| >It is completely unacceptable to not have $400 on reserve for an emergency as a functioning adult. The problem occurs when there are MANY emergencies. You're about to get evicted, your car is broken down (so you're about to lose your job) and your kid is sick and you need a doctor but can't take the time off to get one. >I will say this again. As a mobile adult, in the United States, to not have $400 on reserve for an emergency is simply not possible with proper decision-making. Okay. The day your turn eighteen, your parents (who taught you very little and gave you nothing) kick you out on the street. You have no money (because they flat out stole it the day before you became an adult). Where does this magic $400 come from? $400 is a LOT of money. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 before taxes. That's a week and a half of work without accounting for gas money to get you to the job or food to eat when you get there. After the basics (taxes, cheapest-possible rent, basic food, some kind of heating and lighting and a few other things) you're probably at the point where you have $10 or $20 left over. Let's say you get sick, or disabled, or laid off. You are so fucked. > Individuals at that level of poverty have national and state level food stamps, welfare, disability, affordable housing, rent control, minimum-wage laws, child-support, often social security, medicare/medicaid. Have you any idea how long it takes to get disability? Years. And years. And it's not certain at all. What do you do in the meantime? Even the other programs - they often fail the very people they are designed to help the most. Child support? Again, have you any idea how many years it takes to get child support from someone who bails from their job every time the paperwork makes its way into the syste, and who never files a tax return? |