Maybe attracting homeless would be a better way of putting it. Homeless people aren't inherently irrational. Given an option, many of them will choose a place they like better than one they don't. Add in politicians who see a chance to solve the issue by encouraging the homeless to move somewhere better for them (which lets them even sell the measure as a benefit for the homeless), it means that places that make it much better to be homeless see homeless from other areas moving in.
The most common zip code they get on the questionaire is for the Pioneer Square area, where many homeless services are provided and the price of rent is higher than average. They don't require any evidence of being housed previously and, even if they did, coming to Seattle with the promise of friend hosting them on their couch counts as "living in the area" before becoming homeless.
80% of our population lives paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford a 400 dollar car repair bill. That is instant homelessness for a lot of people. So much wealth is hoarded in so few hands that we are squandering vast amounts of economic potential.
Thanks for posting this. I've been repeating this stat quite a bit lately without knowing that it's misleading.
However, I still think we're in pretty dire straits:
> The report finds, in 2018, that 61% of adults would cover a $400 unexpected expense using cash (or its equivalent). Politicians and many in the media seem to be subtracting 61 from 100, and concluding that 39% of people, to use Warren’s phrase, “can’t come up with” the money they’d need to handle this situation.
> Instead, as the Fed report makes clear, though “the remaining 4 in 10 adults” “would have more difficulty covering such an expense,” many of them would be able to make it work by carrying a credit card balance or borrowing from friends and family."
That's still really bad. 39% of people can't cover an unexpected $400 expense without borrowing money from someone else, or effectively taking out a loan at 20%+ interest.
And the 12-14% figure for people who actually would be unable to come up with that $400 via any means is also troubling.
>The report finds, in 2018, that 61% of adults would cover a $400 unexpected expense using cash (or its equivalent).
I guess the key question is, does the other 39% not have liquid assets to cover it and thus have to take on debt, or would they choose to cover it for other reasons? I have $400 in the bank but would likely put it on a credit card because I don't like carrying that much cash nor using my debit card (to reduce risk of it being leaked). So would I be in the 39% or the 61%?
I don't really see anywhere in your post where any refutation is concrete. They hem and haw over semantics, but nothing worth note is presented contrary to the my view. In fact, in the opinion piece he quotes anecdotal things I would hear frequently from my lower wage employees, such as being unable to purchase a new tire, $400 dollars is a lot of money for a lot of people.
