On the average, the economy sucks. Its impossible to "get by" in the US.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-its-impossible-get-us

It’s Impossible to “Get By” In the US

While the market cheers on the fantastic job “growth” of March 2010, the more astute of us are concerned with a growing tide of personal bankruptcies. March 2010 saw 158,000 bankruptcy filings. David Rosenberg of Gluskin-Sheff notes that this is an astounding 6,900 filings per day.

This latest filing is up 19% from March 2009’s number which occurred at the absolute nadir of the economic decline, when everyone thought the world was ending. It’s also up 35% from last month’s (February 2010) number.

Given the significance of this, I thought today we’d spend some time delving into numbers for the “median” American’s experience in the US today. Regrettably, much of the data is not up to date so we’ve got to go by 2008 numbers.

credit card debt, and own our cars outright.

I know a lot of people who get by int he U.S. I have a son and a daughter from a previous marriage that get buy. They work at the airport where they search people. They share an apartment with friends.

Almost all of my neighbors get by.

I know some people who are struggling. There are problems with the economy. But the title of the op is inaccurate. It is not impossible to get buy at all.

You are rich, relatively speaking. Count your blessings, that is what I say.

You won the American lifestyle lotto!

When the rest of the U.S. went crazy, we did not.

My two children by a previous marriage make less than 24,000 a year. They are careful so they get by. Yes, the economy is not yet back to what it was under Clinton, and I don't expect it ever will for many reasons, but it is not impossible to get buy.

We did not win the American Dream loto,(the American Dream is a fantasy) we planned. We lived mostly by cash and were very careful about using credit cards.

What led to this crises for a very big part was Bush's ownership initiative. He sold the dream that everyone could own a home. They sold the idea that the worth of your house would always go up. They sold the idea that the stock market would always appreciate by 10% per year. People that bought that bill of goods are having problems. Ups and down are a natural part of any economic system. But even today, it is not impossible to get by.

But, people need to plan. They need to disengage, as much as possible from consumerism. They need to be frugal.

...one catastrophic illness,
one Act of God accident,
one drunk uninsured motorist collision,
one nasty divorce,
one unexpected lawsuit,
one Insurance Company denial of treatment,
one Retirement Fund/Banking/Insurance failure,
one "snake bite" away from Not Getting By (not "buy").

Count your blessings.
Things CAN change in less than a heartbeat.
Control is an absolute illusion, especially on the Working Class end of the Economic Spectrum.
YES! It CAN happen to YOU.

My best friend (and wife) always reminds me, "When you want to hear god laugh, tell him how careful (or smart) you are."

the smug and lucky are part of our problem

I too, "get by", always have, in large part now because I never went nutty when times are good......however, I'm under no illusion that's the way it will always be

My point is that it is not impossible to make it.

Thank your lucky stars.
We do...everyday.

chance of disaster. This is true no matter what system we live in.

It's wonderful hearing that some of us are making it. Enjoy it and blessings for continued prosperity!

I have seen people's good fortune change in an instance - people who never thought it could happen to them - yet they were careful, prudent and frugal too.

No one is above it all.

Without income, planning safe living conditions let alone a budget that incorporates funds for emergencies is a moot point; just try to disengage from a child's needs for a nurturing, well-rounded education rich in experiences. At whatever age, experiences and skills lead to better opportunities.

As for consumerism, just try avoiding the marketeers - they're everywhere one would go to stay aware and informed; even on DU one needs to apply extra steps to rid themselves of the advertisers' manipulations of the mind and emotions.

JOBS, people. JOBS! Once people can shelter, feed, and clothe themselves and their families, we can talk about planning for futures, we can encourage disengaging from consumerism and the value of simple, local living with community respect to what each one contributes, -then perhaps America would really recover.

TOO MANY LIViNG W/BROKEN TRUST...

But things happen that you cannot plan for. I rarely pay retail, always buying needful things on sale and only on sale.

I worked a full time job and 2 part times plus did side work.

We thought we had planned well but I got sick and now am disabled. BCBS dumped me after paying premiums for years and I have been homeless 3 times.
Seizure disorder, colon cancer on top of hiv even with medicare can be expensive.

My life savings went to medical bills the first two times.
The last time we had built up a pretty nice nest egg, partner got outsourced 2x in less than six months and could not find another job for almost a year. We have no savings now.

We have found some stability. We don't eat out, I cook (pretty good at it too)
Bought a house and some land that no one else wanted so it was cheap, then my 19 yr old minivan died and we had to have a replacement vehicle so he could get to work because our 12 yr old pu ate too much gas and was getting undependable..
Then the motor blew up because of oil pump failure.

We don't carry credit card debt we only have the house and car loan and are paycheck to paycheck. We thought we had planned well, we had enough saved for more than 6 months, but had some extraordinary expenses. We pay out that CC as fast as we can.

When we use the credit card it is for things like farm equipment.
We had to have a tiller, we grow a lot of our own food and do canning and freezing.
We are trying to do a large enough garden that we can donate some of the fresh food to Second Harvest, we would have starved if not for them.

Now we are starting an organic farm on a slim shoestring, actually we spend less than half of what we had to on rent.

The house was abandoned and not too destroyed by the mj grow that had been here. We are working our way to zero energy and so far have cut power bills by almost 3/4. We are trying to get to where we are off grid in 15 yrs, partner reaches 65 and has his own health stuff to deal with.

As far as inputs on the house to make it more energy efficient, insulated curtains, insulation, gaskets in doors and outlet/switch covers, front loader washer etc.
We have spent about 3800$ on the improvements over the last 3 yrs, that includes replacement appliances when the old ones die for as efficient as we can find.
I painted the dark brown roof shingles with Kool Seal 287, lowering the interior summer temps by 30 degrees and we did not use the ac at all last summer.

I just finished building a shade structure on the west side of the house from scratch at a cost of about 360$, it is 8ft wide and 32ft long down the side and cuts the heat on the west side of the house.
Looks pretty good. I checked on those kind that roll up 700+ for 8x12.

Our power bills are down by 2300 kwrs and am replacing the light bulbs with LEDs one or two a month starting with the most used lights. We had brought CFLs from the place we were renting and put their incandescents back in there.

We went from 3500 kilowatt hrs per month to 900-1200 and will be chipping at that until I can get it to around 500 kwhrs. By that time we will have enough equity to take a small loan to install solar power. We will not take a loan if we can get around it. We plan to install tanks to catch rain water and eventually a metal roof and siding. We have planted orchard trees.

But it is damned difficult. And there are SOME for whom it is and will be impossible, because the Wall Street honchos are determined to drive down American wages... so unless you have a marketable skill, you have to take what you can get.

A little luck never hurts.

Too many Americans insist upon luxuries like cable TV or internet access. You can live without both; I did for five years. Too many Americans have racked up their credit balances; I got one credit card when I was younger and took a decade paying it off. But it's gone now and I have no outstanding debt beyond my mortgage. It took a lot of sacrifice and a little luck, but I'm in the black.

And I just finally got a raise last week; I am making $16 an hour. In downtown Chicago.

True, a little bad luck and my family will hit the skids. That doesn't mean it's impossible to get by. I'll tell you what's impossible: you just can't get ahead! You can struggle and get by; 306-odd million of us and few of us are starving. Getting ahead, not so much. Contrast this with what "getting by" means in Somalia or parts of India, and things in America won't seem so bad after all.

I find this comparison of "average" across the board to be a strange way of determining that it's impossible to get by in the U.S. I'm not statistician enough to find the flaw, but it just doesn't make sense as a way of looking at the problem. Frankly, when I read it, I'm annoyed at Joe for making dumb decisions.

That's the problem with getting a lot of people to see the truth, for them, they still see a net that is not there.

just damned hard, and getting harder.

Until JOBS rematerialize, it will continue to get harder.

but it is only natural that unemployed Americans don't appreciate the recovery.