Why Just Surviving Is Untenable, And Why It’s Purposeful

In 1938, the average cost of a home was around $3,900, in 2024 it’s $412k, an increase of 10,456.41%. If current house prices reflected the average rate of inflation prices should be around $74,000.

The average income in 1938 was $1,731, in 2024 it’s $59,428. A rate increase of 3,334.73%. Keep this number in mind.

Adjusted for actual inflation annual wages should be closer to $33,000. But that’s assuming all other goods and services rose along the same trajectory.

They very much didn’t.

In 1938, a new car cost around $860, in the year of our lord 2024 the average price is around $45,283, a rate of 5,161.28% increase. Again, if it stayed within the average rise in prices a new car should be around $16,250, a rate increase of 1,789.53%.

Rent increases in 2024 is ludicrous. In 1938 the average rent cost was $27.00 per month. In 2024, the average cost of rent is around $1,326, reflecting a price increase of 4,811%. If rent prices increased at a similar rate of inflation as wages, then the average cost of rent should be around $511 a month.

Wages have stagnated for over 50 years, over fears that wages increased too quickly would cause even worse inflation. Clearly, those feared untenable cost of living increases happened anyway, but without an adequate rise in wages.

Since 1938 wages have gone up by an average of 3,330%, in comparison house prices have gone up by over 10,000%, car prices by over 5,000%, rent prices by almost 5,000%, not mention the astronomical increase in prices of food, gas, education, and health care. Everything has increased at a rate of least 2x, but not wages.

So, what’s the endgame here? Why make necessities, housing, food, health care, far beyond the reach for the average person?

For now, let’s focus on housing and health care.

If you don’t pay a person enough to make rent/mortgage payments, and that person doesn’t have a reliable support structure in place, that person becomes at-risk for being homeless. Becoming homeless makes it incredibly difficult to attain and maintain full time employment, which in turn makes it nearly impossible to find affordable and reliable housing.

Pushing people out of housing, making any housing inaccessible overall, is intentional. Here’s why; the 13th amendment made slavery illegal in all ways, except one: “…except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

The United States is one of the only countries in the world that makes loitering, being in a public space ‘for too long’, a crime. In addition, mass protesting is slowly being made illegal, and of course being homeless is in itself being made a crime.

In many states, being homeless is now considered a felony, meaning if found guilty that person is now ineligible to vote, in addition to the stigma that is attached to being labeled “a felon”. Why would those in charge not want homeless/low-income folks to vote? Traditionally, those that fall within that demographic vote for people that attempt to pass laws that don’t directly benefit corporations.

In addition, one of the fastest growing industries is part of the Prision Industrial Complex, getting as many people as possible off the street and into private prisons is incredibly lucrative. Much of that money then goes back into the pockets into many politicians who then craft even more draconian laws.

Rinse and repeat.

Making and keeping people poor is just step one. The other tenet in the labor exploitation pipeline is Health Care. Direct health care costs have been skyrocketing for years, the other barrier to accessing health care in this country is time and travel time.

You need to set up a primary physician. Ok, well does your insurance let you see someone in your geographical area? No? Well then, try and get time off of work, hopefully your PTO gets approved, then you need to find a ride. Making the appointment, taking time off, and actually going there is just step one.

Let’s take my situation; I need to get my back looked at, I’ve been doing manual labor for over 20 years, and it’s catching up with me. The most likely outcome to going to a doctor is that they’ll tell me lose weight, exercise, and maybe go to physical therapy.

That’ll be $2,000, please.

There’s a common misconception that everyone has the same 24 hours in their day. No, absolutely not. If you have a car, you can just go wherever whenever, which is whole other discussion about how our car obsessed has made our cities completely unwalkable and therefore unaccessable for disabled folks.

Which brings us back to why making healthcare unaccessable and unafforable is purposeful. If you can’t walk/lift/read/speak/run or have any sort of reasonable accommodation, that many employers are extremely reluctant to abide by, you at at-risk for unemployment, or under-employment. That then can lead to homelessness, which can lead to jail, and we’re off to the races.

Please, talk to your friends, co-workers, family members. If you don’t have generational wealth to fall back on, we are all vulnerable to the employment-to-jail-to-slavery-pipeline.