Quote:
Originally Posted by Chef
Take your projection elsewhere. I'm a 50 year old line cook. I will be working until I die, or I will be homeless at the end, one of the two. That is part of why I care about homelessness. I see it as a distinct possibility for myself.
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Let's take this out of the realm of a "food fight" and use your comment to elucidate us all. If, when you someday become unable to cook and earn a living, will you allow yourself to put up a tent on the sidewalk of some high-priced city and lay in it all day drinking cheap wine (or smoking fentanyl), or will you move somewhere you have a chance of living a decent existence on whatever social benefits (Social Security, SSI, food stamps, Medicaid . . . whatever) you qualify for?
That's the thing that's hard to comprehend. Granted that cities like San Francisco, Seattle and the rest offer some benefits lower-cost cities don't (I've been through what SF provides the homeless and, in addition, its "general assistance" grant is a few hundred dollars a month higher than rural California counties), but the cost of living, especially housing, is so much higher than so many other places that it's hard to understand why anyone on a limited income would stay. After all, Social Security and most federal benefits are pretty much the same anywhere in the country and those program which do offer higher benefits in higher cost areas don't nearly compensate for the higher costs.
I mean I have neighbors in southern Arizona who live in single family homes most of which they own (at least are paying for with a mortgage) and I suspect some of them have little income beyond Social Security. You can do that there . . . and it's not even the least costly place in America to live. That honor probably belongs to some places in the middle of the country far from the coasts or anything that qualifies as a "vacation destination". There's no way people not benefitting from rent control or inherited property could live in the coastal cities on Social Security.