I mean, do we even need a tweet to explain this anymore? I feel like we all are feeling this issue with our rents and our grocery bills.
But if you’re a number-lover like me, this may just help you really understand how bad the situation with stagnant wages really is becoming.
Tweeter @Hawthorne_Rob4 shared just how dire things were becoming in a tweet back in March.
He wrote:
$1,500 rent means you paying $18,000 a year in housing. Someone making $50,000 is paying 22% in taxes. ($39,000) now has to pay rent and is left with $21,000. For the year with all other life expenses. Rent is too damn high for a lot of folks.
Rob’s tweet inspired other people to share just how stressful their living situations are.
@LukeJohnson2014 followed up with actual maths:
I’ve done the factoring for this in some cities with the projected minimum 3x the rent salary attached(1st pic), and the taxes on a 50k salary minus homeowner property taxes in select states (2nd pic). If there’s no action, renting in the US will become a humanitarian crisis.
And the internet responded with all the compassion you would expect, telling people to “move out of cities”.
Cool, good luck bro. Cities mean jobs for a lot of people and even if you can up and move, that huge kind of relocation has also caused massive problems in more rural areas. As people with city paychecks move to more affordable locations, those places quickly become unaffordable for the people who live there.
That said, most people were interested in sharing their experiences.
Other people noted that the rent was “seriously way too high. And also the fact that a lot landlords these days want you to make 2.5 to 3 times the rent.”
And then, as another Tweeter pointed out, there were the application fees.
Can we also talk about application fees? When I was looking for a place, it was $25 here and $30 there. One place it was $100 TO APPLY for an apartment. And there was no refund on that. Renting is fucking highway robbery anymore.
And as for why?
That’s because the cost of living, inflation and taxes steadily increase…but wages have remained stagnant for decades…all the profits from working class peoples labor is going to corporate execs salaries and share holders. But congress makes sure they get their salary increases
To sum it up…