For most people in the real world, psychological burn out is NOT the problem with unemployment. The problem is becoming homeless.
I have a couple friends who haven't had steady work in years, and they still eke out a pretty reasonable existence living with friends and family because they are kind and considerate and people don't mind having them around. A lot of street homeless have mental or substance issues that make it hard for them to coexist with other people.
I've had the luxury, working in tech, to have lost a job and had the opportunity to take a few months off before searching. Even this was incredibly stressful in practice, but I never had to worry about losing my place of living.
You're right. But is a 30-year-old who moves back in with their parents "homeless"?
And yeah, the paycheck-to-paycheck stat blows my mind. Somehow the standard American experience has become the latest model iPhone (financed), a new car (financed), a rented home, 4-5 meals out weekly, and almost zero money in the bank. And all this in a country with some of the weakest social security in the developed world. I'm sure the half-trillion dollars spent on advertising every year has something to do with this.
No, but this is also not ideal for many reasons
I have a friend going through this right now, actually. The biggest challenge is that her parents don't live anywhere near a strong job market. So the decision for her is "be homeless in a place where jobs are available" or "have a home but no access to employers"
It's not ideal
Depends -- how safe is their parents' home?
That answer can vary, for a lot of reasons.
It doesn’t.
(Is it deeply uncomfortable to get laid off with $8000 in your account? Without a doubt, especially in an increasingly weak labor market, even if you have home equity or retirement savings you could theoretically dip into to cover what unemployment benefits can’t.)
How is that actually defined by whoever measured it?
The word is being used to invoke that image.
Does that include digital nomads who don’t have a permanent residence?
Since they're not even a rounding error, it doesn't matter.
A lot of my friends' parents rely on their support. If they lost their jobs their parents would be in trouble, too.
What about their wife and children? Do they get to stay with them too?
I didn't say that they're thriving and living their dream, just that they're still a couple rungs above homeless.
This is one of the most out-of-touch HN comments I've seen in a while. Most people are not nearly as privileged as the community on these forums. Not even all the people posting here are fully removed from the risk of being out on their ass. Some have moved from other parts of their home country (think people in the Bay Area who moved for a job and have no family in the same job market). Some have moved from other parts of the world to where they are and have no one upon whom they can impose. Plenty have huge student loans and are so fresh out of school that they're at the edge of the many rounds of layoffs affecting the tech industry in the last few years and lack enough experience on their resumés to land a new position before their finances run out.
I can't believe how tone deaf it is to suggest that most people have multiple rungs upon which to fall back. And I've only been talking about people on these forums, the "fortunate" types.
If they've failed to find a job for long enough that they're about to be homeless, does it really make sense to remain in the most expensive housing market in the country?
I think it's equally out of touch to imply that if you select a random person from across America (the richest country in the world) you will land on someone who is an inch from homelessness, with no close family or community, massive debt, and living in terror of the next layoff. Certainly there are people in that situation, but to imply that it's somehow the median American experience is to caricature the country.
All I said is that "most people" have rungs to fall back on, not "everyone".
There are rungs which are available to the population at large, so all of us have those privileges. For example the armed forces are recruiting. They will put a roof over your head and food in your belly, as well as give you medical coverage.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scf/dataviz/scf/table...
https://www.nahb.org/blog/2024/08/lowest-homeownership-rate-...
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/scf23.pdf (page 22, “Financial Assets” section)
For example, if one is using their life-insurance payouts to pay their rent... well, something has gone very wrong somewhere.
Specifically, this part:
> financial asset—which includes transaction accounts, certificates of deposit, savings bonds, other bonds, stocks, pooled investment funds, retirement accounts, cash value life insurance, and other managed assets
For the highly-liquid "transaction accounts" (checking, savings, money-market) the conditional [0] median is just $8k.
[0] AFAICT "conditional" here means "we don't include $0 data points in the median." That explains why the subcategory of "stocks" has a higher conditional median value than the more-general category of financial assets.
The next exact line it calls out those bank accounts and the mean at $8,000. That is not a lot of liquid emergency savings for a household let’s say of 3.
So I don’t think your point stands.
So I don’t see what you are trying to point out. Most surveys I have seen put something like a quarter of Americans without any emergency savings.
Depending on where you live, renting is often cheaper than owning, but real estate agents who make money off selling houses will never tell you the full cost of owning a home.
I recently stumbled upon a YouTuber grousing about losing her six-figure tech job. She was in full freakout mode about budgeting etc. but something didn't seem quite right. Then she disclosed she's married, financially stable, husband still has a great job, etc.
It made me stop and think how there's people out there delivering groceries, putting on an apron, all so they don't have to switch to eating cat food by the end of the week.
OTOH ex-Googlers are worried they might be forced to switch to store-brand mineral water within weeks.
There are several drops in lifestyle you have been accustomed to, before that happens.
If it doesn't happen it's because someone bails you out, this is a privilege not everyone has.
One of my friends has given up on finding a software job and become a handyman to make ends meet. I get that not everyone in tech is loaded. I just don't think holding your nose and gagging at the "reek" when you deliberately read about someone who has six months of savings is a productive or useful reaction.
Interesting way to characterize GP's response when all they did was use a word in a very common way.
Anyway, the government actually compiles this information
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
>The median annual wage for software developers was $133,080 in May 2024. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $79,850, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $211,450.
Anyway I'm not American, Indian, or European. I guess I don't exist!
Anyway I'm not really sure why you're so insistent on this focus of America. HN (and the Internet in general) is a pretty diverse crowd... which was sort of my point
Please share your stats.
Please share your stats.
Thanks. You hit the nail on the head.