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Comment by morgante | Hacker News Reader

To be clear, I'm well aware that what I make places me comfortably into the upper middle class.

My point was simply that my life generally doesn't seem much/any better than joelhooks's ostensibly "poor" life.

I might have health insurance, but I haven't used it once. Even though I have sick leave at work, I'd probably never take it (preferring to work remotely).

I guess my main point is that we shouldn't lose sight of the advances which centuries of development have brought us. An order of magnitude income differential no longer connotes an order of magnitude difference in lifestyle. At least for young single men, it seems like there's almost no difference in lifestyle based on salary.

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If you honestly believe your lifestyle is no different from someone getting by on $10 per hour then I doubt there's much I can do to dissuade you. That being said, I still believe you're underestimating just how much more stability and confidence you have as a product of your income.

I personally have very clear memories of the years where I worried constantly about finding and keeping enough work to pay rent, left problems with my health unaddressed because I couldn't afford to fix them, and stayed in a bad relationship because my partner had a place to me to stay and a car I could take to job interviews.

If you had asked me then I would have said my life was fine b/c I had friends, plenty of cheap beer, and didn't really know any better. Now that I'm also solidly in the middle class and can afford luxuries like an entire house I share with just my wife, regular meals out, and leisure travel I would describe those years as "strained" and "challenging" at best.

> If you honestly believe your lifestyle is no different from someone getting by on $10 per hour then I doubt there's much I can do to dissuade you.

I guess maybe I'm just not allocating my money intelligently, but it really doesn't feel like my life is much better than "poor" young people.

My university friends who survive on a $4000/semester stipend don't seem any less happy or contented than me. If anything, more so.

> much more stability and confidence you have as a product of your income.

Admittedly, I don't really worry about the effect of losing my job. I could probably sustain myself for a few years off my savings.

But, on the flip side, having a "professional" job is also much more all-encompassing. I doubt people working at McDonalds frequently wake up with thoughts about new strategic directions and methods for flipping burgers, but I am. In exchange for the stability which a high salary brings, I'm always thinking about work.

I think someone flipping burgers at McDonalds would trade waking up thinking about work for waking up and thinking about how they'll feed their children any day of the week.

Also, the concept of being able to sustain your current lifestyle for a few years on your savings alone makes you sound like you're from another planet to someone making minimum wage with the savings and benefits that entails. It also doesn't appear to jive with your earlier statement about managing your money in such a way that your day to day finances would be in any way similar to someone earning $10 hourly. Where I come from, having enough money for beer and weed might mean you've got $20 to your name, not a savings account with enough for rent and expenses for the next 2 years.

Edit:

Your friends at university might appear to have a fairly similar lifestyle to yours on the measly sum of $4000 per semester given the fact that university life generally comes accompanied by prepaid meal plans, health insurance, counselling, housing, on campus services and student discounts. Such amenities are a far off dream to those below the poverty line.

> It also doesn't appear to jive with your earlier statement about managing your money in such a way that your day to day finances would be in any way similar to someone earning $10 hourly.

I never claimed my finances were similar to someone earning $10/hour. Just my lifestyle. (The fact that I don't have much to spend money on is part of the reason I've managed to accumulate extensive savings.)

> university life generally comes accompanied by prepaid meal plans, health insurance, counselling, housing, on campus services and student discounts

They do have housing taken care of, but that $4000 is used for meals. While those fringe benefits are tangible, I don't think they make a major lifestyle difference considering that most never use health or counseling services

You're probably right about day-to-day lifestyle differences being rather small between surviving poor and thriving middle class. The biggest difference is in the exceptions, both positive and negative. Someone just getting by won't have the spare cash or leave time to take a vacation, and a single disaster could put them on the streets if they don't have family or friends to turn to (which can feel just as shameful as being on the streets). The other major difference is psychological: the feeling of being trapped in a precarious situation.

I'm going to call bullshit on this, as I currently rest well above a single order of magnitude beyond minimum wage. Life is awesome. I own a business. We have health coverage. We eat high quality nutrient rich food. We take our 4 kids to a lake house for a month every year. I work when I feel like it. We travel globally. I've got more options than I ever thought possible.

Sure, sitting around getting loaded smoking cigarettes is Fun. This is better. A lot better.

Okay, but if you can afford not to work ("I work when I feel like it") you're not in the middle class, you're upper class. Compared to solidly middle class people, your life is also much better.

No doubt. I've experienced the spectrum.

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