Poverty becoming the majority?

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Is it just me or is most of the population facing a ton of debt in their lives? I recently read an article that explains that the average person owes about $47K in outstanding debt. I assume this number is not including good debt like mortgages or education loans. Recently, the federal government has changed some policy in order to deal with household debt. 

When I researched debt, there seemed to be a difference between good debt and bad debt. An example of bad debt would be credit card payments or a car loan. In order to figure out your bad debt to income ratio, add up your monthly payments on bad debt and divide it by your monthly income. Take that number and times it by 100 to get a percentage. This percentage will help you define whether you are carrying a huge bad debt load. We all have good debt load so it is important to keep bad debt under control.

Even though it is common and acceptable to carry education debt, I and many others can’t help but question whether or not the stress of it all is really worth it in the end. Yes a lot of people do work at lucrative jobs that are correlated with their educational accomplishments; however on the flip side, there are more people who have one and two degree designations and are receiving less monetary gain a year than their outstanding accumulated student loans.
We do live in a time where it is absolutely normal and expected to go to college or university, or both, in order to land a job let alone a lucrative one. Twenty years ago and beyond, the job market didn’t seem so segregated, competitive and exhausting. People didn’t need the same credentials that they do now to receive opportunity in the working world. More people hired to companies were given the opportunity to learn and grow with the business and step into other career paths within. Things have changed so much and because of this, we have a huge divide between the classes. We all can’t be lawyers, bankers and doctors and CEOs. It takes us all and many different roles to make the world go around. The average cardiologist makes about 600K/yr and the average merger banker makes about $2M/yr. It seems that big business and life are grossly out of balance. Does this comparison seem fair? I have some real moral red flags going up for me here.

Yes, money makes the world go around but don’t people do a better job of that than money? Near proverty, in poverty and below poverty seem to be rearing its head and is jockeying for position as a top of mind issue for humanitarian and the media. More and more, you see articles in the media stating that the middle class as we know it is in fact disappearing.  I know opinion will differ between the corporate minded and for the humanitarians. If poverty isn’t a hot topic, it surely should be. Seemingly, we care less and less about humanity and more and more about money, business and the huge corporations. 

Life is hard, plain and simple. Big business is closing in on us all. They are buying more and more small to large businesses resulting in a big business acquisitioning all areas of business. I’m not sure this is the smartest thing for the rest of us. We are led to believe that the more powerful a corporation is the more they will create economic stimulus. I question this claim and more rather believe the opposite. The more they get, the more they want. This in turn makes them hang onto what they have more tightly and makes it more expensive for their product or service falling on the shoulder of the average person.

 Product and service have less quality and choice is limited. Customer service is definitely not what it used to be or should be.  We are controlled by merchandising. Just for an example, I spent years building up a movie library and then technology changed and made my collection irrelevant. I realize innovation is important in life but, it seems more like insanity that continues to  increase. Who can keep up?  Doesn't anyone get tired?

How many people do you know that lives from paycheque to paycheque? In 2010, a poll done by The Canadian Payroll Association published by the CBC revealed close to 60 percent of people live this way. Probably more than you even realize. No wonder we are living with more stress, more illness, more suffering. How long can we all go on living like this? There is no hiding from debt for the average person.

Yes there are the people who make and come from money and those of you that do, I hope you consider yourself blessed. I do believe that many of us do need to stop and evaluate our ways and could even possibly loosen the shackles of humongous debt. It does take a budget and some big lifestyle changes, but I believe it can be wrangled back in. Now is the time to cut the spending and help the stress. Face it - living in debt does create a lot of stress.

In the 1940s, Maslow explained that all humans need  five basic things in order to survive in life.  In this material world, how much do we really need? Exactly when did we stop sticking to the basics? Is it time to go back and better yet, can we go back?