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Comment by LUmBULtERA | Hacker News Reader

>"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.

[0] https://www.unitedforalice.org/washington

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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.

1) May not apply depending on skin color

>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.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEFAINUSA646N

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.

“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.

According to https://www.givingwhatwecan.org, an income of $85,000 in the US would put a household of four in the top 3.5% of the world's population.

Which is irrelevant.

Few things are to the selfish and self-absorbed.

I’m not sure why you’d expect any reasonableness from CNN. It’s clear they only care about clicks and focus on the outrage segment.

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.

>"households don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone"

Literally the first line of the article.

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.

> What is "Miscellaneous"?

It's defined in the report.

"10 percent of the budget total (including taxes) to cover cost overruns."

Thank you for this! Seems like a reasonable thing to include.

How's that different then a standard definition of survive? Everything listed there is needed to survive.

If that's the case, you're literally saying that families of 4 in King County earning less than $85,000 are dying. I don't think this is the case.

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.

[0] https://www.kingcounty.gov/independent/forecasting/King%20Co...

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.

"Technology" is a cell phone budget. Could you survive without a cell phone?

Plenty of families have a child care budget of zero dollars, and survive.

If the alternative was death, could you cut your housing budget in half by sharing a place with someone, or by renting out a spare room?

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?

Based on the definition of the word? Yes.

[0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-hom...

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