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Comment by t-writescode | Hacker News Reader

This is a few thousand dollars when something like half the nation can’t afford a $500 surprise bill, right?

This statistic is so misleading. I know you have honest intentions, but I think you find this statistic appealing because you have a worldview that poor people are helpless. If you read the actual report that statistic came from, you would see that about 40% said they had enough in savings to cover a surprise $500 expense. Another 21% said they would rely on a credit card, while 20% said they’d cut back on other expenses. Another 11% said they’d turn to family or friends for the money. So roughly 92% of people have a way of covering a $500 expense.

If you look at the discussion this statistic has started, it's basically a pissing contest of more and more extreme means that either help or hinder one's ability to move. But both sides of the argument are total strawmen: a vast majority of Americans can cover a $500 expense. Most people can find a way to move if they really want to. Those who can't are likely people you wouldn't want to hire.

That much-repeated factoid is the result of sloppy, clickbait reporting of a lousy survey.

People were asked "If you had a sudden $500 expense, how would you pay for it?" with options like ["cash", "checking account", "credit card", "pay-day loan", "borrow from family"] and unsurprisingly many people said "credit card". This then got repeated and reported as "Americans can't pay $500 without going into debt".

Yeah, would like to see the source of that. My generation puts everything on rewards cards even if they have no debt; so of course $500 is going on a card first lol.

That statistic originates from this report by the Federal Reserve from 2014.[0] In the report they define it as "paying for it entirely using cash, money currently in their checking/savings account, or on a credit card that they would pay in full at their next statement (referred to here as “cash or its functional equivalent”)."

[0] https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2014-report-econo...

Of course. Might as well turn it effectively into a $495 bill.

The target worker in this case is people in Gen z? They're young out of school and own nothing. It doesn't cost anything to move in that case. I moved across the country with a suit case. My only cost was the plane ticket

So that didn't cost you nothing then. Then what did you do when you got off the plane? Presumably you paid a security deposit for an apartment and didn't just camp on BLM land. For someone with no credit history, a landlord might ask for 4 months rent as a deposit these days.

When I was working shit jobs for minimum wage in Washington I hitchhiked to North Dakota's oil rush and slept in a train yard. It literally cost me nothing.

When an able bodied, single, mentally competent and healthy young person says they don't have enough money to move across country it is actually code for "I have no initiative so I will sit and cry like a pathetic child." Meanwhile people are successfully walking across the Darien gap and the Sonoran desert with entire families to find success.

> When an able bodied, single, mentally competent and healthy young person

Might want to add 'male' to that. I'm a female with a damn high risk tolerance (I worked third shifts in major cities, lived alone in one of the most dangerous cities in the country, and had no problem walking alone in a Middle Eastern country where I didn't speak the language well) and I wouldn't hitchhike. And I definitely am not sleeping in a train yard. So that cuts out half of Gen Z right there.

You made it fine, and others who try and hitchhike sometimes end up robbed, kidnapped, or worse. Don't blame an entire generation for not doing something that you know for a fact comes with a ton of risk.

Making a significantly lower wage is probably more dangerous in the long run than hitch-hiking a few trips in a lifetime to relocate to higher wages. That is the relative risk is likely actually negative.

You can't really find work in an oil field if you are trafficked before you get there

i moved into someones spare room

That's nice you found that, but oftentimes these arrangements are not so easy to find or otherwise take some time to line up.

If your try hard enough, you can always find a plausible sounding reason why it's impossible to improve your life. It's best not to take any risks, and always blame others for your problems. You can earn a lot of upvotes that way.

Nothing like a pull yourself by the bootstraps argument

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