
Millions of Americans Can't Afford Water - walterbell
https://www.consumerreports.org/personal-finance/millions-of-americans-cant-afford-water-as-bills-rise-80-percent-in-a-decade/?EXTKEY=AFLIP
======
yardie
One of the things I noticed since moving back to the US is Americans are
averse to spending money on anything that doesn't improve their social
standing. Municipalities included. Brand new skyscrapers get built and the
taxes and fees raised from it are spent on stadiums, arenas, and
beautification. But that luxury skyscraper is still plumbed into tired, 50
year old infrastructure that needs replacing now.

~~~
Shivetya
The problem is best labeled as Ribbon Cutting.

Politicians love to cut ribbons but spending money to maintain does not impart
any name recognition. The second motive is anything that fills their campaign
coffers.

However it should be noted that one of the most major expenses in cities is
paying their payroll and in particular their pension requirements as public
employee unions pretty much have them over a barrel and politicians trade
public money for political favor without regards to the costs.

finally it also comes down to the penalties, fees, and such, of government
services affect the poor far more than any other group. That twenty dollar
renewal for your license might be nothing to you but it doesn't work that way
when your poor. Throw in that municipal fees tend to be a lot higher and you
can see the difficulty.

Atlanta was only forced in fixing their sewers which of course exploded their
service costs after they kept dumping into local rivers.

PDF of city of Atlanta budget [https://s3.amazonaws.com/saportakinsta/wp-
content/uploads/20...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/saportakinsta/wp-
content/uploads/2020/05/FY2021-Proposed-Budget-Book_Final-05032020.pdf)

~~~
nervousvarun
Exactly...the same reason many of our public schools are conducted in
immaculate modern buildings (easily visible from the road/campaign commercials
and identifiable as something the current politician spent on 'education') yet
our teachers are paid a relative pittance.

~~~
Exmoor
I would encourage people to actually look their local teacher's salaries, they
should be a matter of public record. The "teachers make terrible money"
talking point has been a talking point my entire life so I was surprised when
my wife pulled up our local elementary school records and showed me that our
child's kindergarten teacher made over $100,000/yr. Her school's PE teacher
made $120,000/yr. This is in a county where the median household income is
$66,000/yr so I wouldn't call it a pittance.

I'm sure there are plenty of places in the country where teacher pay is lower
than it should be, but teacher's unions have benefited greatly by the
perception that they're universally underpaid.

~~~
yardie
In many cases teachers salaries are based on a schedule. If you know how long
they've been teaching you can pretty much figure out where they are on the
band. And there are additional grants subsidies; Title I school teachers get a
Ed Dept supplement for teaching at poorer schools. They also get paid more for
having a Master's or Ph.D. A teacher who has a M.Ed in early childhood
development and also designs the curriculum (lead teacher) at a Title I school
with 10+ years of experience will be pretty far up there. My college roommate
became a biology teacher and his starting salary for a small T1 school
district was $28k. If I remember the schedule correctly it was going to double
once he completed his Masters and gained 4-5 years of experience.

> teacher's unions have benefited greatly by the perception that they're
> universally underpaid.

The union would still be closer to correct, teacher salaries, on average, are
still low [0]. School performance and property prices are intertwined so maybe
your district has decided that to retain good teachers they have to pay good
salaries. 200 $500,000 homes will kick in over a $1.2-1.4MM/year in property
taxes.

[0] [https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/a-look-at-teacher-pay-
acro...](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/a-look-at-teacher-pay-across-the-
united-states-in-2017.htm)

~~~
Exmoor
> The union would still be closer to correct, teacher salaries, on average,
> are still low [0]

A spot check of the linked BLS.gov numbers with Wikipedia's list of household
income by state [1] showed that about 2/3 of states I checked paid teachers
above the average household income and the rest were within about 10%. As you
say, there's likely a large amount of variation in there and there are likely
a lot of young teachers who are not getting paid fairly since union members
have an inherent tendency to enact policies benefiting current members over
future members. But with that said, I still stick by my original point which
is that teachers do not, on average, make a "pittance." They make pretty close
to an average household income, on average, and typically also have
significantly better than average pension benefits and vacation benefits.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Income_by_state)

~~~
pseudalopex
The BLS numbers appear to be mean wages for secondary school teachers. Mean
wages are higher than median wages. Secondary school teachers make more than
other teachers, too. The BLS numbers also include pay for extracurricular and
summer programs.

The median secondary teacher makes about 95% of the median person with a
bachelor's degree.[1][2]

[2] [https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on-
display/mobil...](https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on-
display/mobile/education-pays.htm)

------
roenxi
> Nina Lakhani is an environmental justice reporter with Guardian US, where
> she's reporting for the Our Unequal Earth project.

I'm not really up to date on American water politics. Is this article
presented with a partisan slant or is it fairly neutral?

Job titles like that were a fair signal of things being partisan pieces a few
years ago but the style might be changing.

~~~
igammarays
Partisan bias notwithstanding, the plain facts presented in the article seem
to indicate pretty objectively that there is a major nationwide problem with
water infrastructure. Denial is blindness.

\- "Nationwide, the rising cost of water has significantly outstripped the
consumer price index over the past decade."

\- Federal funding for water systems has fallen by 77 percent in real terms
since its peak in 1977.

\- The U.S. is the only country in the industrialized world without a
regulatory system, responsible for monitoring rates and performance, according
to Stephen Gasteyer, professor of sociology at Michigan State University.

~~~
roenxi
Yeah, and if the piece is neutral those are quite persuasive. But if it is
partisan, those facts could be carefully selected to be highly misleading. It
is easy to lie with true statistics. Every group of loons has a set of
favoured statistics that they can trot out.

Hypothetically, if it was decided in 1975 that there was going to be a
transition from Federal to State management of water then the last two points
would be evidence of a system working as intended. It isn't a fundamental
truth that the US Federal government in particular has to be the body that
regulates and funds water infrastructure. After reading the article I doubt
there was such a deal but that is assuming the article is neutral despite a
signal that I usually assume shows strong bias.

It would be absolutely routine for a partisan to assume that their pet issue
requires national funding by the Federal government. Happens in every country
on every topic and it is often a stupid assumption.

------
mschuster91
That truck driver guy with the 30.000 US$ bill - what? Let's generously assume
he hasn't paid a single bill in 10 years to have that bill in 2013. That's
3.000 US$ a year or 250$ a month?!

How is this possible? Here in Germany average water bill is around that _in a
whole year_!

What is the US _doing_ with all the money? People pay a roughly thousand
dollars on average based on the numbers in this article, and have abysmal
service, no maintenance, and sometimes outright toxic water (Flint, the
fracking areas where the water is flammable). Where is that excess money
going?

[0] [https://www.t-online.de/heim-
garten/energie/id_77342378/wass...](https://www.t-online.de/heim-
garten/energie/id_77342378/wasserkosten-in-deutschen-staedten-extrem-
unterschiedlich.html)

~~~
christophilus
I can't speak for the rest of the US, but I have a family of 4, and we pay
maybe $50/mo for our water bill, so maybe $600/year. More than the German
average, but not egregious. Relative to a lot of other countries, the US is
kind of more like strong union of a bunch of countries (states)-- each with
unique environments and ecosystems-- than it is like a united, single country.
So, you can say: "Americans are like ___", and you can almost certainly find a
spot in the US where your statement holds true.

As for costs, the US has wildly variable costs on most things, depending on
where you live. For example, I pay $1.50 per gallon for gas, but one state up,
it's above $2.00. I live in a comfortable house, and pay less for my mortgage
+ taxes than folks in New Jersey pay just in taxes on a smaller house. This
variance is a side-effect of a more decentralized governmental system where
states have a lot of power, combined with a wide variation in environments /
scarcity across the country.

~~~
zaarn
Germany isn't that much different, the federal government has a bit more power
but generally people from one state differ much from another. Compare Berlin
and Bavaria, if you want an example. Bavaria is one of the more expensive
states to live in and Berlin is somewhat cheap (other former ostblock states
are even cheaper) and on the other hand we have the highest average income and
pay into the other federal states the most.

Cost of water, electricity and food differ between states. A Döner Kebab in
Berlin costs around 3.50€ by my experience, in Bavaria a comparable one costs
around 5-7€.

You can't easily say "Germans are like ___", most of the international
stereotypes are born out of the WW2 occupation of bavaria, not much else.

~~~
this15testing
Germany is smaller than Montana. The sheer size of the US means that people
live in wildly different environments and climates, and operate very different
local governments/civic infrastructure state by state. Like the parent says,
if you make a generic statement it's very likely that there _is_ a place where
that applies, but it certainly cannot cover the entire continent.

~~~
zaarn
Due to it's structure, Europe experiences wildly different weather, climate
and culture. Every german state has slightly different average weather. The
north is more often exposed to rain and extreme temperatures, the south has a
more temperate climate, etc. Just because it's smaller than some arbitrarily
sized state in the US doesn't mean a place can't be diverse.

------
rabanne
>Austin, Texas, where the average annual bill rose from $566 in 2010 to $1,435
in 2018

How can anyone justify people paying more than $110 for water and sewers? I
pay $20 and even that seems a lot to me.

~~~
bluedino
I live about 3 blocks from a friend of mine, I'm in township, he's in the
city. His water bill is $120/month, mine is $90 every quarter. We get the same
water/sewer from the same place.

~~~
quickthrowman
Your neighbor either has huge water needs for watering/a pool or he has a
leak/leaky fixture in his supply lines.

$120/month where I live would be 33,200 gallons a month. That’s nearly a
gallon a minute.

~~~
danaris
> I'm in township, he's in the city

They're in different municipalities, so the _rates_ are different. They could
easily be using the exact same amount of water each month.

------
AuthorizedCust
Part of high water costs are certain cities charge increasing per-gallon rates
the more you use, to discourage lawn irrigation. This isn't just a drought
measure. Dallas's predatory water-pricing scheme is permanent, even when our
reservoirs are so overfull that we're just dumping excess water into the
rivers, which is a surprising amount of the time. It's been years since
there's been any legitimate need for pricing to discourage water use.

~~~
Scoundreller
In the electricity world, things are divided between production, transmission
and distribution. You might have tons of generation, but insufficient capacity
to get it to markets.

Then there’s the discharge/storm water issue. Farmers may not contribute to
that, but urban/suburban usage does. A well-watered lawn doesn’t hold much
water when a storm rushes in.

------
driverdan
None of this makes sense to me. Water is still extremely cheap. Prices
_should_ go up in drought-prone regions they mentioned (eg Austin) to help
incentivize reduced water use.

If you're paying $100/m it means you're using too much water. If you can't
afford that use less. Excluding laundry I currently use less than 5 gallons a
day between myself and my dog. It's not hard to do.

~~~
Scoundreller
I’d prefer tiered billing. The first X gallons/day cost $x, then it goes up.

That way you subsidize sanitation, but charge for washing your car or watering
your lawn.

Many places have complicated programs to do that in reverse (get this credit
for removing your lawn or this tax credit for a new washing machine).

California lets you run your washing machine drain into your backyard without
a permit, that’s one regulatory way to reuse gray-water. If gray water reuse
requires $hundreds-$thousands in permits and plumbers, people won’t bother.

~~~
nickik
I totally agree, that is the way to do it.

However, we must realize that, specially in California, its actually
agriculture that uses most water. Standford university turning of their
fountains and other 'publicity' stunts will not fix anything.

You need to fix the pricing in the broader water market, change the intensives
for California farmers so they plant things that require less water, or have
more intensive to limit water consumption.

~~~
Scoundreller
Right. It also depends on geography.

Sometimes water is easy, but sewerage capacity is the limit, so gray water
reuse makes sense to encourage where possible.

Water is measured, but sewage discharge isn’t.

I’d like holding tanks for gray water re-use for toilets. Apparently still
gray water becomes septic after a day, but if it’s your toilet, shouldn’t you
assume the water in there is septic anyway??

------
splitrocket
"Late Stage Capitalism" really starts to make sense when you realize that
profit is literally the measure of inefficiency in a market.

edit: A perfectly efficient market has no profit margin. As a market increases
in efficiency, the profit margin of all participants approaches zero.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition)

~~~
abstractbarista
Profit is the carrot on the economic stick, driving productivity and
innovation.

------
dreen
How are we doing on desalination technologies?

~~~
pjc50
There's a fundamental lower bound on the energy usage of desalination. The
current state of the art - reverse osmosis - isn't perfect, but we should not
expect factor-of-ten reductions in energy usage.

~~~
whb07
Somewhere like Austin could definitely use solar energy to boil water couldn’t
they? Not only solar panels but those mirror/reflective panels into a
concentrated spot to shine?

~~~
pjc50
Austin is ~150 miles from the sea, so you'd incur substantial pumping costs.

Solar thermal "flash" desalination is one of those things that sounds obvious
but is hardly ever done, so I suspect there are good reasons for that.

------
microcolonel
> _Water bills that exceed 4 percent of household income are considered
> unaffordable._

This seems extremely arbitrary. It's not that they can't afford water, it's
that it's a relatively important expense rather than a trivial one. Most
people in these income brackets don't even pay water bills directly.

~~~
exabrial
Agree... There are plenty of items to cut from the budget first: tattoos,
cigarettes, fast food, soda, energy drinks, Netflix, iPhones, or... Just
moving to a cheaper area to live that's not an expensive coastal city.

~~~
gspr
Entirely regardless of any cuts made to the expenses side of things, can we
agree that having to spend 4% of household income on water in a developed
country is absolutely bonkers?

~~~
onefuncman
Isn't everyone insolvent, in 2020?

