How can such a large proportion of people be so financially insecure that a couple of weeks unemployment means that they are going hungry in the wealthiest country in the world?
Can't do much about wages because they are subject to global pressure, but we sure could make housing cheaper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
and
https://www.deptofnumbers.com/rent/us/
Is it that the median figures hide a lot of people earning less and paying more rent? That is, inequality is the problem rather than the averages.
> Can't do much about wages because they are subject to global pressure,
Surely a lot of the low paid workers are in service industries; how are they subject to global pressure? It's not as if a restaurant can employ cheap Vietnamese labour.
Health care insurance for example can eat a good chunk of that 3.6kUSD: the average cost of individual health insurance premiums is $440 for an individual and &1,168 for a family, in 2018 according to eHealth [1]
1: https://www.ehealthinsurance.com/resources/individual-and-fa...
Ouch!
That makes health insurance behave like a very regressive tax.
In contrast in Germany where they have compulsory insurance it is only 7.6% to 15% of your salary, so something between USD 273 and USD 540 for a family. See https://www.sympat.me/germany-healthcare-insurance/.
>>It's not as if a restaurant can employ cheap Vietnamese labour.
You'd be surprised, teachers are being imported from the Philippines, lots of migrant labor, service workers are often undocumented, so this depresses wages, of course there's also H1Bs and who knows how many other types of work visas.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/05/arizona-teac...
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/20/heres-why-so-many-americans-...
Covid-19 is going to strip bare all the niceties that allowed the other 60% of Americans to be oblivious to the financial frailty of the 40%. The next years will be very, very difficult for the country.
And yeah, it's fucking insane. But it's also how people want to live, it would seem. It's hard not to look at the voting patterns in the USA and conclude that certain areas do this intentionally.
It happens, because America has not been about the American people for decades. America is mostly focused on the destruction of sovereign states it finds guilty of being un-American in style.
Did everyone just suddenly forget that this is the country that has spent more on destroying sovereign states around the world, in the last 50 years, than any other country in the history of the world?
If taxes are lower and hence less money is spent on social support, that has nothing to do with the military.
Still I don’t think that applies much to the USA - I think the total tax burden is comparable in many states. Medica* and SS are also huge parts of the budget.