The American economy is built in a very specific way to make certain things cheap and certain things very expensive. The cheap things are gas, toys, commodities, clothes, unhealthy food. The expensive things are education, good food, healthcare, and, in certain areas, housing. That means there are a ton of Americans who live extremely precarious lives, where losing their job would be the end, but they still have a higher level of material comfort than many people would in other countries.

The other thing about the American economy is that wealth is extremely biased towards older people. For a long time, the system was built around normal working class people buying a house, and building wealth through that. As long as housing prices went up at a controlled rate, everybody slowly got richer. Now, older people own most of the houses. Like I grew up in a small town that was sort of the ideal American dream neighborhood. There were a bunch of other kids on my street, including some good friends. We rode the bus together and spent the weekends hanging out in my friend’s loft. Now, when I go back there, there’s like one family with kids on the street, and everyone else is a retired couple in a huge house that they don’t really need. They have no particular incentive to move out, because it would be expensive and they’re comfortable.

So if you’re a younger person without in-demand education you really are extremely poor. 5k could really improve your quality of life by letting you get some dental work or something. Although the unemployment rate is low right now, companies are able to collude to some degree to keep entry level jobs precarious.