Читать книгу Living on the Edge - Celine-Marie Pascale - Страница 20

The people introduced in this chapter are quite different from each other, yet their experiences share something in common. They are hardworking people who have been pushed into the struggling class. Some by the underemployment of long hours at low-wage jobs, and some by stagnant wages in the face of rising housing costs. Even so, the people who struggle to cover their bills each month are invisible when politicians and the media celebrate gains in the stock market. As a nation, we still haven’t opened a conversation about economic self-sufficiency for workers.

We have a federal poverty line set so low that it excludes millions of families who are unable to afford basic necessities each month, even people who literally cannot afford housing. The “fair market rent,” established by HUD as a guideline to ensure that families pay no more than 30% of their income in rent, is all but meaningless. Yet this guideline is used in every calculation of economic need. Clearly, the government uses skewed measures that minimize the reported numbers of people who are struggling. We can’t begin to have an honest, national conversation about class unless we confront the real numbers and recognize that it’s no accident that millions of people have trouble making ends meet. Through a collusion of business and government, the economy systemically creates vast profits for some, through low wages and high rents. Even beyond the cost of housing, there is a lot of money being made off the backs of struggling families. In the next chapter we’ll look at just how business manages to pull that rabbit out of the hat.