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Comment by Helmet | Hacker News Reader

> How? How do you move to Nebraska when you have $100/week for food?

You scrounge and save up or work odd jobs and get enough to move.

> How do you find a job, when you have literally 0-day you can spend without working?

There are plenty of jobs. They're not very good jobs, or jobs that most people want to do, but life isn't always about doing what you want. If you cannot afford to live somewhere, you need to move.

> And are people who flip burgers in Nebraska so much better?

My parents worked jobs equivalent to that in Washington D.C. It became impossible, so they moved to southern Virginia. You can live in southern Virginia on minimum wage jobs. There was food on the table every night, and a roof above our heads.

It sucked, don't get me wrong, but we managed.

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So your proposal is that the single parent work a second job in order to move to Nebraska.

Who takes care of her child while she does this? Does the kid go to child care? How does the single parent pay for the child care? Does she need to get a third job to pay for the expense of her second job? What happens when the car she takes to work breaks down, and wipes out her savings? What about when she gets sick because she's working two or three jobs, and is exhausted?

I dunno, I think your plan of "everybody who's poor should just move to an area where minimum wage jobs are sufficient to live" is a little poorly thought out.

That's an uncharitable interpretation of OP's point of view. I interpreted OP as saying something like: these people obviously can't afford to live where they are now, they don't have an reasonable expectation of being able to do so anytime soon, so they need to change what they're doing rather than expecting someone to come rescue them.

This usually looks like homelessness. I think the OP doesn't admit any more charitable interpretation. If you think "change what they're doing" is a cogent policy position, then I don't know what to do with you

The above poster gave you an accurate interpretation of my position.

"Change what they're doing" is far more effective than the vast majority of any government policy position. If you continue to subsidize these people by taxing those on the upper-income brackets and redistributing the wealth, you will simply prolong the problem.

The issue is that SV is far too expensive to live in unless you work in tech, law, finance, etc. If you don't, you need to move to somewhere where you can actually lead at least a semi-comfortable life, and where you can put yourself and your family in a position to succeed.

> So your proposal is that the single parent work a second job in order to move to Nebraska.

My proposal is that they do everything they can possibly do to better their position in life. If it means taking a second job, then they should take a second job. Are you asking me for specifics?

Here is how my parents did it when they couldn't afford daycare: My father worked 3rd shift (through the night) and my mother worked 2nd shift (afternoon-evening). This meant that I was alone with my sister in the morning/afternoon - i.e. the hours during which we were at school.

As I understand it, this woman is single, so even less income, which means an even greater reason to GTFO one of the most expensive places in the world.

>"everybody who's poor should just move to an area where minimum wage jobs are sufficient to live"

As opposed to your solution? You realize that California is one of the most liberal states in the US, right? You've been throwing policy at the wall for years now, yet you still have not managed to fix this problem, and it fact it continues to get worse each year.

> Are you asking me for specifics?

Yes, because there's a specific example in the article that your solution doesn't do anything to address, and when I brought up that your solution doesn't do anything to address that example all you did was show me more examples that are irrelevant. So yes, I am asking you for specifics.

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