this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2024

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349

Americans can no longer afford a summer vacation (www.newsweek.com)

submitted 4 months ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 133 points 4 months ago (11 children)

Despite negative perceptions on the state of the economy, inflation is now much lower than its June 2022 peak of 9.1 percent.

I can never get past economic articles that miss the fundamental issue with "but inflation rates are lower!" card.

Like, the price never went down, it just started increasing faster for a while, and is now slowing down. But it's still increasing.

Like imagine if you went from 0-60 in 2 seconds in an Uber, so you say "slow down". So the driver takes 2 more seconds to go from 60-100.

The rate of acceleration slowed down, but the past acceleration doesn't just magically disappear.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 76 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And wages aren't keeping up, either. A friend just told me they got a 1% "raise" this year. After inflation, that's a pay cut.

[–] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah but did you hear fast food workers make $15 bucks an hour now in at least one state? Plus people surely haven't gone through all of their COVID stimulus savings yet.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago

My favorite excuse for not paying fast food workers more is, "that's not supposed to be someone's permanent job, that's supposed to be a teenager's job."

Great, but we don't live in your supposed to world and it is a permanent job for a lot of people now.

Also, the idea that you shouldn't pay a teenager a decent hourly wage either is pretty offensive, but that's a whole other issue.

[–] IHeartBadCode@kbin.run 46 points 4 months ago (1 children)

High inflation: I'm losing money faster.

Low inflation: I'm losing money slower.

That's how it should be read.

Despite negative perceptions on the state of the economy, people are losing money a lot slower than its June 2022 peak of losing a shit ton of money per quarter.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Rather than losing money, it's technically more correct to say that we're earning less.

The real trick is converting to purchasing power of individuals and showing the trend overtime.

Like the average/median purchasing power of an American year by year. Not just purchasing power of a dollar, but of the average salary.

Edit:

Are down votes because I didn't mention savings?

Like 50% have less than $500, over a third have less than $100

This functionally isn't a problem for most so I ignored it considering the focus is on poverty and not how I flation effects the wealthiest.

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[–] myrrh@ttrpg.network 74 points 4 months ago (2 children)

...no longer afford?..man, the last proper vacation i took was in nineteen-ninety-mother-f*cking-eight...

[–] WamGams@lemmy.ca 50 points 4 months ago (1 children)

When you threw Mankind off the top of the cage at Hell in the Cell?

[–] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago

shitty morph lives!

[–] sunzu@kbin.run 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

When America was still America...

Country is broken post 2008 and we haven't even arrived to the final destination we are going.

Hope y'all got lube, we are gonna need it. It is getting harder by the day taking all this D

[–] myrrh@ttrpg.network 5 points 4 months ago

...i consider 2001 the watershed year after which it well and truly shed its legacy, flawed though it may have been...

[–] SOMETHINGSWRONG@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Makes me laugh at the liberals spewing American exceptionalism bullshit in the other comment chain.

Strong union support? Plenty of vacation? 40 hour work weeks???

Genuinely, what fucking insane liberal bubble are those people living in to say this and act like Democrats are the “other side” rooting for the people and putting these in place.

How can you say with a straight face the Dems have strong support for unions. Maybe the fucking police union, sure.

How can you say we should be happy with the 40 hour work week. I work 55 per week and this is common for STEM degrees. In America, salaried workers don’t even get overtime and often make less than the fucking forklift operator outside.

How can you say, unironically, Dems have given us plenty of vacation days. Even the most liberal strongholds use less vacation than developed countries. Y’all know it’s normal for Europeans to fuck off for an entire month every year?

How fucking dare you liberals spit in my face and tell me bold lies and then demand my vote.

The reason the hypocrisy of liberals is so fucking unbelievable is the realization that liberals don’t actually have beliefs or values. They are truly blue MAGA, that’s all it is. They don’t give a shit about making society better or helping the working class.

And I’m so fucking tired of it. Burn it all down at this point if my choice is between continued hell or the literal apocalypse.

[–] Ullallulloo@civilloquy.com 65 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

TL;DR: Only 56% of Americans plan on taking a summer vacation this year.

For comparison:

[–] hannesh93 49 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So it's higher than almost any time after normalising from a record height but somehow they needed to create a negative headline?

[–] doubletwist@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago

Yup, pretty much.

[–] myrrh@ttrpg.network 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 38 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And one side is working decidedly to take away this and every summer vacation of your life - while the other side backs union labor which is the reason you and I even have weekends, a workday capped at 8 hours and vacation time period.

Wake up and smell, old donny dipshit and his ghoulish handlers!

[–] chaogomu@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fgu4ppsviyqad1.jpeg

Here's a slightly better version that's just things spelled out in the actual project2025.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 32 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (6 children)

Or worse, I can afford it but still can't go because my wife can't get the time off from work.

She had to get a doctors note to get 2 extra days off around the 4th to recover from surgery(!)

Surgery aside, I would have loved to have packed up this week and spent it someplace fun. My wife would have only had Thursday off. She got Wed, Thur, Fri only because her doctor told her employer to get fucked.

It's not like I can go "Sorry honey! Headed to Vegas! See you in a week!" Well... not if I wanted to STAY married.

[–] AreaSIX@lemm.ee 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

That's just an appalling situation for workers in the US. I work in the public sector and get 37 days off a year in vacation time. Admittedly, I work in the public sector and have a generous vacation deal, but it's absolutely insane that workers in the US have a worse deal than many third world nations. My 37 days are working days, meaning I get almost 8 whole weeks of vacation time, on top of all the other regular bank holidays everyone else gets. The people there often seem to cherish your second amendment, but fuck, what tyranny are you guys waiting for. How about using them weapons for something else than suicides and accidental shootings?

[–] myrrh@ttrpg.network 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

all the other regular bank holidays everyone else gets.

..."everyone else" gets six, if they're fortunate to land a salaried position: new year's day, memorial day, independence day, labor day, thanksgiving day, and christmas day; all those other unobserved holidays are a thing for the public sector and finance only...

[–] AreaSIX@lemm.ee 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Alright. I was thinking about bank holidays here in Sweden. They're generally off days for all workers here. You can choose to work, it's not like everything is closed. But that's a voluntary thing that your employer can't force you to do, and which is handsomely compensated on account of it being a bank holiday. So people in the hospitality sector for example generally seem to like these shifts and there's no shortage of volunteers to cover them. This is yet another area where the US system is raping US workers it seems.

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[–] hannesh93 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I really don't get how you guys don't properly unionize - especially with how many companies collaborate with European ones where everyone gets a minimum of 4 weeks of holiday guaranteed by law.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago

Not only that, she works for a billion dollar multi-national. I can't tell you who, but you do know who they are. They even have union representation in other areas, just not hers.

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[–] Daxtron2@startrek.website 27 points 4 months ago

I haven't had a summer vacation since school lmao

[–] SlowRoastedMadness@lemmy.world 25 points 4 months ago (2 children)

No longer? Im in my early 30s and have never been able to take a vacation since I've been on my own/with my wife. Between bills and rising prices, and my job combining pto and sick time, i dont have time or money to do anything more than a day trip to someplace not that far away.

[–] sunzu@kbin.run 18 points 4 months ago

Society is overall in denial about our relationship with corpo komissars

Vast majority of People got no time or money for anything. But we can all pretend that clowns on social media and YouTube living their best lives is normal lol

[–] MIDItheKID@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm in my late 30's in the NYC area. What my wife and I consider a "vacation" is going to Philly and staying in a hotel with a pool, and just putzing around a different city for the weekend.

The idea of taking a week+ off from work and flying somewhere is a foreign concept to me.

There have been a couple of times that we have gone to states far away to stay with family/friends, but it's usually for like a long weekend.

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[–] ef9357@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 4 months ago

No longer? I’m almost 60 and have never been able to afford a vacation.

[–] orcrist@lemm.ee 16 points 4 months ago

Despite negative perceptions on the state of the economy, inflation is now much lower than its June 2022 peak of 9.1 percent.

The writers are irresponsible here. They are implying that the public is unaware of inflation, that this is a perception problem. But the reality is, nobody cares about inflation. We care about the cost of living, and we know exactly how that impacts us when we look at our credit cards and bank accounts.

[–] QuarterSwede@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago

I make more than the average by quite a bit and have unlimited time off, my wife works PT to get out of the house and gets paid well also with basically unlimited unpaid time off (there’s the catch). Even we aren’t taking a normal vacation for us this year (flying to see family or exotic getaway), instead staying within the state and doing cheaper things like camping.

[–] PurplebeanZ@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Shit, I have 3 or 4 holidays every year and it still feels like I'm always working. How the hell do you cope without a single holiday??

[–] Amanduh@lemm.ee 11 points 4 months ago

Drugs

[–] Amanduh@lemm.ee 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Drugs

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[–] CPMSP@midwest.social 6 points 4 months ago

Masochism and addiction

[–] Mac@mander.xyz 4 points 4 months ago

Practice escapism, touch grass, focus on the small things, take time to treat yourself, etc.

[–] GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee 10 points 4 months ago

Yep. Had to cancel ours. Made just enough money to cover some emergencies, nothing left for fun.

[–] Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

How many Americans struggle to afford to live?

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[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Lol "summer" vacation... Implying other vacations in other seasons.

[–] S_204@lemm.ee 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

https://www.statista.com/chart/31152/share-of-us-respondents-who-have-taken-private-trips/#:~:text=Around%20a%20third%20of%20Americans,the%20other%20hand%2C%20were%20rarer.

1/3 of Americans take multiple vacations a year. Have you tried not being poor? It's worth a shot if you haven't.

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[–] keys@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 4 months ago

Join the club america

[–] misterdoctor@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well this explains why I haven’t been able to afford a summer vacation

[–] fluckx@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Just eat less avocado toast and stop going to Starbucks. I swear this generation can't budget at all

[–] misterdoctor@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Listen, how me and my wife choose to spend $800 per month on avocados and bread is nobody’s business but ours and our bankruptcy attorney

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[–] Beaver@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

You can thank the republicans, corporate democrats and first-past-the-post for that.

Edit:fixed word

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Americans get vacations now?

[–] Tikiporch@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

I don't know why they won't suck it up and go into debt for a week of vacation like the rest of us responsible adults.

In reality, we'd rather just use our paid time off to relax, and vacations are hardly ever relaxing.

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