If "Nearly 51 million households don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone"
Is true does that mean those households do without those things? Or are they subsidized via other methods? Medicare/medicaid for health insurance for example. Such programs often have income maximums that households may be attempting to optimise for.
We often hear about millions not making a living wage but the fact that we don't have millions of corpses makes that claim less effective as it exposes it as rhetoric. Or perhaps millions are dying from exposure and malnutrition as is claimed and I can't find that data.
The 51 million households aren't literally on the verge of starvation, they are "Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed" (ALICE) which is similar to being paycheck to paycheck in that they can survive but not thrive:
>When funds run short, cash-strapped households are forced to make impossible choices, such as deciding between quality child care or paying the rent, filling a prescription or fixing the car. These short-term decisions have long-term consequences not only for ALICE families, but for all of us.
In big cities and successful metropolitan regions I'd agree. It's a consequence of how quickly housing costs have outgrown all other costs in cities that the "one-third rule" doesn't really apply anymore. On the other hand if you live in a small town, it's quite possible to make 3x your rent and still be struggling.
The standards they use are not lavish (renting an efficiency apartment for a single person or 2BR for family of 3 or more, home daycares, "thrifty" meals), but there are some statistical quirks that make this headline a little misleading. They set the housing budget at "the 40th percentile rent", health care at "average health care expenses", and transportation at "average transportation expenses". This is like saying 40% of households are below the 40th percentile, which is kinda duh.
In practice, families that don't make a lot of money (or that do make a lot of money but want to save up a shit-ton and retire) make do with a bunch of cheap alternative living arrangements. Instead of paying full rent, multiple families double-up or triple-up in a housing unit. Multiple generations live together. Grandma takes care of the kids instead of paying for childcare. They shop in budget produce markets. They just don't go to the doctor and hope it's not serious. They walk to work, and the kids take the bus to school.
Most of your comment is spot on, I thought I'd just nit-pick a bit. In America, it's generally only the rich that have the luxury of walking to work; the rich can afford to live where it's convenient. The poor live where it's cheap, which is rarely close to where they work.
I’m sure many people do shuffle through homelessness and homeless programs, but it’s certainly not half the country.
Seriously, unless next week’s headline is “millions of Americans have been dying of starvation and nobody noticed,” the article has no connection to reality.
The cohort being reported on here groups single individuals and multi-person familes alongside each other as a household, if I'm understanding correctly.
> ALICE is a United Way acronym which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. It represents the growing number of individuals and families who are working but are unable to afford the basic necessities of housing, food, child care, health care, and transportation. [0]
Average income in the Netherlands is 40k USD. If being poor in the US is double that... Maybe the complete lack of healthcare and social housing makes up the difference?
I live in a poor area of Southern California. I'd say the majority of the town receives state benefits. There are also stands that give away free cell phones and service (some state program). I have no idea how it works, but its there.
I have similar programs near me for all the items mentioned. I wonder if this metric actually means anything, if you did a similar survey in Europe I suspect you'd find many that can't afford private health insurance but since healthcare is often provided by the state that is meaningless as a barometer of human suffering.
Anecdotally, I've seen very nice cars in areas with subsidized rent-- nicer than my working-class area.
There's a saying in diplomacy that, "All aid is military." Meaning, feeding a dictator's citizens only enables him to buy weapons with money he would have otherwise spent on food. This just being an expression of the fungibility of money.
However, in California, at least, the various medicals, unemployment, etc., monitor your income pretty closely. If people are subsidizing their income with these programs, it would seem to imply there's an untracked (cash) economy with which to do that. All of my income comes in as 1099* I can't hide a cent.
Cell phone could be necessary for many jobs (like deliveries). And cell phone + mobile data can be a cheaper alternative to computer + landline internet, which is pretty essential nowadays. Even if you argue you can do without, the money you'd spend on transportation to do in person what you'd otherwise do online would outweigh the price of a cell-phone. Not to mention the time you save, which can be used to avoid need to spend on childcare, or bring in more money with an extra job, or by using that time to cook, or... (haste makes waste).
>Cell phone could be necessary for many jobs (like deliveries)
Then it should be provided by the employer.
I don't know how old you are but, we got by without mass adoption of cellphones in the 90's just fine. You had an answering machine, people called you and if they didn't get you they left a message and you got home and pressed play.
We also survived just fine without GPS and digital maps, people actually knew how to look at maps and write down directions.
The only time I can even think of when someone would need to install a location app would be for gig economy stuff. Ride share and food delivery apps are often break-even at best when maintenance/upkeep is factored in and are not valid income sources for low-income individuals (if they even have a vehicle that meets the insurance requirements of the company).
You don't even need to own a computer or have internet access at home, libraries exist. They have computers and internet for public use with the general requirement being a (free) library card. Businesses like FedEx Office also offer computer access for a modest fee https://www.fedex.com/en-us/office/computer-rental.html .
Unfortunately they don't live in should-be land. And when an employer asks them to send them a CV via e-mail, or to install the app which they use to send delivery pick-up/drop-off locations, "I didn't need these things in the 90s!" won't fly.
As far as cost, looks like land line service is 15-30$ a month with things like caller ID, call waiting and voicemail. That's generally much cheaper than any mobile phone with a data plan and doesn't require a phone that costs hundreds of dollars. Even MVNO solutions like Mint start at 45$ every three months before tax and sim shipping.
You also don't need payphones to be abundant, From 1990 to 1999 (ages 5-14) I used a payphone maybe a dozen times and nearly all of those were to have discussions with friends that I didn't want my parents to hear so I rode my bike 2 blocks to Little Caesars and used the phone in their parking lot. And I don't think a single time after that yet I didn't have a cellphone until 2004. I still rarely talk on the phone, I will go months without using a single minute.
I will listen to voicemails a few times a week but I will either go see the person or if it is a business I need to call back I'll do so at my convenience, not when they want to talk to me.
A person on the internet is arguing that a landline with caller ID, call waiting and voicemail is sufficient.
> You also don't need payphones to be abundant, From 1990 to 1999 (ages 5-14) I used a payphone maybe a dozen times and nearly all of those were to have discussions with friends that I didn't want my parents to hear so I rode my bike 2 blocks to Little Caesars
Ah yes. The needs of a child/teen are surely the needs of a grown person who will need to communicate with potential employers, banks, landlords, schools etc. which are all becoming almost exclusively online.
>Ah yes. The needs of a child/teen are surely the needs of a grown person who will need to communicate with potential employers, banks, landlords, schools etc.
I've been working, taxable above the board income (google it, lots of conditions for this including paper delivery which is what I did), since I was 12 years old. I've had a bank account since I was 8.
There is no realistic condition where the majority of the population needs to be tethered to a phone number 24/7/365.
If you have a job that requires you to be on call, certainly, but in that case your employer should be providing the phone or reimbursing the cost. Generally people in these situations are paid rather well also.
Things have changed a lot for many low wage workers since about 08 or so. Schedules are set no more than a few days in advance. They're communicated either by an app or by text message. They can be highly variable and it's expected that the employee keep up, or else miss a shift and be fired.
A cell phone is virtually required. (And never provided by the employer).
>Edit: your hypocrisy is especially rich considering that you're applying to YC Winter 2019
Less than 1 tenth of 1 percent of the population applies to YC each year... and what I applied with was literally to help people give up technology and to plug in to the real world.
To not be tethered to a phone 24/7, to not be tethered to streaming video with every second of their free time, to not be tethered to a computer or laptop 24 hours a day. To talk to people instead of texting them or instant messaging them. To look people in the face instead of occasionally glancing up over the rim of their laptop and actually have proper conversations.
At least with census data there has been a well known gap for some time between data on income vs. data on consumption, with the latter generally being higher. Census poverty data does not count a number of benefits including food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
debt. going hungry. going without shelter. going without health care. going without cell phone. going without transportation. it's not rocket science. it's just poverty.
Also, these people are more wealthy than people (in the same income percentile), say, 100 years ago. This makes me wonder if capitalism always progresses to such a point that a large portion of the population lives in misery.
Another article discussed here recently claimed that US median worker real wages have barely increased at all over the last 40 years. But, yes, you are right, there was plenty of progress and growth from the 1920s to the 1970s (when the spectre of communism was haunting the world, and the top marginal tax rate in the USA was between 70% and 90%).
This is quite a disingenuous title for CNN. The actual study reference in the article (and not even directly, one must go to the linked website and dig around for it) identifies a new subgroup of the US population that are "asset-limited, income-constrained, and employed," or ALICE.
Nowhere does it say in the study that these people cannot afford rent and food.
These people's financial stability is more tenuous, yes, but they can afford rent and food. What a silly and dishonest conclusion made by CNN.
>"For instance, in Seattle's King County, the annual household survival budget for a family of four (including one infant and one preschooler) in 2016 was nearly $85,000."
An $85,000 "budget" is needed for a 4-person household's "survival" in King County? Otherwise they're dying? Maybe United Way's underlying data explains this better, but CNN's conclusions don't seem well explained or supported.
Edit: What's weird is if you look into the ALICE project's website, their number appears to be $74,052, not $85,000. [0]
Also definition of Survival Budget is on that page, but the definition of "survival" is a bit different than a standard dictionary.
I'm not sure whether you are arguing in good faith or not, so I'd say just bypass all the 'survival' stuff you are stuck on and essentially replace it with 'middle class'.
Now you may also be pedantic and say that middle-class is supposed to be the middle, so 50% is about right.
But what you can't argue with is that nearly half of Americans simply cannot build any wealth or get out of any debt and likely can't meet the basic standards of education/transportation/food/housing that we used to assume was the birthright of any American (1).
And that this is much higher than it used to be, and it is getting worse. And that literally most of the basic working class of the US - nurses aides, childcare workers, etc are often literally one missed paycheck away from the street.
I don't think you can just swap out the word "survival" with "middle class". Survival is a really powerful word, "the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances." So the claim is that you need $85k in King County in order to continue to live.
This isn't pedantry. If people are scraping by in that area with less family income, then this metric is flawed and either the numbers should be revised or it should be renamed.
>nearly half of Americans simply cannot build any wealth or get out of any debt and likely can't meet the basic standards of education/transportation/food/housing that we used to assume was the birthright of any American
If one takes the median household income in the United States $75,938[0] in 2017, you're asserting that it is literally impossible ("simply cannot") to design a budget to build wealth, get out of debt, and those other items you mention? Some families are certainly in a dire circumstance, but I disagree that the median family can't build wealth and meet those other items if they budget responsibly.
“Almost half of US families can’t afford basics like rent or food” is simply false.
“Almost half of US families are middle class or below” isn’t a crisis, and implies that more than half of US families are upper class.
“Almost half of US families have little to no disposable income” may be accurate and a serious problem, but doesn’t get enough clicks.
This reminds me of the charity that published a press release saying the Great Barrier Reef had died, only to have scientists dispute the press release and call it unhelpful.
I am always curious of the discretionary spending when these reports come out. And they never seem to talk about it. What percentage of their income is going to things not needed to survive?
I don't want to make rash assumptions, but it sure seems like many people "live paycheck to paycheck" but still buy alcohol, watch Netflix, etc. I realize they've made the choice to be that way - as opposed to being pinched into it. Of course others are truly screwed, and simply must find ways to increase income.
Yeah, but dig into the specifics. OP's link allocated $586 a month for food - my family is bigger than the example, and we spend about half of that on groceries. We'll eat out to make up some of the difference, but if we're getting fast food once or twice a week, I wouldn't say we are in a "survival" scenario.
Child care is also assumed here, but is not necessary in a two-parent home. Take that off the board and you free up around $15k, as well as some of the tax money as well. And does that tax estimate include the $2k/kid child tax credit?
What is "Miscellaneous"?
The hourly wage assumes a 2000-hour work year. So theoretically two people could work $15.50/hour jobs and meet this requirement, or you could knock the food budget in half, drop child care, and get the total hourly wage down to $21.50 an hour. That could be one parent working 20 hours a week at $10/hr and another working 40/week at $17/hr. Or someone could earn extra hours to get some spending money. I do that to supplement my family's income.
I dunno. "Survival" is such a strong word, and I'm really skeptical that it applies here.
Seems right to me. If you don't have housing, food, or healthcare, you're gonna die a lot quicker then someone that does. Sure, you can survive for a while homeless, or without healthcare, or even without food, but your definitely dying faster then people with.
Median household income in 2015 in King County was $75,302.[0] A conclusion that half of King County's households have died off by 2017 or 2019 (or about to) seems nonsensical to me.
Well no, half aren't. The average household isn't a family of four. For the United States the average household consists of 2.53 people.
Additionally, this isn't just a family of four in the study. It's a family of four with two kids below public school age. Meaning that they need childcare. That's included. As they get older that $75k number would go down, probably.
Edit: looking at the study only 28% of people aren't "surviving" in King county. Keep in mind, they might have some stuff subsidized by the government or others.
Can't reply to the reply, but Miner -- that's a good point, median household size is lower than 4... though what we don't know is whether median household income for families of 4 is higher than the overall median, which it easily could be if that statistic includes more two-income households... so this looks unresolvable with the presented data unless you delve more deeply.
I don't think you can survive without a cell phone, no. I recently broke my phone when applying for jobs, and had to rush to get it repaired, or I would've missed emails/phone calls that I needed to respond to in order to get hired. Once working, don't basically all companies now a days use email or text or calls to communicate with employees?
How do you work a job without childcare? This isn't just a family of four, it's a family of four with kids not old enough for public school. Someone has to cover that cost. This is just the cost to survive. Maybe some people are fortunate enough to have extended family that can provide child care, but if you don't you have something like that you have to pay that cost. This article doesn't say that these people aren't subsidized by the government or others. It's just the actual cost of survival.
You can survive living in terrible conditions, sure. But is it actually surviving? At a certain point death becomes a better option for many people then just "surviving". If you'd rather be dead then "surviving" are you truly surviving?
>I don't think you can survive without a cell phone, no.
Landlines are an option, as are cheap, no-data plans. I saw a plan for unlimited talk and text for $15/month. Spend double that on a monthly plan for a phone, and you've still cut the technology monthly cost in half. There might be a library nearby you can use for free Internet.
>How do you work a job without childcare?
7% of dads stay home, 28% of moms stay home. I don't now for sure but I'm guessing that those numbers climb if the stay-at-home-ish parent has a part-time job. This is not an insignificant figure.
>Someone has to cover that cost.
Others can and do cover that cost and thus survive with less income. I don't share the base assumption that every family should be independent on their own and thus would not be expected to survive if they aren't. Some people don't have family (or friends, I guess?) to help with childcare. This is unfortunate, and can be helped via various means of social welfare, but I don't think it needs to be the standard for everyone.
>You can survive living in terrible conditions, sure. But is it actually surviving?
regarding 1), there is something wrong with helping people when they make poor choices, especially when "helping" is providing material assistance. you are basically subsidizing the unwanted behavior. at the margins, this causes more people to make the bad choice in the first place. this doesn't mean the government shouldn't help people who make mistakes at all, but it does mean the help has to be structured very carefully to minimize the perverse incentives.
Forcing the wealthy to help the poor is how we avoid a surge in the guillotine construction industry.
Governments use the threat of force all the time to make people perform pro-social actions, if I park in a handicap zone I get a ticket. What is that ticket besides the threat of force if I dont pay it? What is any contract between any two parties besides a threat of force? On a fundamental level the government exists to threaten force against rich people in order to help poor people, which allows those poor people to go on living and not take up arms to take what they need from the wealthy.
If reproduction is not a right, then you shouldn't have a problem with the government coming to sterilize you for some arbitrary reason, right? Maybe your skin is not the 'right' color?
I don't. I actually support recent calls for developing a means to give vasectomies (high percentage of which are reversible) to all newborn males. Therefore, having a child is the choice of both the male and female counterparts of a couple. I'd be stunned if more women didn't support this measure...
so only the rich should reproduce? absolutely disgusting mindset. nobody chooses a life of poverty, and the overwhelming inequality of our current society both perpetuates and exacerbates it.
I disagree. It's not fair to create a human when you're on the edge of being able to properly educate, raise and care for said human.
Having sex is a choice, there are risks involved, one of them is pregnancy.
Many people who aren't considered "rich" can raise children and be economically comfortable.
I'd encourage you to ask someone who grew up in poverty or with uneducated parents (who accidentally had children or decided to have four children knowing they couldn't afford it) if they'd willingly put a child through what they went through growing up and I think my point would be crystal clear.
If you can't care for your child, you shouldn't have one. The natural order is that children from unfit parents die. There are too many humans on this planet as it is.
If you're impoverished in your thirties, it is probably the result of a long history of poor life choices. You can get dealt a horrible hand with lots of tragedy and disadvantages and still be able to make it on your own in your thirties, as long as you're moderately intelligent and hardworking.
> If you can't care for your child, you shouldn't have one. The natural order is that children from unfit parents die. There are too many humans on this planet as it is.
So... wow, thats one hell of a logic leap. Ignoring how close this is to progressive attitudes in the early 20th century, what about "happy accidents". This is a rather to be blunt disgusting attitude to our fellow humans.
> If you're impoverished in your thirties, it is probably the result of a long history of poor life choices. You can get dealt a horrible hand with lots of tragedy and disadvantages and still be able to make it on your own in your thirties, as long as you're moderately intelligent and hardworking.
I get the distinct impression you have no clue what you're talking about and have never worked paycheck to paycheck in your life. One bill can cascade into exactly what your saying is "a long history of poor life choices".
The attitudes such as this are exactly why populist messages are winning a lot of disaffected people. If you're telling them: improve or die, or just die if you're not useful to companies, is it any wonder they're rejecting the worldview wholesale?
I hate politics but the attitudes espoused in the parent post do nothing but blame people for the lives they tend to have been born with irrespective of ability or life choices. As someone that barely escaped things only by dumb luck at picking computer nonsense as a profession, the lack of empathy and understanding by people that have never seen what life is like in survival mode is both astounding and saddening.
If you can't afford it, a happy accident should become a happy abortion.
I came from about as broken a home as you can imagine. I dropped out of high school. I lived on the streets. I went back to college to try and escape my situation. I spent 8 hours a day in the computer lab, working on my skills. I slept in tents and on couches so I could focus on my education and get ahead. Don't talk to me about privilege.
People have the ability to be strong. Coddling and enabling keep them weak. We should help people when they are hit by random, extreme circumstances. We should mostly let them struggle when they're dealing with basic life shit.
If you can't put a roof over their head, and feed them, you probably shouldn't have had them.
Multiple people I went to high school with have children they outright can not afford, they couldn't afford the first, or the second, one has 5 children and has been receiving government assistance (and regular handouts as food distribution from her Church) since the first was born. This sort of thing is not uncommon, people with 1 or more children that they have never been able to afford on their own.
Look, I like sex but the primary function of sex is reproduction, if you can't afford the gamble that even 1 in 100,000 times you have sex a child will result then you simply shouldn't be having sex and if you have one unplanned child, and can't afford it, you absolutely should not be doing anything that could create more until a time that have improved your means and can afford to have more.
That's not eugenics, that's not mean, that's not classism, that's not racism, that's common sense.
When couples want to adopt, they are almost always (if not always) required to meet with someone that they have to provide financial statements/pay stubs/w2s etc to as to show that they are able to adequately provide for a child, no one has a problem with this...
Edit: and for those downvoting this, that appear to think I "am the rich" I make 34k USD per year, my father died 12 days before my 13th birthday and my mother did her best to provide for us after that, I personally have a bankruptcy from trying to live foolishly above my means in my early 20's. I drive a used car. I eat black beans and rice 5 days a week for more than half of my kcal requirements so that I CAN afford luxuries like internet, a current gen phone with a data plan, a playstation plus subscription and my two gym memberships as a strength athlete. I do not have children, if I had a sexual partner I would exercise all caution as to not have children as I know it would be a financial burden that would tax my income. I am not elitist, I am not rich, I am lower middle class. I AM responsible, I DO exercise common sense, I DO put thought into my actions that may impact me financially.
Not all people living in poverty are responsible for being there, in fact most probably aren't, however many do directly worsen their situation considerably by taking up vices like alcohol & tobacco and by making financially reckless decisions like having children. These actions make it far harder to dig themselves out of poverty and they should be expected to take responsibility for their own actions instead of expecting those with more means to swoop in and rescue them from their poor choices.
The grocery figure in the original article is insane, simply switching to beans and rice for half of their kcals (which will also meet healthy fiber and protein levels) would shave hundreds off that. Adding potatoes, canned vegetables, no-frills whole grain bread, would also bring down costs and probably markedly improve overall nutrition. Instead, a good chunk of these families, are likely buying overly processed box foods/soda/junk food/fast food for way too large of a portion of their dietary intake. Again, this is a poor choice many of those families are making. I've yet to find a grocery store that doesn't have shelves laden with beans, rice, lentils, potatoes and bread.
> That's not eugenics, that's not mean, that's not classism, that's not racism, that's common sense.
it is the material conditions of classism, racism, and hate that causes the poverty in the first place, with the intentional outcome of making the lower class suffer, so the rich can have more. this IS eugenics. you say it isn't, but in the preceeding paragraph, straight up say that poor people have no business having kids. unbelievable.
Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by ignorance.
There's far more indication that the wealthy just don't know/care about the plight of the poor. Sure a few billionaires might promote what can be seen as anti-poor policy but it seems as though most of them think it's actually good policy.
Your comment is equally bizarre and extreme as the one you're replying to, but extreme in a different direction.
yes, we all know what hanlons razor is, thanks. that indication does not matter in the least, nor is it in any way provable. the rich completely ignoring their domination over the poor does not make them less culpable. it's almost worse, in a way.
I generally agree with your sentiment but I think you're going a little too far when you say poor people shouldn't have kids. Yes, a disturbing amount of the time it just results in them leaching off society but most of them turn out fine. Nobody is ever "financially prepared" to have kids anyway. They suck up all your money if you let them.
I was financially prepared to have kids. Letting one's kids "suck up all" one's money is my definition of not being prepared, medical emergencies aside.
complete conjecture, there is a giant cohort of people older than 30, crushed by debt and medical bills, stuck in menial jobs because their parents couldn't afford college. you're telling me that the janitor that cleans your office isn't hard working? or the factory-worker that makes your clothes? are they all just lazy morons that don't deserve to reproduce?
please, just go mask-off, be true to yourself, and admit you just want eugenics. you're already A-OK with the death and suffering of children.
Bankruptcy is a good way to deal with crushing medical debt.
You can go to a community college for next to nothing, while sharing a room with several other people, and eating ramen and microwave burritos, then cover a good portion of the costs with a Pell grant, food stamps and some needs based scholarships. After a few years, you can transfer to a 4 year university for a profitable major, take out student loans and complete your degree (this should be doable for 16-24 grand). You might have to work part time to pull this off but not more than 1-2 days a week.
I don't think there are many valid excuses for being unsuccessful beyond your early 30s.
I am ok with the death and suffering of children if it avoids more death and suffering later.
For that gap to exist, people need access to comprehensive reproductive health services so they can make the choice of when to have kids. In the long run its much, much cheaper for the state to pay for condoms and pregnancy tests then it is to pay for day care, incarceration, and funeral services.
It's very clear that the Republican Party is not supportive of funding a sexual healthcare provider unless it only teaches abstinence.
I'm glad you're in favor of artifical wombs, but until that happens, please note that the live ones are attached to people who deserve the same degree of bodily autonomy you have.
Simplest possible case: there is no situation in which the current law will force you to donate your organs in order to save someone else's life. Even if you're already dead, you get to control your body through a pre-registration, an affirmative choice. The anti-abortion laws require women to potentially sacrifice their lives to save others.
In response to your original comment, I believe there's also a desire to punish people for having premarital sex, as evidenced by right-wingers' strong opposition to emergency contraceptives.
I've never had a conversation with a person who was broadly anti-abortion and anti-subsidized-birth-control that didn't end with the explicit impression that they feel disgust for people who have sex before marriage or for reasons other than reproduction, and that the primary notion upsetting them is the idea of their taxes going toward those people in any form. It's clearly a notion born out of the popular and too-eagerly-applied idea of "bad" people who "deserve" consequences.
In many places in the US having kids is actually not a choice but an obligation forced on women by lack of funding for reproductive service clinics by ignorant politicians and repeated attacks on the right to an abortion by right wing extremists. This is a very loaded conversation at the moment, but there are politicians who've said things like, if a woman is raped and becomes pregnant she should accept the gift that god gave her.
The ability to have kids or not is one thing, the right to make the choice is another, and it's constantly being attacked by religious extremists.
> This is a very loaded conversation at the moment
And your choice of words to describe the situation certainly aren't helping. In fact, they're causing more harm than good, as you present one side as good and kind, and the other side as evil incarnate.
In other words, this is a complex situation, and you're part of the problem.
A personal attack like this makes a hellish thread worse still. We ban accounts that post like that. Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and following them?
That might be because one side is good and kind, and the other is evil. Sure, there's two sides of every argument, but we can sit here all day an no matter what you tell me the sky will still be blue.
The comment I responded to was saying, "having kids is a choice," to which I say, "many people are being forced to have kids they dont want." Forcing unwanted births is a specific policy objective pursued by a group of people pushing they're religious views on others.
Is true does that mean those households do without those things? Or are they subsidized via other methods? Medicare/medicaid for health insurance for example. Such programs often have income maximums that households may be attempting to optimise for.
We often hear about millions not making a living wage but the fact that we don't have millions of corpses makes that claim less effective as it exposes it as rhetoric. Or perhaps millions are dying from exposure and malnutrition as is claimed and I can't find that data.