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Comment by balls187 | Hacker News Reader

I can counter your anecdotal evidence with my own:

I also know families that are hard working, responsible, still still cannot afford to make ends meet.

Likewise, I know families who are none of those things, and have never known a real struggle.

Implying that not being able to achieve the American Dream is result of not working hard, and/or living beyond your means is a gross oversimplification and frankly ignorant.

This simulation illustrates that when you have low income how hard it is to make ends meet.

http://makethemonth.ca/

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That's a terrible simulator. Something bad happens every day, the sums are crazy (75 for a cellphone bill?), basically it's too much.

I've been poor. You have good as well as bad days. I remember the day I won £75 with £1 on a fruit machine. I also remember the days I'd put £10 in and get nothing. I remember the unexpected bill but they weren't every day, they would be every 6 months so you hadn't accounted for them.

It would be more realistic if it allowed those little moments of triumph, only to snatch it away later.

stronglikedan said doing a trade, not completely unskilled labor. The makethemonth website might not teach the lesson you want it to.

That's burying the lede--which is the families lived the middle class lifestyle because they were hardworking, and responsible.

One point I want to emphasize "responsible" in his example really just means not making a single mistake, ever.

I'm just arguing that it's attainable, contrary to what the article says. It is in most cases, if you're hard working and responsible.

> Implying that not being able to achieve the American Dream is result of not working hard, and/or living beyond your means is a gross oversimplification and frankly ignorant.

Not at all, there are always a few outliers, because, besides the occasional run of just bad luck, a lot of people who appear to be responsible really aren't.

What you refer to as "bad luck" is really a system that (perhaps inadvertently) overly penalizes people with limited income.

There are a lot of incidental costs associated in life that those of us with savings, and or good incomes can absorb. For those without savings and/or limited income, it becomes a game of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

> For those without savings and/or limited income, it becomes a game of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Yep. And in many of these situations Peter is future you and Paul is current you.

I had a great IT career going up until 2005 when I had cancer. My company promised to keep me on until I was healthy, but fired me Christmas week. I was unemployed (unemployable actually do to the cancer) until mid 2006. I had over 60K in medical debt, plus being unemployed wiped out my emergency fund. Before this, I was responsible with my money, had life insurance, retirement fund, lived within my means. Yet one out of control cell grew into a "run of just bad luck."

I'm not alone.

I am sorry to hear about what you went through, and hope life has been kinder to you since.

These kinds of stories are why I, as a north European, have a hard time imagining living in the US. Sure a SE job will pay much more net in the US, but you have litte to no social net that dampens your fall when it comes (as it does for us all).

My partner was diagnosed with cancer little over a year ago. She had all (100%) of her medical bills taken care of by the state. She took 6 months off work on full pay, as she and all living here have a legal right to do. Her employer added 3 months of fully paid medical leave on top of that. She can not be fired due to a medical issue arrising. She has now finished her treatment, full remission and is back at work.

Glad to hear your partner is doing well. Cancer sucks. Life has been kind to me since I was ill, partially because IT is a good field to be in, and mostly because my family was upper-middle class and able to help financially. I can't imagine how I'd be if I didn't have the help from my parents, or had a job that was more physical. I guess I would have had to declare bankruptcy, with all the costs that entails.

Interesting how you keep emphasizing the word responsible, as if saying that word loudly enough is sufficient to make up for structural racism and sexism, a legacy of racially skewed criminal records, uneven economic growth in different towns/regions and unpredictable, life-altering medical debt (to name a few concerns).

Those all can matter. But responsible vs irresponsible also matters. Given the same external circumstances, responsible behavior should lead to better outcomes on average.

I explicitly deny that we are completely at the mercy of external forces. Our choices have effects that matter.

Being black, female, gay, etc are not usually considered choices, but are variously correlated with lower pay, higher unemployment, increased interactions with law enforcement, disproportionately high penalties from the justice system, worse medical outcomes and so on. Then there's the luck issue. If you get in a car accident in the wrong place with poor insurance, that helicopter ride and subsequent treatment can completely decimate the finances of a middle or lower income household for a generation.

But yeah, if you're a white straight man and you're able to dodge any crippling medical bills, it doesn't take much more than responsibility to sustain a decent life.

OK, since you seem to have totally ignored my point, let me try again.

If you're black, female, gay, etc, you may well have lower pay, higher unemployment, increased interaction with law enforcement, etc. That's all true, and is something that we as a society should work on changing.

But within that flawed social environment, black female gay people who decide, say, to use their spare time to try to pick up new skills will probably have better outcomes on average than those in the exact same circumstances who decide to lose themselves in alcohol.

The environment is flawed. Within that flawed environment, individual choices still matter.

The consequences of irresponsibility (or individual choices) are far greater the less income you have. Looking at race specifically, and it the disparity is even higher.

The consequence of a broken tail light should impact every American the same. It does not.

Likewise, the consequence of a DUI should also impact every American the same. It does not.

I'm in the national guard, and have numerous friends who joined the military right out of high school and been able to make a great living. Serve 20+ and get a pension, healthcare, and you're set--something few jobs in the private sector even offer. Sure you wont be making millions of bucks, but you have a nice steady income.

1) thanks for your service.

2) It's not a coincidence that military targets enlistments from low income areas.

It wasn't until my dad made E4 that he was able to quit his second job working at a gas station.

Sometimes, those soldiers weren't able to escape their upbringing. I'd hear stories of my dad's GIs who would spend their money on alcohol and drugs, and eventually got chaptered out.

Yes, it’s known that if you’re low income, you should look for government employment offering defined benefit pensions, otherwise there’s no way you will earn enough to save enough for your older years.

It's not "bad luck". It's capitalism.

And responsibility costs money. It's much harder to be responsible when you're poor. The immediate threat of poverty alters your decision making process, as does the malnutrition from only being able to afford garbage food. And that's assuming a fair and equitable system, without structural racism or other forms of ingrained discrimination.

Let's quit pretending this is normal or acceptable, or that some free market solution will come along. The solution is wealth redistribution.

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