Chris, for perspective I married in college and dropped out to support my family and began working. We rented a one room apartment by the week in a flop house with walls so thin, you knew exactly what the other tenants were up to. We cut our milk with water to stretch it. We ate mostly beans, rice, and pasta with a few slices of the cheapest meat on sale. I worked like a dog, so my wife could complete her degree and later she worked so I could complete mine four years later. So I understand the hardships of early life. And yes, I had credit cards balances charging 22% annual interest rates.

It is precisely because we ‘old folks’ have lived and walked in the shoes of the young that we understand the only escape from poverty is the relentless pursuit of more valuable skills and savings. If someone is really working four jobs, let me suggest that they are making a mistake. Each of their employers sees them as a part-time employee. Whatever it takes find a full time job that pays overtime. With unemployment as low as it is, one should be able to find that kind of job. One where they can impress their employer, that they are a key employee worth retaining and promoting.

Someone gave me the same advice and I began working sometimes 80 hours a week and the thing is whether my employer promoted me or not, when I felt ready for promotion and no opportunity existed at my company, I felt ready and so I sought work at a higher level at another company. I used to joke I got two years of experience for every year I worked. I found that as much as “education”, employers valued honesty, attitude, and dependability. I also found there were plenty of good employers. And yes, colleges offered courses at night and on week-ends.

But you missed the point… what I said was…

“The point is no one is going to help you retire well… and playing the victim isn’t going to make it happen… taking from the rich won’t work either… if you spread the income of the rich over the the rest of America it might add $2,600 a year to their incomes. If they are not saving, $2,600 a year won’t change anything.”

In fact, you made my point for me. $2600 a year would not have changed your “saving” habits. It might have changed your working habits (work less) or your spending habits (having more to spend), but it is doubtful that it would have caused you to save and accumulate wealth.

So you might have been happier and less poor, but you would have still been poor. It would not have provided a means to escape poverty unless you saved it every year for most of your life. And that is my point, just as you emphasized the immediate benefit of $2600 a year, totally absent from your response was how you would have used the money to escape poverty. Had you said, I would have saved the money or I would have used it to pay for more education, then perhaps I would have been wrong in your case.

If you have subsequently succeeded in life, then I would argue the hardships you experienced made you a wiser person and contributed to your success.

I was luckier than most people. I grew up in a large family where my father was once the son of a millionaire, who lost all in the Depression. Going from riches to rags, my dad completed his education by working for .18/hour at Woolworth’s and selling yearbooks. His determination and hard work and a few breaks allowed him to start his own business. Several times over his life, bankruptcy threatened to end his business due to factors often beyond his control. But through blood, sweat, and tears (and one heart attack), he kept the business going.

As a child, I was assigned to picking up trash and later promoted to cleaning bathrooms, before landing the job of loading trucks. This exposure made me aware, that working hard was not enough. You had to become more valuable (later I learned that making more money was not enough, you had to save it too). And so I wonder where you are coming from… before I dropped out of college, I had already worked at McDonald’s to pay for school and as an aide in a hospital caring for patients including changing bed sheets for incontinent patients in the geriatric unit.

So you should envy me… I had the benefit of learning at young age the things that would make me a financial success later in life. But don’t think for minute that I have not experienced poverty. I prefer affluence, but it does not happen by accident… it takes a plan and a lot of work… Many people have a plan, but don’t work the plan. Even more work hard, but have no idea how to make a plan. Those that have both are called middle class, upper class, or rich.