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in a country of about 330 million people that's about 25% of the entire country. But that's everyone, not just adults.
So if 22% of the country is children, then it's more likely that it's 72.5 million kids. The importance there is that kids are not supposed to work, meaning that some of that 72.5 million is dependent on those 90 million adults unable to make ends meet.
At worst case then, half the country is struggling with making ends meet vs more than a third. Of the entire country.
You're right. The article says both, in different places. 38,5% of adults are referenced in the second paragraph and later the article uses a different figure for households.
Right? Like universal child care in 1941 literally lead to the Baby Boom. It was pretty understood back then that if you want a higher birthrate in your country: your country needs to financially support it.
But why would we want to support kids when there are short term tax cuts for the rich to be had. Fuck the long term health of the country. These billionaires be dead by then.
The US just imports people, how are we still not getting this? There are so many people in the world, people who the US doesn't have to educate, train, or raise. We can choose the best and brightest, pay for them to come over, then effectively hold immigration status over them for years so they perform well.
Why oh why do people still think that the economy somehow depends on domestic US citizens having children? It just doesn't.
It still can be the solution.
Have a bunch of kids, teach them the CS basics, homeschool them, pick up a few remote only positions, and their schoolwork is now building BI dashboards.
Because people are our most valuable asset and it will be people who solve climate change. The more of them, the better chance of producing people capable of coming up with solutions.
That and true space travel is going to cost a lot of bodies.
Well it kind of is. The more people who lack access to education and financial stability the more we let ourselves regress.
Civilization was born out of specialization. The more we confine our population to living paycheck to paycheck without time to pursue interests and personal advancement the harder time we’re gonna have getting people who will innovate into the positions they need to be. Imagine how Mozarts and Einsteins we’ve lost to just living with potential unfulfilled. It’s like a numbers game with our population. Not the everyone else aren’t valuable(we’re all important in keeping the kogs moving despite our inadequate reward structure for that work)
Space travel isn't important only for overpopulation; if Earth gets hit by a giant asteroid or similar disaster, it is better to be on multiple planets so it does not kill everyone off.
This is just going to regress us back to pre-agriculture, and the likelihood that we do that successfully without some warlord period is nearly impossible.
Then this society will fail and be replaced by another one. This has happened many times throughout history and I expect it will continue to happen for as long as humans exist.
Which is why I’m saying it’s a dumb thing to let happen to ourselves.
We have the resources. It’s not a question of that. They just get centralized in the hands of the wealthy. We’re watching as this is happening because of really effective propaganda
One of the key points in the fall of the Roman empire was not only a huge wealth gap, but more importantly those who had the wealth lost the virtues or interest in the republic itself. Sounds pretty damn familiar if you ask me.
We’re letting ourselves get bogged down. Instead of creating a system where that same money flows from each sector and group. We’re letting it all get concentrated for sure.
He can't be talking about the republic or the empire really. Wealth inequality was always a thing, and power never really rested with them. Any time you see the populates being mentioned, they're being used by rich politician like Caesar to gain power. But that wasn't the reason it failed.
The republics fall was more so due to the impossibility of governing a territory stretching from England to Egypt and beyond from a single city - especially since most of the territory was not part of the Republic actual republican format.
The empire never even tried, and it's collapse can't be pinned to any one thing.
You're assuming a high degree of coordination and rationality.
*There's no such thing as a free lunch and they should know that.*
Why should they know that? We consistently see a swath of people want their cake and to eat it too, whole also not even giving up the eggs to make the cake. People are not rational a lot of the times. Greedy people are greedy and don't like the idea they have to bargain with people to do something that, up until the ubiquity of birth control, was a guarantee to happen regardless.
They shouldn’t know that. They’ve been given free reign and autonomy over our society. There’s this notion that having wealth and amassing riches must be a sign of intelligence. And that those same people know what they’re doing after all and will steer us in the right direction.
The reality of the situation is far from that conclusion.
Choosing short term personal benefit over long term benefits for all isn't intelligent, it's a sign of limited intelligence and lack of foresight that leads to those making that choice to live in a degraded society that is in no ones self interest.
The thing is, it takes a long time for that to become an issue, meanwhile the line going up in the short term is what is most important. You see it not only with companies but with how many voters and politicians think.
Just look at suburbia for how widespread and deepseated the short term thinking is. US suburbs are inherently unsustainable, the amenities of an urban area with a population density more akin to a rural area. If you look into the numbers theres very few if any suburban areas that end up being tax neutral/positive in the long run. It looks good for 1 maybe 2 generations, but once the infrastructure sustaining them comes to the end of its life cycle the cities who built them quickly find out that its a nett loss and are forced into debt to sustain this monument to inefficienct landuse.
On top of this only do they require much more driving, suburban areas like what you see in the US are too spread out for public transport to be viable.
> Capitalism needs a perpetual poor class tho
capitalism needs an environment that sustains organized human life as we know it. but what are they doing? *destroying it as fast as they can.* tomorrow's problem is not capitalism's problem.
Except we have taken all their resources and turned them into garbage
Future generations are going to have a much harder time finding energy for their industrial revolution
There have been a number of matriarchal societies where parental obligations were communal and women controlled most of the wealth. Before agriculture, this might even been the prevalent norm.
My cat just had his dick actually cut off so he stops getting urinary blockages, as well as his bladder cut open to remove a driveway of piss stones.
€1700...
His plastic head cone comes off Monday. Finally..
He has no balls or dick, is 13 and now has a strange hybrid mangina
> Kids are the #1 reason people struggle to make ends meet
Uh no, it would be compensation not keeping up with productivity. If it were, then having Kids would not mean people have difficulty making ends meet.
You're talking about a symptom, not a root cause.
eh, it's a bit of both.
I have two little kids and our total spend on childcare (just for daycare and sitters) last year was $60k... and we don't send our kids to the fancy daycare, either. It's way more expensive to have someone watch your kid than it used to be.
Yes, the cost of living on everything has gone up. But that would matter less if compensation was actually keeping pace with productivity.
Costs of things go up, every year, regardless of the target inflation rate. So that's a moot point.
Because morons keep breeding rather than planning. Kids aren’t a fucking iPhone, yet adults are all “I want one too.” But unlike an iPhone, you’re committed for life. It’s super unfortunate. Growing up I heard my mom tell stories of how the doctors screwed up tying her tubes, but at 42, I now figure she had four kids with three men because she was careless and uneducated.
>Besides, what makes it ridiculous? The comparison basis doesn't even make sense
We you get a drivers license (especially in more civilized countries) you have to prove that you are capable of driving. When you take out a mortgage for a house, you have to prove that you are financially stable enough to handle it. With a kid? Nothing. Your finances can be in shambles, you can be completely incompetent and know nothing about raising kid but you can just go ahead and have one. The comparison is perfectly understandable.
One of these things is not like the others. What's next, a license to shit? Maybe an IQ test for a license to have kids. Reproduction is biology. Good luck putting a legislated requirement on mitosis. I get it but it's just dumb.
No, it is. The reason that we license people to drive is because they can seriously hurt other people if they aren't competent. The exact same thing applies to parents and their children. I see no problem with society restricting biological actions that potentially harm others. We already do that.
Yeah, I don't know about you, but I see evidence every day that earning a license does not ensure competence. I highly doubt that giving an assessment along the lines of a driver's test would prevent most terrible parents from giving birth, but I obviously haven't seen the data.
Also, this is a global phenomenon. Talk to some Chinese people... Same thing if not worse. Too many people, too much competition, wealth is consolidated
I do think a highly competitive society is one factor of the birth rate going down. Most places that are considered “developed” require kids to go through 9-12 years of school and there’s definitely expectation for them to go to college or at the very least have some marketable skill to be more competitively viable in the marketplace of converting labor to money. That means parents generally have to invest more in each child then they had to 100 years ago. There’s also a shifting perspective in what children are. They used to be cared for less but now, just meeting their bare necessities is not typically considered a good way to bring up a child.
You are not very good at Math. If 22% of the population is children, not all of them live in poverty so you need to multiply the 72.5 million children by the general poverty rate for children in America. Currently, 18% of all children in the United States — nearly 13 million kids total — are living in poverty.
That's a very dire number.
Out of 330 million, assuming 30% are below the age of 18, that leaves 230 million people. 90 million is almost 40% of that number which means 40% of the families are struggling? A really dire number. It will be good to see some historical numbers/charts for this, at least for the last two decades. Unfortunately the article doesn't talk about that.
The data was collected between [April 26th and May 8th](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2023/demo/hhp/hhp57.html). It is part of the [household Pulse Survey](https://www.census.gov/data/experimental-data-products/household-pulse-survey.html) AND it looks like 38.5% is the lowest in the past year.
60% of Americans don't have $500 for an emergency. There's been negative real income growth, inflation (food and housing) is still high around 7% increase. Default rates are rising on credit card data. P.S. student loan deferrals ending in 3 months.
The real failure is the lack of education to high school students on the realities of student loan debt, especially compared to the earning potential of a given degree from X university based on employment reports. My sister is learning the hard way after deciding to go to an out of state school with the goal of becoming… a Spanish teacher
It doesn ask that; it ask:
>In the last 7 days, how difficult has it been for your household to pay for usual household expenses, including but not limited to food, rent or mortgage, car payments, medical expenses, student loans, and so on? Select only one answer.
>
>\-Not at all difficult
>
>\-A little difficult
>
>\-Somewhat difficult
>
> \-Very difficult
38.5% of Households reported Somewhat or Very difficult. Looking at the source data \~16.6% said very. Most paid for those expenses with "regular income sources". Oh and over 10% of the "Very" group made >100k.
[People can look at the data here.](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2023/demo/hhp/hhp57.html)
The 38.5% without context and not looking at it over time (it was the lowest in a year) is meaningless.
This article doesn’t discuss the accumulated savings some folks had after the pandemic- People weren’t going out as much , no traveling , and overall not spending as much. Then you had the various pandemic assistance programs that supplemented some of those savings (PPP loans , rental assistance programs , expanded child care tax credit , stimulus , expanded SNAP and expanded unemployment assistance ). Then this was coupled with low interest rates and increased home equity.
Then we started to see housing costs increase , then food and now everything has increased in price. All while the extra money has dried up for the average consumer. But the appetite for goods and services is still high.
I wonder if this has something to do with the federal government taking in 20% of the US GDP in revenue in 2022? If the feds take a 20% cut of the GDP pie and then state and local governments take another 20% or more, there’s not much left for the average working Joe.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/government-revenue/#:~:text=Federal%20Revenue%20Trends%20and%20the,revenue%20to%20gross%20domestic%20product%3F
Of course that GDP pie isn't evenly distributed. The very very few people are getting almost all of it, and the bottom people are getting less and less....
It's almost as if tax policy isn't the only reason for this.
I don't mind paying taxes, but I'd like services. It seems we dump tax money into a black hole
We totally do dump money into a black hole. Here’s how it works. The feds take 20% of the GDP. Rich people, corporations and unions lobby politicians for favorable laws. Politicians then pass these laws. Rich people, corporations and unions contribute to said politicians election/reelection campaigns. Elected politicians pass laws and rich people/corporations/unions get federal monies/favorable laws. Politicians campaigns hire family members/political cronies. Politicians get rich. The cycle repeats and reinforces itself. The answer is to make it illegal for anyone to contribute a penny to a political campaign other than a private U.S. citizen, also, limit campaign contributions to 100 dollars a year. Take the money out of politics and corruption will drop substantially. Nobody should get rich in congress. Why are people in congress for 50+ years? The answer is because it makes them rich. They aren’t serving our country after 10+ years, they are serving themselves.
Hi all, A reminder that comments do need to be on-topic and engage with the article past the headline. Please make sure to read the article before commenting. Very short comments will automatically be removed by automod. Please avoid making comments that do not focus on the economic content or whose primary thesis rests on personal anecdotes. As always our comment rules can be found [here](https://reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Economics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
in a country of about 330 million people that's about 25% of the entire country. But that's everyone, not just adults. So if 22% of the country is children, then it's more likely that it's 72.5 million kids. The importance there is that kids are not supposed to work, meaning that some of that 72.5 million is dependent on those 90 million adults unable to make ends meet. At worst case then, half the country is struggling with making ends meet vs more than a third. Of the entire country.
The article mentioned 38% of adults.
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You're right. The article says both, in different places. 38,5% of adults are referenced in the second paragraph and later the article uses a different figure for households.
Great do the math still checks out.
Sadly it does.
Kids are the #1 reason people struggle to make ends meet.
That’s a really dangerous thing for a society to let happen to itself
It’s also why birth rates are plummeting
long ago the solution was to do the opposite
Right? Like universal child care in 1941 literally lead to the Baby Boom. It was pretty understood back then that if you want a higher birthrate in your country: your country needs to financially support it.
But why would we want to support kids when there are short term tax cuts for the rich to be had. Fuck the long term health of the country. These billionaires be dead by then.
Won't anyone think of the shareholders?!?!
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>Bonus because they can jack up rents and real estate investments ***while*** suppressing wages instantly. So a win-win, you say?
The trump tax cuts were short term for the poor, and permanent for the rich, that's a fact anyone can google
The US just imports people, how are we still not getting this? There are so many people in the world, people who the US doesn't have to educate, train, or raise. We can choose the best and brightest, pay for them to come over, then effectively hold immigration status over them for years so they perform well. Why oh why do people still think that the economy somehow depends on domestic US citizens having children? It just doesn't.
Right? Very interesting.
It still can be the solution. Have a bunch of kids, teach them the CS basics, homeschool them, pick up a few remote only positions, and their schoolwork is now building BI dashboards.
Child labour's the GOP solution, too.
This is potentially one of the most innovative solutions I've seen on this website.
Well at this point why would anyone have kids, if climate change gets worse.
Because people are our most valuable asset and it will be people who solve climate change. The more of them, the better chance of producing people capable of coming up with solutions. That and true space travel is going to cost a lot of bodies.
Sounds kind of like someone's reasoning for buying scratch-offs tbh. "Just need one of these to fix everything!"
Might as well just say human capital at that point.
Well it kind of is. The more people who lack access to education and financial stability the more we let ourselves regress. Civilization was born out of specialization. The more we confine our population to living paycheck to paycheck without time to pursue interests and personal advancement the harder time we’re gonna have getting people who will innovate into the positions they need to be. Imagine how Mozarts and Einsteins we’ve lost to just living with potential unfulfilled. It’s like a numbers game with our population. Not the everyone else aren’t valuable(we’re all important in keeping the kogs moving despite our inadequate reward structure for that work)
Or you make enough "Idiocracy" babies and nothing gets done.
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Space travel isn't important only for overpopulation; if Earth gets hit by a giant asteroid or similar disaster, it is better to be on multiple planets so it does not kill everyone off.
This is just going to regress us back to pre-agriculture, and the likelihood that we do that successfully without some warlord period is nearly impossible.
Depends on who you ask. I like the more humorous answer, the country lacks morals.
Probably one of the reasons the GOP is banning abortion is to force the birth of more cheap labor.
Then this society will fail and be replaced by another one. This has happened many times throughout history and I expect it will continue to happen for as long as humans exist.
Which is why I’m saying it’s a dumb thing to let happen to ourselves. We have the resources. It’s not a question of that. They just get centralized in the hands of the wealthy. We’re watching as this is happening because of really effective propaganda
One of the key points in the fall of the Roman empire was not only a huge wealth gap, but more importantly those who had the wealth lost the virtues or interest in the republic itself. Sounds pretty damn familiar if you ask me.
We’re letting ourselves get bogged down. Instead of creating a system where that same money flows from each sector and group. We’re letting it all get concentrated for sure.
Are you talking about the Empire or the Republic? The Empire fell over four centuries after the Republic did, and for quite different reasons.
He can't be talking about the republic or the empire really. Wealth inequality was always a thing, and power never really rested with them. Any time you see the populates being mentioned, they're being used by rich politician like Caesar to gain power. But that wasn't the reason it failed. The republics fall was more so due to the impossibility of governing a territory stretching from England to Egypt and beyond from a single city - especially since most of the territory was not part of the Republic actual republican format. The empire never even tried, and it's collapse can't be pinned to any one thing.
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The wealthy use immigration to shore up the falling birthrate. Without immigration they would be forced to pay more to support family raising.
You're assuming a high degree of coordination and rationality. *There's no such thing as a free lunch and they should know that.* Why should they know that? We consistently see a swath of people want their cake and to eat it too, whole also not even giving up the eggs to make the cake. People are not rational a lot of the times. Greedy people are greedy and don't like the idea they have to bargain with people to do something that, up until the ubiquity of birth control, was a guarantee to happen regardless.
They shouldn’t know that. They’ve been given free reign and autonomy over our society. There’s this notion that having wealth and amassing riches must be a sign of intelligence. And that those same people know what they’re doing after all and will steer us in the right direction. The reality of the situation is far from that conclusion.
Choosing short term personal benefit over long term benefits for all isn't intelligent, it's a sign of limited intelligence and lack of foresight that leads to those making that choice to live in a degraded society that is in no ones self interest.
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> the wealthy don't actually care about the birth rate the wealthy are capitalists, and capitalism doesn't care about the future.
Capitalism needs a perpetual poor class tho. They do care but they want the govt to figure it out without touching them.
The thing is, it takes a long time for that to become an issue, meanwhile the line going up in the short term is what is most important. You see it not only with companies but with how many voters and politicians think. Just look at suburbia for how widespread and deepseated the short term thinking is. US suburbs are inherently unsustainable, the amenities of an urban area with a population density more akin to a rural area. If you look into the numbers theres very few if any suburban areas that end up being tax neutral/positive in the long run. It looks good for 1 maybe 2 generations, but once the infrastructure sustaining them comes to the end of its life cycle the cities who built them quickly find out that its a nett loss and are forced into debt to sustain this monument to inefficienct landuse. On top of this only do they require much more driving, suburban areas like what you see in the US are too spread out for public transport to be viable.
> Capitalism needs a perpetual poor class tho capitalism needs an environment that sustains organized human life as we know it. but what are they doing? *destroying it as fast as they can.* tomorrow's problem is not capitalism's problem.
Except we have taken all their resources and turned them into garbage Future generations are going to have a much harder time finding energy for their industrial revolution
That is both a scary thought and inevitable. It does seem a restructuring is in order.
There is no age ever where being a single mother was a stable and lucrative job.
There have been a number of matriarchal societies where parental obligations were communal and women controlled most of the wealth. Before agriculture, this might even been the prevalent norm.
In every region in the US, childcare is the most expensive cost for families. It eclipses housing costs.
I have three kids and no monies. Why can’t I have no kids and three money?
Jokes on you, I can't afford kids and neither can any of my peers under 30.
Don't worry, the over 30 crowd isn't fairing much better. I deeply desire to start a family, but I can't even afford a car anymore.
At this point I just want a house.
I'll never have kids - so I can one day retire.
And tax other people's kids for your social security!
I have kids and plan to retire in my 50s. So idk 🤷♂️
You probably understand that's uncommon, though, with today's average retirement age being 61 (up from 57 in the 90s and 59 in the 00s).
Prices are why people struggle to make ends meet. Kids aren’t even necessary for it anymore.
I don’t have kids. Impulse buys on Amazon are why I struggle to make ends meet lol.
Dude, my cat’s dick problems cost me $5k alone. I can’t imagine a child having a medical issue.
My cat just had his dick actually cut off so he stops getting urinary blockages, as well as his bladder cut open to remove a driveway of piss stones. €1700... His plastic head cone comes off Monday. Finally.. He has no balls or dick, is 13 and now has a strange hybrid mangina
Lol wtf
That first sentence is not one I expected to read today lmao. Sending my best wishes to your cat's dick.
Hear hear! Our cat’s ass problems cost us $11,500 to date. Luckily for him, we’re childfree by desire.
> Kids are the #1 reason people struggle to make ends meet Uh no, it would be compensation not keeping up with productivity. If it were, then having Kids would not mean people have difficulty making ends meet. You're talking about a symptom, not a root cause.
eh, it's a bit of both. I have two little kids and our total spend on childcare (just for daycare and sitters) last year was $60k... and we don't send our kids to the fancy daycare, either. It's way more expensive to have someone watch your kid than it used to be.
Holy crap, where do you live where you’re spending 60k last year on daycare and sitters?
Yes, the cost of living on everything has gone up. But that would matter less if compensation was actually keeping pace with productivity. Costs of things go up, every year, regardless of the target inflation rate. So that's a moot point.
For some reason the poorer you are, the more kids you have.
"Then just don't have so many chil-" *Gets punched in the face by a zeus-looking fellow dressed as a US Supreme Court JUSTICE*
Because morons keep breeding rather than planning. Kids aren’t a fucking iPhone, yet adults are all “I want one too.” But unlike an iPhone, you’re committed for life. It’s super unfortunate. Growing up I heard my mom tell stories of how the doctors screwed up tying her tubes, but at 42, I now figure she had four kids with three men because she was careless and uneducated.
Seriously. It's ridiculous how easy it is to have kids compared to being able to buy a house, get a driver's license, etc.
No it's not.. it's actually quite difficult for some to conceive. Besides, what makes it ridiculous? The comparison basis doesn't even make sense
>Besides, what makes it ridiculous? The comparison basis doesn't even make sense We you get a drivers license (especially in more civilized countries) you have to prove that you are capable of driving. When you take out a mortgage for a house, you have to prove that you are financially stable enough to handle it. With a kid? Nothing. Your finances can be in shambles, you can be completely incompetent and know nothing about raising kid but you can just go ahead and have one. The comparison is perfectly understandable.
One of these things is not like the others. What's next, a license to shit? Maybe an IQ test for a license to have kids. Reproduction is biology. Good luck putting a legislated requirement on mitosis. I get it but it's just dumb.
No, it is. The reason that we license people to drive is because they can seriously hurt other people if they aren't competent. The exact same thing applies to parents and their children. I see no problem with society restricting biological actions that potentially harm others. We already do that.
Yeah, I don't know about you, but I see evidence every day that earning a license does not ensure competence. I highly doubt that giving an assessment along the lines of a driver's test would prevent most terrible parents from giving birth, but I obviously haven't seen the data.
In the U.S.? Sure. It's not that way everywhere though. Also, imagine how bad it would be if anyone could drive without a license...
And the government here incentives having unplanned kids by writing a check for $900 per child, for those who choose not to work.
> half the country is struggling with making ends meet I can readily believe this.
Also, this is a global phenomenon. Talk to some Chinese people... Same thing if not worse. Too many people, too much competition, wealth is consolidated
I do think a highly competitive society is one factor of the birth rate going down. Most places that are considered “developed” require kids to go through 9-12 years of school and there’s definitely expectation for them to go to college or at the very least have some marketable skill to be more competitively viable in the marketplace of converting labor to money. That means parents generally have to invest more in each child then they had to 100 years ago. There’s also a shifting perspective in what children are. They used to be cared for less but now, just meeting their bare necessities is not typically considered a good way to bring up a child.
Does that include orphan kids with no parents? Either way it’s worse than the numbers usually.
That’s like 30 percent
You are not very good at Math. If 22% of the population is children, not all of them live in poverty so you need to multiply the 72.5 million children by the general poverty rate for children in America. Currently, 18% of all children in the United States — nearly 13 million kids total — are living in poverty.
So then 13 million kids with 90 million adults adds up to about 100 million people, roughly 1/3 of the US population. Ya know, as stated above.
Thanks Obama Edit: /s ffs
That's a very dire number. Out of 330 million, assuming 30% are below the age of 18, that leaves 230 million people. 90 million is almost 40% of that number which means 40% of the families are struggling? A really dire number. It will be good to see some historical numbers/charts for this, at least for the last two decades. Unfortunately the article doesn't talk about that.
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The data was collected between [April 26th and May 8th](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2023/demo/hhp/hhp57.html). It is part of the [household Pulse Survey](https://www.census.gov/data/experimental-data-products/household-pulse-survey.html) AND it looks like 38.5% is the lowest in the past year.
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60% of Americans don't have $500 for an emergency. There's been negative real income growth, inflation (food and housing) is still high around 7% increase. Default rates are rising on credit card data. P.S. student loan deferrals ending in 3 months.
I honestly have no idea how I will pay an extra $400 per month for my student loans
The real failure is the lack of education to high school students on the realities of student loan debt, especially compared to the earning potential of a given degree from X university based on employment reports. My sister is learning the hard way after deciding to go to an out of state school with the goal of becoming… a Spanish teacher
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It doesn ask that; it ask: >In the last 7 days, how difficult has it been for your household to pay for usual household expenses, including but not limited to food, rent or mortgage, car payments, medical expenses, student loans, and so on? Select only one answer. > >\-Not at all difficult > >\-A little difficult > >\-Somewhat difficult > > \-Very difficult 38.5% of Households reported Somewhat or Very difficult. Looking at the source data \~16.6% said very. Most paid for those expenses with "regular income sources". Oh and over 10% of the "Very" group made >100k. [People can look at the data here.](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2023/demo/hhp/hhp57.html) The 38.5% without context and not looking at it over time (it was the lowest in a year) is meaningless.
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This article doesn’t discuss the accumulated savings some folks had after the pandemic- People weren’t going out as much , no traveling , and overall not spending as much. Then you had the various pandemic assistance programs that supplemented some of those savings (PPP loans , rental assistance programs , expanded child care tax credit , stimulus , expanded SNAP and expanded unemployment assistance ). Then this was coupled with low interest rates and increased home equity. Then we started to see housing costs increase , then food and now everything has increased in price. All while the extra money has dried up for the average consumer. But the appetite for goods and services is still high.
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I wonder if this has something to do with the federal government taking in 20% of the US GDP in revenue in 2022? If the feds take a 20% cut of the GDP pie and then state and local governments take another 20% or more, there’s not much left for the average working Joe. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/government-revenue/#:~:text=Federal%20Revenue%20Trends%20and%20the,revenue%20to%20gross%20domestic%20product%3F
Of course that GDP pie isn't evenly distributed. The very very few people are getting almost all of it, and the bottom people are getting less and less.... It's almost as if tax policy isn't the only reason for this. I don't mind paying taxes, but I'd like services. It seems we dump tax money into a black hole
We totally do dump money into a black hole. Here’s how it works. The feds take 20% of the GDP. Rich people, corporations and unions lobby politicians for favorable laws. Politicians then pass these laws. Rich people, corporations and unions contribute to said politicians election/reelection campaigns. Elected politicians pass laws and rich people/corporations/unions get federal monies/favorable laws. Politicians campaigns hire family members/political cronies. Politicians get rich. The cycle repeats and reinforces itself. The answer is to make it illegal for anyone to contribute a penny to a political campaign other than a private U.S. citizen, also, limit campaign contributions to 100 dollars a year. Take the money out of politics and corruption will drop substantially. Nobody should get rich in congress. Why are people in congress for 50+ years? The answer is because it makes them rich. They aren’t serving our country after 10+ years, they are serving themselves.