The biggest cause of suffering comes from the loss of a job or lack of income. It is common sense that even if a person who loses their job qualifies for unemployment that this will not nearly be enough for you to live off and why is that? Unemployment insurance is a government derived insurance policy that uses a system to calculate the base cost of necessities that people will need to survive and gives them exactly that amount. It is usually averaged out per state by taking the average cost of living for the entire state. This very simply means that if you live in a higher cost of living area in your state, unemployment benefits will more than likely not come anywhere close to being able to provide for you and your family. Most unemployment benefits will max out at a certain amount of money total or per paycheck.
In today’s world most Americans carry some form of debt, whether it be credit cards, car loans, student loans, or something else; almost everyone has debt. Unemployment insurance does not seem to account for the average debt load that each person carries, therefore, it will most likely only cover your food for the month and maybe basic utilities. If you are one of the few people who eat organic foods you can count on Unemployment not even covering your bill each month.
For the low income earners, any fluctuation in the pricing of basic needs can be very detrimental. When the economy in general suffers you will see a severe lack of buying power due to inflation devaluing the currency which would appear to make things “cost more” when it is really the value of your money that is going down so it takes more of it to purchase the same goods. Inflation in the United States is an absolute game breaker because wages have not risen anywhere close to it in the past decade.
In fact, some people are surprised when I tell them that the most they ever made in their life was the first day on the job, unless you’ve been given a significant promotion this is typically a factual statement. Typical employers give annual raises of 2-7% a year and a lot don’t even do this. If you are getting less than a 4% raise on average every year, then you are most likely actually making less money every year due to inflation. This is why it’s very important to negotiate your starting salary because it will probably be the most money you will make in your career unless someone can fix the United States inflationary trend.
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