In America today, many low-income workers and households can’t get adequate healthcare or pay for food. Depending on who you ask, medical costs are the number one cause or at least among the top causes of bankruptcy for families.
This is despite the United States spending more on healthcare per capita than any developed economy within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and having the most advanced medical science and technology in the world.
Healthcare is one good indicator of social malaise. Another is people’s ability to put food on the table.
Here’s a statement from this week’s The Washington Post: “Families are paying for groceries with revolving debt, which then traps them into accumulating years of interest payments for food they’ve long since consumed.”
According to the Guardian, more than a million children – or 4 million Americans in total – across the US have lost access to federal food assistance benefits in the past 12 months.
Chinese social media posts call such social vulnerabilities in the US the “kill line”, to describe a financial and social tipping point that could ruin middle-class families.