Florida is now one of the most financially stressed states in the country, second only to another Southern state, according to a new report by WalletHub, which defines financial distress as having credit in forbearance or deferring payments due to financial difficulty.

“When you combine data about people delaying payments with other metrics like bankruptcy filings and credit score changes, it paints a good picture of the overall economic trends of a state,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said about the findings.

  • porksnort@slrpnk.net
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    2 days ago

    If you have ever been low income, $1700 is enough to get your attention. You know where that money comes from and when you are low income, a sudden in flow of essentially an extra month and a half of salary for a rural person?

    Well, you’re paying attention to that. So maybe have some perspective about what that kind of money means to a person who has a shitty truck and a barely adequate house and spends months in it through a long winter.

    • Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      20 hours ago

      I see so much argument around UBI with the assumption it has to be enough to live off or it’s worthless. But Alaska’s system makes a real difference to reducing the number of people living below poverty level, even being just a small fraction of what is required to live there for a year. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pop4.398

      Although not designed as a social program to redistribute income, the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) has been reducing poverty by providing equal annual payments to nearly all state residents for over 40 years. …the PFD reduced the number of Alaskans with incomes below the US poverty threshold by 20%–40%… The effect of the PFD has been even larger for vulnerable populations. The PFD has reduced poverty rates of rural Indigenous Alaskans from 28% to less than 22%, and has played an important role in alleviating poverty among seniors and children… up to 50% more Alaska children—15% instead of 10%—would be living in poor families without PFD income. The poverty-ameliorating effects of the PFD have lessened somewhat since 2000, as dividend amounts adjusted for inflation have been declining.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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        6 hours ago

        The expanded federal child tax credit during the pandemic also greatly reduced poverty, and that was just an extra couple thousand a year (paid monthly)

    • HubertManne@piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      you missed the higher cost of living remark. Cost of living there is only ever beaten out by hawaii, california, and new york. if your completely at 0 and on the streets then its going to make a big difference but if that person with the shitty truck and barely adequate house could pay less for most everything and might actually do better in alabama. Now granted without it the high cost of living would not be appreciably lower so its effect is massive just maybe not massive enough to make up for the cost of living there.

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        Yeah I’m pretty sure it costs more than 1700 just to keep your house a livable temperature throughout the year. Gamed fairly regularly with a dude in Alaska and he had to get heating oil like once a month and it was something like 300 bucks to fill if I remember correctly.