Really excellent essay here.
But that’s not surprising. The first essay I ever read by John Scalzi was “Being Poor,” twenty years ago; and it stuck with me.
Then someone in the comments posted this Substack link, about 100k, which is MUCH easier to feel poor on! You just have to live in a HCOL (high cost of living) area, and boom, you’re cooked. As the kids say.
And so now, let’s tug on that loose thread… I’m sure many of my left-leaning readers will say, “This is obvious, we have been talking about it for YEARS!” Yes, many of you have; but you were using language of emotion (“Pay a living wage!”) rather than showing the math. My bad for not paying closer attention; your bad for not showing your work or coming up with workable solutions. Let’s rectify it rather than cast blame.
The bit about how “a living wage” is not a useful phrase is spot on. We have to do math for this part. A living wage in NYC is not a living wage in Galax.
I had seen a quote from that Substack going around on Bluesky the other day, and I do have some quibbles with it. Specifically, the 21k for “other essentials” part, plus the fact that it doesn’t control for location. But for my part of the country? It’s pretty much there.
Emilybook 