And it just randomly decided to take tutoring money away even though I answer its math question correctly? Why do I have over $7000 on my CC bill? Was I living well above my means for some reason? Why do I have a kid? That was a rather poor financial planning decision...
This is honestly pretty accurate as simulators go. There might be technical flaws but the feel is there. The actual numbers you control are $40-50 variances, while the costs are an order of magnitude higher. Getting ahead in that scenario is virtually impossible. You might save an extra month's worth of expenses every year, if you budget flawlessly and don't give in to a single indulgence.
Wish I could upvote this bit more.
One thing that gets us into trouble financially more than anything else is our belief that revenue streams will not go away. They DO go away. (And often at the most inopportune times.)
As I recall that one, it was trying to argue that driving for Uber was unsustainable, but the fundamental position was absurd. It started you off living in a not-cheap town with low Uber demand, buying a not-cheap car solely so you could drive for Uber, and pretended that was a fundamental indictment of the business.
Nothing here strikes me as that kind of flawed. The details might be arguable, but the broad strokes are completely reasonable. Honestly I'm a bit disturbed to see people leap to "oh, this doesn't count, credit card debt means I lived beyond my means!" Partly because "I screwed up in the past and want to work hard to make up for it" is something a healthy society makes possible, but more urgently because it makes me worry people have no idea how common issues like "oh, I have a $7,000 hospital bill after insurance" really are.
Once when we had no car we took public transport to the opposite side of town to visit the cinema .. it was 2 hours each way because of connections, afterwards we walked a few-hundred metres to the stop and waited in the rain and wind for the bus back, the wait was so long for the connecting bus that we walked the last 2 miles. Fun! We never tried it again. I've done the journey on foot since, only took 1h30m; 15mins by car, parking is free. (In a large UK town.)
When I moved back to the U.S., that's when I needed a car.
Leaving the rest aside, an awful lot of people end up here via medical bills. Even with means-based billing or health insurance, a bad accident or a chronic issue can add up extremely fast. The player might even have had savings that were wiped out paying down a higher bill before the game started, and settled the rest on a credit card.
(Yes, most hospitals offer payment plans at better rates than credit cards. No, I don't think all healthcare providers do, and no, they don't necessarily offer any clear way to find out.)
I hope you're ready for a 2-hour commute each way. Buses in the US are terrible everywhere outside of some very specific cities.
> Why do I have over $7000 on my CC bill?
Emergency dental or health care?
Are you sure that's not some bias slipping in there?
Seeing that leap straight from "credit card debt" to "bought frivolous crap" helps me realize just how little common ground there is on stuff like this, and how much good might be done by sharing examples of how normal, sensible people get in these situations.
Move closer to the new job, you say? Not everyone can drop a few grand to terminate a lease and hire a moving truck and put down a new first-month-and-security-deposit.
I've been wanting to get a tortoise though. I'm told that once you get their living arrangement right, with the special lamp and whatnot, they're easy to care for.
At the time of conception, nobody knows how things will turn out in their life a few years down the line. Will I still have that job that allows me to pay my bills? Will I have been bankrupted by an acute medical issue, because I lost my health insurance at a critical moment?
Having kids is a commitment. But you have to take a leap of faith. You can't just undo that commitment later, or walk away from it.
But shaming people for having kids? Have you no heart? How on earth is that going to help with anything? Is it going to make their lives better? Is it going to help the kids?
There is, in fact, a massive confluence of reasons why poor people end up having children, and shaming them for doing so instead of helping those reasons will not help anyone.
The cell phone bill makes me question how realistic this "simulator" is. Are the healthcare costs realistic? Obviously in every other western country these costs would be zero (or very close to zero if you don't qualify for 100% free prescriptions in the UK at least).
Is healthcare really that bad in the US? Really? Genuinely staggering if so.
I managed to reach a month, but in that month: a relative died, the landlord arbitrarily increased the rent $150 BEFORE the end of the month, a kid broke a window that cost $100 to replace, got an incontestable false speeding ticket for 250, the car broke and a dental problem needing $800 developed, got depression, etc. How much can this guy endure?
Also, this guy should have had food stamps already. Maybe he didn't qualify before? I figure him at 45-50, trying to get a job like the one he just lost and letting things go too far before realizing he had to get a low-paying one.
It makes you think, that's for sure.
Healthcare tends to suck if you don't get it provided by your workplace. If you have a job with healthcare, your outcomes are pretty decent (on average, better than Europe in many cases, for example Cancer survival rates). If you don't have a job it is all free, as no one to make a broke person pay. If you are in the doughnut of <have a few dollars> to <paying $300 a month for healthcare> is a big deal you are really screwed. Developers are past that doughnut, so we do okay. Plenty of people do not though.
I pay $35/month for 1GB of mobile internet + unlimited phone calls/texts. Over that, I pay 47$/month for unlimited 30Mbps internet. That's ignoring taxes.
Take a look:
https://www.planhub.ca/quebec/compare-cellphone-plan/0min.10...
https://www.planhub.ca/quebec/compare-internet-plan/search?l...
Remember that the province I live in is more the size of France and is covered with ice during winter. Carriers have to support the entire province and then the entire country.
See those size comparison:
https://mapfight.appspot.com/quebec-vs-fr/quebec-france-size...
https://mapfight.appspot.com/ca-vs-fr/canada-france-size-com...
I can't remember the exact amount but it was ridiculous more than I can use in a month unless I really try though my home WiFi let alone on a mobile.
He talked to them but In the end he still had to pay something like $150.
I'd like to say thinga like that don't happen often. But it seems like I hear stories about it fairly regularly.
Telus plans start at around $80/month
https://www.telus.com/en/mobility/plans?linktype=nav
Rogers at $85 for 3GB of data
[1]: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Straight-Talk-35-Unlimited-30-Day...
I pay between $50 and $80 per month on a prepaid plan that generously gives me 20mb(!!) of fast Internet a day.
What you describe would cost about $40, or with a more realistic 2GB at least 50$-60$ per month.
No phone included.
Yes this is Switzerland. But having owned phone plans in many western and non western countries there definitly are big exceptions between countries.
> It may seem like a waste of money, but for people like you who have no 401(k) or savings account, it can look like an investment in a better future.
How is that advice helpful? A lottery ticket is not an investment in any way.
If you're very poor and stuck in a bad situation, there could 0.0% chance you ever become a millionaire through the normal mechanisms, maybe spending $1 a week on a lottery ticket raises that to 0.00000000001% and creates a bit more hope in your mind.
Again, I'd never advise anyone to buy a lottery ticket. But if it makes you hopeful, maybe it's a better treat for yourself than a chocolate bar.
Per capita lottery spend by state: Massachusetts @ $761/year. West Virginia @ $594/year. Georgia @ $391/year.
The point is, that's actually how real people see the lottery. A big payout feels more likely than a $100k/yr job when you've been under the poverty line long enough.
Remember, the goal of this game isn't to see how efficiently you get to the end; it's to help you put yourself in the shoes of people actually in this position.
So no, it is not helpful advise. It is a teaching statement about why poor people continue to play the lottery.
Look, do you want false hope or not?
Hope is all some people can afford.
On the other hand, money is not the solution to all life's problems. What I would literally wish for my worst enemy: you win that Mega Millions drawing tonight.
Recommended listening from This American Life:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/329/nice-work-if-you-can-ge...
He's talked with thousands of lottery winners, and the vast majority, he says, wish they'd never won.
That's why it says "it can look like" an investment in a better future. (Not "is" one.)
If you are poor, then living alone or taking on a lease is insane. The implicit assumption that you can't move and that "the rent" is as high as it is in this demo is untrue.
So what you end up with in this demo is a race against unsustainably high costs because you arbitrarily can't remove them.
Actually sounds pretty realistic to me. People tend not to have as much agency as we like to think.
For starters:
Lifting 20lb is not going to take a toll on your body unless your body is already beat to crap from something else.
Most people can replace a window. If you don't then you probably know someone who can. Poor people trade semi-skilled labor around as favors all the time.
You don't need to join a gym to stay in shape, especially if your job involves manual labor. You also don't need to stay in tip top physical shape, just don't let yourself get seriously out of shape.
Nobody is doing credit checks for lower end jobs or lower end housing. They care more about your criminal record or lack thereof. If your poor you're either not going to use credit or your credit will be crap. Good credit isn't going to help you dig a ditch or unload a truck so you'll get hired anyway.
The whole point of choosing housing on the rural end of the available options is to reduce the cost of living and not have someone siphon the gas out of your car. In the simulation the shopping selector reflects city prices and the crime happens anyway.
Doing laundry in a sink, tub or 5gal bucket is a perfectly fine option if your washer doesn't work. It also doesn't cost $30 to go to the laundromat. You don't just wear dirty clothes. That's what college kids who've never lived on their own and lose their laundry card do.
I get that the whole point of this game it to make a statement but it paints a picture that seriously undersells the resourcefulness of poor people. It's also very clear that the decision tree in this simulator was written using a set of assumptions about how certain problems be solved and those assumptions were either made in an ivory tower or were designed to mostly go unnoticed to those in ivory towers.
edit: Yes I have had jobs like this. I know exactly what they're like. I've been a janitor, I've worked in food-service, I've done under the table construction, I've worked for a temp agency. I've literally dug ditches and scrubbed toilets (not that bad on average, watch out for the edge cases though). If you expect me to have a lot of sympathy with people who lift 20lb in a 70deg warehouse then you will be disappointed. Yes it's a crappy job that pays poorly and I'm sure it's soul crushing but it's not the pyramid building slave labor that some people like to equate it to. The lack of advancement opportunities (advancement to better paying jobs) in some of these jobs are what I consider the primary reason that people in these jobs can't get out of poverty.
There’s a difference between lifting/carrying the occasional 20lb weight, and doing that continuously for 8 hours.
I used to have 8 hour shifts at a standing only checkout - it took about a month before my back started hurting continuously. This was just a standing on concrete job, not even lifting all day.
Low end housing does do credit checks, and does increase your “deposit”.
Sure. Now do it for 8 hours a day without air conditioning.
Heck, there are a lot of people still paying off debt from ITT Tech; you can get Pell grants reduced if the college closes while you're attending, but not private ones.
Even if you _could_ fix all that, you're still not going to make ends meet. The player is effectively bankrupt.
I think the creators reduce the impact of their own message by making it so far fetched. I can't relate to anyone who would put themselves in such a terrible financial position, so its just an unwinnable game.
Now imagine the player developing cancer, or needing to have major dental surgery!
There are all sorts of problems with this, such as:
- assumption of a car (within 5 miles, cycling is completely reasonable, and it improves health) - single income w/child apparently? That's not my situation at all - Why does laundry cost $30? Most places near me are $5-10 - Why is my mobile phone $75? I can find lots of plans for cheaper - why do I start with $1k? I've had way more than that since I was a teenager; I always keep 3-6 months of expenses for precisely this reason - why does not paying a bill for one month result in immediate closure? Most utilities don't shut off services until 3 or so months of missing payments
However, the app is pretty eye opening because it _doesn't_ fit my situation. I'm very interested in helping the poor get out of the cycle of poverty (it's my life's goal).
edit: Don't get me wrong, it's better than nothing. I'm on the exchanges myself. That said, a major illness is still going to be a massive financial hit even with subsidized premiums.
It was kind of nice to switch back to the current discussion and see it lean a bit more toward empathy for the poor.
Someone just asked me, "why do you have to register to vote? why can't I show up with a passport?" - which sounds reasonable until you start thinking about local elections, where you need to prove that you live in a certain area, and then the need for some sort of registration becomes more obvious. (Or another refactoring of the system, at least.)
Same here - people think, "why do you need a car, I certainly don't need one on the Upper East Side!" - and for them, they don't. In rural Texas, not having one means you're very geographically bound, and effectively unemployable.
So, for some things, I don't think it's just a lack of empathy; it's just a quick knee-jerk comment on an internet forum.
His rationale is "I picked myself up with no help from the state, so why should I have to pay for others? If you're poor, it's because you're lazy". I was of the opinion that the help he received from his church is just a smaller version of socialized healthcare, but he disagreed.
In reality I would have squatted and forced them to spend 6 months evicting me, giving me time to save up firsts month rent for a new place.
It's worth considering that that approach might be an excellent way to make it very, very difficult to get a new place. Squatting to afford rent on a new place is very much like declaring bankruptcy so you can afford a new car loan, complete with the major black mark on your credit report that makes it much more difficult to get a reasonable interest rate. This is less fanciful than it sounds, as agencies that track information about your rental history can and do exist.
Your idea is very clever. It's maybe worth thinking about if clever is the same thing as a good idea.
"You've made your bed and now you need to sleep in it."
Yes this game is not realistic. Now let's talk about fairness and responsibilities of us for all others.
A couple of suggestions:
1. The Facebook and Twitter icons were too close to the last choice on the screens, and I ended up tapping on them when I intended to tap on the last option. This was on a phone. Please move those buttons down a bit.
2. The site didn’t work on Firefox Focus onnthe phone. But it did work on Brave. Something about Firefox Focus’s blocking must’ve caused this. I didn’t have time to figure out the issue.
