I think if you can get a job with good benefits, you should be pretty well taken care of. People who have to buy their own insurance and shit are screwed. An operator on our floor can come in with absolutely no skills or manufacturing experience. Seriously, most of them have nothing but retail and maybe hotel jobs under their belts. They come in at ~$18/hr, which isn't much, but they also make shift differentials and there's plenty of opportunity for overtime. With their differentials and whatnot they're probably pulling in maybe $45k/yr? And then they get bonuses and stuff on top of that for another couple thousand a year. But they get cheap excellent health insurance, paid time off, short term disability, family leave, parental leave, I mean, we give paid leave for tons of things. They also get 3% of their salary put into a retirement account, plus another 3-5% matching if they put their own money into the retirement account. So yeah, $45k isn't a lot but it stretches a lot further for them than it would for someone who is purchasing their own health insurance on the market, has no retirement plan, and stops getting paid if they take a day off.Utisz wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 3:50 amThat's interesting! I would have said the opposite somehow, that Americans in general tend to be more frugal (maybe out of necessity). I guess it's all relative though. Like if you compare that with somewhere like Argentina where inflation is out of whack and people just spend as much as they can ... might be an extreme case though.
But I can't tell you how many people quit their jobs here to go work at some small company or doctor's office for an extra $1-2/hr. I don't think they're doing the kind of spreadsheet analysis I do when I get job offers.
Most people here think they need a big house, new cars every five years, a constant supply of clothes and shoes, and then they need a bigger place to fit all their stuff. Then they need more stuff to fill their place. One of my friends and her husband bought a 3k sq ft house because living in their 1700 sq ft townhouse was like "living in an obstacle course". And it was, there was shit everywhere that you had to step over or walk around. But they've filled their new house with new furniture, bought new appliances, and now it's full of shit too. That couple was in $250k of debt BEFORE buying the house (none of it was medical debt). She makes six figures, he's a SAHD (with a PhD). They cannot afford this lifestyle.
Most people aren't quite this bad, but they'll spend every dollar they make, save nothing, and have no idea how they're going to retire. They panic if they have a doctor's bill or a tax bill that they weren't expecting.
And then there are others who are frugal. I also have coworkers on the floor who own paid off homes, put their kids through school, and seem to be very financially stable. It's easier to achieve this with a higher income, but there is a lot of personal choice at play.