Centrist pundits take issue with Bernie Sanders’s frequent claim that 60% of Americans are living “paycheck to paycheck.” His critics’ attempts to debunk this statistic aren’t convincing.
I make 100k a year living paycheck to paycheck because before that I was poor, very poor. Had to pay off all my student loans and car payments. Now that that’s finally all said and done the cost of rent increased so damn much along with utilities and a bag of groceries costing $120 for practically nothing. I also have a three year old and I’m a single father. Anyways, after taxes, retirement funds, and funds I’ve started for my child so when I’m dead he at least has a foundation that no one in my family has ever seen before I’m basically left with nothing. It’s crazy I somehow keep finding better jobs every few years but by the time I do the cost of living increases so god damn much that it doesn’t matter. I don’t live in New York City or anything either I live in a shitty two bedroom apartment in a crappy city that a bunch of wealthy people randomly started moving to in COVID and kicking everyone else out that’s lived there for their entire lives by buying the rental properties and increasing rent to the point of where they can’t stay anymore. Problem is I’d have to move like an hour and a half away from my job to find anything affordable and I can’t do that because then I’d have zero time with my kid after work which I value higher than anything else on this planet.
I make 100k a year living paycheck to paycheck because before that I was poor, very poor. Had to pay off all my student loans and car payments. Now that that’s finally all said and done the cost of rent increased so damn much along with utilities and a bag of groceries costing $120 for practically nothing. I also have a three year old and I’m a single father. Anyways, after taxes, retirement funds, and funds I’ve started for my child so when I’m dead he at least has a foundation that no one in my family has ever seen before I’m basically left with nothing. It’s crazy I somehow keep finding better jobs every few years but by the time I do the cost of living increases so god damn much that it doesn’t matter. I don’t live in New York City or anything either I live in a shitty two bedroom apartment in a crappy city that a bunch of wealthy people randomly started moving to in COVID and kicking everyone else out that’s lived there for their entire lives by buying the rental properties and increasing rent to the point of where they can’t stay anymore. Problem is I’d have to move like an hour and a half away from my job to find anything affordable and I can’t do that because then I’d have zero time with my kid after work which I value higher than anything else on this planet.