Living in cars, working for Amazon: meet America's new nomads

[turbinetree]

Millions of Americans are wrestling with the impossibility of a traditional middle-class existence. In homes across the country, kitchen tables are strewn with unpaid bills. Lights burn late into the night. The same calculations get performed again and again, through exhaustion and sometimes tears.

Wages minus grocery receipts. Minus medical bills. Minus credit card debt. Minus utility fees. Minus student loan and car payments. Minus the biggest expense of all: rent.

In the widening gap between credits and debits hangs a question: which bits of this life are you willing to give up, so you can keep on living?

During three years of research for my book, Nomadland: Surviving America in The Twenty-First Century, I spent time with hundreds of people who had arrived at the same answer. They gave up traditional housing and moved into “wheel estate”: RVs, travel trailers, vans, pickup campers, even a salvaged Prius and other sedans. For many, sacrificing some material comforts had allowed them to survive, while reclaiming a small measure of freedom and autonomy. But that didn’t mean life on the road was easy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/02/nomadland-living-in-cars-working-amazon

This what republican stop gap spending and austerity has created in this country, and fifth tier classless society

This is just fucked up

[renate]

1. do House and Senate Republicans 1) not know that people live like this or 2) know, and not care?

I don't know which is worse; both possibilities are horrible for people who are supposed to represent their constituents.

[Initech]

4. They know, they don't care.

All they care about is giving more money to the people who have more money than God. Because they're the job creators!

[RKP5637]

5. Many don't and many don't give a damn. They just do not care, no matter what words they

speak. If they gave a damn, these situations would not exist. America had a good run of it after WWII, but now all of that and also what FDR did is falling apart under principally the GOP.

[RKP5637]

2. Many still have blinders on as to what is happening to the US. n/t

[Initech]

3. Our descent into a third world hell hole continues.

Thanks republicans!!!!

[turbinetree]

6. I just thought of this how do you register to vote..................do they vote?

This is just messed up......................

[Wellstone ruled]

7. Most states if you have no

permanent address,you are screwed.

[turbinetree]

8. And then to top it all off 75% of the states are gerrymandered

this is messed up...............

[greymattermom]

9. The young professionals I know

and these are 30 somethings with college degrees, live in a "room", not an apartment. Suburban houses are being turned in to rooming houses all over the country. They are a step up from the folks described in the article, but the next step up does not include having your own apartment anymore.

[Initech]

10. Rent is so ridiculously out of control.

And our pay is too low. If it covers rent, it just barely covers it. No money for literally anything else. And I'm always being told we need to tighten our belts. Meanwhile our precious job creators like Mitt Romney, Betsy DeVos, the Koch Brothers, and John Schnatter live in giant castles with private golf courses and get tax breaks on their sixth vacation houses and private jets. I'm sick of this fucking bullshit. I'm hopeful though that if we get back in power, we'll get to tighten belts around the orange jumpsuits that the job creators will be wearing in Supermax. I hope.