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How poor is the average American? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by Kushia@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I've been watching a few American TV shows and it blows my mind that they put up with such atrocious working terms and conditions.

One show was about a removal company where any damage at all, even not the workers fault, is taken out of their tips. There's no insurance from the multimillion dollar business. As they're not paid a living wage the guy on the show had examples of when he and his family went weeks with barely any income and this was considered normal?!

Another example was a cooking show where the prize was tickets to an NFL game. The lady who won explained that she'd be waiting in the car so her sons could experience their first live game, because she couldn't otherwise afford a ticket to go. They give tickets for football games away for free to people where I live for no reason at all..

Yet another example was where the workers got a $5k tip from their company and the reactions were as if this amount of money was even remotely life changing. It saddens me to think the average Americans life could be made so much better with such a relatively small amount of money and they don't unionize and demand far better. The company in question was on track to make a billion bloody dollars while their workers are on the poverty line and don't even have all their teeth?

It's not actually this bad and the average American lives a pretty good life like we're led to believe, right?

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[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

This is a common misbelief.

There's a small subset of U.S. citizens who do live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and actually do need a personal vehicle to get around. The vast majority does not.

[–] angstylittlecatboy@reddthat.com 2 points 11 months ago

Not true. So much of the US, including many cities is uninhabitable or at least extremely inconvenient without a car due to a lack of planning that supports a car free lifestyle.

Also, while the majority of Americans live in urban areas, the rural population is not so small as to be insignificant.

The long term solution is to improve infrastructure and zoning laws to reduce the car centrism of the majority of the USA, this is already being done in many cities, but for the time being most Americans need a car.

[–] ctobrien84@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's just false. There are vast rural areas and communities in every state. If you think it's only in a select few states in the middle of the country, then I have a bridge to sell you.

[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago

My argument does not hinge on any arbitrary state borders. Read again.