Of course you don’t, because your stupid and would rather sit around crying on each others shoulders complaining about how hard life is and that you just can’t catch a break.

I’m surprised that you stopped your pity party long enough to respond to me.

Jamilla, the only reason why I didn’t bunny this comment was to show people like Just Another Commenter that you’re not actually being constructive or reasonable (no matter what her background, JAC, she’s still acting like a self-righteous jerk). I’m glad you’re such a special snowflake that you’re not going to be poor, and the advantages you have don’t figure into this (somehow). You keep on repeating that to yourself as you live in your parent’s house and ignore everyone who has pointed out that they didn’t have that option. The fact that you disregard everyone else’s experiences (and these are people who don’t have the advantages you do) as a pity party says more about your ignorance than their alleged stupidity.

Her main point as I could see it was that there are not 36 million poor people, if poor is defined as lacking stuff. People in temporary dire straits who otherwise have the ability to recover (herself and in fact plenty of the posters yelling at her) should really not be counted in such a tally. But there is no easy way to clean that up statistically.

And considering that the national savings rate is NEGATIVE, all the sputtering about the lady is so evil for suggesting that people not live beyond their means (a current cultural norm across ethnic and class lines) is rather curious.

There are several ‘poverty issues’ going on here. There’s the fact that there are not 36 million crushingly poor– it is some number less than that. Many of the crushingly poor who don’t have assets (property, cars, relatives, etc) are the ones who are ignorant. IGNORANCE IS NOT A CRIME, PEOPLE. Sometimes people do not know where to go or who to ask about cheap/free services. So the focus should be on identifying those people and helping them find the services they need and then providing more such services as the demand dictates.

Additionally, college degrees are a con game. The focus should be on helping people strengthen their community ties so that when jobs go, everyone isn’t alone and faced with dying from a toothache.

The dollar’s not going back up anytime soon. All the easy credit is catching up to those who took it, and it won’t be pretty. Mocking someone for noticing the coming massive depression is a bit goofed-out. Also people should be focusing more on getting businesses to end their own degree-inflation of requiring degrees for makework office jobs that are the first to be cut.

But yours is just one story. Not everyone has the advantages you do, or the resources you do. It’s easy to say “just be like me, do what I’d do, and you’ll be fine”. It’s easy, but it’s wrong. Things aren’t the same even neighborhood to neighborhood, let alone county to county, state to state, region to region. Many of the disadvantages are subtle and insidious and small, but like the feather that broke the camel’s back, the weight adds up.

One small illustration:

I don’t own a car. (I can’t afford one.) That’s ok, though - I could bum rides off of friends, walk, or take the bus. (I can’t ride a bike, though. Knee doesn’t bend that way.) But my few friends who will even give me rides have their own lives, and too often their schedules are at odds with mine. No big, I can walk or ride the bus.

Except I live in Fairfax, VA, in a part of the county with randomly missing sidewalks, sidewalks that go nowhere, and a lot of drivers who will go gunning for pedestrians. After a few months of walking to work, having to give myself at least two hours to make it there on time, and nearly being hit by cars at least once a week (including actually being hit - by a car that rolled to a stop right into me), I decided it’d be safer to bus.

But the only bus through my neighborhood stops before midmorning (when I work) and doesn’t resume until evening. It also costs $3 a ride, and I have to waste two hours and go through two transfers to get to work.

All this for a $300 a month paycheck. I spend almost 1/4 that on bus fare. I have been trying to get another job, but haven’t yet succeeded.

The kicker? If I could afford a car, my workplace is a 5 to 10 minute drive from my house.

So what should I do? Save my money and walk to work - and continue to play chicken with cars that think the pedestrian walk light is an invitation to run me down? Ensure my physical safety by busing and just deal with the loss of a quarter of my paycheck? Get a car “somehow”?

The disadvantages of being poor are often really subtle, and really small. If I made more money, busing to work wouldn’t be such a big problem. Even losing four hours a day to the ride can be dealt with. But I have to get a better-paying job first - or another job. And just the bus fare of a couple days’ intensive job search can eat up my paycheck - and I have college loans to pay off, food to buy. I am very lucky to be living with my mother, who doesn’t charge me rent - but she herself is teetering on the brink of losing her house.

You have no idea how lucky you are. You have so many advantages, but you see them as your due. You can’t really imagine someone here in America who doesn’t have those same advantages. I feel sorry for you.

It’s funny, you’ve got lots of wisdom for people who’ve had bad financial things happen to them, but, as has been mentioned several times, not everybody on this board is in that particular boat. I’ve had good financial things happen to me, and you seem to be having a tough time remembering that for 4 seconds at a time.

It’s possible to have been both hard-working AND fortunate, and not despise people who’ve been less fortunate, and blame it all on their supposed bad attitude or dumb choices. You got Parental Employment Insurance. I got Grandparental Employment Insurance. Do you honestly believe that you and I caught those breaks because we were smart? Maybe we were smart, but we were smart and also LUCKY.

Some other person may deserve a hand up just like the one we got, but if they don’t happen to have lucked into PEI or GEI, they don’t get that hand up. Maybe they’ll still make it, but it’s one more roadblock, and not a small one. If they’re less deserving of financial stability than us, it’s because they were dumb enough to get themselves born into families where none of their relatives have the ability to be their financial white knight, however much they might want to. Shame on them, huh?

Of course you don’t, because your stupid and would rather sit around crying on each others shoulders complaining about how hard life is and that you just can’t catch a break.

I’m surprised that you stopped your pity party long enough to respond to me.

That’s not crying, kid. That’s laughing. At you. Your “argument” has officially degenerated into pure insults. You’re a humiliation to libertarians everywhere. Congratulations.

Anyway, I most certainly did catch a break. When I went through my financial hard times, my wife and I - college-educated and childless though we were - were able to stay with my mother-in-law. It was a hard enough time, but we were still very lucky.

That’s the difference between you and me: I don’t pretend I was anything but very lucky. I don’t pretend that anyone could do what I did just as easily if they lacked the advantages (beyond the safety net that my MIL provided) that I possess. I’m not mindlessly arrogant enough to believe that my own good fortune means that all anyone has to do to escape poverty is stop whining and work harder.

Oh, yeah. Another difference. I got a new job in three months not three years.

It’s a lot harder for people who don’t have Parental Unemployment Insurance.

Harder, but not impossible.

…yeah. It’s pretty much too late, but if you want to even try to be taken seriously, you’re going to have to answer with something a lot more substantial than “Nuh-uh!” You could start by answering my points about how your “solution” involves drawing on resources most people don’t have, going further into debt, and possibly straining your resources with 2-3 days per week of day care.

We don’t care about any of your supposedly vast life experiences.

Of course you don’t, because your stupid and would rather sit around crying on each others shoulders complaining about how hard life is and that you just can’t catch a break.

I’m surprised that you stopped your pity party long enough to respond to me.

It’s a lot harder for people who don’t have Parental Unemployment Insurance.

Harder, but not impossible.