I’ve been noticing a recurring sentiment among Americans - frustration and disillusionment with the economy. Despite having gone to school, earned a solid education, and worked hard, many feel they can’t get ahead or even come close to the standard of living their parents enjoyed.
I’m curious - is this experience unique to the United States, or do people in other countries share similar frustrations?
Do people in Europe, Australia, Canada, or elsewhere feel like they’re stuck in a rut, unable to achieve financial stability or mobility despite their best efforts?
Are there any countries or regions that seem to be doing things differently, where education and hard work can still lead to a comfortable life?
Let’s hear from our international community - what’s your experience with economic mobility (or lack thereof) in your country?"
At some point our species is going to have to move beyond this rapacious zero-sum logic of “unsticking” economies and “getting ahead” and instead learn how to distribute all that wealth better.
Yeah its sorta funny to because I don’t necessarily want to get ahead of my parents, excepting maybe in technology, but I what I really want is sorta the same but with security to have it. Healthcare and citizens income. Im fine if my neighbors have nicer tvs or shit.
Completely agree. It bothers me that so many people can’t see the obvious problem that it’s going to be impossible for 9 billion people to “get ahead” on this small planet that we all have to share and which is already stressed to the limit. Either people just aren’t thinking very deeply or, worse, they’re tacitly assuming that they’ll be the winners and to hell with everyone else.
To personalize this a bit (but not too much!), I can say that I now earn less than I did just after I graduated 20 or so years ago. Far from being a disaster, this was planned and I’m more than happy with the situation. A rising salary should not be destiny. Apart from anything else, time is money and if you have a lot of one then you tend to have not enough of the other.
But yes, every civilized society should guarantee a basic income and healthcare.
That’s the issue I have with a lot of talk about equity or equality even from people on the left. They will practically make it their entire identity, but then when faced with a scenario where they could improve the situation overall for the group at the cost of sacrificing or giving up some amount of privilege or prosperity they pull the latter up. Everyone is about equity and equality when they stand to gain, but they won’t go much out of their way to help things
Note: I am very liberal in a lot of my social beliefs and have a very strong sense of or drive to achieving equity, fairness, and justice. Which often results in making a lot of the people I mentioned above seem kinda phony to me.
My personal experience with this is that I am mildly on the spectrum. Most wouldn’t notice or guess it though due in part to the fact that I somehow managed to balloon animal a lot of the social interaction and language abilities to the problem solving analytical part of my skill set. What this means is that I am always having to “translate” what I’m thinking into normal people talk and normal people talk into how I think with every conversation and interaction.
I don’t even have much of an issue with that aspect perse. I know I’m the odd one out, and while not fair it’s understandable. What is frustrating is how little effort others seem to be willing to put forth. This obviously manifests in relationships the most acutely. I’m not usually even looking for 50/50. I’m more than willing to do the bulk of the work. All I want is for them to meet me somewhere on that bridge. Give me 80/20, 90/10, fuck I’ll take three or four steps onto the bridge, but no. Anything that requires they actively engage in thinking rather than doing everything off of vibes and they nope out so fast. I have had so many conversations where I essentially point out blatant inconsistencies between what they say they believe in (like equity or DEI) and what they actually want said either explicitly or through their actions and they inevitably end up saying something like “it’s just my preference”.
Having a preference doesn’t just absolve a person of hypocrisy, bigotry, racism, or any other belief that disenfranchises or puts down the marginalized and outcast.
Yes, it does seem to be a problem with progressives in recent years, at least in the anglo countries - preferring to talk about abstract ideas of justice and “equity” and group power dynamics etc, rather than engage with what actual poor people are concerned about.
Policing people’s speech is cheaper than agitating for tax rises and healthcare. Just saying.
It’s not just recent. MLK wrote about it in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail in 1963, and he referenced some considerably older sources as well:
And in another section:
Humans are really good at normalizing things. It takes a lot to push someone from theoretical opposition to direct action. It’s harder to get to that point for those not directly suffering the worst oppressions. Dr. King talks about that too.
All fine words no doubt (no irony intended). But for the sake of argument I would argue that we need to give a hearing to everything that poorer people claim to care about, and not just the bits that fit with our priors about what they should want.
I’ll put it In brutal terms. IMO we need to get the Trump-adjacent masses to vote for higher taxes to pay for macro-things like healthcare (in the US) and redistribution and massive action on the environment. If their price is a tough line on immigration and an end to the constant bellyaching about micro-things like systemic racism and trans rights, then I personally am more than fine with that.
Human rights are not “micro-things,” what the fuck? And “maybe if we let them build the camps, they’ll let us have healthcare,” is a wild take
This absolutist attitude is why Trump is in the White House. In democracy, you ask for everything, you get nothing.
Im in a strange position in that im unemployed at the moment but when I was employed I have done relatively well but my wife has medical issues to where she can’t work and we pay maximum out of pocket every year and then some (we try to limit over out of pocket but we spend a lot of time dealing with denials or uncovered stuff). So basically to get my lifestyle vs the norm you sorta have to use the value of half my wage and then assume a larger than normal monthly nut. Im sorta stuck having to constantly seek more wage but not to live extravagantly but just to keep pace. I don’t really want to have to be doing that I would just like to work at what im good at and be able to relax when im not working. Of course if things worked that way I would likely be working in microbiology now rather than tech. Things are definitely dystopian for me.
Really makes me pleased not to be American when I read things like this. Unfortunately this really is an American exception. These days there are even some pretty poor countries with universal healthcare. It’s just something most countries do as soon as they can afford it, it makes sense in lots of ways. But not America. You have my sympathy.
yeah the us has things (or um does sort since it now seems like its trying to be stamped out) for the poor but it tends to be all or nothing so not much is geared toward preventing folks from falling into poverty or helping people get out of poverty nationally (it also tends to keep itself just barely not quite adequate). There are like charities and states doing inititatives but boy would universal healthcare go a long way to making the middle class more stable or even to grow.
Yup, we can’t continue forever with educated but low-level workers getting 3% raises when the CEO gets a 30% raise.