A staggering 80% of American households are financially worse off than they were before COVID-19
A staggering 80% of American households are financially worse off than they were before COVID-19
Only the richest 20% have held onto their COVID savings.
I canceled all our streaming services and Amazon prime. I canceled my phone service and opted for a $15/month plan (Mint). I buy a cheap phone, about $70 bucks. I asked my wife to stop buying me snack foods at the grocery store to save ~$50/week. All told I think we are not spending ~$300/month that I can now put towards our cars that are starting to break down. Someone said something about savings but I only cultivate dust and stones there.
Those 'record corporate profits' seen since 2020 didn't manifest in a vacuum.
I found out my wife was pregnant about a week before shit really hit the fan. We were completely prepared, had money saved up and everything.
The covid hit. We both lost our jobs, and unemployment wasn't nearly enough to cover the bills. I couldn't find another job anywhere.
We lost everything. Both of my cars got repoed, I get eviction notices every single month because rent is behind. We pulled out credit cards for food because we don't qualify for assistance.
Slowly, we both got jobs, I got lucky and jumped right back into my career that I love, and we're still trying to get on our feet. The credit cards are killing us.
Oh, and when our daughter was born, she had to be life flown to another city because she almost passed away (long story). 150k bill. After insurance.
It was another really good chance for wealth transfers
Not surprising at all.
Corporations made BANK and all the CEOs put it directly into their pockets.
Meanwhile, comparing 2019 with 2023, Elon Musk had an increase in net worth of about 707%. That's a plus of ca. $157.700.000.000. Yes, that's 157,7 billion.
It’s rather negligent of the article to ignore inflation on other areas such as basic needs as well such as price gouging for toilet paper, the immediate war with Russia that suddenly caused gas spikes, and the continuing shrinkflation of basic necessities to be considered ‘luxury’. Bread for the fam shouldn’t be considered a luxury.
"Gee......you f***ing think?" -Me, single income father of three-
People who had the assets got that money.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/04/economic-inequality-wealth-gap-pandemic/
I do want to own a home at some point before death, so I've cut back spending across the board. I wouldn't say I'm financially worse off, just working as many double shifts as possible (I work in healthcare, this is easy to do right now...also not a good thing) and not enjoying life at all for....3 continuous years now.
$115k needs to be your annual salary in USD to buy a home right now, supposedly, I read that somewhere (maybe CNN?) in the past 2 weeks. I make nowhere near that.
Factor in inflation on grocery prices & everything else, an mind you I shop at an Aldi's and a wholesale club, it's not a very easy time out there. Sometimes it feels like I'm saving for something totally unrealistic.
But the people on the TV said the stock market went up!
I know it's hot to blame price hikes rn, and there's some bullshit going on with housing prices, but I'm going to need to see some household budget details before I break out the violin.
I've seen so many otherwise-defined-as-adults make very poor financial decisions for decades. Lifestyle creep is real.
Everyone has a budget they stick to, right? This isn't a years-long delay on an inevitable recession due to tonedeaf revenge spending to counter existential depression, right?