I am poor af, seasonally employed, homeless and American. I've spent a lot of time among people much much worse off than me: people who have been homeless since childhood, people with addictions, people with serious disabilities mental and physical.
The truth is that these people do survive, and their population grows by the year. But it is a harrowing, dehumanized sort of existence. By the standards of some European countries or countries like the USSR, it might be surprising that people actually exist like this, though I've never left the USA so I don't know. Whatever the rhetoric of neoliberals, most of America has no safety nets. We have what is, admittedly, the most gargantuan and developed economy in the world, and this has done nothing to alleviate the fact that:
-people without work cannot get healthcare: the ACA did something to alleviate this, but is currently being dismantled. I once watched a video from some liberal talk show where conservative voters told interviewers how much they hated "obamacare", and when asked about their opinion on the affordable care act, they universally praised it for literally saving their lives and their families
-people without work cannot get housing: programs exist but cities and home owners associations do everything in their power to make sure affordable housing/section 9 is eliminated entirely
-food, thankfully, is available in *most* of the country. The republicans are trying their damned hardest to reduce that (with the rhetoric that they will be encouraged to work if they are left to starve, conveniently ignoring the fact that they've systematically undermined every attempt to create full employment)
-people without work cannot travel: if you are in a country that isn't run by giant automobile manufacturers like GM, you probably don't know just how fucking awful it is trying to get around a country this big with no public transport outside major cities. In fact even in major cities there have been repeated attempts by the bankers running city councils to privatize transit, which of course ends in disaster because massive city transit like the CTA absolutely CANNOT turn profit while still allowing the fucking economy to function, the minimum wage workers who use transit cannot absorb any more price hikes without higher wages, which the bankers will never allow. Some towns basically can't be accessed AT ALL except by car or a several day hike with no water.
-Hygeine, of course, is not accessible to the homeless, which is the source of most of your problems if you don't have a disability or dependents. People won't let you into places, you can't get a job, you can't even get on a damn bus to try the next town over. It's fucking HARD to not stink if you've spent a couple days walking around a city in the same clothes. You get pretty good at "showering" in public libraries without alarming staff.
And the worst part is that a lot of this actually just gets WORSE if you are working. I can almost guarantee that if you work minimum wage and aren't provided food and board, you probably can't afford more than one, maybe two of the things I listed above. Just try getting to your fast food job on time and clean every day if you don't have a home with running water. Not to mention in most states if you are working at all you get practically nothing in food stamps. This is the reason most of the people I've met who have frequently gone a day or more without food are actually employed full time.
This is why – and I'm very serious about this – I hate this country. Hate. I want the union dissolved. I want america to be forgotten. This place is shit to live in, it makes life shit for everyone else, it is objectively shit.
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