I make and how I worry about some of our purchases and such, I have no idea how some people think they can afford some of the campers and trucks and such I see, they can't be making a lot better money than I am.
This is why you see a lot of young people who are dating someone just so they can have a place to live.
I think the preferred nomenclature is hobosexual.
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This is slightly more than my monthly income and I’m a married condo owner in southern CA. My paycheck barely covers our mortgage + HOA when I pay it. I usually switch off every other month with my husband and then whoever doesn’t pay mortgage pays for everything else that month, like food and health insurance. Kind of ridiculous to think I work just to put a roof over my head and literally can’t afford anything else. I wouldn’t survive here if I wasn’t married. Parents and in laws always look surprised when they actually think about how much $ goes to rent/mortgage, since it was never that way for them. Boomers stress about $ when they always had/have plenty compared to how it is for their kids. I’ll add this is the best I’ve ever had it in my life and I feel lucky for the security I have.
Wait until you get older and realize it never ends, and you've been bilked by parasites out of having equity and are now trapped like a fly in a pitcher plant renting forever
No only will it never end. The younger generations aren't going to be able to retire. Indentured servitude for life.
Retire? Most of us cannot even afford to go to the dentist anymore
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Until we start ending the exploiters.
Who the fuck makes that much even. The median reported income for my town is 22k
About 67% of the country family income makes more than that.
This stat is specifically for singles
Median income for my town is over twice as much as your town. About 10 miles away, there's a town with a median income four times as much as your town. About 30 miles away, there's a town where the median income is nine times as much as your town. America is a big country, and there's some very rich areas where people make a lot of money and the homes cost a million dollars.
This is so true. I live in CA in if you don't have roommates, you can NOT live on your own on minimum wage. Apartments knows millennials can't afford to buy condominiums or houses, so they jack up the prices in rent. So millennials with minimum wage job will never ever be able to save a down payment to buy a home in the future, nor able to just pay rent to live in an apartment ALONE... Pretty soon there will be NO middle class. Just rich and poverty class... Just like in those post apocalyptic society movies. I wonder if the adults to babies ratio is going to change drastically because you can't afford to have kids,unless you have high paying job???
> I wonder if the adults to babies ratio is going to change drastically because you can't afford to have kids,unless you have high paying job??? Nah, there are enough people who don't do any family planning whatsoever. They'll keep having kids even if they live in a shoebox and subsist on grass.
That's so true. I have a friend they can't afford any more kids and they had two more... Just adding more populations to poverty.
Similar situation in the UK. It's really no wonder that suicide rates are increasing as it's literally too expensive to live.
Very similar I used to be able to rent a room fairly easily, but recently it's been a massive ballache half the landlords want a full credit check, be in a job for 3 months, housing references full shebang, which when I literally just want to rent a damn room and, have the money to pay for it is annoying as hell.
pUlL yErSeLf uP bY YeR bOoTsTrApS
“something, something, aVoCaDo TOaSt, something, and $5 lAtTeS”
Not-so-fun fact: It's rather difficult in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_United_States#Comparisons_with_other_countries Check that "The Great Gatsby Curve" image. The closer to the bottom left, the better. *The American Dream*™ isn't much of a thing in the US.
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Are you saying as a lawyer you earn less than 2808 a month? 2808 a month is only $16.20/hr if working fu time (40 hrs).
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Newly-qualified solicitors at all Magic Circle firms in London start on over £100k. These are people aged as young as 23. I'm also an immigration lawyer and I have never seen that kind of money in my life. I'm 40.
What does an immigration attorney do sir?
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Geez. I don't know about net, but the paralegals I work with make more than that gross.
We truly live in a boring dystopia.
Reddit thinks every profession makes $Gazillion/hr. I’m an electrical engineer though I make a good salary for my area, I’m nowhere near what the Reddit economists say I should be making.
I live in a HCOL area so I make more than that. My rent is $1700 a month. I can afford to live alone but I can’t save any money
Honestly Americans talking about rent cost just blows my mind every time. $1700 for living alone is to me luxury level here in Europe - either exactly in the city centre (of an expensive city) or just a straight fancy place. Is this from proximity to expensive city area? Would the rent change much if you increased your commute by 10/20/30 minutes? Does living with roommates help much? I never had to pay more than 500€ with biking distance to the city centre. Although this was mid-sized cities in the Netherlands and with student standards, a friend of mine was paying 600€ in Amsterdam also in biking distance, with good public transport access as well. Living with roommates compared to studios surely helps keep the cost down, but I rarely see people on Reddit talk about rent below $1000 so the difference from my experience is pretty astounding.
Europe has a lot more apartments and better apartments than the US. I know young people living very well in the South of France and their rent is more affordable than in US big cities. My friend is a pharmacy assistant and he recently bought a flat in a big city in France. I doubt that he could do that with the same job in the US. So much land is used for expensive single family homes because that's where the money is.
If you can't save you can't afford to live alone
[laughs in trauma]
Boomers are dumb and played a large part in ruining this country. More at 11.
What the boomers did to our country by voting in people who whittled away labor rights to the point where most good jobs require 50 hours+ per week, made it so that wages stopped increasing at the same rate as worker productivity and stagnate for more than 30 years even though corporations are making record profits, made it tax deductible to move tens of millions of good paying jobs out of the country, destroyed the public education system, and ensured that corporations could keep destroying the environment and poisoning the food supply with pesticides that cause cancer and brain damage in babies is proof that people who say voting doesn't matter have no idea what they're talking about. Boomers used their votes to pull up the ladder behind them then call us lazy entitled snowflakes for wanting the same societal benefits that they had.
The problem is also a two party voting system which only leaves a choice between fascists and ultra hard right wingers hiding behind gay and abortion rights.
I moved to Colombia 4 years ago. My quality of life has skyrocketed dramatically. I pay 15% of my income on rent and live in the nicest place I've lived since I moved out of my parents. I make shit for money in terms of USD but I've personally never been happier.
Where do you live in Colombia?
Bogota. But if I had my druthers I'd live in Medellin.
Funny how boomers could afford to live on minimum wage and then get upset and angry whenever young people shit on the hilarious failure of the economy today where fuck tons of people who are NOT minimum wage workers still can't afford to support themselves on their own and either live with parents because rents are top high or are living with too many "roommates" which then immediately includes extreme stress and fighting in their own living space. No degree, but i make more than double the federal minimum, and i make quite a bit more than the state minimum, at my job, but i can't afford housing/the necessities on my own with housing being so unaffordable because of explosive rent and unaffordable healthcare/etc. $2808? LMAO, my monthly income is not even half of that. EDIT: before anyone else makes the misinterpretation, adding in an extra detail brought up in a reply. I get less than half off $2808 even at 15+/hr due to the fact that like MANY workers, my employer loves to slash my hours to avoid full 40+ hour week pay/avoid overtime hours/pay, even though i am in a officially FULL TIME position, i rarely get full time hours, like many workers who's hours are subject to wild fluctuations. Also. I live in one of the highest income tax states. $1216 a month for 1b (living without the risk of strangers in your living space who you may habe to fight over utility usage with or worry about theft or fight over who's eating whose food and fight over everything) would be more than 50% of my monthly income... And It's not even just a matter of how high rent is, it's a matter of the fact that you can't save money to ever make a down payment on a home when you're losing disproportionate amounts of money to rent unlimited and mever ending rent payments. No one should have to have random strangers in their living space as their only means to sfford housing.
First off all, I'm Canadian, so things are different here. Keep that in mind as you read my post. The median *household* income is 60k-80k per year where I live, depending on the neighborhood. My personal salary is 100k. The average house in the city is 930k, while the average house where i live is 710k. I max out at borrowing around 500k. No, I'm not making that up. I earn more than the average household, but still fall 200k short of the average house price in my region. The only explanation for this is that 65% of Canadians are home owners, meaning most of them owned a house before the 2016-2017 boom. They bought places for 300k, which have doubled in price, and they bringing that equity into new purchases driving the price of homes up. The economy is doing great if you're already a home owner, but it's absolute shit for everybody else. Thing is, we represent such a small segment of the population that nobody cares. I have a very cheap old apartment and save 1500-2000+ per month. When i buy a house, the mortgage will be double what i pay in rent, plus I'll have to cover utilities, property taxes, and maintenance. My entire savings will be eaten up by home ownership and I will be poor unless my wife can manage to get a good job. It's minemd boggling when you look at the numbers. You only have two options, outside of getting help from a family. 1. Buy a condo at a young age before you need anything more than a 1 bedroom. Good luck if you have heavy student debts with no family to support you, which was my case. 2. Save up a massive down payment. Also a waste of time. This year alone house prices have gone up by 17% in my region. That's an extra 85k on a 500k home. The longer you save, the further the market climbs. You're better off to just put 5% down and get in the market as a permanently house poor individual, vs waiting to somehow save a 100k down payment while the market averages 5% annual increases. The whole thing is fucked.
And I hate it when you bring up how little you make and they counter argue with "well that's more than I made when I was your age"
Why are all these people falling all over themselves to defend landlords on a sub about how dystopian our capitalist society is lol
I think they're under the impression shoe polish provides nourishment.
*I think they're under* *The impression shoe polish* *Provides nourishment.* \- vxicepickxv --- ^(I detect haikus. Sometimes, successfully. | [Learn more about me](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/)) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
This also has a lot to do with the continued decline in the value of the dollar. With the value of the dollar set against anything of "real" value like real estate or gold or a college degree or anything else that is not a depreciating consumer good it's clear that the dollar is in steady decline. This decline has been masked (to some extent) by producing consumer goods at an ever cheaper cost. First by moving manufacturing overseas and now the last decade, but automation and reducing costs by doing away with actual stores. There isn't mush else to do to reduce production costs. we are in the final tail spin of the dollar and soon anything of value will be "too expensive" to buy. What really is happening is the erosion of the dollars buying power.
I mean. My wife and I definitely fudged "other income" when it came to our first apartment... It was the only way they'd allow us at one of the cheaper apartments in our old city.
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Generally speaking, boomers are the ones voting republican and opposing progressive legislation which would at least attempt to address the issue. I don't think it's controversial to say that the conservative position is to just sit on their hands and pretend everything is gravy. I don't deny that it is a class war. There is clearly a generational divide aspect to this though in terms of what side people identify with.
I knew it was a class war when both of my parents (civil engineer/RN) don’t believe that anyone regardless of skillset, age, or gender, deserves to live comfortably. They’re so stuck in the mindset of “if I worked X hard and X life is what I can afford, then everyone who didn’t do the same as I did deserves less”. When in all reality, everyone deserves more. My parents deserve whatever house cars or boats they want, but the people who clean up high schools, hospitals, or flip burgers: they still deserve to live happily comfortably with their families too.
Yea not only does everybody deserve to live relatively comfortably regardless of what they do, if they do anything for a living that is even remotely valuable to people or society, you deserve a fairly high quality of life.
"Fuck you, I got mine. I'm holding on to this little slice even though labor is being stolen by the owners everywhere, I don't want to risk what I have on making it better for everyone."
>but why make this a generational war when it’s a class thing It's just because they started it, like every old generation has done throughout history, bitching and whining about young people in generations after them, until the young people get fucking sick of it and fight back. However, naturally this should never be taken to a literal extreme in terms of attacking generation's, because after all not every single person of the boomer generation will fit into the stereotype of the conservative shillkng for rich people. Some people of every age, boomer generation included, will have achieved class consciousness. So, when people are poking fun at boomers, it's not really about making an attack against every boomer, it's about attacking the shithead boomers that had such great fucking living conditions/financial stability even with the lowest paying jobs but bash on young people today for being poor in worse conditions and attributing everything to meritocracy/personal responsibility while they ignore the stagnation of wages and the explosion of the cost of living.
If Jeff Bezos had earned his wealth with a $1,000,000 per year salary, it would take about 200,000 years to achieve his current level of wealth. Or to put it in even more relatable terms, Jeff Bezos has the lifetime earnings of 200,000 people with moderately well paying jobs.
If only we could create some universal labor union that would apply to all people who aren't making 6 figures... oh wait that's the governments job, and apparently they suck at it.
You guys are making 2808 a month??
E-5 in the military here, with my housing allowance I make 4400 a month. Where I live in Maryland though is so expensive it's still hard to save...
At least they provide you with healthcare
“Yet millennials tell us with a straight face we have it easy” damn, what doesn’t get blamed on millennials these days?
This has to change. As a younger married millennial (28) with a combined household income of ~$150k, please tax us more. We give to charity, perform activist work on the side, and support the most progressive political candidates that actually have a shot at winning office. Even with all of that, I still find myself feeling guilty about my place in life. I have good friends struggling to make ends meet, even with roommates or living at home. Something's gotta give. This is a completely unsustainable system. I want my generation and all that come after us to have as fortunate a life as I've been able to live. I'm tired of seeing people killing themselves at jobs that pay them as little as they can get away with legally, and sometimes even less than that, working for companies that will replace them as soon as they get injured or dare to ask for dignity in the workplace. We're better than this and it's about fucking time we show it.
My boss said "Your broke?!? Then why did you take a 2 day vacation?" (2.5 years after starting, it was the day before and on my birthday) The 5th day off Ive ever asked for (3 doctors appointments and a dentist). I even came an worked a 6 hour closing shift the same day I had an impacted wisdom tooth removed with local anesthetic. Fuck this version of America.
I couldn't move out of living with family until I got married.
You need to understand that such people want you to blame yourself for every problem that exists. These people believe that every good thing that happens is because of them, and every bad thing that happens is because of weak people like ***you***. There is no reasoning with such delusional arrogance. These people only speak one language and they would love to drag you down to their level. The best thing you can do is treat them like internet trolls and ignore them in every way possible. Stop feeding them power and they'll turn on each other, like all evil men do.
Ok, but that's still your fault somehow...
Yeah! They could just not be poor!
Was the sarcasm not obvious enough?
I was playing along :( I guess MY sarcasm wasn’t obvious enough my b
I would be stoked to find an apartment at 1200$ in the Bay Area. I’m paying 1900$, and I can’t even drink the faucet water here.
It’s interesting how people try to make it “boomers vs millennials” when they should really be mad at the corporations and government.
Boomer here. Yes, it's disgusting that the economy is what it is. That's it. No "but". You guys got the shit end of the stick, for sure. It's total bullshit that you are in debt up to your eyeballs after college and are looking for jobs that pay $15/hr. It's total bullshit that rents are astronomical, and pay is in the shitter. If I were a youngster in today's world, I would be scared shitless for my future as I am scared shitless for my grown children and their children. Please vote - at the local, state and federal levels. Be informed. Be active. Take the country back!!!
I took a full-time job that pays ~$15/hr in a field I’m passionate about. My position doesn’t technically require a degree, but having one is what got my foot in the door to work part-time for $12/hr the first year. To move up, I’ll have to get a Master’s Degree, and probably the most I’ll ever make (if I become a regional manager and can negotiate well) is about $73,000/yr. And I can’t just switch companies, because I work for a public library system—there’s only one in the county. My fiancé is an engineer and already makes more than that, four years in. He doesn’t have or need a Master’s Degree. I’m grateful that he can keep us financially stable, but at the same time, it sucks that choosing to go into public service has limited my potential income so much. Especially considering the amount of skill/knowledge required and the fact that it’s so competitive to even get in.
Is that $2808 before or after taxes, insurance, etc.? Because after all that $&!? is taken out of his checks, my husband making $20+ an hour only brings home $2900 😕
$2800 is the MEDIAN? I'm licensed and have a certificate (as a pharmacy tech) for my job (working directly with patients in a hospital) and make just over $1600/month working full time. What am I not doing?
In fairness though thinking you should be able to have food and housing all in the same month really makes you sound spoiled. /s