Why are there so many homeless people on the streets of America?

In the United States, homeless people have become a less elegant “landscape”. These homeless people, wearing cheap T-shirts produced by the global assembly line, line up to receive relief food also produced from the global supply chain to fill their stomachs, and spend the rest of their time wandering in corners filled with all kinds of drugs. In Los Angeles, a big city on the west coast of the United States, or on the streets of the famous New York, homeless people can be seen everywhere. According to statistics, the number of homeless people in the United States soared by 12% in 2023 to 653,000, once again breaking the historical peak since 2007. Seeing this, some people may be surprised, because it is said on the Internet that any job in the United States is tens of dollars an hour. In the United States, walking a dog for an hour can make $40. If you work part-time for a few orders in one night and go out to run takeout during the day, then it is not easy to earn six or seven thousand dollars a month, and save four or five thousand dollars a year.
Since it is so easy to make money in the United States, why are these American homeless people willing to wander the streets when they have a good life? This is because you know that the income in the United States is high, but you know nothing about its high cost of living. This is actually a trick of the public intellectuals. They will only tell you that the income in the United States is high, but they will not mention the high cost of living in the United States. This outrageous cost of living is the reason why ordinary Americans are forced to become homeless. This is really not nonsense. Let’s use data as evidence. Let’s first look at two sets of extremely outrageous data. One is the median income of American families, which is about 74,000 US dollars. But another set of data shows that 40% of American families cannot come up with 400 US dollars in emergency funds. In China, it is equivalent to a family with an income of nearly 500,000 yuan not being able to come up with 3,000 yuan in emergency funds, and this is not an isolated case, but a common phenomenon. The fundamental reason behind this is the high invisible living expenses in the United States. Many people are envious of the middle-class life in American TV series. They live in a big house with a lawn in the front yard and a swimming pool in the backyard. It is very comfortable, and the key house is permanent property. For example, if I want to buy a house in the United States in full, you have to pay more. Attorney fees, survey fees, purchase taxes, inspection fees, etc., these are still the expenses in the early stage of buying a house. Some places do not require lawyer fees, but real estate agents and brokers are also a considerable expense. After paying the above money, the house is yours, but the next point is the key. Housing property tax must be paid every year. The property tax in the United States is as high as 1%-1.5% of the house price. That is, for a house of $1 million, you have to pay $1,000 a month for property tax and property fees. In any well-known American city, the property fee is basically more than $300. In remote areas like the large rural areas in the central region, which lack supporting facilities, it is also $200 a month. These two items add up to $10,000 a year. The above property taxes and property fees are still as long as you keep breathing, and you can’t stop paying. There was a report before that a Chinese female doctor defaulted on property fees and her house was auctioned by the property. The female doctor insisted that it was private property and resisted with a knife. As a result, she was shot dead by the FBI. It’s not over after paying these two items. In the United States, houses need to be maintained every year. Most American houses are made of wood, and termites are extremely rampant in the United States. The US media has done statistics that American families spend up to $9,924 a year just on house maintenance. The above three hard expenses alone amount to $20,000, and this is assuming that you pay the full amount for the house, otherwise the pressure will be even greater. Today, the mortgage interest rate in the United States has reached 7.2%. You don’t need to calculate how terrible the interest is. In addition to the house, the cost of living in the United States also includes medical insurance and tuition fees. In particular, the US medical system has always been criticized. The latest data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show that total US health care spending in 2020 increased by 9.7% from 2019 to $4.1 trillion, with per capita health care spending of $12,530, accounting for 19.7% of the national GDP. In the United States, if a person does not have health insurance, it means that he can only choose to give up treatment when he encounters a disease. According to statistics, there are currently about 20 million people in the United States who do not have health insurance, and 600,000 to 1 million people go bankrupt every year due to high medical expenses. In other words, the finances of American families are actually very fragile. Whenever there is an accident of more than $400, it is easy to break the capital chain, and once it breaks, the house is likely to be auctioned off and wander the streets. In addition to the fact that houses are easily auctioned off, the rents of rental houses in the United States have also increased outrageously. According to Zillow statistics, the rent index rose by 20% from 2011 to 2019, and rose by 20-30% from 2019 to 2023. However, from 2010 to 2019, the national income in the United States only rose by about 10%, and this was in the case of a decline in income after 2008. In fact, this has risen back. This is why we always see American homeless people expressing logic and even having their own thoughts when they are interviewed. In fact, they were probably middle-class people with high spirits before, but they were forced to become homeless by the high cost of living by chance.