
Flash Game Simulates Living on $9/hr. - driftsumi-e
http://playspent.org/
======
jasonkester
I find that I live a much more active life in this game than I ever have in
real life. Back when I was making $9/hr, I can't remember a single week where
my dog died, I got injured at work, the neighbor kid broke my window, I
decided to see a therapist and one of my co-workers came down with a terminal
condition.

I only made it to day 13, but already I've spent more in that game than I did
in real life over the last month. I realize it's trying to make a point, but
all it's really doing is making me suspect that it's fibbing a bit. More
realism might turn out to be more convincing.

~~~
ramanujan
Right. And here's a different flash site, which shows that literally hundreds
of millions of people worldwide increased their real income over the last
twenty years:

[http://www.gapminder.org/labs/gapminder-
china/#$majorMode=ch...](http://www.gapminder.org/labs/gapminder-
china/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=100;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=4.0174193548387;ti=1990$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=pp59adS3CHWfKPVb7dEexFA;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=rvalNLkeEs-y9Tp1T-SZb0g;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=20;iid=pp59adS3CHWfpIxpjegY4bw;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID1;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=83;dataMax=101655$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=8.8;dataMax=83$map_s;sma=53;smi=2$cd;bd=0$inds=;modified=80)

Somehow hundreds of millions of people in China and elsewhere went from far
more deprived conditions to first world status over the span of a few decades.
Nothing in that game compares to the horrors of the Cultural Revolution or the
mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward. So clearly it is _possible_ for an
entire civilization to pull itself up by its bootstraps through capitalism.
[0]

Finally, as noted the game stacks the deck against reality. It starts you out
as a single parent with no savings and evidently no family members who will
help you out...without any acknowledgement of the fact that broken homes,
divorce, out-of-wedlock births, a lack of a high school diploma, and a failure
to save are _the_ major causes of poverty. [1], [2]

If the game started a few years earlier and asked "do you want to complete
high school" and "do you wait till you're financially stable before marrying &
having children", the overall message would be very different. Indeed, the
authors would likely be accused of having unfashionable political sympathies
for simply advising that people mimic the behaviors of middle class Asian
immigrant families.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/Third-World-First-
Singapore-1965-2000/...](http://www.amazon.com/Third-World-First-
Singapore-1965-2000/dp/0060197765)

[1] <http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba428>

[2] <http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2010/pdf/bg2465.pdf>

~~~
ianterrell
I agree with your main points, but did your closing sentence need to get
racist?

~~~
smoyer
That statement may have a bit of racial stereotyping as we can be sure that
not all (100%) Asian immigrants were so frugal but I don't see any malicious
intent ... I get the impression that the statement is positive. I know I've
been impressed by the work ethic of many immigrants I know (Asian and
otherwise) compared to those who sit and wait for their government welfare
checks. I understand welfare for those who are truly needy, but there needs to
be a way to lift them up so that it's not permanent (with perhaps the
exception of those with disabilities that prevent it).

~~~
_delirium
I guess I don't mind providing people the bare minimum to live without strings
attached. I'd actually agree with Hayek and Friedman that we should attach
_fewer_ strings and just make them cash payments, because that's less
distorting; all the book-keeping and social engineering to try to get people
off welfare, and to not "waste" the welfare money when they're on it (Section
8 housing, food stamps, etc.) costs more and distorts the economy more than
just paying them would.

I don't think great things in civilization get done solely out of people
needing to work the bare minimum to survive anyway; if that's all they were
going to work, just paying them $10k subsistence is not a huge loss to
society, and even pretty cheap by the standards of the other stuff we spend
money on. Actually it'd be a pretty sad commentary on civilization if it were
only the threat of literally being homeless/starving that inspired people to
work; that's what it was like in subsistence-farming days, but surely a
wealthy country can move beyond that, and make the baseline something higher,
even if only "ramen + crappy apartment"? Plus, I think we'd make it back in
how much it'd increase entrepreneurship if people felt more confident in a
safety net being there if they failed (people from lower-class backgrounds w/o
a family safety net, in particular, are _very_ afraid to leave steady jobs if
they have one).

~~~
tomjen3
Lets assume that ten percent of Americans choose to take the ten grand/year
you suggest.

Thats 30 million times ten times one thousand. Thats 300 billion dollars. That
is ten times the cost for the war in Iraq back in 2001 and 2002 (both years).
How on earth do you think the US could pay that considering that it has a deep
deficit in the first place?

~~~
_delirium
Well, in the first place, that's 8% of the federal budget, which seems like a
pretty small price to pay for ensuring that everyone has a basic existence
(minimal food/shelter). There are certainly stupider things we spend 8% of the
federal budget on.

And in any case, one purpose is to be a replacement for the current piecemeal
programs we have, which aren't cheap to begin with. Food stamps + Section 8 +
EITC currently costs about $150 billion per year, plus some additional amount
in bureaucracy and litigation due to complex rules, plus some additional
economic damage caused by market distortion due to the fact that food stamps +
section 8 aren't normal cash (EITC is better for that). That leaves maybe
$100-150b, some of which is probably also redundant with existing welfare
programs (I just picked three big ones), or about 3-4% of the federal budget.

If you want to keep it budget-neutral, how about an across-the-board 3-4% cut
to all other budget categories in return? Or, we could just, as you point out,
remove the temporary "overseas contingency operations" (Iraq/Afghanistan wars)
supplement to the regular DoD budget, which is $125b in 2012, returning the
DoD to its baseline budget. If I had a line-item veto pen I could pretty
easily come up with another few hundred billion in savings if you'd like (cut
agriculture subsidies, cut Medicare Part D, transition TSA/air-traffic-control
to being fully user-fee-funded, do another round of domestic military-base
closures through a BRAC-like process, etc., etc.). :)

------
justin_vanw
What a joke. In the month, I got sick twice, had two 'best friends' get
married, had a grandfather die, needed a root canal, wrecked my car (even
though I chose to pay the max rent and live 5 miles from work, it told me I
still _had_ to to have a car), had my sink break (and the landlord refuse to
fix it), got caught hiding pets in my apartment (why do I have a pet? I can't
afford a pet, that is just a bad decision.).

I get it, they are trying to make a point. However, the point they are making
is crap. It is very hard to live on $9 an hour. However, making $9 puts you in
the top 1% of all humans who have ever lived. There are lots of social
programs that will help a little. They don't make you rich, but they help a
little.

The first thing I ask anyone who complains about being unemployed or
underemployed: "Do you have a TV? Do you have cable or satellite tv?" You
wouldn't believe how hostile people are when you suggest that they might
benefit from turning off their tv and using that time to study or learn a new
skill. As a child my family was on food stamps and welfare. My mother raised 4
boys on her own. As it turns out, I am now in the top 1% of wage earners in
the US, but _I_ don't have time to watch TV. I have never taken a real
vacation. I suffered through 6 years of Army Reserve so I could pay for
college. Every free minute I have is spent working, hustling, studying,
experimenting.

I don't believe the hype. If you are willing to work your ass off, if you show
up to work on time and aren't high or drunk, and you don't steal, it is very
easy to get a job, today. It's easy to get 2 jobs. Working 80 hours per week
isn't something that you want to do, but it's a walk in the park compared to
the conditions our ancestors lived in.

It's really hard to take care of kids when you are a single parent and you
can't get childcare, especially if you don't have family that is willing to
help. Maybe we should do more for people in this situation, not to help them,
but to at least give the kids the opportunity to do better. For everyone else,
I say stop whining, throw away your tv, and stop being so entitled and lazy.

~~~
blake8086
I just played a round of this game (ended with $322), and I felt like it was a
compelling demonstration of why I'm not poor.

I know they wanted to present an argument of "oh, all these bad things happen
that keep people poor", but I really saw a bunch of small decisions that, when
made poorly, accumulate into having no money.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> I know they wanted to present an argument of "oh, all these bad things
> happen that keep people poor", but I really saw a bunch of small decisions
> that, when made poorly, accumulate into having no money.

I think the latter is much closer to reality, at least for people who are on
their way to poverty. Or maybe a mix of both. There are problems that are
equally probable to rich and poor, but the former can sometimes just throw
money at them until they're gone, and the latter have to deal with them the
hard way.

------
cookiecaper
I like the concept a lot but the game is just too rigid to be realistic. It's
essentially a propaganda piece and the choices it gives you are no-win by
design (so that the game has opportunity to lecture you on the plight of low-
wage workers). Real life is not so restrictive.

It seems a bit involved to get across what could have been an infographic.

I'd really like to see someone take a more serious and/or interesting approach
to this concept. This game plays like an old "choose your own adventure"; you
have "choices", but everything is pre-determined and there are only a handful
of available story routes, which in this case are designed to make it
difficult to complete the game while selecting any of the presented moral
options and then to show that you'll only have a few dollars left in exchange
for abandonment of all principles.

~~~
Natsu
I had no problem getting to the end of the month with cash left over. Of
course, I also work for a factory so I know an awful lot of $9/hr workers and
how they live, so it wasn't that hard. You have to make a lot of hard choices.
No, it's not easy.

While this is a bit overdone, there's a lot of truth to this thing. I've seen
the results of an unplanned child, days people come in sick because they
really can't afford to miss work, and things like that first hand.

Some of the people really have dug themselves into holes all on their own, but
there are other folks who are just trying to scrape by with the crappy hand
they've been dealt. It depends on the person, really and I could give you
examples of both.

------
ique
There are three things I find annoying by this game.

I shouldn't be driving a car if I don't have money for it. I should sell the
car and always take bus, since later in the game it says I have that option.

I had to choose if I should stay with an hourly paycheck or work by the piece.
I choose piece because then I thought I could put in some more work, but then
it just said I couldn't work that much. Well if I had known that I would have
stuck with an hourly check, that's math you can actually work out in real life
before making that decision.

It says I have a college degree but that wont help me, and then it says I'm
probably too uneducated to help out my children with math homework.

All in all some interesting facts about the american low-income society, but
the choices and different aspects of it are very strange. You could do a lot
more to save money as well as make more money than is presented here. Well
basically, kind of annoyingly simplified.

~~~
gcp
The game is also advocating playing on the lottery as investing in your
future.

That's not even the right message to send out.

~~~
driftsumi-e
I don't think much encouragement is needed there. I hear the phrase "If / When
I win the lottery..." cited too often as a cure-all. That weekly or daily
lottery allotment would be better spent elsewhere but unfortunately isn't.

~~~
lurker19
Non-linear utility of money, especially when negative money is involved.

------
Dove
My major reactions while playing the game tended to follow a theme:

    
    
        Game: Mobile phone bill's due.  
        Me: I have a mobile phone??  
        Game: Landlord wants pet rent for the dog.
        Me: I have a dog?? 
        Game: Car payment's due.  
        Me: I have a CAR???
        Game: How about some $60 internet?
        Me: How about the $20 non-broadband type?
        Game: You lost your car, so you lost your job. 
        Me: No, see, that's why I paid extra to live close.  We call them bikes.

~~~
zach
A "let's gain empathy by playing being poor" game seems like a horrible idea
overall.

If it was a decent game and let you learn and succeed by smart choices, it
would only give you a feeling of superiority to poor folks.

If (as it does) it inflicts you with pre-existing poor decisions and random
"the gods are angry" punishments, it seems to impart a feeling that poor folks
are somehow hopeless and cursed, which isn't really helpful either.

Wouldn't it be a lot more helpful to teach teenagers and pre-teens real-life
strategies for independent living? Things like showing you how much money you
end up paying to rent furniture or lease a car?

Maybe something like the old board game Pay Day?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_Day_(board_game)>

~~~
hugh3
Or the old Sierra game "Jones In The Fast Lane".

Something like that (more sophisticated, with more detail, and more
opportunities to make dumb and smart decisions) should be compulsory playing
for young kids. Much like astronauts training for their missions, I reckon
that by the time kids get old enough to make their own life decisions, they
should have done it in the simulator hundreds of times.

I'm being somewhat facetious, of course, you can't make a simulator anywhere
near as detailed as real life. Still, I think life-simulation games have a
part to play in teaching children good values like delaying gratification and
so forth.

~~~
zach
I am a huge fan of this line of thinking. I love your astronaut example which
I hadn't heard before. Nor had I heard of _Jones in the Fast Lane_ which is
exactly the kind of game rarely seen today.

I'm a career game programmer and web developer. In the last five years, I was
on two game shows in the last five years and before each one, knowing I only
had one shot, I made software to help me simulate the experience and work out
the strategies I would use. I did well in both cases and am convinced that
simulating things really helped.

So I'm really sold on simulation being a great way to impart practical
knowledge. There's a lot of stuff out there that could really use that
treatment and I agree with your enthusiasm for it. Let's get in touch and see
if there's some way to push this forward.

~~~
hugh3
Email in profile. I can't promise to be able to provide anything other than
moral support, though.

------
0x12
This would be a lot better if it were more realistic, it banks on you not
being able to make smart decisions to ram the various factoids down your
throat. It would be a much better experience if the basics were spread out
over multiple months with the occasional clustering of events.

This 'perfect storm' of trouble is just setting you up for failure, the deck
is stacked against you much further than it is in real life. You are also not
given the full picture up front, nor are you given the option on which
services you subscribe to.

Also, if you can't afford a mobile phone you probably shouldn't have one, and
if your landlord does something illegal an alternative option is to tell him
to go f*ck off rather than to pay or move out. Good luck evicting me if I'm up
to date on payments and the contract stipulates terms that I've lived up to.

That said, it's probably a useful tool to get people to put themselves in the
shoes of someone that has it worse than they themselves do.

~~~
dkersten
_if your landlord does something illegal an alternative option is to tell him
to go f_ ck off rather than to pay or move out. Good luck evicting me if I'm
up to date on payments and the contract stipulates terms that I've lived up
to.*

I have never ever experienced a landlord trying to raise my rent mere days
after I moved in, like they seem to do in this game.

~~~
_delirium
It's not uncommon if it's cheap housing that's only semi-legit to begin with.
When I lived in Santa Cruz, I heard all sorts of this kind of shady behavior
going on with sublets, which due to housing shortage was the only thing you
could really get for <$1000.

~~~
hugh3
But what are they gonna do? They can't legally evict you under those
circumstances, so just keep paying the originally-agreed rent.

~~~
_delirium
You might be able to prevail, yeah, but many people are a bit scared of
finding themselves on the street, unable to find another apartment, so aren't
willing to play hardball. With an unofficial sublet (no signed lease, etc.),
landlords don't necessarily resort to proper court-supervised eviction
proceedings; "eviction" can take the form of "change the locks and dump your
stuff on the curb, and deny that you ever lived there", which probably rarely
happens but seems to be a common worry of people renting irregularly with no
paperwork.

Then you'd have to find somewhere to live, and undertake the time/expense of
suing. The best protection is probably a bit of a mutually assured destruction
angle if the landlord is breaking the law through the irregular rental in the
first place (in Santa Cruz many of the rentals are off the books because they
aren't even legal rental units--DIY converted garages and attics and such).

Not sure how big that "informal rental" section of the economy is, though, so
maybe this isn't a common situation. I'd guess it's highest in NYC.

------
ctdonath
I played the game, and came out $199 ahead...and that when faced with absurdly
limited options (say, the rowdy roommate would see a Mosin/Nagant ($29!)
instead of the landlord when told to leave, so no extra $100 cost there). No
risky sacrifices (medical bills paid, job attended to), no luxuries until
affordable (and sentimentality is a luxury).

I should have taken copious notes (maybe I will on another pass) and comment
how, instead of viewing it all as crushing poverty, it is indicative of living
in a luxurious society. Opt for the $1 hamburger, and be told "that's why so
many poor are overweight"? WTH? If it's got that many calories then cut it in
half and eat it across two meals! If you're obese, you're not poor; talk to
the half of the world's population which lives on less than $2/day.

So, coming out a couple hundred dollars ahead, I could run this "poverty"
scenario for 4 months and have enough to buy a refurbished MacBook Air and
join the Apple Developer's Program, with which I could bootstrap an iOS App-
writing business. Seems some others played, came out over $1000 ahead, and
could jump in to app-writing in one month flat.

Read between the lines in the game, and see the opportunities that abound.
Sell the car and take the bus. Focus the kids on learning entrepreneuring
instead of sports. Take in a decent paying roommate (and throw out the rowdy
one bodily if need be). Use the library for education and internet businesses.
Eat the $1 hamburgers featuring caloric abundance. Heck, save the $1 and make
two 1.5lb loaves of great bread (coming to my blog soon!). Organize with other
"poor" to leverage opportunities (carpooling, babysitting, etc.).

First-world problems indeed.

ETA: Downvoters, take a stand and tell me why this post is wrong.

~~~
derleth
> Heck, save the $1 and make two 1.5lb loaves of great bread

Assuming you have the time and the oven, neither of which are guaranteed but
both seem to be universally assumed.

(Also assumes you're urban poor and not rural poor. Urban poor has access to
Wal-Mart and Albertson's. Rural poor has access to a gas station grocery and
hunting/fishing if they're rich enough to afford the accoutrements and the
time.)

~~~
ctdonath
"Rural poor has access to a gas station grocery and hunting/fishing if they're
rich enough to afford the accoutrements and the time."

A week ago I watched the movie "Winter's Bone", which depicted grinding rural
poverty. As the protagonist (teen girl) split logs for heat, cooked
inexpensive meals, and hunted squirrels, I realized I'd grown up very near the
same way - and never considered myself "poor", despite our huge garden, wood
stoves, etc.

You say "rich enough" for hunting? Hunting license is $9 here in GA. Gun-show
rifle was $30. One 7.62x54R round is $0.25. For under $50 and a weekend
morning/evening, you can get several hundred dollars worth of meat. Fishing is
similarly cheap if you're so inclined. Just because people spend thousands on
a sport doesn't mean you have to for sustenance.

As for other sustenance needs: 50 pound sacks of bread flour are $16 at
Costco, 100 packets of food garden seeds are $10 at Dollar Store, chicks are
cheap at the local farm supply store, and pots/pans for cooking over a fire
are a few dollars at Goodwill.

I've lived very close to that lifestyle. Living on a near-zero income is not
unreasonable...quaint even.

------
hugh3
Well, there's already a lot of comments here pointing out that he game is
unrealistic and rigged. But I'd like to add to this a bit, and to say that the
memes which the game is rigged to spread are not only wrong but pernicious.

There are two views of poverty in rich countries. One view holds that poverty
is caused by poor people who make bad decisions, and that it's possible to
lift yourself out of poverty by making good decisions instead. The second view
holds that poverty is caused by external factors, that it's a trap that poor
people can't escape, and that the way to solve poverty is by giving ever-
increasing amounts of taxpayer-funded free stuff to the poor until they stop
being poor. The cartoon versions of each of these extremes are silly, and
there's a bit of truth in both of them.

The real trick, though, is that the first belief, the belief that poor people
can pull themselves out of poverty, is true only to the extent that they
actually believe it. A poor person who believes he can get out of poverty by
making sensible decisions will make those decisions. A poor person who
believes his poverty is the fault of, and can only be solved by, other people
will not. Convincing a poor person that someone else is responsible for their
situation is just about the worst thing you can possibly do for them.

Those who want to support increased welfare are openly hostile to the idea
that poor people can take responsibility for their own decisions and start
making better ones to solve their problems. And this, I think, is a huge
factor in perpetuating poverty.

I want to help the poor, really I do, but I'm certain that teaching them the
correct _values_ is far more important than handing them cash.

------
cantlin
Great. Playful (asking you to solve a "train a travels at 70mph..." question
when you say you can help your kids with their homework) and creatively
designed (cute distance-from-work slider for picking where to live). Of course
it's propaganda, but regardless of the realism it does do a good job of
simulating the low-income mindset, where every decision ("The ice-cream truck
rolls round. Can your kid have an ice-cream?") ends up about money.

------
binarymax
"Nickel and Dimed" was mentioned in one of the fact-bubbles. I highly
recommend the book for anyone who wants to learn more about the decisions
people face when in situations like this. I was spent for a time (about 10
months) being unemployed and lived on about $40 per week, skirting my rent,
not having phone/internet, and getting my power cut (twice). Even though I
ended up taking a job I didn't like, it payed well and I pulled myself out of
that situation. Never Again.

~~~
allwein
I had the same problem with "Nickel and Dimed" that I had with this game. She
made a series of completely irrational decisions which resulted in expenses
larger than they needed to be.

As a counter to this, I highly recommend Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard.
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061714275/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061714275/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=keysofgeni-20)

The summary, from Amazon:

Adam Shepard graduated from college feeling disillusioned by the apathy around
him and was then incensed after reading Barbara Ehrenreich's famous work
Nickel and Dimed—a book that gave him a feeling of hopelessness about the
working class in America. He set out to disprove Ehrenreich's theory—the
notion that those who start at the bottom stay at the bottom—by making
something out of nothing to achieve the American Dream.

Shepard's plan was simple. With a sleeping bag, the clothes on his back, and
$25 in cash, and restricted from using his contacts or college education, he
headed out for Charleston, South Carolina, a randomly selected city with one
objective: to work his way out of homelessness and into a life that would give
him the opportunity for success. His goal was to have, after one year, $2,500,
a working automobile, and a furnished apartment.

~~~
binarymax
Thanks for the recommendation - looks like a good read.

Its been a while since I've read Ehrenreich's book but am curious - which
decisions of hers did you find irrational?

I will say that a fundamental flaw in Nickel and Dimed, (and most likely in
Shepard's book as well) - is that she ultimately had a choice. Many people in
these situations have no choice. Many of them have children. Many of them have
no college education to fall back on. I count myself among the lucky.

~~~
cbr

          which decisions of hers did you find irrational?
    

I recall her writing about a job requiring a belt, and spending $40 to buy one
new. Without a mention of a thrift store.

As someone who lives on about $750/month [1], both the game and the book
seemed not to notice major ways to save money like having a lot of housemates,
commuting by bus, combining proteins, and thrift stores.

Being poor definitely sucks, but the book and game imply it is impossible,
which it clearly is not.

[1] this doesn't include taxes and health insurance, which are deducted from
my paycheque, but if I were making only $750/month I would have free health
care from MA and negative taxes (EITC)

~~~
lurker19
Combining proteins?

~~~
cbr
Combining two incomplete proteins (rice, beans) to get a complete one. As
opposed to eating generally more expensive complete proteins (meat, dairy).

This saves money, but it's actually pretty small compared to other ways to be
more frugal. So I probably shouldn't have brought it up.

------
elliottcarlson
I saw this on fark.com about a week ago, and decided not to cross post it here
because it's far too biased. I understand what it's trying to do, but I don't
think it's successful in doing so. My biggest complaint is that it attempts to
show that it's not only about making poor choices - but the choices that the
character has obviously taken prior to getting to the point where I control it
were poor choices, and now I am trying to deal with it. My second complaint is
that the simulation should have been one day longer - so you would have to pay
rent again - that's when the real issues start happening.

Even with the odds against me, I was able to finish the simulation a few times
with over $1200 available (thus being able to pay the rent on the following
day).

------
ctdonath
This sort of sociopolitical whining is exactly why I created
<http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com> \- featuring $1 meals.

------
kstenerud
Meh. I got to day 25, but there were so many dumb economic choices it forced
me to make that it was essentially impossible to win the game scenario. There
were a great number of future benefit choices to make, but the game forces you
to think only for the moment, which is the prime reason why poor people remain
poor.

Like, whoa! Suddenly $225 in utilities bills ($225? Seriously??? It doesn't
even cost that much in Tokyo!) that I somehow didn't know about to be able to
plan for.

And whoa! my car starts acting up, and I can't even think to park it and take
the bus for awhile until I can afford to fix it (you know, rather than running
it into the ground and wasting even MORE money).

And whoa! that leak in my sink has become a huge nightmare because I didn't
handle it when it was a small issue and it was obvious the landlord wouldn't
do anything about it.

And why the hell do I remain unemployed for so long instead of taking some
part time work to keep my savings up while I look for a real job?

Seriously, a little planning ahead goes a LONG way.

------
Iv
Time for an anti-American rant. You buy premium healthcare but still need to
pay the doctor ? You don't have unemployment aids ? You can get fired for
_talking_ to a union guy ? (if that happens to you in France, that is your way
to wealth through court action)

~~~
CWuestefeld
You should probably do some research before ranting.

 _You buy premium healthcare but still need to pay the doctor?_

That obviously depends on the provisions of the healthcare contract. It's
common to pay a deductible and/or token co-pay. But these plans can always be
tailored to address the needs of the buyer, and of the provider. (I might rant
about the problems with enforcing a one-size-fits-all plan.)

 _You don't have unemployment aids?_

Yes, we do. There is unemployment insurance, welfare, food stamps, disability
insurance, and so on, to provide a safety net.

 _You can get fired for talking to a union guy?_

No, you cannot (labor regulation in America is absurdly skewed in favor of the
workers). The employer is forbidden from interfering with any labor attempt to
organize. However, our Democrats have been attempting to pass a regulations
called "card check" [1] which would take away the workers' right to secret
ballots when voting for unionization. (And the Democrats are supposed to be
the ones standing up for the little guy?!?)

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_check>

~~~
runako
>> You buy premium healthcare but still need to pay the doctor?

Yes. That's the short answer.

The longer answer is that there are plans without co-pays, etc., but that they
are to the best of my knowledge not available to purchase by individuals or
far too expensive for our hypothetical $9/hr worker (think more like
$1000/mo).

>> token co-pay

In the context of a $9/hr job, "token" co-pays probably shouldn't be called
"token," when they can easily run over $40 for a single visit. I certainly
don't consider 4+ hours of my compensation to be a token amount.

>> You can get fired for talking to a union guy?

The short answer is yes, you _can_ be fired for talking to a union guy. As in
your employer will not be stopped from firing you on the spot, and it's then
your turn to try to get reinstated/compensated through legal channels. You're
right that legally you can't be fired for organizing. But in the calculus of
business and the working poor, it's actually fairly common for low-wage
employees to be fired for attempts at organizing. The employer wagers (usually
correctly) that the person who just lost his $9/hr job today will have more
immediate priorities than finding an attorney he can't pay to take a case
he'll probably lose due to being able to only secure the services of one
lawyer and not a team of the best money can buy.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_As in your employer will not be stopped from firing you on the spot_

Are you suggesting that the French have found some way of physically
preventing this improper action from ever occurring? I'd have to guess that
the French are just as vulnerable to such misbehavior.

~~~
runako
I don't see such a suggestion in my post.

I'm not knowledgeable about the French labor system, so I won't rebut your
guess with speculation of my own. I was simply pointing out that labor law
isn't always as useful for day-to-day offenses as the well-off often assume.

------
csomar
This describes the life of around 50% (may be more) of Tunisians. The
probability of bad things occurring to you is increased by the bad
infrastructure, evil government, the general hardness of life and the chaos
the country is living on.

So for me, this is completely realistic. Just drop the costs (and also the
earnings) around 10 times (for poor people) to adjust for the living expenses.

~~~
0x12
Aye, but Tunis to me is solidly part of the third world. This game is about
America.

As soon as you get out of the wealthy countries your odds diminish rapidly.

~~~
csomar
Certainly. However, I wouldn't be surprised that some parts of America have a
serious lack of infra-structure.

------
revorad
This was a very interesting exercise, but some of the numbers don't seem very
realistic. For example, is $600 really the cheapest rent a poor person has to
pay? Even in a city like London, I've lived on $300 per month, including food,
when times were tough for me.

~~~
ljf
$300 including rent? I thought I was doing well (in far east London) renting a
room in a student share house for £257 a month, 9 years ago. Plus bills.

~~~
revorad
I'm _really_ cheap, but to be fair that was 5 years ago. But I'm sure if I had
to, even now I could live on very little money.

------
joebo
Like many others, I also ended the game ahead at the end of the month with a
fair amount to spare. It was't necessarily easy, I had to critically think
about each decision. I also consider myself fairly 'financially fit' in making
decisions. Many of us are problem solvers and entrepreneurs so the fact that
we can 'beat' the game says nothing about the difficulty less educated have in
real life.

------
singlow
$1500 to recover your vehicle after getting pulled over for expired
registration?

I've gotten a half dozen tickets for expired registration in Texas and the
result is you pay an extra 30 bucks when you register and a 10 dollar fee to
waive the ticket if you register within 10 days of the citation. What state
impounds your car?

~~~
hugh3
The same state where internet is $60, the power bill for your tiny apartment
is $100 a month, where landlords increase your rent the day after you move in,
and where you can't get an apartment for less than $800 a month.

------
dbingham
If you want to see another take on the whole problem, go to Netflix and watch
the 30 Days episode called Minimum Wage. It's the same guy who did Supersize
Me. He and his girlfriend try to work and live on minimum wage for a month.
Doesn't go much better for them than it does for players of this game.

~~~
hugh3
An experiment like that proves nothing if it's being undertaken by somebody
who starts out with the agenda of proving how damn hard it is to survive on
minimum wage. It's far too easy to make deliberately stupid decisions, like
the $40 belt mentioned elsewhere as a feature of Nickel and Dimed.

What I want to see is the opposite -- someone who goes to live on minimum wage
for a month in order to prove it's not all _that_ bad, and we can see what
happens to them. They have the incentive to try hard to make it all work. I
know this has been done at least once.

I could do this experiment... if I thought it was likely to sell me some
books. First thing I'd do, though, would be to move the hell away from the San
Francisco Bay Area. I don't know where exactly, but aiming for a combination
of low unemployment and low housing costs I think I'll choose Iowa. Cedar
Rapids sounds nice (never been there, it just has a good name). Now, minimum
wage is $7.25 an hour, and let's assume I only work 40 hours a week -- that's
$1284 a month. I assume I'm not paying significant taxes. Looks like I can
rent a decent place for $500 a month. Fifty bucks a week for groceries. Yeah,
I can do this.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _Fifty bucks a week for groceries. Yeah, I can do this._ //

It's actually not hard, IMO, to live on a low income for a short period. It's
when your living accommodation starts to fall apart, the clothes you've been
wearing for 10 years are all holed and worn out, you're missing meals, you
always have to say no to your kids, you never get a trip out, you never get a
change from cheap food, poorly made clothing, a cold house, etc., it's knowing
you have to work if you're sick, have no pension, no savings.

It's the dull drudgery of it that wears one down, erodes ones hope.

------
jrockway
This is depressing. But I'm not sure how donating $5 to some mission is going
to solve these problems; the game itself says poor people are wary of
accepting handouts, and that's all this will be, right?

I'm also not sure I'm comfortable subsidizing people's bad choices. If I have
to support someone, it's my nature to micromanage their lives to make sure
they are using the money efficiently. No cell phones. No Internet. No music
downloads. No nights out drinking.

In the end, I try to imagine how I would act if I were poor, had a child, and
had no marketable skills. The first thing would be to find the smallest living
space available, to save on rent, heating/cooling costs, and electricity. That
means sleeping on mats that come out of the closet at bedtime, washing dishes
by hand, cooking everything on the stove, and taking a bath with my kid every
night to save hot water. If rich people in Japan can live this way, poor
people in America can live this way. I would try to live close enough to work
to not need a car (cars are nice, until they break), but if that's not
possible, I'd use a car for commuting and a bike for errands. I wouldn't have
a cell phone or Internet access; I'd queue up my Internet needs (buying
household essentials in bulk online, resyncing my CPAN mirror, whatever) and
go to the library. This would also be a good time to get some public-domain
music and some books to read for the week.

It sounds primitive but I know I could make it work. If you're dumb, lazy, and
have kids, guess what, life is not going to be the same as those Hollywood
stars on TV. You don't get to buy everything you want. You don't get to have
fun with your friends. You get to work, cook, read, help your kids with
school, and keep your bicycle in good working condition. And honestly, I don't
think that's a life that's missing anything at all. You get human
relationships (family), a chance to contribute to society (work), education
(reading), a hobby (cooking), and exercise (cycling).

So I guess the problem is: how do we convince people to want what they can
have, rather than to want what they can't have? It's a cultural thing, and
it's going to be a very hard problem to solve. We may be able to give people
free healthcare, but where will they live, what will they eat, and how will
they get to work?

(And I know what you're all thinking: the reason I'm not poor is because I can
think things through and be analytical enough to make smart choices. Yes.
That's why "solving poverty" is a very, very, very difficult problem. Feeling
bad and giving someone money is not the solution. Deep changes to our
educational system and our cultural values are probably the only way to make
things work.)

------
Unseelie
I don't want to simply reply to a comment, there's a theme flowing through
this thread, that capitalism makes everyone better off in a society, that our
choices lead to where we are. I think you're ignoring a fundamental truth.
There aren't unlimited opportunities for every person who works hard...just
opportunities for those who work harder, on the margin, than others.
Capitalism isn't about working hard and getting rewards, its about being
better on the margins and getting rewards.

------
driftsumi-e
This one hits real close to home for aspiring entrepreneurs.

------
CGtM
Someone needs to check their numbers. A little research suggests that
275$/month health insurance premium is really high. A good emergency coverage
should be closer to 50$. 60$ for internet? I get mine, high-speed, for half
that. 75$ phone bill? That's the average for -smart phones-, basic services
should only cost 10$.

And I managed to finish with 1157$ anyways. Clearly low-income people need to
learn to be frugal. :)

~~~
shiftpgdn
I live in Texas and currently pay $780/month for health insurance through my
employer. Over 1/4 of the people in the state have no health insurance at all.
So no, that number isn't very high.

~~~
mulletbum
That would be almost $10k a year. I work for a large manufacturing company and
I pay $40/month. You have got to have messed something up there.

~~~
shiftpgdn
Not at all, though I did leave out that I am insuring myself, my wife our
child. This doesn't include the deductible of $10,000 out of pocket per year.

------
efsavage
The game is actually fairly accurate in my experience. I came out with $350
left, without starving or killing my dog, making similar choices I made when I
was in similarly dire financial straits in real life. My parents kept me
healthy and safe growing up, but I did have to miss out on some things that
"everyone else" was doing, and I think if anything I'm better for it,
especially if things get bad again.

------
TamDenholm
Morgan Spurlock did an episode of his 30 Days with him and his girlfriend
living on minimum wage, it also very well illustrates the same thing.

------
bane
I don't know what kind of crappy restaurant they're modeling in this game, but
you can make much better money at most places waiting tables than what they
are claiming.

Also, I like how every decision, no matter if its a good one or not ends up
with a "Surprise! You made a good choice that should be free in real life, but
we're going to charge you an arbitrary cost anyway!"

When I lived on less than this, I sure don't remember these oddball things.
And obviously cheaper choices, living further out, are still discusses like
they are penalties, "but you still have to pay for gas!" Duh, but it's still a
ton cheaper.

Opting in to Health Insurance = you don't get sick, but opting out and I got
sick twice.

How about this one? "Two bills are due today. What do you want to do?"

1) Pay mobile phone bill

2) Pay car insurance

3) Pay both

4) Ask a friend

where's my #5? Don't pay either? Also..why the hell do I have a mobile phone
and a car? I don't remember that being a choice. I'd rather not have a phone
and ride the bus.

ack...ridiculous.

Oh, and $843 left at the end of the month.

------
dkersten
Made it through the month with $411 left, a root canal to pay for and
apparently I owe a collection agency money for a car.

Wasn't terribly impressed with the choices I was given though, because I've
been in similar situations in the past and, while it may be very different in
the US, I have never had any significant problems. Also, why do bills like car
registration cost more if I choose to pay them later? In real life I once had
to pay my electricity bill a month late because I didn't have the money - I
called them up and they deferred the payment by a month. They didn't suddenly
charge me extra.

EDIT: Just played it again and made it through the month with $274, with no
outstanding bills.

------
latch
This flash game (ok, flash video) is a much more awesome way to show the same
thing:

[http://www.popmodal.com/video/1251/BILL-COSBY--Economics-
Les...](http://www.popmodal.com/video/1251/BILL-COSBY--Economics-Lesson-With-
Monopoly-Money)

------
shawndumas
"A definition for wealth is spending less than your income."
--<http://www.dynamicrange.org/2007/05/food_stamp_chal_6.html>

------
epicviking
This reminds me of one of my favorite flash games! Third World Farmer!

<http://www.mofunzone.com/online_games/3rd_world_farmer.shtml>

------
smoyer
I sit at a keyboard all day typing and earn 100% of my living via the
computer. Funny that I couldn't pass the typing test. I'm pretty sure the
problem is that I don't have practice copying the text ... my time is spent
typing words (and code) that's flowing from my brain.

Does anyone still take dictation? Are there really jobs like this? I had an AA
at my last job and in the nine years I was there I don't remember ever having
her type up notes, etc.

~~~
cbr
I think this part is actually quite realistic. Temp jobs have typing speed
requirements and when you go in to sign up as a temp they find out how fast
you are. They also measure how fast you can use word, excel, etc.

~~~
randomdata
_They also measure how fast you can use word, excel, etc._

Like the parent, I also spend my days in front of the computer developing
software and doing general business-running activities. But I'm almost certain
I would fail this test. I think I used Word once in high school and that is
about where my experience ends.

I have never found a use-case for an Office suite. There are _always_ better
tools for any job that it might be able to tackle. For it to be a prerequisite
for finding a job outside of the software industry is kind of frightening and
sad.

~~~
cbr
Someone looking to hire a secretary to temp for a week to cover a vacation
cares that the temp will be productive. This means that that secretary can
teach the temp what they need to do for the week, and the temp will be able to
do it quickly and efficiently using the templates and tools that the office
uses. If they keep track of accounts in excel, you need to be able to quickly
enter data into excel to use their system. They're not going to switch to
something better just so they can employ you for a week.

This doesn't mean you're unemployable outside of software, just that this
heuristic suggets you are a poor candidate for a temporary secretarial
position.

------
WA
So I made it through the month with 3$ left. It has some interesting facts,
but altogether it's a bit odd that everything breaks down in a single month.

~~~
thebooktocome
All it takes is one bad month for someone living paycheck to paycheck to go
from okay to not okay.

~~~
StavrosK
If you're living paycheck to paycheck, it means you're spending 100% of what
you get. A bad month makes it expenses > income.

The trick is to not live paycheck to paycheck in good months, and it seems
like $9/hr should be enough for a bit of savings.

~~~
thebooktocome
How much could a person working $9/hr save during a good month? A couple
hundred dollars?

It would take several consecutive good months to offset a single bad month.

~~~
cbr
I live on $750/month [1], $9/hour is ~$1450/month, so in a good month I could
probably save about $700.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3070904>

------
michaeldhopkins
Quite a silly game, but it does a decent job of showing how all the options
are not always considered by the people who most need to consider them. It's
easy to say "I would make a fun homemade gift, take advantage of charitable
dental programs, get a roommate," etc., but the people in hard situations
often don't have the mindset to do this.

------
fiesycal
This game seems loaded as in the message behind it. That's fine but I think
its slightly misleading. I paid off registration but later I still got charged
1.5k for my car not being registered. Also is it me or for the maths question
no matter what you choose does it say you got it wrong? Despite having a
college degree.

~~~
adhipg
The math question told me that "I was lucky that I am capable of helping my
child in Math and Science" so I guess it does work!

------
GiraffeNecktie
Meanwhile in India, the government is wondering if 60 cents a day would be a
reasonable poverty line for urban areas (somewhat less for rural areas)
[http://the-diplomat.com/indian-decade/2011/10/04/govt-backtr...](http://the-
diplomat.com/indian-decade/2011/10/04/govt-backtracks-on-poverty/)

------
alorres
Although people are saying this isn't that good of a simulation because of all
the events that happen so fast together, as the saying goes, "There's always
someone who has it worse." Just a simple what-if would be fine for this, and
this was well-well done (note the double well :] ). Kudos to the creators. :)

------
rhplus
$225 gas/electic bill on day 6. Do they charge for utilities in advance and
without a grace period in Durham?

------
agentultra
I think this game is pretty interesting. It's not realistic by any stretch,
but it does get your attention more than yet-another-infographic-with-
statistics-on-it. It's a simulation in the very slightest sense of the word,
but you probably would have ignored the infographic.

------
rane
Cool, but apparently I have a kid and a family pet. At what point did I make
those decisions?

------
Tichy
Reminds me of a game about trying to survive as a peasant in Haiti. Might have
been this one: <http://ayiti.globalkids.org/game/>

Same problem that it had only options rigged for failure to chose from.

------
antihero
Why in the hell does the bottom rung pay so much tax? That is ridiculous. Even
in the UK we have a "lower cap" of tax free earnings, so that people who have
bugger all money aren't paying tax.

------
sramam
It's interesting that almost all comments thus far uniformly criticize the
game for propaganda bias and that real-life is not this hard.

A special-ed teacher I work with has a dimmer view than most of the US
education system - because she sees so many of its failures and that for a
living. I can easily see how the propaganda perception by an outsider is just
the everyday reality in the eyes of <http://www.umdurham.org/>, one of the two
game sponsers.

IMHO the game does a good job of creating a forcing function to make decisions
that atleast I haven't had to make in a long while, if ever.

Imagining myself as the game designer, suspect I too would favour inciting
empathy to accurate "real-life"-ism.

------
xenophanes
why did i -- as a person with no marketable job skills -- start with 7300 in
credit card debt? and why didn't i get a roommate for my apartment i can't
afford?

------
scotty79
Too bad the game doesn't allow you to ditch the car. Car falling apart is huge
money sink. First thing I'd do is to get rid of it.

~~~
scotty79
Heh. You can loose your car if it isn't "road legal". But this caused me to
loose a job (probably because I was living far away). This didn't stop them
from firing me second time in the same game when I tried to join union.

------
tylee78
in America you are still in a first world country!! have you ever lived in
Calcutta??? Oh please come on, stop the whining!

------
cglace
For the first year and a half after starting my company I made considerably
less than this and got alone just fine.

------
pnathan
I've lived on $7ish an hour.

It is very, very hard to break even. Any fluctuation in your hours can result
in a savings decrease.

------
BCounsell
This is only for a month. Being broke usually lasts a lot longer.

Anyone have any ideas on how to hack this kind of situation?

------
emehrkay
Way too depressing to play right now as it hits too close to home (or used
to). Good game

------
bennesvig
Not quite how I remember making $8/hr at an internship right out of college
for 6 months.

------
mnml_
Life isn't that depressive even with a 9$/hr job.

~~~
djeikyb
It easily can be. Consider a twenty-four year old fresh out of college with an
animal science degree, school loan debt, dependent parents, no car, no
openings in her field, forced to take fast food job. The job usually gives her
forty hours a week, but scheduled so she works 10-20 days before a single day
off. Rent started lower, but has been slowly jacked up to $800+ before
utilities. This describes my best friend for the past year. Paying bills is
tremendously difficult, much less saving any money.

~~~
BrandonM
So get a roommate, look for a new place, move to a cheaper area, get a
different job. I've done all of these things at one time or another.

I've paid as low as $125 per month in rent, but most typically in the
neighborhood of $225-300 (this is in one of the 15 biggest cities in the US, a
major college town, to boot).

Serving/bartending you can easily make $15-25 per hour and work 25-40 hours
per week. I've also worked as a valet part-time for another $10-15 per hour.
Package handlers can make $13 per hour (last I saw, several years ago) working
the late shift. These are jobs that generally have no degree requirements
whatsoever.

My roommate was once a couple grand short on tuition money. He stripped for a
couple weeks and was able to pay it all off. My sister's husband brings in
close to $40K in the Army, and they give money to pay off student loans, too.
I've had several friends work in Teach for America or as an Americorps Vista,
receiving relatively meager salaries but getting a living allowance, money
toward student loans, and a resume-building experience for aspiring non-profit
workers.

Meanwhile, remain tenacious in seeking out opportunities that make use of that
degree, and make every use of student loan deferment and forbearance until all
high-interest credit cards are paid off. Enter into debt management in order
to get credit card interest rates down into the 5-8% range.

The only saving that should be happening is an emergency cash fund. It doesn't
make sense to save until your debts are paid off, unless you can reliably
invest at a higher return (e.g., your employer matches your contribution up to
3% of salary for an effective 100%+ ROI).

I know how easy it is to get dejected and want to give up, but you absolutely
must soldier through it. Cut costs everywhere (don't eat out, sell that car,
start biking, take up cheap hobbies instead of paying for entertainment,
cancel cable, etc.) and pay down high-interest debts. Things get a whole lot
easier once you start having some cash margin each month.

That was the main thing I hated about the quiz. Everything was so binary.
Rarely in life are we constrained to a box other than the one we construct for
ourselves.

~~~
bennesvig
Great advice.

I've had to moonlight as a valet in between jobs and I could make anywhere
from $10/hr to $35/hr with tips. They would have hired anyone to work that
job.

~~~
BrandonM
Yep, valet parking was probably one of my favorite part-time jobs. They put me
on a mailing list for valet events and sent out weekly emails; I picked the
shifts I wanted to work. I got a good friend a job there, too, and we often
worked together. It was a great way to get in shape making decent money to
drive nice cars. And there was generally a 1-3 hour lull during the event to
relax, shoot the shit, make plans for the night, and meet new friends.

~~~
hugh3
Sounds like a good job!

In the game I took the option of being a waiter working for $2.15 an hour plus
tips, thinking that based on all the waiters _I_ know I could easily earn some
pretty good money. It told me I wound up earning $8 an hour, and this was
average. I remain skeptical.

For one thing, that's minimum wage, and as I understand it, the employer is
obliged to subsidise your wages up to minimum wage if you don't make that in
tips. Secondly, assuming a standard 15% tip that means I'm only serving about
$40 worth of food and drink per hour, in which case I'm in a _really_ bad
restaurant. (OK, maybe we need to share some of the tip total with busboys et
cetera, but that's still astoundingly low). Thirdly, there's no way that can
be the average, because it's the minimum, and some waiters are earning a whole
lot more.

------
maximusprime
Political propaganda disguised as a 'flash game' tops hacker news...

I'll bet the people behind it are laughing at their clever social engineering.

~~~
_delirium
That's actually what I find interesting about it. Propaganda _film_ has been
written about and practiced extensively, and we have a pretty good idea of
various ways to make it, as well as analyses of how to use things like
juxtaposition/framing/pacing/etc. for propagandistic effect. But propaganda
_games_ are a pretty weakly explored concept, and it's interesting to think of
how to use game mechanics (rather than just in-game dialogue) for
propagandistic purposes, especially since that overlaps pretty heavily with
grayer-area things like "expression" and "persuasion" (propaganda is just sort
of the limit case of persuasion with some poetic license).

I'm not sure this is the _best_ game in the genre, but it's an interesting
entry. Here's one satirizing airport security from a few years ago, which I
think comes off as a bit more honest in that its clustering of events is also
more frequent than would be the case IRL, but it clearly positions itself as
satire that's exaggerating to make a point:
<http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/airportsecurity.jsp>

This is a pretty decent book on the subject, fwiw, but I think the area of
game-rhetoric, of which propaganda games are a nice highlighting case, is
still pretty open (and to me at least, more interesting than stuff like
gamification):
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262514885/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262514885/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=abxxm-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0262514885)

Submitted separately, a 2009 blog post analyzing six ways to use game
mechanics for rhetorical effect (which can of course mean propagandistic
effect): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3070404>

------
clistctrl
It's hard to simulate poverty. Of course I can make the right decisions. I'm
not hungry, and this is a game. Sure I'll choose to buy the cheapest, and
healthiest food I can. Real life is different, after being hungry for a while
my decisions would be different. I don't feel this game highlighted how the
mentality of the situation compounds itself.

------
georgieporgie
I have an undisclosed pet, an $80/mo cell phone plan, and _both_ my gas and
electric bills are over $100. Also, I'm adamant about keeping my car, even
though I'm right by work. I make very, very poor decisions.

(honestly, I learn more about difficult lives by watching Judge Judy and
similar)

------
dbbo
The game is a lot easier if you act like a total sociopath (e.g. don't buy
your mom's medicine, let your pet suffer, etc.)

------
Hisoka
I quit in the first scenario: "Find a Job" or "Quit".. Anything but a job!

