3mo ago

How are Americans supposed to survive the next 30 years?

I live in the USA, and our future seems more bleak than it ever has. Is not about politics, although politicians do have an impact on it. It's really about our quality of life, and cost of living, which has not changed for the better, it seems, in a really long time. The cost of living keeps going up higher and higher, and much of our country still believes that even with increased cost of living, there is never any reason whatsoever to pay people more. So for instance, a job that paid 10 bucks an hour in the year 2002, that same job might still pay $10 an hour now. But I think we all know that the cost of living has dramatically gone up from 2002 to now.

Even White collar jobs though seem to be threatened to now, which is not something I've ever seen before. Positions like analyst, engineer, business intelligence, revenue management, whatever you want to think of. Any corporate office job, people are suffering. The cost of living is absurd, buying a house is simply out of reach unless you have dual income and it better be nearly six figure dual income....

I just don't see how Americans at large are going to survive the next 30 years?

92 comments

Is not about politics
It’s all about politics. Just not about the 24/7 clown show that passes for politics in the US.
It’s about who gets what, how the spoils are divided. It’s obvious how the deck is stacked against ordinary people: the middle class is being bled dry and the hoarder class is taking off with all of it.
What’s extraordinary is that that somehow passes for ‘natural’ and ‘not about politics’.
- Well capitalism is based on the horrible unfeeling cruelty of nature, that we originally created human society to escape.
  So that's why it feels natural. It's the unfair unfeeling system of nature that society is not supposed to be
  
  Not bees. Bees cooperate with each other, nurture their young, operate according to democracy, take nectar freely given by plants, and only use their stingers for self defence.
  Fun fact: old scientists believed the queen controlled the hive for purely political reasons. They wanted evidence in nature for the existence of monarchy. They were wrong. Bees are communists and monarchy doesn't exist in nature. Neither does capitalism. No animal profits purely from owning something, they all have to put in work to get what they need to live.
  
  Trees actually cooperate and share resources.
  This horrible cruelty shouldn't be accepted as natural.

It is about politics. You need to organise yourselves better into unions. Then, you strike until you get what you deserve.
Why does Denmark and the rest of the Nordic countries have so high quality of living and happy people? Cause the people realized that you need to work together to get what you want. You need to have solidarity with your other workers to push for better compensation and work environments.
Do this, or you're doomed.
- Absolutely 100% this.
  To be totally blunt, this doesn't need political backing. This requires people collectively coming together, forming unions with single-focus, and pushing for an increase in pay to align with the cost of living. Hell, if anything it's better if Trump and his lackies oppose this, because you ultimately have the power to cripple these businesses via strikes, forming your own cooperatives off the back of your soon-to-be previous employers, or simply signalling to businesses that if they cannot afford to pay people enough money they shouldn't be in business.
  Push for gradual increase year-on-year until pay is aligned. If this is missed, everyone walks. Push for the removal of limited sick pay, and for 25+ days minimum vacation time a year. Leave it at that, and you've got terms that 90% of workers will agree to. Can't get a single company to agree? Create a professional body for your line of work and promote it as the place to be for those in your field. Push for accreditation for roles, and shun those that avoid it.
- I’ve anecdotally heard that the reason Nordic countries rank high on happiness is because they have a relatively high level of cultural homogeneity, or similar ideals circulating around with most people. This is in contrast to a place like the US that has a relatively high variety of ideologies and cultures. In other words it’s easier to get along if we all generally agree. What are your thoughts on this?
  
  True, but misleading.
  Yes, if you got rid of all the Nazis in America, then Americans would be happier. On the other hand, if everyone in a country, say, Germany, agreed on establishing a fascist dictatorship, then Germans would be unhappy.
  Norwegians aren't just happy because they all agree. They're happy because they agree, and they're left wing. Agreement is important, but only if it's agreement on people's rights and decency.
  
  Every other time I've encountered this argument, it's been an argument in favor of racism and xenophobia, often a Nazbol argument like "socialism only works if no diversity." It's my instinct to refuse it.
  But I couldn't deny that, American conservatives and liberals + leftists, on the mental level, live in different realities, with not only different core values and worries, but different ideas of what is actually happening (and no, I actively believe American leftists do not live in a fundamentally different reality from American liberals the way conservatives do from liberals + leftists.)
  
  Yea definitely don't disagree with that. I think that is a factor too. But I think it also kind of goes hand in hand. Do you have similar ideas because you organized and kind of aligned your ideas, or did you organize because your ideas are similar and you easily agreed to organize? It's kind of a chicken and egg thing.
  I've also often thought that countries like the US are just too big. There's too many people to take into consideration. A country like Denmark with ~6 million people is much easier to keep track of and the governance and politics is closer to reality.
- You need to organise yourselves better into unions. Then, you strike until you get what you deserve.
  Friend, you don't know how unions work at a core level. It's a system of bargaining. But if you have nothing that they don't already have, you can't bargain. How can you unionize, when they have so many applicants they can just fire you or outsource you to India and your government will never stand up for you? It's not possible. COLLECTIVE bargaining. It doesn't work if a few people do it, and I can't control others.
  
  Of course it's collective bargaining, that's what I mean with "organize". I don't mean just organize within your workplace, I mean organize within entire fields and industries.
  Friend, you don’t know how unions work at a core level.
  This sounds kind of condescending and mean. In Denmark we have large unions that cover whole industries and fields and they work very well for collective bargaining and securing good levels of compensation, vacation and good work environments. I am myself a member of such a union. So please don't assume that I don't know how unions work.
  
  This is why it's important to work for class consciousness and worker solidarity. Look for ways that management and capital tries to divide us and point them out to your peers!

Learn how to live in poverty and go unnoticed, because no grand and noble revolution is coming
- Revolutions are never grand and noble.
  (But some history books have been written by the survivors)

Honestly, the ones who survive well are the ones who build communities that take care of each other: Sharing meals, sharing gardens, sharing skills and labor, sharing rides, sharing emotions and stories, etc.
Capitalism was always pushing the US towards a gigantic class divide, and Boomers and Gen X carried that torch at the expense of their descendants' future. Communities of support are something that will have helped regardless of who is carrying what ideology and regardless of who is in charge, and they thrive in adversity.
So if you're looking for advice, build your local communities. Strengthen your bonds with your neighbors. Participate in local governance.
- Gen x is in the same boat as millenials, they just had a tiny bit more of a chance still.
- I would if the damned bank would let me buy a house!!! Trying to get a 90K bank loan, have 36k in cash, and still denied because I don't have a credit score.
  
  let me buy a house
  The advice wasn't for house owners only. All the others are human, too.
  
  I was in the same boat. Banks are lazy and often won't underwrite custom loans that fall outside their automatic software, but there are still some who will.
  If you don't have a score (which I'm convinced some mortgage people think means a bad score, because they're fucking idiots who can't listen), you can ask to speak to someone in charge or go elsewhere, but there are lenders who will work with you. Got ours through USDA, which took longer and was custom underwriting, but still got the terms about two weeks later.
- and Gen X carried that torch
  Has anyone seen my torch, 'cause I sure can't find it (though I was in the last couple years of Gen X)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine
- Beautiful. In fact, under royalty, people used to be killed with things like the Breaking Wheel and being boiled alive, which makes the Guillotine a far more humane punishment. I'm tempted, though, to say that "nothing ever happens" and assume the U.S. will proceed as normal.
  
  Nothing ever happens, until it does.

You get milked by the big corpos. Money flows from the poor to the rich.
And as long as you have only these two extreme right wing parties, there is nobody who would change it.

You can survive on very little, it just will be a lower quality of life than previous generations which feels bad, but you do what you need to in order to get by.
The simplest way to deal with all of this is to actually perform the financial calculations to see what's the best situation for you.
A $80,000 a year job in a city may actually leave you with a lower quality of life than a $40,000 a year job in the middle of nowhere if you're spending $4,500 a month on rent for a two bedroom apartment in the city, and it would only be $1000 for a two bedroom house the middle of nowhere.
Calculate some possible budgets for different areas and different lifestyles, and find out what works best for you. Being in a city is not as good as it used to be financially speaking.
If you're having trouble "surviving" either way, you need to figure out how to reduce your costs and/or up your income.
Common things like sharing a home (with a partner or roommate) can reduce your costs massively, trying to live alone is pretty stupid financially right now.
Learn how to cook things yourself, it's not hard with Youtube these days, you can massively slash your food budget by not eating out or buying pre-made food. One of the stupidest things I see is people picking up a second job, making very little per hour, and then spending 6 hours of their income on a dinner from a restaurant (eat in, eat out, doordash, etc.). You would have been better off just buying decent meal ingredients for 2 hours of your wage, and then spending 1 hour cooking and cleaning. Then you've got 3 hours worth of time back that you can either use to work for more money for other things, or just not bother working at all to have more time for you.
If you're stuck in a dead end low wage job, invest time in getting new skills that will enable you to get a better job. It's never too late to retrain for a better position unless you've already retired.

I’m leaving. I’m tired of fighting.
- Serious question, but where do you plan to go and how? I see so many people posting about leaving, but unless you're in a fairly high-demand career field, planning on marrying a local, or are already wealthy to the point that you likely won't be affected by whatever is coming down the line, you're going to have a bad time. Most countries aren't swinging the gates open for people that won't be a net positive on their system. And the ones that do probably aren't ones you want to go to.
  
  It’ll take awhile, but the crux of it hinges on the inheritance I stand to receive next year. I know for a fact that I’ll be more than enough to do what we want to do.
  Second, I’ve been planning on going back to school anyways for computer engineering, so what’s wrong with studying abroad? I’ve also been in and around IT and tech all my life, and I’m pretty decent with a soldering iron. I currently work as a board rework tech.
  My wife is a pharmacy tech that’s been doing it for close to 20 years in a variety of environments. Depending on where we go, her field is one of those that are in demand. Specifically, we know she can get a Canadian work visa pretty easily. We have family in Vancouver so it works out.
  
  I moved to Japan which has its good and bad points (like anywhere). If I had it to do over, I'd probably pick Norway or Finland instead, but I plan on spending the rest of my life here barring some earth-shattering change.

Humans have a great capacity to adapt. Consider people around the world who have adapted to even worse circumstances.

The america empire is following in the exact same footsteps of the Roman empire. If you fail to learn from history then history will repeat itself. The great American empire will fall and there will be nothing u can do about it no matter how hard u try.
"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
— Dylan Thomas
- The greatest trick Yahweh ever pulled was convincing people that "light" can be a euphemism for metaphysical goodness.
- It’s been falling for a while now.
  
  In history, a century isn't that long.
  
  Like a train crash in slow motion

To be fair the USA seems to have the brightest future compared to basically any other country because you guys don't have this imminent demographic collapse like most other developed countries like Japan, Korea, China, Germany, Italy, etc. And because of your geography and size you are would only be mildly affected by a WW3.
Perhaps it helps to look at other parts of the world and see how comperativelly well you guys have it.
I guess the biggest challenge is to minimize the huge divide between the rich and the poor. Sadly you missed the opportunity to choose Berny Sanders as your leader a couple of times, that would have helped a lot.
- Lol we do once the borders close.
  
  heh, and republicans are going to lose their fucking minds when they start to see the consequences of the choices their leaders made. Like when fruit is like $10/lb because its all rotting in the fields because everyone who normally picked it is locked in a border ~~concentration~~ reeducation camp.
  Too bad we have to live with the consequences of their choices too.

This is a circumstance born, in no small part, of the idea that manual labor and menial labor is meaningless and has no real value.
Our economy has been sold from beneath us, and the overall cultural ideologies result in most people avoiding these things. But it is the only thing that is actual production - the rest of the economy is all efficiencies or expenditure.
Slowly, the wealth has slipped away, and now it's becoming apparent to people, and they don't know who to blame.
Find or make an enclave and survive together.

buying a house is simply out of reach unless you have dual income
Not in all areas of the United States. Houses routinely sell for under $200k in my city. There's also many for under $100k.
- Say city.
  
  Check out much of the Midwest. Check out Detroit.
  
  I haven't checked since covid, but Philadelphia usually has at least a handful for under 100k and a load under 200k.
  Granted they aren't in great sections of the city and nearly all are row homes with existing issues.
- People say this kind of thing a lot, but I don't really understand if they don't have any family or friends, don't care about their family and friends, or just think it's reasonable to have to choose between your relationships and living in an affordable house.
  
  It sucks but you have to do what you think is best maybe the savings allow for some road trips to visit.
- Median income for the area?

For the last 40 years through free trade we’ve had a large population join the market from countries like China, Russia, India etc.
Free trade with China has given us cheap consumer goods but at the cost of our own manufacturing which suppressed wage growth and inflation for a long time. We hit the peak of this just before Covid and we are now feeling the after affects.
China’s dramatically aging population along with geopolitical instability means that the logistics and manufacturing capacity that existed overseas for 20 years Is now failing. The US forced to reshore or nearshore (Mexico) much of its manufacturing capacity. Basically if we want to continue to have stuff we need to find somewhere else to make it besides China. This isn’t a cheap process and it won’t be as efficient as the old system.
Russia’s war with Ukraine has huge implications on resources and energy. Russia exports a lot of raw materials, fertilizer products, food, energy and aluminum. Taking them offline has affected international trade and has many many markets.
Our institutions that support labor have also withered over the last 40 years. Labor unions don’t have the sway they used too and politicians have ignored their needs for decades. Big business will not just give wage increases much like in the 20s and 30s Labor will need to grow and become more combative than it currently is to see any improvements.
In short the world order that we all grew up in is breaking down and changing. It will be at least a decade before these changes finish shaking out and we see solutions to the problems we are facing fully materialize.

Many of us will not.

You really believe we're all going to die in the next 30years?
Or are you being hyperbolic?
- I'm 72. Pretty likely I'll be gone by then.
  
  I'm 53. Can't we not talk about the next 30-years?
  
  Heading upwards or downwards?
- I can't speak for everyone, but if I'm not dead in the next 30 years I'm going to be extremely disappointed.
  
  @remindme@mstdn.social in 30 years
  
  If I'm not dead in 30 years I'll absolutely make sure I'm dead! I just need to wait out my older family members and then I can finally just stop.

With what's about to happen, I do not know

You'll realise just how little people will make do with. And how much lower what you considered a terrible standard of living can be.

I know this wasn't your point, but I've been confused on a particular point for awhile:
buying a house is simply out of reach unless you have dual income and it better be nearly six figure dual income....
Just the general idea of it being impossible to afford to buy a house. And don't get me wrong, the prices on houses have gotten ridiculous! At the same time, we talk about landlords buying houses and charging exorbitant rent (suggesting at the very least more than what they pay).
So if rent is more than the mortgage, insurance, etc, then how is it impossible to buy a house if it is possible to rent (an equivalent home)? Is it the down payment (if any)? Costs involved in purchasing? Because it seems like month to month it would be cheaper.
I say this as someone who has rented and owned, and owning felt significantly cheaper.
(Full disclosure, I'm in the military, so I had access to a VA loan... though not really sure what that did for me except maybe allow 0% down... if other people are absolutely required to put up a percentage then I can definitely understand it).
- Your questions are stating false comparisons. The only alternative to buying a house you listed is renting an equivalent house. But there are several other alternatives. To buy a house you must qualify on you and your spouse's/ Co buyers proven income. So even if you intend to have a roommate, you cannot included the rent they’ll pay in your income. But it’s almost trivial for two couples (4 incomes) to rent a house together. There are also apartments, or trailer parks, or living with parents.
  But let’s get back to equivalent homes.
  A young couple makes 80k/yr and wants to buy a 250k house. They can’t afford much of a down payment and finance 225k. They’re paying roughly 2500/mo in a mortgage tax and insurance. That’s roughly half their take home income.
  Older couple makes 160k/yr and just sold their previous home walking away with about 100k in equity. They also add 25k more for the down payment and finance 125k. Now their mortgage is 1200/ mo and they make more money so that represents a far lower percentage of their take home income as well. Even if they still only made 80k the fact they were already in a home with equity still leaves them with far more spending money each month.
  The young couple is going to be in an apartment, or a trailer, they’re never getting into that home, even as a rental, unless the owners bought it during a low market and have a low mortgage and are not trying to get “today’s market rates” for it.
- I didn't downvote you.
  Many homes are being sold very fast, and very competitively. You need to be pre-approved AND have a down payment before the target house is even listed. If you don't put enough down, you have mortgage insurance which makes the monthly payment go up quite a bit.
  Some very competitive places homes are being bought for cash, then often remortgaged to free up the cash you put in, but, you have to have it in the first place.
  many buyers are telling their broker/agent "If a house comes up in xyz neighborhood, and it has these basic criteria, get my bid in sight unseen". It's going that fast. Your normal work a day, save your pennies home buyer doesn't stand a chance.
  This doesn't even touch on investment firms doing this at an enterprise scale.
- I have the same question. It seems like a doable goal for me, and I only have an Associates Degree. Are people just bad at saving and paying their bills on time?
  
  My question was less about how doable it is, and more... if you can't afford to buy a house, how can you afford to pay rent (and thus someone else's mortgage plus a little extra)?
  The last place I lived, I could afford my mortgage but I wouldn't have been able to afford to rent an equivalent house. Hence my confusion.
- Mortgage interest rates are very high at the moment, and many people "feel" like that's never going to change, but it very likely will, significantly increasing what they'll be able to afford. Home prices in my city have been falling for a couple years since they went out of control bonkers during the pandemic, and I don't think they've hit bottom yet.
  Point is, these things are typically cyclical and temporary
- Va loan helps to make it favourable but also you need to consider that investors can structure it better than first time home buyer. Sometimes it aont about out running the bear just the next guy

and it'd* better be a* nearly six-figure dual income

Americans need to budget better and get used to some sacrifices. If you can't ride the waves, you're bound to fall off.
- This is a very insensitive and honestly silly comment to make. What makes you think people aren't budgeting? They would have to in order to survive in the world that we live in now but there are major costs that we can't control for example rising housing and rent. Even if we stopped dining out every single day forever, and never got sodas or drinks or anything like that, it would still be a struggle to survive because the price of groceries keeps going up due to corporate greed, it has absolutely nothing to do with people not budgeting. When you budget, and things keep rising in that budget, that's a huge issue
  For example, if I budgeted 100% of my income out as 30% groceries, 70% savings, from the year 2005 to 2024, The percentage for groceries would dramatically increase. It would go 30% groceries in 2005, 45% groceries in 2015, 57% groceries in 2024. As you can see, in this simple example, I'm not buying more groceries or changing my investment or budget. All I'm buying is groceries, and the cost of groceries keeps rising infinitely without my pay rising. This is the problem with the idea that budgeting can help you.

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