01-12-2005, 09:22 AM | #1 (permalink) | |
Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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The Poverty Line
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What does it take to run a household? You've got rent, electricty, food, etc. But what about disposable luxury income things like movie rentals, video games, cellphones, pagers, etc. I see plenty of poor people with food stamps having plenty flashy cellphones...upon visiting their house they have TV, VCR... a far cry from the long ago NYC tenemants of 10-12 people living in a small room with little or no belongings. I know for sure that even with roommates living off of $15,670 is not going to cut it living in NYC. If $15,670 as the poverty line in the US... and it supposed to be "A Bronx family of three needs at least $49,874, while it takes $77,957 in wealthier areas of Manhattan." what does it take in your part of the world?
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01-12-2005, 09:28 AM | #2 (permalink) |
pinche vato
Location: backwater, Third World, land of cotton
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I've always wondered about this, Cynthetiq. I interviewed for a job at NYU several years ago, and the salary was about the same as what I was making in Alabama. I remember thinking that I couldn't even come close to living in Manhattan on that salary, which was barely comfortable in Alabama as it was.
And is the reverse true? Is someone making $80,000 in Manhattan going to automatically balk at $70,000 in Alabama (which is enough to live extremely comfortably here)?
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Living is easy with eyes closed. |
01-12-2005, 09:34 AM | #4 (permalink) | |
Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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Quote:
It's one of the reasons why I'd like to get expatriated to another country preferably a poorer country where the exchange rate would be very much in my favor.
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I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. |
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01-12-2005, 09:35 AM | #5 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Moderator Emeritus
Location: Chicago
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Quote:
There are salary calculators on the web, that tell you what you would need to make somewhere else if you were making XX dollars in another city - it's interesting results.
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Free your heart from hatred. Free your mind from worries. Live simply. Give more. Expect less.
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01-12-2005, 09:37 AM | #6 (permalink) |
Addict
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It certainly doesn't cost $49,000 to live where I am. I make less than that, still make all of my payments and have enough to cover my cable, internet access & cell phone. There are areas of the state and even the county I live in which have a higher cost of living. Because I can't afford that area, I don't live there. Maybe some people who can't make it in the Bronx should consider moving to a cheaper area of the county, state or country.
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A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day. Calvin |
01-12-2005, 09:42 AM | #7 (permalink) |
A boy and his dog
Location: EU!
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Warsaw, Poland:
As a student that has lost a parent, I get a monthly check for 142 $ (more or less, all the values have been calculeted from polish zloty into US dollars). Other then that, I get 60 $ a month from my grandfather. I'm not working now, but I'll start to any day. A minimum monthly wage is around 200 $, while the average wage is around 300-500 $. Student scholarships give you an extra 200 $ at best (I don't have one). I get by with this money, though hardly. Lucky for me, I don't have to pey rent for my apartment, as I'm sure I couldn't keep it up. As far as the costs go, an average apartment in Warsaw will cost you anything from 300-500 $. The minimum amount of money I spend on food each day is around 5 $, though if I try, I can go on for less. I have a car running on LPG gas, which means that I can do 300 kilometres for around 17 $. Still, I hardly keep up with the maintanance costs. I had a mobile (monthly cost around 30 $) Keep in mind, though, that I'm a univeristy student, which means I'm in the poorest part of the society, as I spend most of my days studying, most of my nights drinking, and most of my mornings wondering where to get some money for the next meal. To keep things into perspective: a meal in McDonalds costs around 3$. A large Pizza at Pizza Hut costs around 9$. A liter of fuel costs around a 1$. A cinema ticket costs around 2$. A new PS 2 game costs around 60$. I'm sure I could live very comfortably in Warsaw for around a 1000 $ a month. |
01-12-2005, 09:45 AM | #8 (permalink) |
Submit to me, you know you want to
Location: Lilburn, Ga
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I make 35k a year and I pay all my bills...mortgage, equity loan (from where I paid off my credit cards when I tore them up and got rid of them years ago) all the utility bills, food, cell phones (I could manage a car payment if I HAD to, but I dont have one at the moment) and I still have money left for fun.
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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!! |
01-12-2005, 03:31 PM | #9 (permalink) |
Twitterpated
Location: My own little world (also Canada)
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If I wanted to, I could live decently off of $750 a month, provided I lived with roommates in a relatively cheap part of town (but dear God, not the North East). It'd be about 300-350/month for rent and utilities, another 200 budgeted for food (which is actually quite a bit), and the rest for entertainment/internet/transportation.
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"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato |
01-12-2005, 05:32 PM | #10 (permalink) |
I'm not a blonde! I'm knot! I'm knot! I'm knot!
Location: Upper Michigan
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Wow $45,000 would be twice as much as we need here in Northern Wisconsin. We don't make more than about $25,000 and live fairly comfortably and bought a house this year. No we didn't buy a brand new house and no we don't eat steak every night but we can handle our bills ok and we even get cable television and internet. If we had $45,000 a year we'd be feelin RICH. A factory job around here is about $11/hr and that's a pretty good paying job. Regular jobs like cell phone sales, secretarial, clerical things run around $8-10/hr depending on your qualifications and responsibilities. Before we bought our house we were renting at about $435/mo. Rent is going up but still isn't that much. Rent this year would have been $545/mo heat and water included.
Personally, I can't imagine staying in a city where the income for my skills (elementary education degree) wasn't enough to pay for my needs. I realize relocating isn't cheap either but you do what you can to change what's happening.
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"Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama My Karma just ran over your Dogma. |
01-12-2005, 05:46 PM | #11 (permalink) |
Junkie
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The poverty line is completely meaningless. The cost of living clearly varies a great deal around the country and much more so around the world.
A few years ago John Stossel did a story on the so-called poverty line. The overwhelming majority of people living under the poverty line around the country have material goods that would have placed them in the upper middle class 50 years ago or in other countries around the world.
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I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing. Robert A Heinlein in "They Do It With Mirrors" |
01-12-2005, 06:09 PM | #12 (permalink) | |
©
Location: Colorado
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01-12-2005, 07:12 PM | #13 (permalink) |
peekaboo
Location: on the back, bitch
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Here in NJ we can barely make our mortgage and bills with over $65k gross a year. Granted, we have cell phones and cable-they run us about $170 total a month. But, because of the high cost of surviving after I lost my job last year, feeding and clothing 2 kids, we ended up running up our credit cards and it's hard to get those down. Any place else, we'd be doing pretty well on this-here, it's panic time every week.
I saw that John Stossel piece-families in the Bronx with bare mattresses, but VCR's and large tv's, etc. I don't see how the area of the Bronx he was in could possibly be considered the 'poorest area in the US'. |
01-13-2005, 03:00 PM | #14 (permalink) |
Very Insignificant Pawn
Location: Amsterdam, NL
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I'm too em-bare-assed to say how little money I live on.
Thank something my rent is only 176 Euros/month. I've lived in the same apartment for about 20 years. This year I won't have enough money to keep my health ins. Big drag, my health sucks. |
01-13-2005, 03:26 PM | #15 (permalink) |
Junkie
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I guess Mrs Mephisto and I are very lucky.
I make a lot of money working as a consultant for a very large multi-national. They've just asked me to go permanent with them after four years and whilst this will result in around a 40%-30% paycut, I'll still be very comfortable. Mrs Mephisto is a highly qualified physiotherapist and makes a good wage too. We've just bought a block of land on the riverfront in Perth and are going to build in the next year. Mrs Mephisto is also thinking of buying her own practice. This will put our combined loans at around $800K, and we can make our payments without too much difficulty. Sometimes you just don't know how good you have it until you look around you. Mr Mephisto |
01-13-2005, 04:21 PM | #16 (permalink) |
All important elusive independent swing voter...
Location: People's Republic of KKKalifornia
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Oh my God Mr_Mephisto, are you really moving to Perth? Cool, it's so far away from.....everything. Where do you guys reside now? I just assumed you were in either Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra.
By the way, what does "consultant" mean? I was always curious about what you did. |
01-13-2005, 05:12 PM | #18 (permalink) |
Psycho
Location: nOvA
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Those numbers quoted for NYC are utter crap. I can assure you my family of 4 would have been well below they're minimum, while owning our own house, 2 cars, going to private school and living living in a nice part of Brooklyn.
I hava ton of friends who would below their standard of "poverty", including a friend of mine, with a family of 8 (yeah that's right) lived on about $60k or so just fine, while owning their house. If they're definition of poverty is not driving a jaguar, not eating out at fancy restaurants, or not having a ski-doo, then where do I sign up for welfare. NYC is more expensive then, say, Tennesee, but it's not as bad as they're making it out to be. |
01-13-2005, 07:14 PM | #19 (permalink) |
Crazy
Location: The state of denial
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I live in downtown Atlanta and I live very comfortably on 47K a year. My rent is $609 a month but I could live somewhere much cheaper it just wouldn't be as nice a place. I can basically live on 1 out of my 2 paychecks a month right now. However I don't have a car payment at the moment (parents gave me an old car when I graduated from Tech last May) and that may change by next year. I'd still be putting away a lot of my paycheck though.
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01-14-2005, 05:34 AM | #21 (permalink) | |
Addict
Location: nyc
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Quote:
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01-14-2005, 01:59 PM | #22 (permalink) | |
Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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Quote:
But there are plenty of people I know of who make a combined income of $40k and have a hard time making ends meet living in Queens and Brooklyn
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I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. |
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01-15-2005, 09:08 AM | #23 (permalink) |
A Storm Is Coming
Location: The Great White North
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I think most people spend what they make. And if they begin earning more, they spend more eventually.
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If you're wringing your hands you can't roll up your shirt sleeves. Stangers have the best candy. |
01-15-2005, 10:11 AM | #24 (permalink) |
Llama
Location: Cali-for-nye-a
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Here is an interesting link where you can type in how much you make, where you live now, and where you are going to move to. It will then tell you how much you will have to make in order to maintain the same standard of living you have now.
http://www.bestplaces.net/col/col.aspx For example, someone making $60,000 where I live now (Orange County, CA) could live on $39,659 in Des Moines, IA and have the same standard of living.
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01-15-2005, 11:10 AM | #25 (permalink) |
Insane
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when i lived in pittsburgh (oakland--hardly the nicest area, but cheap and close to school) i needed about $500 per month to pay my share of rent and utilities on a two bedroom apt i shared with one other person. that provided us rent, electric, phone, cable and internet.
i currently live in west virginia and a two bedroom house with the same utilities plus gas ran just a little less--about $850 total. if i had been willing to downgrade my housing standard (to a house falling apart or in a really nasty area of town) i could have cut that down by another $50-100. oddly enough, an apt of the same standard as my house would have upped my needs by about $200 per month. 15k around here isn't bad money, but unless you are living cheap and alone it would be tight depending on how many other bills you have. |
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