There’s over 1 trillion dollars of credit card debt in America right now and that is some of the grossest debt to have given the interest rate. If you’re lucky that’s at best a 15% interest rate, and these days it’s more like 30%. Couple that with people can sign away their life to high costs of school that can’t be forgiven and are able to be approved for car loans that are more than their salary and it’s a recipe for disaster.
The issue is multifaceted, but debt is absolutely a massive part of it. I’m very sympathetic to college debt issues because I know when you’re 18 and been it drilled into you that loans and expensive college is the way to being successful you just follow what the adults are saying, but beyond that I have seen enough people’s car payments to be far less sympathetic. Credit card debt is absurd to get into, but comes from another place of financial illiteracy. Still, it’s a very correctable mistake unlike student loans which once you have you just have and people clearly are not making an effort to get rid of it.
For 2024 the 22% tax bracket doesn’t start until 47k so if you’re bringing in 33k a year you’re actually in the 12% tax bracket. Technically a bit less since the first 10k is taxed at 10%, but that’s a negligible difference.
If I was single I could make $16 an hour work. In your example of a $1600 rental I’d be rooming with at least one other person, maybe even two depending on what you can find for your area, but that means you can reduce your rent down to $800-$1000 or so and suddenly the math becomes a lot more manageable because at $16 an hour you’re probably bringing in about $2,000 when it’s all said and done. That leaves $1,000 (maybe more) for gas and food and if you can’t make that work then you’ve got a real problem. Grocery budgets are the most flexible thing on the planet; Spaghetti, ramen, hot dogs, whatever it takes. You can make $50 go insanely far if you want/need it to.
I’m going to be real honest here, AKA be real mean, but most people are stupid with their money and don’t understand to they should be doing any of this. They don’t understand the stock market or compound interest, and always find a way to spend money they free up. I’ve seen people drilled over their finances and them claiming they can’t save money only for their credit card bills to be thrown in their face with $30 door dash orders 5 times a week because “WELL I HAVE TO EAT”. I don’t actually like that guy’s show (if you know of him), but hey some people he brings on do insanely stupid things with income.
That’s just my anecdotal experience interacting with people and consuming financial news, but they say 60% or so of some Americans can’t handle a $1,000 emergency and it’s not entirely because they have zero opportunity to save but because a lot of people go through lifestyle creep. I’ve seen podcasts of people with insanely good incomes with basically nothing in the bank and they get lumped into those people who can’t afford the emergency…because they spend it all.
I’d agree that 64k a year is pretty tight to raise a family on though, depending on the area you can make it work, but you are very likely to be tight on money and probably on some sort of assistance program. Definitely not owning a house or saving for retirement.
At the end of the day though there’s no law requiring you to only work 40 hours a week. It may suck, but if your job is one that does not require much more than the ability for you to be able to fog up a mirror to get it then you shouldn’t expect to be able to survive comfortably by only putting in 40 hours a week.
