I've worked for the same company for nearly 27 years. That company has a 24/7 emergency phone number posted in the offices and in the break room for a service called an Employee Assistance Program. Over the first 25 years of my career, I've been aware of about a dozen referrals to that service. About 2/3 of them were due to urgent mental health issues (depression, schizophrenia, addiction, etc.) and most of the rest were people who really needed a lawyer, although they might not realize it (victims of identity theft, illegal evictions, repossessions, fraud, scams, etc.). What these people needed wasn't so much money but just to be put in contact with the right person who could help them when their friends and co-workers couldn't. There was indeed a fund available from the company to help these people, but I can't remember it ever having had to be used.
In the last 18-24 months or so, everything has changed. Yes, these calls are still happening, and they're happening at an increased rate due to the stresses of a poor economy. But there's a second kind of EAP referral that just breaks my heart, and I'm aware of at least 40 of them over the past year. These are problems that could be solved by a few hundred dollars cash right now, but instead we're calling for workarounds because no one involved has the money. A woman whose car needs a $400 repair that she can't afford. A man with no medical coverage who is losing his vision and unable to work. A man who isn't sleeping because he's living outdoors, having been evicted from his apartment. A woman who hasn't been eating because her food budget can barely feed her children. And so on. These problems could be solved, at least for a few weeks or a few months by throwing money at them, but money is the one thing people don't have. This is the kind of thing that should not be happening in a developed country, but here we are.
The media loves to calculate cost of living as though a working-class adult is making about $15-16 an hour, 40 hours a week. That results in an income of about $600/week, or a little over $31,000 a year. At that level, yeah, things are ugly, but can be managed. You're probably paying little or no net taxes, after the Earned Income Credit. You're either on a subsidized ACA medical plan or on Medicaid. You get a roommate, you drive a 10 year old car, you cook your own meals. This is the budget the media wants you to think the working class is living on. Spoiler alert: They're not!
Many of these people are making closer to $11-12 per hour; Pennsylvania's minimum wage, like about half the states in the USA, is only $7.25. They're also not working anywhere near 40 hours a week. Their job is part time, often 25-30 hours/week, but requires open availability which impairs their ability to get a second job. Drive for Uber or Door dash in their free time? Yeah, maybe, if they have a car that qualifies. You're not leasing a car on this income. A wage of $12/hr, 30 hours/week is $360/week, which is $18,000 a year. There's no car payment in that budget. There's probably not even a housing payment; many of these people are living at relatives' homes or in homeless shelters.
How did we get here? We broke the SNAP program for some of these people. Yes, a 5 pound bag of rice costs under $4 and makes 15 pounds of food when cooked with a 2:1 water ratio. But that assumes a lot of things. It assumes you have access to two gallons of potable water. It assumes you have gas or electricity that isn't disconnected to cook the rice. And it assumes you have a safe place to store the rice where it won't attract bugs or mice. The working class was far more dependent on instant ramen than anyone wants to admit. A cup of instant ramen now costs about $1 and provides virtually no nutrients and a couple hundred mostly empty calories. Why are we buying that ramen in cups? Because buying ramen in bulk in pucks has the same problem as the bag of rice above. The media talks about states trying to remove Doritos or Oreos from the SNAP program? Oreos? In this economy? Hell, no. No one was buying that on SNAP in the first place.
I think the media is also missing the car problem. The average car payment now is close to $1000. Some of this is due to the insane purchase prices of cars, but a lot of this is due to inflated interest rates caused by excessive defaults and repossessions. The working poor aren't driving anymore. And yes, that also limits their ability to find better jobs. Most of America doesn't have reliable 24-hour public transportation to get people to distant workplaces. And we're not even getting into gas prices. There are millions of people who can't even afford the gas to get to work even if they found better jobs.
Something has to give, and it's going to give rapidly. Yes, there's midterm elections in four months, but I'm not sure any politicians even know the extent of this problem. And this isn't sustainable. If the workers stop showing up to work, the supply chain breaks. And we learned in 2020 what your shelves will look like when the trucks stop coming.
There is a working class emergency in America right now.
In the last 18-24 months or so, everything has changed. Yes, these calls are still happening, and they're happening at an increased rate due to the stresses of a poor economy. But there's a second kind of EAP referral that just breaks my heart, and I'm aware of at least 40 of them over the past year. These are problems that could be solved by a few hundred dollars cash right now, but instead we're calling for workarounds because no one involved has the money. A woman whose car needs a $400 repair that she can't afford. A man with no medical coverage who is losing his vision and unable to work. A man who isn't sleeping because he's living outdoors, having been evicted from his apartment. A woman who hasn't been eating because her food budget can barely feed her children. And so on. These problems could be solved, at least for a few weeks or a few months by throwing money at them, but money is the one thing people don't have. This is the kind of thing that should not be happening in a developed country, but here we are.
The media loves to calculate cost of living as though a working-class adult is making about $15-16 an hour, 40 hours a week. That results in an income of about $600/week, or a little over $31,000 a year. At that level, yeah, things are ugly, but can be managed. You're probably paying little or no net taxes, after the Earned Income Credit. You're either on a subsidized ACA medical plan or on Medicaid. You get a roommate, you drive a 10 year old car, you cook your own meals. This is the budget the media wants you to think the working class is living on. Spoiler alert: They're not!
Many of these people are making closer to $11-12 per hour; Pennsylvania's minimum wage, like about half the states in the USA, is only $7.25. They're also not working anywhere near 40 hours a week. Their job is part time, often 25-30 hours/week, but requires open availability which impairs their ability to get a second job. Drive for Uber or Door dash in their free time? Yeah, maybe, if they have a car that qualifies. You're not leasing a car on this income. A wage of $12/hr, 30 hours/week is $360/week, which is $18,000 a year. There's no car payment in that budget. There's probably not even a housing payment; many of these people are living at relatives' homes or in homeless shelters.
How did we get here? We broke the SNAP program for some of these people. Yes, a 5 pound bag of rice costs under $4 and makes 15 pounds of food when cooked with a 2:1 water ratio. But that assumes a lot of things. It assumes you have access to two gallons of potable water. It assumes you have gas or electricity that isn't disconnected to cook the rice. And it assumes you have a safe place to store the rice where it won't attract bugs or mice. The working class was far more dependent on instant ramen than anyone wants to admit. A cup of instant ramen now costs about $1 and provides virtually no nutrients and a couple hundred mostly empty calories. Why are we buying that ramen in cups? Because buying ramen in bulk in pucks has the same problem as the bag of rice above. The media talks about states trying to remove Doritos or Oreos from the SNAP program? Oreos? In this economy? Hell, no. No one was buying that on SNAP in the first place.
I think the media is also missing the car problem. The average car payment now is close to $1000. Some of this is due to the insane purchase prices of cars, but a lot of this is due to inflated interest rates caused by excessive defaults and repossessions. The working poor aren't driving anymore. And yes, that also limits their ability to find better jobs. Most of America doesn't have reliable 24-hour public transportation to get people to distant workplaces. And we're not even getting into gas prices. There are millions of people who can't even afford the gas to get to work even if they found better jobs.
Something has to give, and it's going to give rapidly. Yes, there's midterm elections in four months, but I'm not sure any politicians even know the extent of this problem. And this isn't sustainable. If the workers stop showing up to work, the supply chain breaks. And we learned in 2020 what your shelves will look like when the trucks stop coming.
There is a working class emergency in America right now.
