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Comment by roadside_picnic | Hacker News Reader

"Homeless" is not the same as "living on the street". People living in hotels, temporary trailers (in some places even tiny homes count), living with a friend temporarily, etc are all homeless. Plenty of Americans are much closer than this than you might think working in tech. 50-60% of Americans currently live 'paycheck-to-paycheck' which means the second work stops they're on a timer for missing bills to start coming in.

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.

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> People living in hotels, temporary trailers (in some places even tiny homes count), living with a friend temporarily, etc are all homeless.

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.

> You're right. But is a 30-year-old who moves back in with their parents "homeless"?

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

I have been applying since March 2020 out of New Orleans and I have come up with nothing (5-6 first round interviews) so I think that this is a much bigger problem than people think.

A phone for internet access is basically mandatory now if you want to work, and depending on where you live so is a car.

A serviceable refurbished Android can be obtained for $50. A new iPhone costs at least $800, which is 100 hours of work at the federal minimum wage.

And a serviceable refurbished iPhone isn't that much more, e.g. https://swappa.com/listings/apple-iphone-se-2nd-gen?carrier=...

ok, but could that mean many people that are assumed to have new devices could actually be using older devices?

Probably. The iPhone users I know mostly replace their phones once every 3 to 5 years, and they don't all buy brand new replacements even then (although some do.)

I'd be surprised if you had no one around you that didn't have an old android laying around collecting dust. I'm still on an old A52s and it works fine.

i might, but i wouldn't want to rely on something i'm uncertain exists.

> But is a 30-year-old who moves back in with their parents "homeless"?

Depends -- how safe is their parents' home?

That answer can vary, for a lot of reasons.

> Depends

It doesn’t.

The median American has $8000 in transaction accounts and a net worth of $192k. 50-60% of Americans self-report that they’re living paycheck to paycheck, but not everyone understands that to mean “I literally can’t pay the bills if my paycheck doesn’t come on time”.

(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.)

> Plenty of Americans are much closer than this than you might think working in tech. 50-60% of Americans currently live 'paycheck-to-paycheck' which means the second work stops they're on a timer for missing bills to start coming in.

How is that actually defined by whoever measured it?

> "Homeless" is not the same as "living on the street"

The word is being used to invoke that image.

> People living in hotels … are homeless

Does that include digital nomads who don’t have a permanent residence?

Does that include digital nomads who don’t have a permanent residence?

Since they're not even a rounding error, it doesn't matter.

Yep, they're just winning at homeless

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