It's been a while since I've been in that income bracket, but I don't remember ever being strong-armed into taking on unnecessary debt. What are you referring to here?
But another example that comes to mind (as someone who lives in that income bracket about half by choice and half not) are car repairs (you HAVE to pony up or you lose your job, so the question becomes 'borrow 1k or lose 100% of your income').
Oh, and any time childcare is fucked up for any reason. Kid can't go to daycare/school because they're sick for a week? Parents don't get PTO, so their only option is to eat a week's worth of wages, and since income in is close to or level with expenses out, that means making it up with debt.
The 'strong arming' comes in because society is set up to make those your only options. (versus having public transit to rely on, walkable cities, or cheap car rentals, for example).
High schoolers are still being told "If you don't want to make minimum wage for your whole life, you need a college degree!", yet a high schooler certainly can't pay the $15K+ per year to get a degree, so they take out student loans.
And then, the same people who hounded them to get a degree then hound them when they beg for student loan forgiveness, telling them they shouldn't have taken out a loan they wouldn't be able to afford to pay back.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
I started college in 1999. The day my freshmen year started, jokes about English majors asking if you want fries with that were already 60 years old.
This argument is revisionist bunk, in other words. Everybody knows there are some degrees that are more valuable than others, that some degrees lead to higher pay and that some don't. Everybody knows this. They know it today and they knew it in 1999 and they knew it in 1979 and I categorically reject this weird, revisionist insistence that nobody could possibly have known it or that 18-year-olds are hapless dopes without any agency or even the most basic understanding of how the world works.
No one is saying teenagers lack agency, but there is definitely a problem when an outsized number are making decisions that are detrimental to their long-term future
I'm kind of happy to go either way on this, but I think we're probably going to have to pick one. If an 18-year-old can't sign a contract, then surely they shouldn't be allowed the vote.
>Everybody knows there are some degrees that are more valuable than others
This has only been made more extreme, but you've been checked out for at least 20 years apparently.
