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How poor is the average American? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by Kushia@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I've been watching a few American TV shows and it blows my mind that they put up with such atrocious working terms and conditions.

One show was about a removal company where any damage at all, even not the workers fault, is taken out of their tips. There's no insurance from the multimillion dollar business. As they're not paid a living wage the guy on the show had examples of when he and his family went weeks with barely any income and this was considered normal?!

Another example was a cooking show where the prize was tickets to an NFL game. The lady who won explained that she'd be waiting in the car so her sons could experience their first live game, because she couldn't otherwise afford a ticket to go. They give tickets for football games away for free to people where I live for no reason at all..

Yet another example was where the workers got a $5k tip from their company and the reactions were as if this amount of money was even remotely life changing. It saddens me to think the average Americans life could be made so much better with such a relatively small amount of money and they don't unionize and demand far better. The company in question was on track to make a billion bloody dollars while their workers are on the poverty line and don't even have all their teeth?

It's not actually this bad and the average American lives a pretty good life like we're led to believe, right?

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[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 79 points 11 months ago (3 children)

There's just a lot of inequality in the US that is both socially and politically unacceptable in the rest of the developed world. Extremes are more accepted here.

There are more extremely rich people than you would see in other Western countries and and many, many more extremely poor people than in other Western countries. Alleviating that would mean implementing policies to redistribute wealth that many Americans are not willing to implement, especially conservatives.

The US basically sacrifices the good of the many for the great of the few.

[–] SelfHigh5@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And they manage to get poor people on board by tying their policies to Jesus and Family Values. And it works like a charm and it’s so weird.

[–] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 14 points 11 months ago

Which seems even stranger. In many other countries, Christians vote left of center to promote economic equality, reduce poverty, get green policies to protect God's green earth, make sure that everyone has universal access to healthcare and education, etc.

In the US, they vote oppotite of that.

[–] lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Every American is a rich man who is temporarily down on his luck and making big societal changes would screw them over when they finally get their money.

[–] chahk@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago

I forget who said it, "The poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 3 points 11 months ago

"Limitless wealth, hand in hand with limitless poverty"