It has been said the poor will always be with us and that may well be so, but in North America a new group is finding that while life for them may not be a daily struggle for survival it is a daily struggle to bridge the gap between pay cheques, put food on the table and keep the lights on. You can’t call these people in their thirties and forties the ‘working poor’ either. Most of the individuals in this situation have jobs; have homes, one or two cars and a couple of children. However with the rise in household debts and salaries not keeping pace with inflation, for more and more family’ life seems one endless knot in the stomach, fuelled by the anxiety over how they’re going to survive until payday comes around again.
Call them the ‘tightrope generation’, individual families that were it not for debt burdens and jobs that did not pay perhaps as much as their previous employment did would be doing just fine. These are not the people you see on the street, in front of shelters or in low rent (if there is such a thing anymore) apartment complexes. They live on crescent lots in the suburbs, in detached homes in new or established neighbourhoods, families who when their child comes home from school with a note asking for twenty dollars for a school trip worry if they won’t be needing that money for gas or groceries later in the week.
The middle class has been since the beginning of the post World War Two Era the bedrock of North American society. It was what people aspired to achieve in life at the very least, and was certainly within the grasp of most that were willing to put in a day’s work at a decent job. Even more so, it was a goal that once achieved was, again with steady work easy to maintain. Parents could say with confidence that their children would do even better than they did.
Today the dream of owning a home and at least a middle class lifestyle is still what many aspire to and is still attainable. The difference now is that the process of maintaining that goal is where you step on the tightrope and the balancing act, the struggle to stay moving forward begins. In many families today the financial and debt crisis’s affecting parts of Europe and the United States mirror their own personal financial situations.
There is a temptation to dismiss out of hand the ‘tightroper’s’, saying well they shouldn’t buy houses or cars they can’t afford or it`s their fault for maxing out their credit cards. Sound wisdom yes, however most of the people in these situations are responsible enough and could reasonably look ahead when they bought their homes to the expectation of some initial belt tightening and sacrifice, but confident they could manage and thrive over the years as they paid down their mortgages and moved up in their careers.
Things didn’t work out as expected. Jobs changed, companies moved, and wages/salaries didn’t keep pace with inflation or interest rates. Students graduated with loans that their parents never had to worry about themselves. Once married and settled down new debt was taken on in the form of a mortgage on a new home – once considered ‘good debt’ – because you were paying off something of value, something that had a worth beyond its monetary resale value. Then property taxes, lower earnings, higher prices, unexpected costs of all kinds from education to emergency car repairs and suddenly the family that could manage fine and even put away a bit for that rainy day found there simply wasn’t enough to go around.
Ideally the solution to debt is not more debt, but when families needed that extra cash there was always someone willing to offer a second mortgage or a line of credit. On paper you may have made enough to pay it back but then there`s less money for something else. Inevitably it comes again, a change in job situation or some other emergency, you turn to taking a loan against the car you`ve paid off, then sometimes to the parasitical pay day loan companies just to pay off a short term expense or bridge the gap until payday.
The wear and strain this causes on families is enormous. Holidays become not an anticipated time of joy and family togetherness, but a source of stress and anxiety for the extra spending they require. They can become a real source of conflict and embarrassment when you arrive at a party and are unable to bring something for the host, or you worry about using money budgeted for groceries that instead is going to the extra gas required to pay for the trip across town to see family.
Those caught in the tightrope generation are nothing if not resourceful. A commuter from the suburbs to downtown will take vacation and personal days once or twice a month just to save on the cost of commuting. Or monthly calls to utility companies to juggle payments or extend payment options for another two weeks.
Take a drive down many cities and towns in middle income neighbourhoods in North America and point at any random home. Behind closed doors theirs a family worried about their gas being cut. Unable to keep up on property taxes, can`t replace a broken washing machine or dishwasher. A family that needs the odd handout from relatives to get by until payday, a household that used to manage quite well enough but now the bread winner makes the occasional humiliating trip to the food bank. The scenarios are only limited by the imagination.
On top of all this, you worry about your children, not the worry of the poor and destitute, the refugee in a far off land, but of a failure to sustain the life that they have come to love and expect from you. A failure not of their own but one who`s consequences will be borne by them. A parent can at times feel like the father in the classic Italian film `Life is Beautiful`, trying to protect their children from the fear and daily struggle of living a life on the tightrope.
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