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

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

TV shows aren't even remotely comparable to real life situations here. Americans have a spending problem. I've never been to college. Yet I've already earned one retirement and I'm working on a second. I'm 42 years old.

America is great because you can make as much money as you want as long as you're motivated enough to do it. The problems I see mostly from people here are self inflicted.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If everyone was the same as you, yes. But different metabolisms, impacts of things medicine doesn't understand, remove motivation, take away executive function. In short for the people who are able, it seems like everyone else is lazy. For those who aren't as able, they simply can't make the right decisions, and do the right things. An easy example is that successful people on average require less sleep. So they have more hours to utilize.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

It didn't take much for me to do any of this.

Just a little ambition. Show up to work. Keep a positive attitude as much as possible. Save money, don't blow it on useless shit.

If you recall my op said most people self inflict their problems. Obviously mentally retarded people and quadriplegic people are going to have a disadvantage. But most people are simply giving up and using everything or everybody else as an excuse.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm not going onto say what gave it away but I am positive you are over 50.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

42 in January