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Comment by Pfhreak | Hacker News Reader

8k a month, but that is pre-tax, pre-healthcare, etc. Supporting a family and paying for health insurance for them is going to knock that number down real fast.

Depending on where this person lives, yes that absolutely could be scraping by. Even more so if they have a family member who needs special care, or they are paying for someone's education.

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That’s 96k per year. Assuming 20k in taxes and 10k in health insurance (both very generous numbers), that’s still 66k per year. Outside of some Californian cities, 66k is more than enough to lead a comfortable life on.

Your numbers seem reasonable, but that 66k has to support N people, covering rent, food, childcare or tuition, all the equipment and clothing costs for the business, etc.

Is it enough to save for retirement? To deal with a medical emergency or sudden bill? If not, I'd feel comfortable calling that scraping by.

There are many places that would be a tight squeeze in the states.

$66K is median household income in US, so if it's not enough, it's a much broader problem than Camshowing/thirstwatering.

Agreed, I have never understood this type of logic that seems to justify their desire for more money.

If I can survive in LA alone on $19k, you and your family can do fine with $66k. You just want health insurance...

Sounds like a race to the bottom.

66k doesn't typically include all the costs of operating a business, safety from people with parasocial relationships, etc. which this person has to carry.

But yes, I'd also argue that it is a much broader problem in the US.

There are a lot of families living on a lot less than that. Go to the poor area of your town sometime. Where the blacks, hispanic, and immigrants live (sadly the stereotype has a lot of truth behind it). Notice that there are a lot of kids living in the small houses with bad paint. Notice someone fixing a 15 year old car outside with just hand tools. Hope that the violence problems in those areas don't get you. In general I find such people making the best of their lot, nice people who want the best for their family. They don't have much to live on but there is enough for food (except when drugs are involved which is all too common)

It not like it is hard work. You could easily do a second job at the same time.

It's presumably a huge amount of work. There's the work of setting up the shoot and the performance itself, then the photo editing, managing and interacting with your community constantly, marketing, dealing with the finances/bookwork, researching and buying new equipment and clothing, etc etc etc.

Just like successful twitch and YouTube channels, the behind the scenes work is hugely underestimated.

You are trivializing the work of someone without any apparent understanding of the actual labor involved.

I could easily say that typing at a computer doesn’t look like hard work and you could easily get a second job to a dev. They’d tell you that the part you see doesn’t tell the whole story.

Maybe don’t judge a person only by what you can see.

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