Gallup: Americans believe a family of 4 needs a minimum of $58k to get by

[davidn3600]

Americans think that a family of four would need to bring in a minimum of $58,000 a year, on average, just to get by in their community, a new Gallup survey finds.

That's more than double the 2012 poverty threshold for a family of four, which was around $24,000 a year, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The results are not far off from what Americans told Gallup when it asked a similar question in 2007, and experts say it's consistent with long-term trends as well.

Mark Rank, a professor of social welfare at Washington University in St. Louis, said Americans have for decades reported that the minimum families need to get by is two to three times the actual poverty thresholds.

The thresholds themselves also have come under scrutiny from both the left and the right, with policymakers on both sides arguing they are a poor measure of how many people in this country are actually poor.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-americans-135403262.html

[Bonobo]

1. "Get by" is right.

On $58,000, it's also pretty likely your kids will graduate college with a fearsome debt -IF you don't go bust with some kind of medical procedure, that is.

Also, don't expect to spend your retirement (which won't come) on a beach. Expect to spend it pushing shopping carts together.

[SoCalDem]

2. That would be comfy in some locales..not so much in others..

In San Francisco you'd be in trouble.. In Waco, perhaps you'd be fine

[Heather MC]

4. In Northern VA, It would not get you bus fare

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. Nobody is "fine" in Waco. n/t

[SoCalDem]

7. Well, you may have a point.. No amount of money would convince me to live there

[Jasana]

3. Unless you live in NY or Boston

I wonder why DU isn't jumping all over this story. It's surely more important than the Jodi Arias trial. Doubly more important than what a mother makes her bully kid wear to school but those story have hundreds of replies.

No wonder Obama isn't interested in creating living wage JOBS! JOBS! JOBS! What exactly are we holding his his feet to the fire to?

[SoCalDem]

8. Jodi who? (Thank goodness for trash-by-keyword)

No Jodi for me...ever

[historylovr]

5. K & R