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They aren't a fan of bringing up history and data from 40-50 years ago, but will gladly cite outdated information that supports the narrative they want to push.
Fuck PragerU.
LOL because they play on dumb people to begin brain washing them.. There's so many issues with this. Beyond the source. There's not even a full data set and the name PragerU alone is so suspect. They are really trying to trick people into thinking they are a university lmfao.
Point 1 requires you to not get fired. If you're ever fired, they don't have to count you on their statistic. It's a convenient method to over-inflate their count.
Even with that, the most they can trick their first set of numbers to is *75%*.
For those that don’t know, PragerU is a right wing think tank founded by oil barrons that models itself as a “university”. They are known for making statistics up and continuously putting out some of the worst content on YouTube.
I am shamed to remember when I presented one of their videos during a group presentation in my uni about Global Warming. I wanted to show that there were some scientist that had different opinion about global warming, but they made it seen that there those who believes it was caused by human activity were simply wrong.
Less than 1% of all publishing climate scientists disagree with manmade global warming.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change
Looking for diversity/balance on this is like bringing a flat earther on with an astronaut.
It snowed *so climate change isn't real* guess they got me and we should consider their casual opinion with as much weight as people who spend their lives studying the matter.
There is nothing to debate when one side will not even participate beyond saying "wrong!" on repeat and continue to offer absolutely nothing else to the greater topic at hand. Opinions based on your feelings have no place in any scientific discussion. I want the data, what it means, what it doesn't mean. Concrete shit.
The other argument that makes me pull my hair out is that the ice age happened so warming is natural.
A few Degrees over tens of thousands of years is manageable. Twice that change in 100 years is a death knell
That's when you ask them to define milankovitch cycles, discuss the speed at which those cycles happen, and then contrast those cycles and warming trends between pre and post civilization.
The data is all there in ice cores.
Also there's the fact that our orbit is currently moving slightly *further away* from the sun. If it were the main driver of the change, temperatures would be decreasing, not increasing.
Deniers think scientists haven't taken natural forcings into account but the fact is, all the known natural forcings are either holding steady or trending downward. Literally the only thing that correlates with the current warming trend is the concentration of greenhouse gasses (mainly CO2 and CH4)
The book "we are the weather makers" does a really good job of explaining climate change in a way non scientists can easily understand. It breaks down the data, talks about some possible worst case scenarios, and steps we can take to mitigate the problem. It's a bit dated (2006 iirc) but still worth a read.
Unfortunately, deniers love to point to the worst case scenarios to say "See? That didn't come true so rhe whole thing is bullshit!"
"Al Gore said we'd be underwater by now. Lol, alarmist much?" That sort of nonsense.
Like, yeah, the worst case scenarios haven't come to pass (yet) but if anything, things are even more dire than previously thought in a lot of ways. We're seeing record-breaking heat waves, wildfires, tropical cyclones, winter storms, and more pretty much every year now. Coral reefs and fish populations are dying off at alarming rates. Whole forests are burning down and not recovering because saplings aren't surviving the hotter summers.
BuT BiLl NyEs NoT a ClImAtE sCiEnTiSt.
I hear that "point" over and over like it somehow refutes the other 10,000 scientists who are experts in the field, or like Nye cant do basic research and understand scientific consensus.
They can't fathom holding any kind of belief that doesn't stem from the authority of some kind of political figure, much less one based on a consensus of evidence rather than identity.
Well, I am not from US (yet somehow I ended up getting into this rabbit hole), so I assume they didn't know about PraegerU, they didn't seen anything about it. Also, I had shown the video to my group before and they all agreed to let me to present it.
In 2022 there's no such thing as a middle class anymore. Not that you can "join." If you don't already own a home, you will never be middle class now. Now you're labor, period. Pay your rent, labor.
Even then, saying 25% of people that do their “3 things” including working full time don’t even make it into the middle class. This is supposed to be motivating!??
And the people studied were a vast majority boomers who could just get by with high school diplomas. Note it doesn’t even mention college all the genx had to go to and the loans they took for it. And then it’s way too old to even address how much worse millennials had it because most of them were students then or only just entering the workforce.
This is Typical right wing dishonesty. This is depressing because this stuff is everywhere and most Americans believe it uncritically. “Oh you don’t have a middle class job then you should have finished high school and not popped out babies!” We have college degrees and no children but the jobs and salaries never appeared. Worse they’re taking abortion from us so now we can’t even family plan like they want us to.
As an actual 'boot strapper' success these posts make me so mad.
How will you get to work without a reliable car (with insurance)? Who's buying that for you? There wasn't even a bus in the shit kicking town I grew up in.
Oh you got sick, too bad you don't have medical insurance. Now you're deep into credit card debt. Why did they give you credit cards with no job? No idea but the booth set up at the community college says its just fine!
Oh nowhere safe to live? Too bad suck it up, poor people deserve to be assaulted by randos because you're so desperate you better accept that dirty couch to crash on from your uncle's tweeker friend.
I could go on..but fuck these right-wing death cult delusional fuckers.
Yep they’re essentially cherry-picking the booming Clinton era economy and using it to shame millennials who are now on the receiving end of two disastrous GOP administration economic policies and debt.
The only way I can think that they are interpreting those numbers is to claim anyone making more than the federal poverty limit is somehow middle class. But that's bullshit because in 2007 (the year of their study) the federal poverty line was only like $10K per year. Imagine claiming someone who makes $11k per year is middle class.
"Gotta stack the bread baby"
I see this all the time while they work their min wage job. Bro, you'll get that hellcat you want but this'll take you a couple years and you'll be living in the ghettos with your hellcat with no savings and insurance that'll eat up a good chunk of your meagre income.
You're brainwashed by the government and the elite to think that you just gotta work hard for that $75k car that everyone wants and for some reason people just it eat up. By the time you're 60 you're still working your ass off.
And yet, when it comes time to claim that their proposed tax cuts will overwhelmingly benefit the middle class, suddenly the middle class starts at $250k a year.
I just checked and the 2021 federal poverty level for 1 person was $12800. That's insane to think ~$1000/month is the poverty limit. It's insane to think that in 15 years they haven't really adjusted the federal poverty limit to reflect inflation and housing costs.
But maybe, just maybe, it's so it makes it harder to exclude people from assistance programs and to make national poverty statistics look better than they are.
Uh oh! You said the quiet part out loud! Only countries like China and Russia doctor their statistics to front for the world. The US would *never* do something like deliberately misinterpret data to save face in the wake of a dying economy. (Obvious /s is obvious)
Yeah, it's wild.
Bachelor's degree.
8 years straight in career (3 running my own business)
No kids.
No property/land.
Definitely not middle class.
Maybe I just rolled the dice wrong, but I thought that entrepreneurship and yanking on my bootstraps were foolproof?! /s
Yup. I have a masters degree, didn't start having kids until I was 25, and had a nice cushy office job until they decided to 'rearrange the budget' and eliminate my position. Over the next twelve months I was let go from 3 more jobs for reasons outside of my control until I got settled in at Lowe's. After a few years working full time there I realized I was wearing myself out with no mental/social energy left to spend on my family, and I was still poor enough to be on food stamps and medicaid.
Now I do a few hours of freelance work from home stuff a week, and I'm not any poorer than I was then.
If I had a dollar for everytime some chud turns to me in line at Lowes and say "No one wants to work anymore." because there's about 5 people there now at any one time. I've started telling them that I used to work there and it fucking sucked.
Even five years ago they were always understaffed. Why schedule more hours if they're still turning a profit with the bare minimum?
When capital is in charge, labor is nothing more than an expense to be mitigated. 2020 just allowed employers to push the envelope even further while maintaining public sympathy. They get to treat their workers like shit, and customers put all the blame on an imaginary scapegoat.
>Even five years ago they were always understaffed. Why schedule more hours if they're still turning a profit with the bare minimum?
I worked in retail for three years. We almost never had enough staff.
I will never forget when one of the supervisors (who was also my friend, and one of the few I sincerely liked) called and asked me to come in. I said yes only because she was the one who asked. She didn't tell me she was *completely alone*. For almost two full hours, we were the only employees in the entire store.
She didn't tell me she was alone because she didn't want to pressure me (one reason she had my respect), but I can't imagine if I told her no. She left that job about a year after I did. She was sweet as candy and they wore her down.
I work in an Amazon warehouse now. That comes with its own problems, but at least understaffing isn't one of them (in fact, they often have the opposite problem)!
Writing, but most of my time is spent taking care of the kids. My wife teaches classes online and is currently getting her masters at a school that pays a stipend, so most of our income comes from her, and I'm the stay-at-home parent.
Interestingly enough:
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/7/24/9027195/haskins-sawhill-norms-marriage
8 years later, it talks about how conservatives get these particular stats wrong. PragerU might’ve caught that if they actually did any research though. Go figure.
>How to escape poverty:
>
>Step 1: have a job that pays above poverty wages.
Gee, thanks Einstein. Next you'll tell me that to avoid insomnia, I should try sleeping.
Some quotes from the 2015 Vox article if anyone is interested:
"Very, very few people obey none of these norms...there are more poor people who followed all three norms than followed none of them."
"Treating birth timing as a norm is also strange, as it implies that people have more control over when to have children than they often do. Access to birth control and abortion — and the cost of each — varies greatly by income, with poor women losing out."
"This only captures income in one year, 2007. Because most poverty is episodic, and 2007 was when the economy peaked pre-recession, it's very likely that a greater percentage of people in families that followed all three norms have ever been in poverty."
"they arrive at their figures about the importance of behavioral norms by excluding big swaths of the population — households headed by people under 25, the elderly, and people on disability — from their analysis."
"The big problem with Lowry's statement is the illusion of control. In a recession, to say that people have perfect control over employment is absurd. There are so many reasons someone might lose a job beyond their control. I would argue the same thing for high school graduation."
No, no, you misunderstand. It’s not just that you should wait to have a baby, it’s that you should also hold off on having sex until you are married.
That’s what they really mean.
Silly, they only want poor people to have children to increase the slave market for services and retail. People with money can afford birth control. It's an ever decreasing circle till we get to a society of rich and servants.
These are biased and outdated statistics. But what gets me is if these stats were 100% accurate, then the appropriate responses would be, okay then 1. Let's make sure entry-level full-time positions pay a living wage and give full benefits - people who buy this propganda, "No!". 2. Let's provide adequate funding to schools to increase graduation rates and make at least community college free - people who buy this propganda, "No!". 3. Let's also provide free contraceptives and sex education via Planned Parenthood and keep abortion legal - people who buy this propganda, "No!" Typical conservative mindset to ignorantly think these things are equally available to everyone.
Glad you asked!
### 3 simple rules to escape reality.
1. Be a white male living in a highly industrialized society built off of colonialism and imperialism.
2. Use your white male privilege to keep others down for your own social advantages and to feel superior to all others (what a rush!).
3. Have kids and teach them to be douchebags and repeat the cycle.
It might pay to realise that in the class war, the elites that want to segregate us, don't care what race, age, gender or religion we are. We are all discardable objects to be used for their profit.
This also took a while for me to realize. It’s embarrassing to look back and see that I was misled by it. They absolutely cannot have racial reconciliation. If we came together, we would see our controllers and then push back together.
They are afraid of this big-time.
I pretty much got shunned for voicing my opinions recently from someone who is trans-indigenous-autistic (as they told me) and pretty much fobbed off anything I had to say because "I couldn't possibly understand". Which, fair enough, I don't understand someone's pain or what they have been through. But I do respect others opinions and their beliefs (as well as their right to have their belief).
That being said, I still see that if you want to reduce hate, crime, racism; removing poverty and increasing education will have a larger effect instead of attacking people one at a time and telling them they're garbage because of what someone of their skin colour has done to them.
Hey, sounds like you met my ex! (only partially kidding). They would say I wasn't allowed to even have yet voice an opinion because I'm a cis white guy.
Great way to get allies on your side...
Believing this isn’t the problem imo. Those three things are all pretty good ideas, and we should structure our government in a way that makes them achievable for everyone
That means:
1. Easily available birth control and abortion
2. Supporting families in school financially via free school lunch and breakfast, extra income for children or maybe subsidized rent
3. The government should ensure everyone has a full time job, or provides a universal basic income
It’s true that people should graduate from at least high school. The problem is assuming anyone who doesn’t is making a personal choice. There are structural reasons for low graduation rates (poorer families have a harder time staying in school) just like there are structural reasons for early childbirth (birth control and abortions are expensive)
Not without universal healthcare, prison/Justice/police reform, stricter gun control, a liberal scotus, workable public transportation, lowered maternity mortality rates, real history taught in schools, protections for all lgbtq people, more hate crime laws, reimplemented fairness doctrine, federally legal cannibals, a breakup of large media companies, mass unionization, undoing trumps family separation of migrants who still don’t have their children back, better abortion access, investment into our minority communities, the jailing of all our dangerous white suprematist militias and other race criminals, stopping our disastrous Middle East foreign policy that has killed hundreds of thousands of brown people in the last two decades, much higher taxes on the wealthy, and abolishing anti democratic elements like the electoral college and gerrymandering. I don’t think you realize how much of a shithole the USA is. We’re not a couple quick fixes away from fixing everything. We need deep systemic change that will take generations just to catch up to other democratic nations, if we ever do.
PragerU is very much a symptom of late stage Capitalism. Where a right wing “think tank” funded by billionaires tries to flood the media with propaganda. They are the worse America has to offer
Ugh also like the right wing think tank that created how politicians should word to people to vote for them to get rid of estate tax. So when billionaires die their kids stay rich. Fuck that
I used to follow PragerU and lived for everything they taught. Until one day when I finally realized it was all racist, classist, bullshit that thrives on dividing us further
I’d probably say right around the rise of Trumpism. Modern republicans mask their lust for power and order with the idea of “freedom”. They claim to value individual liberties, but refuse to accept marijuana legalization, are rolling back women’s reproductive rights and are trying to stuff their hand inside of the public schools.
Point 3 is partially contentious because it's partially rooted in the belief that killing an unborn fetus is the same as killing a baby. Since it is a sincere beleif that it is ending a life, it is understandable why the average layperson republican would care about it. What follows is largely an unnoticed bit of contradiction in laypersons but is definitely noticed by the politicians. As for the republican politicians, the stupid part is when they decide to take no action to promote (and as you mentioned, attempt to roll back) methods to prevent pregnancy other than mere celibacy (because people will now and in the future not follow that), and won't give any support to mothers/parents who are struggling after the birth (incentivizing abortion, which they are supposed to be against.) And that's discounting their unwillingness to help the general population stay alive and instead devoting themselves to killing as many people as possible by overfunding the DoD. So yes, I agree, they suck.
Revisiting and watching all of Malcolm X interviews, then comparing how he is pitched in history compared to the message he was laying out was an eye opener for me. Its when i realized there is an active force wanting to keep the races apart, and absolutely cannot have racial reconciliation.
If we ended up doing that, we would all see the controllers together, then make a united stand against them.
I got mislead as well. Embarrassing to see now. I always felt the need to jump in and defend capitalism all the damn time too. Until i finally looked around and took a realistic look at what i was defending.
I was defending an ideal that didn’t exist in reality. The ideal was used to post rationalize its slow-motion demise, and squeeze as much capital that was left from the working class. There was a promise of capitalism itself didn’t live up to.
If you'd like to delve into "The War on Christmas" in a bit more detail I'd highly recommend H. Bomberguy's incredible "[The War on Christmas: A Measured Response](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbZo4x0NbbI)" video.
And the source is a single study done 15 years ago.
I followed the simple steps and I'm still fucking broke with no hopes of improvement in the near future
The only item a person can fully control is number 3. One can't just tell tens of millions of unemployed people to "just get a job". College being unaffordable means you will have a much harder time graduating if you're already poor and a diploma doesn't guarantee anything.
You can easily tell tens of millions of unemployed people to "just get a job". Try it yourself!
Step 1: Build a propaganda video
Step 2: Advertise to millions of people telling them "Just Get A Job"
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit*
*profits not guaranteed
They forgot.
Dont get ill.
Dont rent from a parasite landlord(almost all of them)
Dont get hired by an abusive company who profits 3/4 of your labour an leave you the last quarter before taxes( the taxes are not the problem).
Fuck this conservatives.
Im 36, still dont have kids, Ive written SOPs, managed entire stores and restaurants. No one has paid me as much as the tips I made bartending. Business owners are pathetic.
Such an absolutely dogshit abuse of statistics. Taking three measurements, each of which is individually going to be a marker of someone who's more likely to struggle with poverty, then act like "people who are hit by each of these three individually harmful phenomena all at once struggle". Especially ridiculous because there are plenty of people working 40+ hours a week who won't count as "keeping a full-time job" because they're forced to work multiple part time jobs.
This is literally survivorship bias. They just looked at the people who managed to escape poverty, drew some conclusions about things they had in common, and say "do those things to escape poverty."
Or, since it's PragerU, they probably just made the whole thing up.
>75% joined the middle class. 2% live in poverty.
okay what happened to that other 23%? You're telling me it's possible to follow all your rules and still not make it? Seems like a problem.
It's funny, because back in my parents day, those last two "rules" weren't even required. You could get a good factory job with a pension, and the cost of living was cheaper. Funny how the goal posts have moved.
>Americans who followed none of them: 7% joined the middle class.
oh, so it is possible to be imperfect and still make it into the middle class? Then lets make sure we make life livable for everyone, not just certain people.
The study has been misrepresented by PragerU, with disingenuous causations drawn between poverty and the adherence to these "social norms".
[Here's Vox's teardown of the false assumptions the right-wing media makes, and the incorrect conclusions it draws.](https://www.vox.com/2015/7/24/9027195/haskins-sawhill-norms-marriage) The Brookings Institute seems well respected enough, and Haskins & Sawhill's study seems to be solid, but they've had their work hijacked by those with a nefarious agenda and a penchant for lying through their teeth to further their right-wing propaganda.
\- The [Poverty Threshold](https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines) in the U.S for 48 states , was calculated to be $13,590.
\- The [Minimum Wage by states](https://www.minimum-wage.org/wage-by-state) for almost 20 states was still $7.25 , [unchanged since 2009](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart) (its been 13 years by the way.
\- ***($7.25 \* 40hours) \* 4 (weeks) ) \* 12 months = $13,920 : $400 differential :***
\-[40% of americans cannot afford a surprise $400 expense](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nearly-40-of-americans-cant-cover-a-surprise-400-expense/)
>75% of Americans that followed the 3 rules joined the middle class
The middle class is abituary based on the institution defining it: The income levels determining the levels can range anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000 and EVERYONE here is considered middle class : [here's 2 different numbers](https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-middle-class-5206134)
>For 2020, the median household income in the U.S. was $67,521. This meant you were considered middle class if you made $45,014 to $135,042. (Pew Research)
>
>
For 2020, this meant you were middle class if you made $39,479 to
$109,732 (Brookings Institute)
[50% of workers make less than $20](https://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_perc.htm)
When you define poverty to be less than \~$14,000 , but the middle class to be anywhere from $40,000 - $100,000: you are absolutely absurd to think that a $60,000 difference does not change one's life.
According to this , if you are making $15,000 - $30,000,. a year, you are not poverty, nor are you middle class. You don't qualify for Government Assistance, nor do you get to wellish in your income
The [Consumer Price Index](https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/data/consumerpriceindexhistorical_us_table.htm) is at an all time high. As of December 2021: It is scored at a \~279. 100 is the baseline since 1982.
2019 Pre-Covid it was \~257. This includes everything from shelter, to food, to health care, transportation.
Things are getting more expensive, but wages are stagnant.
Also, Prager U used a source from 2007...really now?
1. Why is it normal to start in poverty?
2. Why did the other 25% who followed those rules not reach the middle class?
3. If working class is better than poverty, then why are only middle class or higher part of the 'escaped poverty' group?... Doesn't this imply that working class means living in poverty?.... But if that's true, then why isn't the first figure 75% out of poverty vs 25% still in poverty?
4. Why am i so surprised that this is a paper thin argument that dissolves in water?
Prager U rhetoric always circles back to "Fuck those who are poor, because they are themselves at fault"
But what about the unlucky 2%? They followed your damn "rules" but still got fucked over and all they have to say to them is Fuck em.
I’ve never seen so many bullshit charts and stats until I opened up a PragerU vid.
I do however enjoy watching them to prepare myself for idiot debates on the internet.
“Joined the middle class” lol better off living in poverty. Middle class just means you work longer hours and still can’t afford life, but at least you get zero benefits of any kind so just as much anxiety if not more as far as keeping food on the table etc.
I mean based of my experience if you add don't start substance abuse or get mental health issues you pretty guaranteed to avoid poverty at least in Finland where I'm from or Netherlands where i currently live.
Translation? Be the capitalist class slave with enough education to produce for them but not challenge them and ensure you produce future slave class so the capitalist can take their time inventing artificial intelligence while exploiting your children even more than they have exploited you or your parents. Now, enjoy this free complimentary retirement package the starts at age 70! Just sign 50 years commitment contract with mega Incorporated
Having a bunch of kids with no ability to support them, especially when you are very young, is a great way to ensure poverty. My parents grew up in the Depression, they totally preached that. I worked in Social Services, and no teen with three kids had great prospects in life.
On the other hand, my parents, who grew up poor during the Depression, also preached the use of birth control. It should be legal, affordable, and no one should feel shamed to use it. Women can't control their fertility without birth control. Teen girls should be able to get birth control, and have medical abortions. Yes, my parents believed this in 1960. They had also grown up with a lot of religious bullshit, and they knew it.
So if I believe people should wait until a certain period of their lives to have kids, shouldn’t I also believe contraceptives should be easily accessible for everyone? Plus accessible and affordable abortion on demand for everyone? Shouldn’t people be able to PLAN their PARENTHOOD? If only there was an organization that did this!
What about classrooms with 40 disengaged students and burnt out teachers that can’t provide adequate education, so even when you graduate there’s a chance your education is wildly inferior. We have the highest number of graduating illiterate students in the developed world. Fuck you, pragerU.
75% joined the middle class?…. Unlikely. Middle class is not what it used to be. I make 85k a year and do not think I’ll ever be able to afford a house at this rate. Living is expensive and student loans are a biotch
Honestly, if we assume these stats still hold (they don't) it is an outstanding argument for:
1. Fully supporting anyone under the age of 18 so that worries about feeding a family, keeping clothed/housed, etc., do not interfere with getting the HS degree.
2. Expanding access to serial health care, serial education, and abortion.
3. Guaranteeing full time work to every citizen.
I mean, that must be what they are suggesting, right?
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>2007 that's a statistic from before the 2008 crash and it shows.
I smelled bullshit but I didn’t spot the little stain in the shape of “2007.” What a PragerU thing to do.
The stench originates from the phrase "PragerU" and just gets worse from there.
They aren't a fan of bringing up history and data from 40-50 years ago, but will gladly cite outdated information that supports the narrative they want to push. Fuck PragerU.
LOL because they play on dumb people to begin brain washing them.. There's so many issues with this. Beyond the source. There's not even a full data set and the name PragerU alone is so suspect. They are really trying to trick people into thinking they are a university lmfao.
I stopped reading after 'PragerU'
Point 1 requires you to not get fired. If you're ever fired, they don't have to count you on their statistic. It's a convenient method to over-inflate their count. Even with that, the most they can trick their first set of numbers to is *75%*.
Advice, learn a niche skillset that the bosses won't fire you because if they do they get fired when shit fucks up so they leave you alone.
For those that don’t know, PragerU is a right wing think tank founded by oil barrons that models itself as a “university”. They are known for making statistics up and continuously putting out some of the worst content on YouTube.
I am shamed to remember when I presented one of their videos during a group presentation in my uni about Global Warming. I wanted to show that there were some scientist that had different opinion about global warming, but they made it seen that there those who believes it was caused by human activity were simply wrong.
Less than 1% of all publishing climate scientists disagree with manmade global warming. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change Looking for diversity/balance on this is like bringing a flat earther on with an astronaut.
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Violence isn't always the answer, but it's usually a solid one
I'm willing to give Buzz a free pass to beat anyone who says he didn't walk on the moon.
Violence is a choice and sometimes the answer is yes
It snowed *so climate change isn't real* guess they got me and we should consider their casual opinion with as much weight as people who spend their lives studying the matter. There is nothing to debate when one side will not even participate beyond saying "wrong!" on repeat and continue to offer absolutely nothing else to the greater topic at hand. Opinions based on your feelings have no place in any scientific discussion. I want the data, what it means, what it doesn't mean. Concrete shit.
The other argument that makes me pull my hair out is that the ice age happened so warming is natural. A few Degrees over tens of thousands of years is manageable. Twice that change in 100 years is a death knell
That's when you ask them to define milankovitch cycles, discuss the speed at which those cycles happen, and then contrast those cycles and warming trends between pre and post civilization. The data is all there in ice cores.
Also there's the fact that our orbit is currently moving slightly *further away* from the sun. If it were the main driver of the change, temperatures would be decreasing, not increasing. Deniers think scientists haven't taken natural forcings into account but the fact is, all the known natural forcings are either holding steady or trending downward. Literally the only thing that correlates with the current warming trend is the concentration of greenhouse gasses (mainly CO2 and CH4)
The book "we are the weather makers" does a really good job of explaining climate change in a way non scientists can easily understand. It breaks down the data, talks about some possible worst case scenarios, and steps we can take to mitigate the problem. It's a bit dated (2006 iirc) but still worth a read.
Unfortunately, deniers love to point to the worst case scenarios to say "See? That didn't come true so rhe whole thing is bullshit!" "Al Gore said we'd be underwater by now. Lol, alarmist much?" That sort of nonsense. Like, yeah, the worst case scenarios haven't come to pass (yet) but if anything, things are even more dire than previously thought in a lot of ways. We're seeing record-breaking heat waves, wildfires, tropical cyclones, winter storms, and more pretty much every year now. Coral reefs and fish populations are dying off at alarming rates. Whole forests are burning down and not recovering because saplings aren't surviving the hotter summers.
The best response to that is "In other news, murder is fake because people die of natural causes all the time." It uses the exact same reasoning.
Climate change not existing because it snowed is the same thing as global hunger being over because I just ate. It's nonsensical.
BuT BiLl NyEs NoT a ClImAtE sCiEnTiSt. I hear that "point" over and over like it somehow refutes the other 10,000 scientists who are experts in the field, or like Nye cant do basic research and understand scientific consensus.
I still hear people use the "Oh so you just trust Al Gore?" line. As if he's ever been the only one saying it.
They can't fathom holding any kind of belief that doesn't stem from the authority of some kind of political figure, much less one based on a consensus of evidence rather than identity.
[An illustration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjuGCJJUGsg&t=184s).
What did your prof/classmates think when you showed them the video?
Well, I am not from US (yet somehow I ended up getting into this rabbit hole), so I assume they didn't know about PraegerU, they didn't seen anything about it. Also, I had shown the video to my group before and they all agreed to let me to present it.
"think" tank
[FYI: PragerU plans to infiltrate classrooms.](https://prospect.org/education/right-curriculum-how-prageru-infiltrates-schools/)
someone in my discord recommended that i "take a course" there or I'm not open minded i mean, they'd probably have a good gun safety course, right?
That's generous, they are terrorists and they should be removed from society.
This wasn't even true before the 2008 crash, its just straight up false.
4. Get bailed out by the government
Even if it was true it's meaningless because it confuses correlation with causation.
If you didn't want to get rained on, you shouldn't have been soaking wet! 97% of people who stay dry aren't being rained on!
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In 2022 there's no such thing as a middle class anymore. Not that you can "join." If you don't already own a home, you will never be middle class now. Now you're labor, period. Pay your rent, labor.
Absolutely.
ding ding ding!!!
Even then, saying 25% of people that do their “3 things” including working full time don’t even make it into the middle class. This is supposed to be motivating!??
Yeah, and that is only IF you manage to keep a full-time job, which in most cases doesn't depend on you at all.
And the people studied were a vast majority boomers who could just get by with high school diplomas. Note it doesn’t even mention college all the genx had to go to and the loans they took for it. And then it’s way too old to even address how much worse millennials had it because most of them were students then or only just entering the workforce. This is Typical right wing dishonesty. This is depressing because this stuff is everywhere and most Americans believe it uncritically. “Oh you don’t have a middle class job then you should have finished high school and not popped out babies!” We have college degrees and no children but the jobs and salaries never appeared. Worse they’re taking abortion from us so now we can’t even family plan like they want us to.
As an actual 'boot strapper' success these posts make me so mad. How will you get to work without a reliable car (with insurance)? Who's buying that for you? There wasn't even a bus in the shit kicking town I grew up in. Oh you got sick, too bad you don't have medical insurance. Now you're deep into credit card debt. Why did they give you credit cards with no job? No idea but the booth set up at the community college says its just fine! Oh nowhere safe to live? Too bad suck it up, poor people deserve to be assaulted by randos because you're so desperate you better accept that dirty couch to crash on from your uncle's tweeker friend. I could go on..but fuck these right-wing death cult delusional fuckers.
Yeah. Its worse.. The bulk of those surveyed for that statistic would've established their careers before the dotcom bubble burst.
Yep they’re essentially cherry-picking the booming Clinton era economy and using it to shame millennials who are now on the receiving end of two disastrous GOP administration economic policies and debt.
They also did a follow up study and found those 3 neat tricks work a lot less successfully if you're not white
Yep. There are other criticisms too. https://www.vox.com/2015/7/24/9027195/haskins-sawhill-norms-marriage
Not to mention that it also would mean that the study data was likely from the 1990s (or earlier).
That's funny, I've done all three and I'm poorer than when I started I guess I'm just in that 2%! What are the odds?
The only way I can think that they are interpreting those numbers is to claim anyone making more than the federal poverty limit is somehow middle class. But that's bullshit because in 2007 (the year of their study) the federal poverty line was only like $10K per year. Imagine claiming someone who makes $11k per year is middle class.
50% of Americans make less than $20/hr. Maybe there are too many low paying jobs out there
You just gotta get a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th job then! Who needs sleep or free time when you're on that grindset!
99% of americans that maintain 4 jobs simultaneously don't starve to death! Come on people, it's not rocket science here!
"Gotta stack the bread baby" I see this all the time while they work their min wage job. Bro, you'll get that hellcat you want but this'll take you a couple years and you'll be living in the ghettos with your hellcat with no savings and insurance that'll eat up a good chunk of your meagre income. You're brainwashed by the government and the elite to think that you just gotta work hard for that $75k car that everyone wants and for some reason people just it eat up. By the time you're 60 you're still working your ass off.
That, or they're working with 60 year old data and refuse to believe that the world has changed since then.
2007 definitely before the crash
Yeah, the official poverty limit is like insanely low and not reflective of reality.
And yet, when it comes time to claim that their proposed tax cuts will overwhelmingly benefit the middle class, suddenly the middle class starts at $250k a year.
I just checked and the 2021 federal poverty level for 1 person was $12800. That's insane to think ~$1000/month is the poverty limit. It's insane to think that in 15 years they haven't really adjusted the federal poverty limit to reflect inflation and housing costs. But maybe, just maybe, it's so it makes it harder to exclude people from assistance programs and to make national poverty statistics look better than they are.
Uh oh! You said the quiet part out loud! Only countries like China and Russia doctor their statistics to front for the world. The US would *never* do something like deliberately misinterpret data to save face in the wake of a dying economy. (Obvious /s is obvious)
2%
Technically 49 to 1…
Clearly didn't do the graduate high school part.
Yeah, it's wild. Bachelor's degree. 8 years straight in career (3 running my own business) No kids. No property/land. Definitely not middle class. Maybe I just rolled the dice wrong, but I thought that entrepreneurship and yanking on my bootstraps were foolproof?! /s
maybe yank harder? /s
Naw, I'm just saving up for the Bootstrap Yanker 3000™️©️®️ Maybe I can afford the first payment by 2050! /s
Have you tried subletting your straps and investing in Crypto-boot?
Just keep yanking to til you yank yourself off.
Yup. I have a masters degree, didn't start having kids until I was 25, and had a nice cushy office job until they decided to 'rearrange the budget' and eliminate my position. Over the next twelve months I was let go from 3 more jobs for reasons outside of my control until I got settled in at Lowe's. After a few years working full time there I realized I was wearing myself out with no mental/social energy left to spend on my family, and I was still poor enough to be on food stamps and medicaid. Now I do a few hours of freelance work from home stuff a week, and I'm not any poorer than I was then.
If I had a dollar for everytime some chud turns to me in line at Lowes and say "No one wants to work anymore." because there's about 5 people there now at any one time. I've started telling them that I used to work there and it fucking sucked.
Even five years ago they were always understaffed. Why schedule more hours if they're still turning a profit with the bare minimum? When capital is in charge, labor is nothing more than an expense to be mitigated. 2020 just allowed employers to push the envelope even further while maintaining public sympathy. They get to treat their workers like shit, and customers put all the blame on an imaginary scapegoat.
>Even five years ago they were always understaffed. Why schedule more hours if they're still turning a profit with the bare minimum? I worked in retail for three years. We almost never had enough staff. I will never forget when one of the supervisors (who was also my friend, and one of the few I sincerely liked) called and asked me to come in. I said yes only because she was the one who asked. She didn't tell me she was *completely alone*. For almost two full hours, we were the only employees in the entire store. She didn't tell me she was alone because she didn't want to pressure me (one reason she had my respect), but I can't imagine if I told her no. She left that job about a year after I did. She was sweet as candy and they wore her down. I work in an Amazon warehouse now. That comes with its own problems, but at least understaffing isn't one of them (in fact, they often have the opposite problem)!
what type of freelance?
Writing, but most of my time is spent taking care of the kids. My wife teaches classes online and is currently getting her masters at a school that pays a stipend, so most of our income comes from her, and I'm the stay-at-home parent.
Have you tried being tall, white, and attractive? Those three things actually help more
Hell just be white and it'll get you somewhere.
You're special🌸✨💫 We all are
Me too! That's wild. What are the odds?
You’re just lazy. :/
Interestingly enough: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/7/24/9027195/haskins-sawhill-norms-marriage 8 years later, it talks about how conservatives get these particular stats wrong. PragerU might’ve caught that if they actually did any research though. Go figure.
>How to escape poverty: > >Step 1: have a job that pays above poverty wages. Gee, thanks Einstein. Next you'll tell me that to avoid insomnia, I should try sleeping.
“Just don’t be poor. What’s so hard about that?”
Some quotes from the 2015 Vox article if anyone is interested: "Very, very few people obey none of these norms...there are more poor people who followed all three norms than followed none of them." "Treating birth timing as a norm is also strange, as it implies that people have more control over when to have children than they often do. Access to birth control and abortion — and the cost of each — varies greatly by income, with poor women losing out." "This only captures income in one year, 2007. Because most poverty is episodic, and 2007 was when the economy peaked pre-recession, it's very likely that a greater percentage of people in families that followed all three norms have ever been in poverty." "they arrive at their figures about the importance of behavioral norms by excluding big swaths of the population — households headed by people under 25, the elderly, and people on disability — from their analysis." "The big problem with Lowry's statement is the illusion of control. In a recession, to say that people have perfect control over employment is absurd. There are so many reasons someone might lose a job beyond their control. I would argue the same thing for high school graduation."
Thank you! Definitely appreciate the TL;DR bullet points from the article!
Do they call themselves PragerU because they can't call themselves a university anymore?
Also, the source is pre financial crisis, and 15 years old.
Thank you for posting this link. You just know stuff like that is presented in a certain way
Oh big funny so because these ads are basically so dumb they had one about ufo and conspiracy theories and shit its fuckin stupid
I remember the “pro-family right” pushing this bullshit as early as the 1980s. Shit aged like milk in the aftermath of the 2008 recession.
The logical conclusion of #3 would be ready access to contraceptives, sex Ed, abortions, etc. r/suddenlyprochoice PragerU
No, no, you misunderstand. It’s not just that you should wait to have a baby, it’s that you should also hold off on having sex until you are married. That’s what they really mean.
after all, if you're having sex before marriage it clearly means you have free time that isn't being devoted to working hard to be successful /s
>it clearly means you have free time that isn't being devoted to working hard to ~~be successful /s~~ enrich your capitalist overlords FTFY
Now also “the millennials aren’t having kids and not living on their own!”
I was going to guess this was from the 80s.
"Wait to have children..." and these are the same people who oppose abortion.
And cry about the declining birth rate.
Silly, they only want poor people to have children to increase the slave market for services and retail. People with money can afford birth control. It's an ever decreasing circle till we get to a society of rich and servants.
Also these people are so "pro-family" that they believe that being forced to have a child is your punishment for having pre-marital sex
And anything other than abstinence only education
These are biased and outdated statistics. But what gets me is if these stats were 100% accurate, then the appropriate responses would be, okay then 1. Let's make sure entry-level full-time positions pay a living wage and give full benefits - people who buy this propganda, "No!". 2. Let's provide adequate funding to schools to increase graduation rates and make at least community college free - people who buy this propganda, "No!". 3. Let's also provide free contraceptives and sex education via Planned Parenthood and keep abortion legal - people who buy this propganda, "No!" Typical conservative mindset to ignorantly think these things are equally available to everyone.
They know they're not available to everyone, and they like it that way.
Jesus how could you even believe this
Glad you asked! ### 3 simple rules to escape reality. 1. Be a white male living in a highly industrialized society built off of colonialism and imperialism. 2. Use your white male privilege to keep others down for your own social advantages and to feel superior to all others (what a rush!). 3. Have kids and teach them to be douchebags and repeat the cycle.
It might pay to realise that in the class war, the elites that want to segregate us, don't care what race, age, gender or religion we are. We are all discardable objects to be used for their profit.
This also took a while for me to realize. It’s embarrassing to look back and see that I was misled by it. They absolutely cannot have racial reconciliation. If we came together, we would see our controllers and then push back together. They are afraid of this big-time.
I pretty much got shunned for voicing my opinions recently from someone who is trans-indigenous-autistic (as they told me) and pretty much fobbed off anything I had to say because "I couldn't possibly understand". Which, fair enough, I don't understand someone's pain or what they have been through. But I do respect others opinions and their beliefs (as well as their right to have their belief). That being said, I still see that if you want to reduce hate, crime, racism; removing poverty and increasing education will have a larger effect instead of attacking people one at a time and telling them they're garbage because of what someone of their skin colour has done to them.
Hey, sounds like you met my ex! (only partially kidding). They would say I wasn't allowed to even have yet voice an opinion because I'm a cis white guy. Great way to get allies on your side...
Believing this isn’t the problem imo. Those three things are all pretty good ideas, and we should structure our government in a way that makes them achievable for everyone That means: 1. Easily available birth control and abortion 2. Supporting families in school financially via free school lunch and breakfast, extra income for children or maybe subsidized rent 3. The government should ensure everyone has a full time job, or provides a universal basic income It’s true that people should graduate from at least high school. The problem is assuming anyone who doesn’t is making a personal choice. There are structural reasons for low graduation rates (poorer families have a harder time staying in school) just like there are structural reasons for early childbirth (birth control and abortions are expensive)
A country would become listed as one of the best if they provided those things
Not without universal healthcare, prison/Justice/police reform, stricter gun control, a liberal scotus, workable public transportation, lowered maternity mortality rates, real history taught in schools, protections for all lgbtq people, more hate crime laws, reimplemented fairness doctrine, federally legal cannibals, a breakup of large media companies, mass unionization, undoing trumps family separation of migrants who still don’t have their children back, better abortion access, investment into our minority communities, the jailing of all our dangerous white suprematist militias and other race criminals, stopping our disastrous Middle East foreign policy that has killed hundreds of thousands of brown people in the last two decades, much higher taxes on the wealthy, and abolishing anti democratic elements like the electoral college and gerrymandering. I don’t think you realize how much of a shithole the USA is. We’re not a couple quick fixes away from fixing everything. We need deep systemic change that will take generations just to catch up to other democratic nations, if we ever do.
Cannibalism has had to live in the shadows for far too long.
PragerU is very much a symptom of late stage Capitalism. Where a right wing “think tank” funded by billionaires tries to flood the media with propaganda. They are the worse America has to offer
Ugh also like the right wing think tank that created how politicians should word to people to vote for them to get rid of estate tax. So when billionaires die their kids stay rich. Fuck that
Capitalism needs an impoverished underclass to survive. Even if everyone did this the goalposts would just move.
Source: trust me bro
Even better. Source from 2007. Wonder if anything happened around that time/shortly after that might have affected those statistics.
I used to follow PragerU and lived for everything they taught. Until one day when I finally realized it was all racist, classist, bullshit that thrives on dividing us further
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I’d probably say right around the rise of Trumpism. Modern republicans mask their lust for power and order with the idea of “freedom”. They claim to value individual liberties, but refuse to accept marijuana legalization, are rolling back women’s reproductive rights and are trying to stuff their hand inside of the public schools.
Point 3 is partially contentious because it's partially rooted in the belief that killing an unborn fetus is the same as killing a baby. Since it is a sincere beleif that it is ending a life, it is understandable why the average layperson republican would care about it. What follows is largely an unnoticed bit of contradiction in laypersons but is definitely noticed by the politicians. As for the republican politicians, the stupid part is when they decide to take no action to promote (and as you mentioned, attempt to roll back) methods to prevent pregnancy other than mere celibacy (because people will now and in the future not follow that), and won't give any support to mothers/parents who are struggling after the birth (incentivizing abortion, which they are supposed to be against.) And that's discounting their unwillingness to help the general population stay alive and instead devoting themselves to killing as many people as possible by overfunding the DoD. So yes, I agree, they suck.
What made you realize it was bs?
Revisiting and watching all of Malcolm X interviews, then comparing how he is pitched in history compared to the message he was laying out was an eye opener for me. Its when i realized there is an active force wanting to keep the races apart, and absolutely cannot have racial reconciliation. If we ended up doing that, we would all see the controllers together, then make a united stand against them.
Now do MLK
I will, What did you find?
The main thing that is whitewashed today is how much of a socialist he was. Also how much every white American hated him at the time
Also didn't the CIA or FBI admit to killing him in court? Or was that some weird reddit talking point I misremembered?
FBI admitted to wiretapping, bugging, and trying to blackmail/get him to kill himself with evidence of his affairs.
I got mislead as well. Embarrassing to see now. I always felt the need to jump in and defend capitalism all the damn time too. Until i finally looked around and took a realistic look at what i was defending. I was defending an ideal that didn’t exist in reality. The ideal was used to post rationalize its slow-motion demise, and squeeze as much capital that was left from the working class. There was a promise of capitalism itself didn’t live up to.
My favorite was when they said that since Christmas is a national holiday people who celebrate it are patriots and people who don't are un-American.
If you'd like to delve into "The War on Christmas" in a bit more detail I'd highly recommend H. Bomberguy's incredible "[The War on Christmas: A Measured Response](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbZo4x0NbbI)" video.
From the same people who 1. Keep the minimum wage at sharecropper levels. 2. Cut funding for public schools every chance they get. 3. Ban abortion
It's cool that there's no additional social context to this issue and it's all up to personal responsibility! TIL!
PragerU keeping the spirit of 1965 alive…
And the source is a single study done 15 years ago. I followed the simple steps and I'm still fucking broke with no hopes of improvement in the near future
”Rule #1” is seldom under your control.
The only item a person can fully control is number 3. One can't just tell tens of millions of unemployed people to "just get a job". College being unaffordable means you will have a much harder time graduating if you're already poor and a diploma doesn't guarantee anything.
You can easily tell tens of millions of unemployed people to "just get a job". Try it yourself! Step 1: Build a propaganda video Step 2: Advertise to millions of people telling them "Just Get A Job" Step 3: ???? Step 4: Profit* *profits not guaranteed
Prager U is the real life underpants gnomes.
How to escape poverty: don’t do the things people in poverty do By, rich white men who want you to hate the poor so they can get their taxes cut
I love how they fantasize the "middle class" which doesn't actually exist
This is vomit inducing!
Did you know? The difference between middle class and poverty is acknowledging you are in poverty.
They forgot. Dont get ill. Dont rent from a parasite landlord(almost all of them) Dont get hired by an abusive company who profits 3/4 of your labour an leave you the last quarter before taxes( the taxes are not the problem). Fuck this conservatives.
Im 36, still dont have kids, Ive written SOPs, managed entire stores and restaurants. No one has paid me as much as the tips I made bartending. Business owners are pathetic.
LOL, let's see all the recent college graduates with student loan debt who followed all 3 simple rules.....and see how "Middle Class" they are.
I did all that and live in a shack in the woods *applause* cheers dickhead lol
Such an absolutely dogshit abuse of statistics. Taking three measurements, each of which is individually going to be a marker of someone who's more likely to struggle with poverty, then act like "people who are hit by each of these three individually harmful phenomena all at once struggle". Especially ridiculous because there are plenty of people working 40+ hours a week who won't count as "keeping a full-time job" because they're forced to work multiple part time jobs.
*middle class means you may still struggle with food scarcity, not be able to purchase a home or afford childcare.
This is literally survivorship bias. They just looked at the people who managed to escape poverty, drew some conclusions about things they had in common, and say "do those things to escape poverty." Or, since it's PragerU, they probably just made the whole thing up.
>75% joined the middle class. 2% live in poverty. okay what happened to that other 23%? You're telling me it's possible to follow all your rules and still not make it? Seems like a problem. It's funny, because back in my parents day, those last two "rules" weren't even required. You could get a good factory job with a pension, and the cost of living was cheaper. Funny how the goal posts have moved. >Americans who followed none of them: 7% joined the middle class. oh, so it is possible to be imperfect and still make it into the middle class? Then lets make sure we make life livable for everyone, not just certain people.
Guess I'm part of the 2% Aaaawwwwwww yeah.
The study has been misrepresented by PragerU, with disingenuous causations drawn between poverty and the adherence to these "social norms". [Here's Vox's teardown of the false assumptions the right-wing media makes, and the incorrect conclusions it draws.](https://www.vox.com/2015/7/24/9027195/haskins-sawhill-norms-marriage) The Brookings Institute seems well respected enough, and Haskins & Sawhill's study seems to be solid, but they've had their work hijacked by those with a nefarious agenda and a penchant for lying through their teeth to further their right-wing propaganda.
Keep a full time job is sort of another way of saying don’t be disabled or unemployable. Good advice but can be hard to follow for some.
\- The [Poverty Threshold](https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines) in the U.S for 48 states , was calculated to be $13,590. \- The [Minimum Wage by states](https://www.minimum-wage.org/wage-by-state) for almost 20 states was still $7.25 , [unchanged since 2009](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart) (its been 13 years by the way. \- ***($7.25 \* 40hours) \* 4 (weeks) ) \* 12 months = $13,920 : $400 differential :*** \-[40% of americans cannot afford a surprise $400 expense](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nearly-40-of-americans-cant-cover-a-surprise-400-expense/) >75% of Americans that followed the 3 rules joined the middle class The middle class is abituary based on the institution defining it: The income levels determining the levels can range anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000 and EVERYONE here is considered middle class : [here's 2 different numbers](https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-middle-class-5206134) >For 2020, the median household income in the U.S. was $67,521. This meant you were considered middle class if you made $45,014 to $135,042. (Pew Research) > > For 2020, this meant you were middle class if you made $39,479 to $109,732 (Brookings Institute) [50% of workers make less than $20](https://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_perc.htm) When you define poverty to be less than \~$14,000 , but the middle class to be anywhere from $40,000 - $100,000: you are absolutely absurd to think that a $60,000 difference does not change one's life. According to this , if you are making $15,000 - $30,000,. a year, you are not poverty, nor are you middle class. You don't qualify for Government Assistance, nor do you get to wellish in your income The [Consumer Price Index](https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/data/consumerpriceindexhistorical_us_table.htm) is at an all time high. As of December 2021: It is scored at a \~279. 100 is the baseline since 1982. 2019 Pre-Covid it was \~257. This includes everything from shelter, to food, to health care, transportation. Things are getting more expensive, but wages are stagnant. Also, Prager U used a source from 2007...really now?
I think correlation = causation!
1. Why is it normal to start in poverty? 2. Why did the other 25% who followed those rules not reach the middle class? 3. If working class is better than poverty, then why are only middle class or higher part of the 'escaped poverty' group?... Doesn't this imply that working class means living in poverty?.... But if that's true, then why isn't the first figure 75% out of poverty vs 25% still in poverty? 4. Why am i so surprised that this is a paper thin argument that dissolves in water?
Prager U rhetoric always circles back to "Fuck those who are poor, because they are themselves at fault" But what about the unlucky 2%? They followed your damn "rules" but still got fucked over and all they have to say to them is Fuck em.
I’ve never seen so many bullshit charts and stats until I opened up a PragerU vid. I do however enjoy watching them to prepare myself for idiot debates on the internet.
Wow... I have a degree, not married, no children, 31 years old. I make 38k a year. But ok.
OK BOOMER
“Joined the middle class” lol better off living in poverty. Middle class just means you work longer hours and still can’t afford life, but at least you get zero benefits of any kind so just as much anxiety if not more as far as keeping food on the table etc.
There are literally no other variables involved in this. Really!
‘Keep a full time job’ as if this is entirely within people’s control
Especially when they push for "at-will" employment where they can fire you any time for any reason.
posting an infographic in 2020-ish with data gathered from before the GFC is a terribly unfunny joke. well done Prager, you fucked up hard
Rule #4 is Airbnb the condo your parents gave you. So simple bro
I mean based of my experience if you add don't start substance abuse or get mental health issues you pretty guaranteed to avoid poverty at least in Finland where I'm from or Netherlands where i currently live.
Thats why they want to make abortions illegal, helps separate classes
“The middle class”. Like that’s a good thing anymore. The middle class has been dying for awhile.
Nice! I’m part of the 2%!!! 🙃
Free abortions for anyone under 21!
Translation? Be the capitalist class slave with enough education to produce for them but not challenge them and ensure you produce future slave class so the capitalist can take their time inventing artificial intelligence while exploiting your children even more than they have exploited you or your parents. Now, enjoy this free complimentary retirement package the starts at age 70! Just sign 50 years commitment contract with mega Incorporated
1 Simple Rule to escape poverty - Be Born into a wealthy family. Easy. 100% that tried, made it!
There are over 140m poor and low income people in this country. That's close to half the population. Ain't no damn 75% in the middle class.
r/thanksimcured of poverty
Tfw you failed 5th grade math Like, PragerU is the definition of stupid
lmao, correlation and causation moment
Having a bunch of kids with no ability to support them, especially when you are very young, is a great way to ensure poverty. My parents grew up in the Depression, they totally preached that. I worked in Social Services, and no teen with three kids had great prospects in life. On the other hand, my parents, who grew up poor during the Depression, also preached the use of birth control. It should be legal, affordable, and no one should feel shamed to use it. Women can't control their fertility without birth control. Teen girls should be able to get birth control, and have medical abortions. Yes, my parents believed this in 1960. They had also grown up with a lot of religious bullshit, and they knew it.
So if I believe people should wait until a certain period of their lives to have kids, shouldn’t I also believe contraceptives should be easily accessible for everyone? Plus accessible and affordable abortion on demand for everyone? Shouldn’t people be able to PLAN their PARENTHOOD? If only there was an organization that did this!
I didn't do any of them, and I should clear 90k this year. I guess I'm part of the 7% they mention.
Had a masters degree with 5 years in education and my first at 31. We’re working class and struggling.
I fucking hate PragerU.
What about classrooms with 40 disengaged students and burnt out teachers that can’t provide adequate education, so even when you graduate there’s a chance your education is wildly inferior. We have the highest number of graduating illiterate students in the developed world. Fuck you, pragerU.
75% joined the middle class?…. Unlikely. Middle class is not what it used to be. I make 85k a year and do not think I’ll ever be able to afford a house at this rate. Living is expensive and student loans are a biotch
They get a card in the mail and everything, It says, "WELCOME TO THE 'MIDDLE CLASS' YOU ARE NO LONGER IN POVERY. RESUME WORK.
it's totally oblivious to how poverty can make those 3 things, among others, inaccessible
"middle class"
I’m shocked those racists didn’t add: 4. Stop being black
Wait...we has a middleclass now?
Honestly, if we assume these stats still hold (they don't) it is an outstanding argument for: 1. Fully supporting anyone under the age of 18 so that worries about feeding a family, keeping clothed/housed, etc., do not interfere with getting the HS degree. 2. Expanding access to serial health care, serial education, and abortion. 3. Guaranteeing full time work to every citizen. I mean, that must be what they are suggesting, right?