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Comment by orangethirty | Hacker News Reader

I agree. The difference between being broke/not broke is the same as being poor/rich. There is no middle class anymore. Which sucks.

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So much wrong with this statement I almost threw my monitor out the window. Broke is temporary. Poor is a state of mind and often may be permanent. More importantly, the implication is that without money, your life is meaningless - which is a terrible lie to believe.

There is no middle class anymore: a line created by average folks who earn an average wage and spend too much and make minimum monthly payments on everything and after 20 years of humping the 9-5 or 10-6 or 12-7 wonder why their bank accounts are so anemic and why can't I retire to Hawaii like I planned to when I was 20? "Middle class" is a useless metric anyway, because when pressed to define it nobody can, or they massage the definition as the argument evolves.

Here's the definition: if you qualify for government assistance, you're poor. If you don't have to work for your money - you might choose to, but you don't have to - you're rich. The middle class is right in between. I don't know about you, but I see a huge swath of people in between the states of "waiting in the government cheese line" and "collecting 6/7/8/9-figure interest checks".

You do make valid points. Yet I reason you are reading two much between the lines. My point is that there are less opportunities for people to make a good standard living than there were before. That is simply from my POV, and I can definitely be wrong.

Before when? Maybe a few years ago was better. But 50 years? 100? No way.

Look, I save almost 1/4 of my income and I still feel poor in many ways. It's not about spending habits it's being able to survive bad shit financially. A friend of mine had a single seizure while looking for work and could not drive for 6 months plus significant medical bills. IMO, if you can't survive a minor medical issue financially then your not middle class and it's really hard to get there before 35 or if you have kids young.

Do you feel poor or do you feel not-rich? There's a difference, and not-rich = middle class. Poor is thinking twice before buying a pack of gum. Poor is hand making clothes out of scrap material. Poor is waiting on EBT before doing the grocery shopping.

That really sucks for your friend. But they exemplify the difference between broke and poor -- they were broke, in a bad spot; but I assume they're gainfully employed now and managing well (I hope).

No one is immune to everything forever -- not even billionaire Steve Jobs. your friend wasn't poor before his seizure, but the seizure knocked him down.

And of course several countries in the world do provide for the disabled. Even the US provides some support.

Even the US provides some support. If your heath issue prevents you from working for 7 months you get support but at 6 months you qualify for nothing.

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