Charter schools, social norming and zero-sum games

Re:Charter schools, social norming and zero-sum games by willio58 on Friday July 07, 2023 @03:31PM (#36637147)

The poverty line is about 15k for a single person in the US. For a family of 3, that line is about 25k. The poverty line is also widely criticized for being too low, so yes. It's hard. If you're not a single person willing to live in a shared apartment, it's exceptionally hard to see any future with that amount of income.

I have a dev friend who makes over 200k working for Apple and lives in our friend's garage paying just 200 a month for rent. His case has nothing to do with the average living expenses of average teachers in the US. He's an outlier, as I suspect you are.

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Re:Charter schools, social norming and zero-sum games by lukas099 on Friday July 07, 2023 @04:38PM (#36637998)

> The poverty line is about 15k for a single person in the US. For a family of 3, that line is about 25k.

Then 36k should be enough to support two dependents without any other income, as it’s almost 150% of poverty. And I suspect most teachers are not supporting two dependents on their incomes alone, so your comment makes me feel stronger about my previous statement.

As for me being an outlier, maybe? I don’t live in a basement. I live in a regular apartment with one roommate. I have a car (2014 sedan) and buy regular groceries, go on vacations, do things with friends, live a pretty regular life.

I take objection to you saying “if you are not … willing to live in a shared apartment” as if that’s some grand imposition. To me it sounds like you might be the outlier? Normal people, even couples live in shared apartments all the time.

I want to note that I didn’t claim that teachers aren’t underpaid (I haven't researched or thought about it enough to make a decision). Just that 36k isn’t some impossible amount to live on, which it’s not in most places.

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