Comment by nostrebored
5 hours ago
As someone who grew up below the poverty line for much of my life — 2x the poverty line seemed like wealth to me. There are absolutely people getting by on “feels like” 50k a year.
There are not really frills, but in terms of “have shelter and food” it can work. Not everywhere is SF.
"Have shelter and food" is surviving. That's the point.
And speaking of food, the USDA says that over 47 million Americans lived in a food insecure household in 2024. That's 1 in 7 people. In the world's richest country that prides itself on being the land of opportunity.
> 47 million Americans lived in a food insecure household
This statistic looked suspect so I had to look it up. The study defined multiple levels of food insecurity. The big 47 million number included mostly households where eating patterns were not disrupted and people did not reduce their food intake.
So most “food insecure households” actually had enough food and maintained their normal eating patterns. That’s not what most people would think of from that statistic.
I do agree that we should continue working on food security for all, but if you think 1 in 7 people in the US are going hungry then you’re consuming some misleading statistics.
Food insecure is defined as "lack of access to an affordable, nutritious diet".
In the wealthiest country in the world.
I guess I've been living outside of the US for way too long because the idea that Americans would say "actually, it's not really that bad because they're technically not starving" shows just how far the country has fallen.
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Doesn't the term "land of opportunity" imply to you that it's also the "land of risk"? That's certainly how I've always seen lands of opportunity - places where you can fight it out on you own and have a chance to succeed - or fail. Not a comfortable safe zone to relax in.
That's not what "land of opportunity" means in the US. It means upward social mobility, plentiful job opportunities across a wide range of inudstries, decent work for decent pay, ample rewards for hard work.
Socioeconomically, the post-WW2 era is widely considered America's peak. The strong economic growth was broadly shared and created the largest and most prosperous middle class in modern history.
During this time, a single breadwinner could buy a car, a house and support a family. This is the "land of opportunity" and "American Dream" people talk about today and politicians have been promising the return of for decades.
The vast majority of Americans aren't calling for a new Gilded Age, although that's sort of what they're getting now, which is a big reason so many Americans are dejected and angry.