A teacher who launched a GoFundMe to help him afford a place to live has put a spotlight on teacher salaries as the new school year begins.
Bill Atkinson, a fourth grade teacher in Austin, Texas, said he began living in his car this summer when his previous living situation fell through and he could not afford rent on his $54,000 annual salary.
“No matter how much I borrowed or scraped, there was no catching up, because I just did not make enough to cover rent – because I was so used to living paycheck to paycheck, I didn’t have anything in savings to try to cover rent for a couple months,” he told “Good Morning America.” “So I tried to get a place, [but I] was having a hard time finding a place I could afford on my own.”
Every teacher has bad credit. Due to decades of underpayment and lifestyle creep.
That lifestyle creep is just a respectable working class life, it’s just inflation has eroded our quality of life to the point that the revolutionaries are rolling in their graves.
My grandmother worked admissions at a community college in the sixties because she just didn’t want to leave academic life. Her salary, in 1965, alone, would have taken her 5.5 years to buy the average house and pay it off. Today’s average income - significantly higher, more than 6x her salary, would take 7.6 years to pay off the average home.
It wasn’t until 1976 that women could even have their own bank accounts.
Every step back in purchasing power and wages that we’ve fallen in 2 generations has been stolen from us. It was easier to buy a house in the Great Depression. We need full on redistribution of wealth, the complete destruction of the corporation as an entity outside of the founding fathers original intentions and a maximum income limit.
Theres about 1000 people standing in the way and fuck them. They led us into this climate catastrophe, they aren’t going to suddenly develop morals or a sense of duty to the commons. You have to excise the tumor to survive. Call the spade a spade
You’re talking about stuff that won’t be changed quickly. I’m just saying take care of yourself and don’t make bad decisions in the meantime.
This isn’t true, and just because other people have bad credit doesn’t mean it’s acceptable or should be normal.
This happens to everyone, and is typically used to describe how when people start making more money, they start spending more money. “Keeping up with the Jones’s”, etc. A budget is the only way to stay on top of this.
I’m sorry that there are systemic problems, and I agree that teachers should earn more money, but there are ways to get ahead of these financial problems so you don’t have to live in a car. There are a lot of resources for Personal Finance to make sure you’re living comfortably with what you have.