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The gap between what the poverty line says you need and what you actually need to survive keeps growing. Not because Americans want more. Because the list of "mandatory to function" expenses has exploded. Things you can't afford but wish you could used to mean luxuries. A nicer car. A vacation. Eating out. Now it means: Healthcare you can actually use. Reliable internet for work and school. A phone plan. Car insurance that doesn't bankrupt you when rates spike. Childcare so you can work. Student loan payments that follow you for decades. None of these are optional. But the poverty line calculation doesn't account for them. It's still using 1964 expense ratios when food was the dominant cost. Now food is the smallest line item and everything else has ballooned. The result? Millions of Americans are "above the poverty line" on paper while drowning financially in reality. You're told you make enough. But you can't afford rent, healthcare, and childcare on a "living wage." That's not personal failure. That's a rigged system that refuses to acknowledge what survival actually costs now. Link in bio if you're tired of playing a game where the poverty line is a fantasy and you're ready to move somewhere reality is less expensive. ๐Ÿ†˜๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ #creatorsearchinsights

@nomadveronica
339 views24 likes2:59ENMay 26, 2026
487 words2653 characters29 sentencesReadability: Middle School

Transcript

This is why you can't afford all of the things that you wish you could afford. It's because your wages don't make any freaking sense. Did you know that right now the federal poverty line in the United States is $31,200? $31,000 is how much they think you can survive off of. But that number, I don't know if you know where it came from, it came from taking someone's food budget and multiplying it by three, okay? So this is where they came up with how much the federal poverty line should be. You take a food budget and you multiply it by three. But the problem is back when this calculation was created in the 60s, food took up much more of the budget than it used to. So all they've done is they've taken that number and adjusted it for inflation all these years. But they never readjusted to what actually happens in budgets nowadays. So back then, there was really no childcare costs because women stayed at home and they were one income households. And if you needed childcare, you were just relying on neighbors and family members to do that. So the extraordinary childcare costs did not exist. There was not student loan bills. There was not everyone needing an Apple iPhone in their pocket and having to either pay for that upfront or pay for that in monthly payments. There was not cell phone bills in general. The cost for cars used to take a way smaller percentage of people's paycheck, including the insurance and gas for those cars was a way smaller percentage of people's paycheck. And yet, the budget that they set all of those years ago doesn't take into account all these new costs that we have that we didn't used to have. So before you go check this article to see how much they actually are saying that the poverty line should be set at. I'm wondering, what do you think? What do you think the poverty line in the United States were like, it's hard for people to afford things? What do you think that should be set at based on all the things that we pay for these days that we didn't use to pay for? Take into account exploding health care costs, the exploding child care costs, the fact that education is astronomical into account increased food prices, increased essential items like clothing. What is it that you think you could live off of? Put it in the comments, what should an American be able to live off of? Because this economist is saying that number should be $140,000. $140,000 is what he estimates, the new poverty line should be set at. That's why you're feeling poor. That's why you're feeling like there's things that I want to be able to afford that I can't afford because the wages don't make any freaking sense.

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