Only now he's off to collect their unemployment benefits, electronically delivered to their bank accounts by the state of Indiana: $268 for Kelly...
"It's 28 hours, eight bucks an hour," she says. No benefits, she adds. "You say, 'Thank you, but -- '?" "Yup," she says. "I make more on unemployment."
So she turns down a job that pays $224 per week so she can continue to collect $268 per week unemployment compensation after 9 months.
Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture? Has she even considered:
- that 28 hours could turn into more
- that $8 could turn into more
- that no benefits could turn into benefits
- that she may meet someone at work who could refer her to a better job (lots of people pass through a chiropractor's office each day, a lot more than she meets at home)
- that she may meet someone at work who could refer Scott to a job
At what point should we expect people dealing with difficulties to try a little harder to help themselves?
A friend who is an armchair economist (in a good way), noted that America's poor apply a much too high discount factor to future cash flow streams. In other words, they place too much value int today's pleasure and not enough in the avoidance of future pain. It's this short-sightedness that let them end up in this situation.
> It's this short-sightedness that let them end up in this situation.
When you're close to the poverty line you've been taught by experience that saved money will be just eaten up by future crises anyway, so why not enjoy a little treat while you can? If future pain seems unavoidable, why not take some pleasure today?
This attitude seems hard to understand for people who didn't grow up poor. You need a certain amount of money to get over the threshold of not living paycheck-to-paycheck. There are several ways you can get it: grow up while already over this threshold (if you could call your parents and ask them for 10K if you had a real need, you're over it), borrow the money (for example, for college), get lucky, or live far below your means while saving it up.
The time when you can borrow the money is a limited window, usually, around 17-23. If you don't understand that this is important and possible, the window vanishes.
Living far below your means while saving up money is not only very difficult to do, culturally, for Americans, but takes a long time at minimum wage or some small multiple of it, and you have to resist the urge to do things like buying business casual clothes in the hopes of getting a better job, or buying a newer car in the hopes that the maintenance will be lower enough that it pays for itself, etc. Those things can work, but they fall under "get lucky". :)
I sort-of agree with you, but these people were hardly poor a year ago! Their household income easily exceeded $75K! And, it was obvious that they had considerable disposable income.
That's true. It may be that they grew up poor, or it may be that they're just "poor" psychologically. I dunno. I have a lot of these tendencies, but I got lucky (I now feel).
The time when you can borrow the money is a limited window, usually, around 17-23. If you don't understand that this is important and possible, the window vanishes.
You are right that there is a limited window, but it is not so tied to age. My wife was a "nontraditional student" and they were more than happy to give her student loans.
A better threshold is kids and mortgage. If you have real dependents that need money now for things like food/diapers/clothes then it becomes much more challenging, perhaps insurmountable.
A year ago, the man alone was making $53K! Let's presume the woman contributed at least another $25K. That's a well above-average household income in America.
However, while past studies cover a wide range of choice situations, there is a remarkable
consensus in the literature that future outcomes are discounted (or undervalued) relative to
immediate outcomes. Put differently, an identical (positive) outcome will become increasingly
attractive the closer it is located in time to the time of decision-making.
This I don't doubt. I'd rather have a dollar today than a dollar tomorrow. It's that this family applied such a steep discount factor that is problematic.
One also shouldn't think of the discount factor just in terms of dollars spent. We can compare the pleasure today of drinking Pepsi, smoking, etc. with the probable pain later associated with losing one's home, etc. How many units of future pain is that Pepsi worth?
"much too high discount factor to future cash flow"
Easy to say. Except they know too many people who had $400K in their 'future' and now have $150K; or who've worked all their lives and are now destitute for medical bills.
The 'system' has been screwing those folks for 30 years. And then a couple years ago it started working its way up the food chain. And now the middle-class is starting to take their jobs.
The way I understood it was that, considering that they couldn't make rent on their unemployment income, the wages still wouldn't have been enough to keep them from having to give up the house.
I'm trying to be sympathetic, but I'm having trouble getting the numbers to work. He picks up $700 per week in unemployment compensation. That's $3000 per month. How much is their rent? Have they considered making special arrangements with their landlord? I doubt if she has many other options (other tenants or a buyer).
I really felt bad for this family until she turned the job down. In my mind, that changed everything.
You're right it's probably doable on a strict budget, but kids are expensive, I've heard. Then again, so is beer and lotto tickets, but he might not be exaggerating when he says that's the last thing keeping him sane.
I really felt bad for this family until she turned the job down. In my mind, that changed everything.
That's understandable to me; she'd essentially be paying to work. That would both worsen their immediate cash situation and make it harder for her to search for a decent job. The real problem is the ridiculous incentives caused by unemployment payments that immediately go to zero once you have any source of income.
The point where I lost sympathy was when the guy was making a good salary and was determined to spend every cent of it. If you're living paycheck to paycheck in the best of times, you are going to get screwed, it's just a question of when.
They're living so hand-to-mouth that she simply couldn't afford the immediate cash-in-hand loss of the job despite any future payoff. By the sounds of it, the landlord was pretty damn stretched, I doubt they could have negotiated. Maybe there's the option of replacement tenants downsizing for similar reasons, otherwise I feel a bit sorry for the poor landlord..
Yeah, I was reading that, and the bit about having 8 beers every week after collecting his unemployment check, and the bit about buying 4 packs of cigarettes, and various other things, and thinking - wtf? No wonder you're broke. Get your priorities straight.
That's one way to look at it. Another is, if people wouldn't accept jobs that don't pay a living wage, wages would rise. Supply and demand and all that.
You are talking about replacing a large number of unskilled labor positions with a small number of skilled positions. I do not see this as avoidable (nor do I believe it should be avoided) but this process is not quick nor is it painless.
Aside from the automation, keep in mind that there are people that don't necessarily need a high wage.
For instance, what is a living wage for a college student can be very low. My college job started at $7 and it paid my living expenses. Similarly, if one person in the household is earning enough to cover the bills the partner might be content earning enough for luxuries.
All the responses here have been solidly middle class condemnations. There are so many forces at work here, I don't even know where to begin.
I grew up in the American middle class, and probably felt the same way many of you do. I became more sensitive to this sort of thing by:
a) Talking to my wife, who is an immigrant from a lower class, who came here so she could be something. She's a professor now, so we've seen the whole spectrum of society.
b) Experiencing first hand what the system does to people, even those who try really hard to help themselves. It sucks. It's not fair. It's unjust. It provides perverse incentives. You want to believe that's not true, but it's true.
You see him buying a few beers out of context, and you feel justified in thinking he'd better just man up, but you have no /idea/ what that situation is like, and probably (hopefully?) never will.
I don't need to read a book to understand your point. It's easy to criticize these people and difficult for many of us to imagine what life is like in their shoes.
Most people I know (and probably most people here) want to be sympathetic, they want to root for the underdog. For those in need, we routinely open up our wallets, both voluntarily with a smile (charity) and involuntarily without a smile (taxes).
The analogy I prefer to use is teaching your child to walk. We never give up, but we can't walk for them. Sooner or later they have to do it for themselves. And some have an easier time than others learning.
Adults dealing with difficulties are much the same. These people are obviously having a tougher time than most people here would with their problems. But based on OP's slim descriptions, they still have to try harder.
What you call "middle class condemnations", many posters here would just call "calling them out". Forget about the lottery tickets, beer, soda, and donuts, and get a little more proactive. And for heaven's sake, if someone offers you a job, grab it! Choosing to stay on unemployment instead of working earns little sympathy here.
>All the responses here have been solidly middle class condemnations. There are so many forces at work here, I don't even know where to begin.
Sorry, but no That story could have been written about my dad almost 30 years ago when gas prices climbed and manufacturing in IN collapsed. Only my dad didn't sit on his butt, drink beer, and waste money on lotto tickets and gambling. We moved to Texas so he could get a refinery job which didn't pan out and he took up with day laborers until he got a job managing a fast food joint. Then He put himself through college by working nights. You do what you have to do, quitting is for losers like this guy.
Before he lost his job they were middle class. He made $53,000 dollars a year in Northern Indiana. I make considerably less with a wife and kid with one on the way, in a more expensive part of Indiana. I don't even live pay check to pay check.
To say we are the middle class condemning the middle class is false. He was the middle class himself.
Class isn't really about income. The guy in the story was "working class" despite an income that arguably put him in the lower middle class. Class is about culture and education.
Public schooling doesn't, to my knowledge, promote economic or mental health. American corporations have spent a lot of money promoting stupidity over the last century ("Century of the Self" is a great documentary on how they did it). When you come from a milieu that doesn't think about the future and live in a society where people are encouraged not to think about the future, it's easy to end up an economic casualty.
I can corroborate that from my experience as a native-born Russian. Americans do spend an awful lot of time planning and thinking - and, at least, hypothesising - about the future.
In Eastern European culture, people really do "live for today" far, far more.
It is my impression that is true of many other non-Angloamerican societies as well.
You are right, and I have extreme sympathy for the genuinely poor.
But remember by the article, until recently they were middle class. They had a household income of over 75K and they were not living in a major city so did not (likely) have extraordinary cost of living.
I am not condemning them (but for the grace of God go I...), and I for one still sympathize, but I sympathized a lot less when I read about the name brand soda, Xbox, dirtbike, guns, beers,.. than I would have without them. Turning down the job didn't help. I do understand that in one sense it is rational since she would be making less take home, but it still didn't help.
"When he lost his job, Scott had no savings, his primary objective always having been to earn enough to cover the rent, eat an occasional steak, feed and clothe their children, ride his dirt bike, fish, golf, play poker, buy lottery tickets, and drink Bud Light."
Oh, IS THAT ALL? Talk about living on the bare essentials! America isn't suffering from a recession, it's suffering from a populace that has no sense of responsibility or reality who just so happened to need a recession to point out their inability to live smartly.
The way this article is written, it sounds like a work of satire.
To add to your point: don't just save, have a pre-sorted plan to reduce your burn rate drastically. Always know the barest minimum burn rate you can have, and keep plans to take it down that low if necessary.
A lesson I learned from my student days, when money was highly variable month-to-month.
I don't do so right now, but I can take my food budget down to about $200 a month in a pinch, and shed a lot of other expenses (Netflix, VPS, etc) with little to no penalty. Keep your head in reality and know what in your life is a luxury and what is a need.
I agree with the concept, but it is hard to do when you are on the low end (and can take time to build up), and if you are on the very low end 12 months of savings for normal expenses can get wiped out with just a few minor emergencies.
Yep; that's the thing that people who didn't grow up poor miss. The 'cost' of being poor (as a percentage of income, not as an absolute figure!) is higher for poor people than the 'cost' of being well-off is for well-off people. Late fees, overdraft fees, frequent maintenance expenses stemming from owning and/or driving crap, higher interest rates, other types of pricing premiums for things stemming from their being inferior status as a buyer or a borrower of various goods and services, health, etc.
Add to that the pervasive psychological and physiological pathologies unavoidably common among poor people - whatever you think of how that reflects on their "responsibility" - and the external costs of those, and, well, you get the idea.
At private courses yes, but the green fees at the public golf course in Golden Gate Park here in San Francisco are $14 weekday and $20 weekend. I doubt it would be more expensive to play in Northern Indiana.
I feel bad for these folks (I myself grew up in South Bend, Ind., right next door to Elkhart), but, I do have to say that to some extent, this is just a consequence of tying your career and your fate to a frivolous recreational fad that is highly dependent on ultra, ultra-cheap and plentiful energy as an input, and then getting yourself into a highly leveraged financial position on top of it.
The moment that stops being the case, that economic sector stops being.
You just have to either 1) get the skill set and make a career in something that seems to be durable and sustainable and for which there is always a certain level of demand, or 2) take the appropriate risk-mitigation measures if you want to go work in something more ephemeral.
No, nothing lasts forever, and in capitalism, everything changes. But some things clearly change more than others, and the change is of a higher magnitude. Basing your family's fate around a pure-recreational industry is really no better than playing games as a businessperson with pointless non-value-added risk-free regulatory arbitrage opportunities (of which there is MUCH in telecom) or spreads that arise in various loopholes. That's just not a good way to ensure that there will be a tomorrow.
Well it's obvious to me why there's nowhere to go but down.
They're not trying to go anywhere else. They're not that bad financially. In our country a lot of people make less money working - while living expenses are higher than in USA actually - (we have round 25K $ GDP per capita) with higher food, fuel and home prices (services are more expensive in USA). It's not the lack of money that is dragging them down - it's the lack of living power and motivation.
They are 30+ year olds with mentality of an 8 year.
I feel for the guy, but he is complaining he doesn't have any money left over, yet he buys 4 packs of cigs a week, pays for some possibly unnecessary K-Mart layaway merchandise, drinks "beer-after-beer-after-beer", gambles, and eats donuts. There's a whole lot of money they could be saving - I'm sure even more thats in the article if these are his normal habits... to make ends meet. If he is really interested in doing everything he can to save money, these things should have been gone by now. If he were a buddy of mine, I'd tell him to do that and then I'd help him out.
This guy worked for 2 decades paycheck-to-paycheck? He had zero savings after working for 20 years. He never bought a home and has one beat up car and one that is broken down? Did he spend all his money on smokes, beer, donuts, pepsi and gambling? Does he expect sympathy? Stop gambling, stop smoking, buy some cheap healthy food for your family, rice and beans perhaps? If you need beer (really, 8 in the middle of the day when you have no job?) buy a 6 pack for home, it's cheaper. Take any job you can get and network/work your ass off. None of this is complicated or hard to figure out. I feel bad for their children.
Reading the comments on the Freakonomics page, some of which really are harsh, makes me wonder about the family's motivations for allowing a reporter to probe into fairly personal details of their lives- and write about it in a national newspaper. The article doesn't portray them in a particularly positive light. Maybe they just figure it's a chance for a little bit of fame and attention, but it still seems like a brave thing to do.
Maybe it's the first smart thing they've done financially; surely a sob story like this is going to attract some attention from people who may be placed to help, financially or otherwise.
The general populous of HN has a slightly skewed view of how quickly and violently the lives of many Americans has changed. I am from Detroit and have seen thousands of people, including my parents, rise to middle class as an unskilled laborer. Those jobs are gone, and should have been 25 years ago. This recession has finally pushed them over the edge and it leaves many people behind.
It is tough to criticize a man whose way of life, however perverse, vaporised in a matter of a few years. It existed for so long and lulled many people into believing it was real. Now they are paying for it.
"When he lost his job, Scott had no savings, his primary objective always having been to earn enough to cover the rent, eat an occasional steak, feed and clothe their children, ride his dirt bike, fish, golf, play poker, buy lottery tickets, and drink Bud Light."
This is the primary reason for the hardship that majority of the middle americans are facing in this tough times.
There has never been a culture of 'saving'. as an asian immigrant, saving has been deeply rooted into my psyche. Travel and recreation is one thing, but golf, fish, poker, lottery - when you have 2 kids and a wife to support ?
all aside, i thoroughly enjoyed reading the comments on HN more than the story itself.
I have heard (though I have not seen the hard statistics) that the savings rate in china averages 1/3rd of take home pay. This more than any "analysis" made me think that china will make good on its economic aspirations. for god's sake even some PROFESSIONAL ECONOMISTS in America think that consumption improves an economy rather than deferred consumption and investment.
This guy never had anything but shit jobs until 2007. So until then, he had no chance to develop a 'culture of saving'. Should he have put away $20,000 that first year? Yeah - I would have. But most people in this country don't see it that way.
You're surrounded by people who're living way beyond their means, and until you distance yourself from that, you want to be part of the 'fun'. That was what got us into the mess we're in - the average US family was $100K in the hole. So it's a cultural thing.
Maybe he knows better now. So do about 8 million other people. They bought in, and they got it socked to them. Find a heart before it's your turn.
This guy never had anything but shit jobs until 2007. So until then, he had no chance to develop a 'culture of saving'. Should he have put away $20,000 that first year? Yeah - I would have. But most people in this country don't see it that way.
You're surrounded by people who're living way beyond their means, and until you distance yourself from that, you want to be part of the 'fun'. That was what got us into the mess we're in - the average US family was $100K in the hole. So it's a cultural thing.
Maybe he knows better now. So do about 8 million other people.
I wonder if any families have joined forces and got houses together, instead of moving across the country to some dingy hell-hole, to live in their parents' basements.
I know many - but they are all immigrants who do not have the notion that owning your own single-family home is a birthright.
Hell, the city where I grew up had to revise the hydro scheme from flat-rate to metered just because there were so many families combining into what used to be a single-family home.
I also know many families who invested in a large house and rent out a suite to another family. The mortgage practically pays itself, and with some renovations you can preserve your privacy also.
In the words of my parents, who are both Asian immigrants to Canada, who come from poor backgrounds (well, one of them anyways): some people have had too good of a life, and can't sacrifice what they need to sacrifice when times get tough, as they invariably do.
The only depressing thing is how the family is handling their situation:
"Scott and Kelly spend much of their time watching TV, or playing games on their cellphones since they lost their jobs. Every day has become a slow-motion version of the one before, sitting around the house, each in the same spot, Kelly in the recliner, and Scott on the couch. Scott has gained 40 pounds since his last day on the job... On Monday, Scott picks up his and Kelly's unemployment benefits. After paying some bills, he sometimes goes to the Winners Circle bar, the tan building reflected in the glass, where he recently won $100 in a NASCAR betting pool."
Something tells me that is probably not the best approach. I have written to the reporter for their address so I can send a copy of Napolean Hill's Think and Grow Rich. A single passage from the book lifted me from a deep depression while stuck penniless in Japan to creating and surpassing my most cherished goals.
It should be striking how our newly poor and unemployed get fat instead of battling starvation, and how we nonetheless tacitly disapprove of the family for going nowhere and having no initiative to do something with their lives. Perhaps the problem is that coasting on our safety net represents a significant local maximum in quality of life, and that we have a hard time getting the incentives lined up so that we can offer aid for the long term and actually enforce long-term decision-making. We find government intrusion into personal choice distasteful, but I for one don't want to provide more to people who aren't going to use it for upward mobility for themselves and their families. How can we provide messaging and examples of every day people who have made a difference for themselves and their families through study and hard work?
You could tie the unemployment checks to reskilling programs. E.g. you earn 20% more unemployment benefits if you sign up for one of these local programs to teach you various skills that are actually in demand. Seems pretty straightforward - the hardest part is determining which skills are in demand, but anyone with a newspaper's job ads section in hand should be able to do that.
You should read the book itself, it's not long, but the premise of the book is basically that most wealthy people got wealthy the same way:
1. Making a through, detailed plan on how they will get rich.
2. Doggedly and relentlessly following that plan with incredible perseverance and not giving up.
It's simple. but if you think about it, it could change your life.
Personally, I don't feel bad for these people at all. It's not the economy, it's mindset. Some people have an entrepreneur mentality, and some people have a victim mentality.
If I sat around all day drinking beer and buying lottery tickets, I would probably be in the same place he is. Instead, I'm going to spend the next 12 hours setting up advertising campaigns with the expectation that 90% of them will fail. I will continue working until I hit that 10% that will succeed, which enables me to live comfortably and earn more than I could at a day job running my own business.
My point is that the bad economy often makes an all to convenient scapegoat for some people. Living paycheck to paycheck is not a good financial strategy regardless of economy.
Just want to make a point on your last paragraph. I agree but at the same time I don't see any reason why we need to demonize the people who don't know what to do. Whether what they are doing is right or wrong, we're better off not placing blame on them either.
Just my opinion but I think your statement is pretty immature. It seems rather that for some reason you want to put them down and I don't believe its because you think it will help them.
Let them be responsible for themselves. It doesn't help you to criticize others.
If they were responsible for themselves, they would be working or starving right now. However, they are on unemployment. As a taxpayer, I'm partly subsidizing their donut and lotto habits. That gives me ample reason to criticize their behavior: if someone is spending your money, you're perfectly entitled to at least complain about how they spend it.
Please expand on this if you want to be view as anything but a troll. Making inflammatory comments like this is not a way t convince people that your way of thinking is right. On the contrary, it's much more likely to close people's minds to anything you have to say.
As a counter-point, think about what the 'conservative' members of Congress would say if the public were to demand that they take a reduction in pay and benefits (members of Congress have the best health/retirement benefits of anyone in this country). From my point of view, they would probably play themselves up as victims of some sort of 'liberal conspiracy' rather than debating the motion on its merits.
Interestingly (and the author stresses this emphatically in the introduction), the "secret" cannot be merely doled out like dollars - a great willingness/eagerness to uncover it is required for it to be of any use. Had the passage been merely dropped in my lap without any context or deep inquiry, I doubt it would have been of any use.
Here are a few relevant passages from the introduction:
"The secret to which I refer has been mentioned no fewer than a hundred times, throughout this book. It has not been directly named, for it seems to work more successfully when it is merely uncovered and left in sight, where THOSE WHO ARE READY, and SEARCHING FOR IT, may pick it up. That is why Mr. Carnegie tossed it to me so quietly, without giving me its specific name. If you are READY to put it to use, you will recognize this secret at least once in every chapter. I wish I might feel privileged to tell you how you will know if you are ready, but that would deprive you of much of the benefit you will receive when you make the discovery in your own way."
"The secret to which I refer cannot be had without a price, although the price is far less than its value. It cannot be had at any price by those who are not intentionally searching for it. It cannot be given away, it cannot be purchased for money, for the reason that it comes in two parts. One part is already in possession of those who are ready for it."
"Somewhere, as you read, the secret to which I refer will jump from the page and stand boldly before you, IF YOU ARE READY FOR IT! When it appears, you will recognize it. Whether you receive the sign in the first or the last chapter, stop for a moment when it presents itself, and turn down a glass, for that occasion will mark the most important turning-point of your life."
This sounds terribly familiar. I had a friend who was taken in to those Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM) schemes (basically pyramid schemes by another name), and had me come along with him to one of their 'meetings' to introduce their method to new people who wanted to get rich. This pretty much nails the language dead-on, and the fact that you link to 'onestopinternetbusiness.com' makes me very wary of anything you are saying.
If, however, other people can make a statement for the usefulness of the book or the author or something to backup these remarks, then maybe it is an alright source of inspiration. But otherwise, why would any sensible person read that pdf you link to? I am not attempting to put down your opinion of the book, merely I need much more proof when such language is used.
"This sounds terribly familiar. I had a friend who was taken in to those Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM) schemes (basically pyramid schemes by another name), and had me come along with him to one of their 'meetings' to introduce their method to new people who wanted to get rich. This pretty much nails the language dead-on"
One major difference, Leon: the book is free and it is not selling anything other than your own success and happiness.
"and the fact that you link to 'onestopinternetbusiness.com' makes me very wary of anything you are saying."
"If, however, other people can make a statement for the usefulness of the book or the author or something to backup these remarks, then maybe it is an alright source of inspiration. But otherwise, why would any sensible person read that pdf you link to?"
A sensible person might check my other comments, profile, etc. to get a sense of who I am and what I believe in.
How do your comments, profile, etc. make the book better?
My remarks were for more discussion about the book and its contents, and how you portrayed the book poorly in your comment with respect to appearing legitimate by a) the whole 'secret' thing when you could have said 'hard work and perseverance'; and b) the source link of the book.
Using your own reputation as a proof of usefulness is not what I am here for, or many others. You must provide proof, in some form.
[edit] The commentator 'il' had exactly the reply I was looking for, with all the information that could help convince me.
The MLM scammers may have used the book for their own purposes, but that shouldn't detract from the book's value. The book was published in 1937, during the great depression, and is based on study of some of the most successful businessmen of all time like Rockefeller and Carnegie.
The bottom line of the book is that the "secret", at least as I understand it, is perseverance and hard work, which is exactly the opposite of MLM get rich quick schemes.
It's not a how to book, it's more of a motivational book.
I used volunteer for the Red Cross. Several times a week I would work with families after they had house fires. Whatever money we spent on them (clothes, shoes, food, medications, a place to stay while the found new housing, etc.) was nothing compared to spending time helping them make a plan to get their life back together. It reached the point that I always wrapped up with them by making them promise that they weren't going to just "lock up" and sit in the hotel for a couple days watching TV and avoiding life.
I know of a local church that now has a career helping program. One night a week they'll get people together with others that can help with resumes, networking, and financial planning.
depressing and actually not an isolated case. the story highlights problems in America: laziness, gluttony, little or no education, and worse... inability to fix their own problems that do have solutions. of course, the problems are always someone else's...
Why do so many people, on reading a piece like this, immediately start to argue about who's fault it all is? Is that really the most important aspect of the situation? Is determination of fault likely to lead to a solution?
"It's 28 hours, eight bucks an hour," she says. No benefits, she adds. "You say, 'Thank you, but -- '?" "Yup," she says. "I make more on unemployment."
So she turns down a job that pays $224 per week so she can continue to collect $268 per week unemployment compensation after 9 months.
Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture? Has she even considered:
- that 28 hours could turn into more
- that $8 could turn into more
- that no benefits could turn into benefits
- that she may meet someone at work who could refer her to a better job (lots of people pass through a chiropractor's office each day, a lot more than she meets at home)
- that she may meet someone at work who could refer Scott to a job
At what point should we expect people dealing with difficulties to try a little harder to help themselves?