Discount retailer says low-income households feel more ‘financially constrained’ than six months ago

Paywall removed: https://archive.is/SLMtR

  • rothaine@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    the depletion of savings built up during the pandemic

    Built up savings? Is this a thing?

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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        2 months ago

        I got “unemployed” during Covid and saw everyone bragging about how awesome it was that the federal government was providing extra money and it was like working a good job…

        My state let me know they had run out of unemployment insurance several decades ago and I would get just the federal money, reduced down to the state amount, minus the state and federal tax from each check.

        Yeah I got so fucked over it’s still a shock that people say they legitimately came out better with more money.

        • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          You should have seen my fucking face when I was on unemployment and I found out that I had to pay income tax on my unemployment checks. Like… what the fuck? Why didn’t you just give me less money to begin with?!

    • AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      No and most didn’t build up savings during the pandemic…we all went into debt or spent savings just to scrape by.

      • SoJB@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        Much like 2008, the pandemic never actually ended. When schools reopened, every classroom in the nation was full of children on their 4th, 5th, 6th infection in a month. Thousands of people still drop dead from it every month and the US is, to this day, still experiencing 30% more per capita deaths than pre-pandemic.

        Long COVID is proven to cause permanent organ damage, including brain function. We won’t know what it does to child development until decades from now but it’s already proven to increase risk-taking and reduce higher level function in adults.

        The accumulation of capital continues.

        • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          This might be some confirmation bias, but it feels like everything has gotten a bit dumber since the pandemic and I wonder if covid effects on the brain are a part of it. Like I feel “normal” now, but I don’t think this current “normal” is the same as what “normal” used to be for me. And for like 6 months after my first infection, it literally felt like my brain wasn’t working as clearly as it normally did.

    • psvrh@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      A lot of people used pandemic relief funds to invest, notably in real estate. As the market returns to reality, those people are finding they’re massively overextended.

        • psvrh@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          Disclosure: I’m Canadian, I didn’t catch that this was a US story. In Canada a lot of people who received our equivalent of COVID relief used that money to invest, which made our housing crisis that much worse.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I did but that’s because I’d already been saving aggressively, had just lost my job, and the little entertainment budget I had left was no longer able to be used, then suddenly my unemployment benefits went up and I got stimulus money. It turned a guaranteed financial disaster into a little extra time.