It's the summers that we don't get thunderstorms that I worry about, because those are the years we end up in extreme droughts and those are far more miserable. As for the heat, people find a reason to bitch about every season. It's too cold. It's too hot. Eew there's bugs. Damned pollen. Fuckin' leaves everywhere. Ice sucks. Bird shit all over. Santa Claus is coming to town, hide your kids and hide your wife.
I think it's more than half, and I think the other half just touches themselves in private areas too taboo to mention on a Christian oriented site like Lemmy. Let's just say, stay away from the devil' jewels kiddos.
First they told us not to eat the yellow snow, now they're telling us not to stick spring rolls up our poop chutes. It's like doctors don't want us to find any joy in our lives.
I live in a rural area outside of a small town in the southern USA. The local electrician, basically the guy almost everybody calls if they need basic residential electrical work, earns almost twice the high end of what that job listing is paying. Granted, he's basically on call 7 days a week and I'm sure his job isn't always unicorn farts and leprechaun rainbows, but he's his own boss and works his own hours.
I spent a semester of college working at Home Depot. It was a terrible experience and awful in so many different ways that I consider it my second worst job experience, only slightly behind the holier than thou "Christian business" that didn't pay its employees and actively committed fraud against employees, clients, and the government. 25+ years later, I still don't like to shop at Home Depot, it was so bad.
Remember that time I discovered a major bug in Reddit that I reported dozens of times to the site's feedback form and directly to your user account but I never got a response about and it never got fixed (until I used the exploit in a way that directly affected you)? Well, if that rings a bell, then guess what? It's me again. Toodles.
I'm not defending it nor am I saying it's typical, but it's not that hard to spend $500 per person per month on groceries.
It's definitely doable (and then some) for folks living in high cost of living places. I recently went on a quick weekend trip to such a place. I knew I didn't have the type of money to dine out, but I figured I could suffice on a few staples from the grocery store. I visited several different stores, and the prices were all about the same (i.e. insane). The little pint (or half pint?) Ben and Jerry's was $10 - 12. A container of romaine lettuce was $8. A package of Oscar Meyer sliced deli meat was $15. These prices are easily 3 - 4 times what they typically cost where I live.
Also, a lot of people shop at the kinds of stores where you can find everything from apples to Apple watches. And when people do their "grocery" shopping, they're buying bulk paper towels, a case of wine, a new Switch game for the kids, cosmetics, cat litter, clothes, 30 pack of batteries, a couple azaleas, and a partridge in a pear tree and then calling that their grocery bill. So, it's not exactly a fair label nor an accurate assumption that the grocery bill is just groceries (i.e. food).
And honestly, if you mean HOW as in how can they afford it: $500 x 4 = $2,000 or $24,000. A lot of money, sure, but median household income (in the USA) is like $80,000 and I'm guessing that $500 a month per person is above median expenditure (especially if we're excluding the folks that like to include the partridge in their grocery bill), so most people spending that much on food would be earning way more than median income.
That's the general consensus in my social circle as well. It's not fooling anybody, but we appreciate it for what it is. Fishham with shellfish flavoring.
So, the immigrants are criminals if they are not authorized to be in the country. But the people unlawfully employing them aren't criminals? I'm confused about what he's saying, but then again, I'm also 100% he's confused about what he's saying so you can't really blame me, right?
I'm actually surprised it's taken this long to show up in the numbers, but I am fully aware that I'm in a bit of a bubble.
Most people I know got all their big ticket spending done before January, and then hunkered down into saving money mode so that they'd have some cushion for if and when things go bad. Sure, there have been some outliers, but they aren't the norm.
Part of the problem is, even a lot of people who still have their good jobs are cutting way back and trying to put money aside because they simply do not know how much longer they'll have a job. People who once saw themselves as indispensable to their employer and have enjoyed stable careers are no longer so confident in the economy or their job because they've seen what's happened to so many others recently.
Let's see how this turns out.