This morning I woke to an NPR news story about the gap between the rich and the poor. I don't remember where the numbers came from so I can't vouch for accuracy of the data but the story said something like, "wealthier Americans made 11 times more money than poorer Americans in 2008 and the economic troubles hit poor and middle income Americans the hardest".
Of course, this leads to other questions. How do you define rich? How do you define poor? But I'll tell you something about this economy that you won't realize if you are on the upper end of that gap. Food prices are fluctuating enough to hurt those of us that have to scrape together grocery money. Think about it this way; the ground turkey that I put in a pot of chili for my family used to be a dollar a pound. Now it's two dollars. From the up side of the economy you might think, "it's only a dollar more". From here the thought is more like, "oh no, the price has doubled"... and then we might have chili with no meat in it that week.
Next time you are tempted to tell somebody who's hurting all about how the economy isn't that bad... remember that it's all in perspective.
7 comments:
I usually reserve statements like that ("the economy isn't that bad...") for when I see people complaining about not being able to eat or feed their kids, and they have cigarettes hanging out of their mouth or lottery tickets coming out of their pockets. Then I get pretty ornery about their complaints.
There was one week last year when gas was near over $3 a gallon and I knew that if it was just a few cents higher, either I'm not driving the next day or we go a little hungry.
On some level I agree with you that lots of people who whine about money are wasting it on things they don't really need, and honestly there is plenty of cheap food available... it just isn't as appealing. We'd all rather have steak and hamburgers than potato soup made with powdered milk.
It's just that it feels like I'm hearing all about how the economic woes have been blown out of proportion, and I'm hearing it from people who've never stood on the meat isle of the grocery store and realized that this week is a dried been kind of week.
I make a decent wage and it just burns me up when I have to go and fill up my car at 3.27 a gallon or go and buy a gallon of milk for 6 bucks. If only the wealthy understood this. But the good thing is, you get by. It might be a struggle but as long as there is food on our belly and shelter for our families I look at the fact that yes we are wealthy. It might not be what others have, but it's enough :)
Thom: Very true and a commendable attitude.
Amen to THAT!
The issue of perspective seems to be lacking in general discussions on practically every hot button issue these days.
Mags: Someday we can both be on the. up side. Right?
Travis: Very true
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