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Avicebron 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

You might need to get out more, I've lived it, I've been around people who live it every day. I met someone for the first time in like 15 years (old school semi-acquaintance), something like the second thing we started talking about was how rough it was just finding and paying for an apartment in the remote super "LCOL" place we found ourselves.

Think about it, I'm guessing the guy welding the beams in your kid's school isn't making a quarter of what you make a year. Yet he has to be reminded every day that he's an economic failure vs what do you do, javascript? Early stage startup ideas? I bet it was pretty good in 2006-8.

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renewiltord 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Getting out more won’t help in this case because I will be walking around SOMA. The fact of the matter is that the stat is made up by a payday loan company and has no bearing on reality.

People like to share it because they are LLM like and just repeat things without looking at the data. “Hallucinations” are the common way that humans experience the world. World models born of pure fiction.

Also wtf I know journeyman ironworkers. They own homes in Oakland. People act like this is some poverty mode existence. Their lives are fine.

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titanomachy 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Thanks for sharing the slowboring blog post. I didn't know that stat came from payday loan companies, which definitely makes it suspect. Encouraging to hear that 55% of Americans have enough cash on hand for 3 months of expenses, and most of them have less liquid resources they could draw on if they needed more.

However, saying that the median American household has ~$200k net worth doesn't necessarily mean that they're doing great. A lot of the burden of funding retirement falls on the individual in the US, meaning if you're 60 and only have $200k of net worth in a M/HCOL city you're still potentially kind of fucked.

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8note 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

whats making the confidence that you are correct, and other people are bots, vs you being the bot?

up until recently, you didnt know the definition of homelessness that is used in the data. how are you making claims about the data? which data? what does it say?

since you know journeymen, you might want to ask them to meet their apprentices. That way, you could visit the apprentices homes that theyve bought, and can definitely pay the mortgage on by themselves.

or, if they dont have any, you could try to meet some CNAs at the local hospital? or the person at the grocery til?

its wild you dont think poor people exist.

	▲	renewiltord 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		I made no claims about homelessness. Only about the paycheck to paycheck thing. Did you use Llama 3.2 1B to make this comment? Next time use a bigger model. Gemma 3n 4B is sort of the limit before it starts talking nonsense about “claims about the [homelessness] data”. Complete non sequitur.

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lurk2 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> I'm guessing the guy welding the beams in your kid's school isn't making a quarter of what you make a year.

The majority of software engineers aren’t earning anywhere close to 4 times a union welder’s wages.

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computably 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

https://institute.bankofamerica.com/economic-insights/payche...

BoA says 25% are paycheck-to-paycheck based on their internal data, which is still pretty nuts.

	▲	Izkata 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I also remember seeing something a few years ago that this stat has always floated around 20-30%. It was in the context of reporting that living paycheck to paycheck "has reached 30%", but that the reporting never included historical averages, to make the news much more sensational than it actually was.
	▲	renewiltord 6 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yes, it is much lower than the 60% postulated above, even counting those who have massive positive home equity they could access at any time. Median net worth is almost $200k. People in this country are so wealthy.