OT - Making Sense of Tragedy

[Monster]

Reading that article about the demographics of the military It was very interesting thanks for posting) made me wonder what is defined as middle class. I know some of the breakdown of what percent people are in has been talked about quite a bit the last few years in various ways but for my perspective based on Pew research the bottom of the middle class in my city for a one person household is $25,000. A 2 person household it's $35,000. Thats not exactly a lot of money. That sounds like the working poor to me. I've been there, I've worked with people (Especially my previous job) who were making maybe that kind of money but working multiple jobs and getting overtime at our workplace to do it. I learned that my household makes more money than...well over half of the households in the US. That's pretty wild. My wife and I aren't exactly making tons of money and Lincoln has relatively low cost of living even though it's risen quite a bit in the past 10 or so years. Keep in mind these figures can Also include many people paying student loans for just decent paying jobs.

Meanwhile it's pretty obvious that black people and others of color are going to be lower on the level of socioeconomic status than someone is white...in general. Even if you tend to think the playing field was more leveled say 50 years ago that's only a couple generations. I participated in a Zoom meeting earlier this week and one of the moderators mentioned how his family homesteaded in Nebraska and how they moved up in socioeconomic status every generation in some respects. He mentioned that someone who was black might have their family starting somewhere nearly the homesteading stage in his own lifetime. He said until a couple years ago he had never thought of that before.

I'm not sure how exactly things should be spread around but it certainly seems there can be some improvements when it comes to household income that could benefit...well actually probably just about everyone.

One of the things I think should be emphasized that would help raise socioeconomic status is more education and job training. People don't want to give a whole college education for free? Ok that's fine but what about maybe even more assistance for people getting training that takes months or 2 years at most? There are a lot of good options for jobs in that vein.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Reading that article about the demographics of the military It was very interesting thanks for posting) made me wonder what is defined as middle class. I know some of the breakdown of what percent people are in has been talked about quite a bit the last few years in various ways but for my perspective based on Pew research the bottom of the middle class in my city for a one person household is $25,000. A 2 person household it's $35,000. Thats not exactly a lot of money. That sounds like the working poor to me. I've been there, I've worked with people (Especially my previous job) who were making maybe that kind of money but working multiple jobs and getting overtime at our workplace to do it. I learned that my household makes more money than...well over half of the households in the US. That's pretty wild. My wife and I aren't exactly making tons of money and Lincoln has relatively low cost of living even though it's risen quite a bit in the past 10 or so years. Keep in mind these figures can Also include many people paying student loans for just decent paying jobs.

Meanwhile it's pretty obvious that black people and others of color are going to be lower on the level of socioeconomic status than someone is white...in general. Even if you tend to think the playing field was more leveled say 50 years ago that's only a couple generations. I participated in a Zoom meeting earlier this week and one of the moderators mentioned how his family homesteaded in Nebraska and how they moved up in socioeconomic status every generation in some respects. He mentioned that someone who was black might have their family starting somewhere nearly the homesteading stage in his own lifetime. He said until a couple years ago he had never thought of that before.

I'm not sure how exactly things should be spread around but it certainly seems there can be some improvements when it comes to household income that could benefit...well actually probably just about everyone.

One of the things I think should be emphasized that would help raise socioeconomic status is more education and job training. People don't want to give a whole college education for free? Ok that's fine but what about maybe even more assistance for people getting training that takes months or 2 years at most? There are a lot of good options for jobs in that vein.

What's defined as "middle class?"

I still have no idea. There's such a ridiculous vast divide between "upper middle class" and "wealthy" ... the upper middle class is infinitely closer to abject poverty than wealthy.

[apollotsg [enjin:6592798]]

speaking of ethnic cleansing: "Kosovo President charged with war crimes cancels White House visit"

Thats a headline today

[Porckchop]

Now that the smoke has cleared (no pun intended) anyone want to speak on the positives and negatives of what's been going on up in the cities?