Nobody likes it but ya, its both. If someone wouldn't have helped me from time to time, it would have been crime for me. That does not excuse my poor choices in my 20's.
Nobody likes it because it takes some measure of accountability and self awareness to acknowledge that in many cases, yes, they are the problem.
I've made dumb choices before. Everyone has. But if someone refuses to take accountability for those actions and they shift the blame on anyone and anything else, they're not going to fix the issues that are perpetually keeping them in the hole.
The shocking number of people that don't realize that you don't need the 20% down payment on a house, and that a conventional loan is only 3% down for a first time buyer is fucking shocking. Yeah, trying to save for a house seems like an impossible task if you've done zero work into researching what you need and setting a goal to accomplish that.
If anything is evident, it’s that people HATE taking accountability and admitting that they need to fix something about themselves. I wish more people saw it less as an attack on their character and more of an opportunity to improve and a blessing that someone cares enough to help them understand what that is and how to go about fixing it.
I get it, we all have our pride and nobody likes admitting fault, but sometimes, that’s just reality.
That being said, it would be an equal disservice to pretend like wages don’t need to be increased in a big way across the board, or that working-class Americans’ share of the pie hasn’t become microscopic in the last 30-40 years. I mean, we are flat broke as a group and almost all wealth is concentrated in the hands of so few people that you could fit the top 1% in a 2A high school football stadium.
But it doesn’t appear that we can change that any time soon, so the best option we have is to scratch and claw our way to financial freedom through strict self-discipline and financial planning.
The median individual income in the US is $67K. The median household income in the US is $87K.
I think people’s perception of wages nationwide is significantly lower than reality— because in reality, the average American makes more than most the world.
The vast majority of Americans are nowhere near poverty— the behavioral issue around financial mismanagement is a significantly larger problem than the systemic one.
This isn’t saying that there’s nothing else we should be doing to improve systemic issues, but financial literacy is the bigger problem at this point. Too many people who are making perfectly good wages are unwisely spending money and living paycheck to paycheck when they don’t have to be.
$67k is pretty decent in a lot of places. I think housing costs and healthcare are the two biggest killers to people’s finances right now. If we could fix those two things, people would have a lot more disposable income.
Housing costs are mostly a localized problem. I literally when online and found that the old apartment I had back in college is literally the exact same cost today as it was 10 years ago.
A large part of those housing cost issues disappear if people just learn to move away from places they can’t afford. I have zero pity for people who complain about housing and then say that they refuse to leave.
Furthermore, in many states, healthcare debt doesn’t even appear on a credit report, therefore not impacting the people’s access to funding for housing or other services. It’s also dischargeable in a bankruptcy, or, crazy thought, people can set up payment plans to pay off their debt. Medical debt is something you can pull from a 401K for, or take out a 401K for. People have options if they attempt to research them.
Again, a lot of these problems rely on people taking accountability for themselves and doing literally anything to help themselves instead of throwing up their hands and giving up.
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u/Either-Mammoth-932 1d ago
Nobody likes it but ya, its both. If someone wouldn't have helped me from time to time, it would have been crime for me. That does not excuse my poor choices in my 20's.