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United States of PTSD
Season One: Mental health concerns are on the rise in the United States. This podcast will look at the influencing factors contributing to the decline of our culture. With the rise of school shootings, political divisiveness, increasing levels of hate, and a chronic war of peoples' rights, we have entered a domestic war that never ends. Our podcast will look at whether this is done by design or is it an abject failure. We will discuss it from a clinical and common-sense perspective. Secondarily we will discuss ways to protect yourself from being further traumatized. Hosted by Matthew Boucher LICSW LCDP (licensed in RI) who has over 20 years of experience working with people who have addictions and trauma with a specialty of pregnant/postpartum women. Co-host Wendy Picard is a Learning and Development consultant with 15 years of experience, lifelong observer of the human condition, and diagnosed with PTSD in 1994.
Season Two: Is joined by Donna Gaudette and Julia Kirkpatrick BSW. Julia is currently working on obtaining her MSW and her LCSW. She is a welcome addition to the podcast.
Season Three: Cora Lee Kennedy provided research and worked as a temporary co-host. Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel joins as a co-host for season 3.
United States of PTSD
S 3 E:4 Challenging the Myth of the American Dream
Is the American Dream a myth we've all bought into, or is there a glimmer of truth hidden beneath its layers? Join us as we dissect the illusion of success and equality tied to this dream, especially relevant after Thanksgiving. Together, we challenge the narrative of individual achievement and underscore the often-overlooked impact of generational wealth and systemic barriers like racism and sexism on one's journey to success. Through the lens of a recent study on immigrant perceptions of American identity, we reveal a stark cognitive dissonance between the country's founding principles and its lived reality.
Our conversation takes a poignant turn as we spotlight the historical and current treatment of Native Americans . We take a critical look at political landscapes, such as in Rhode Island, where gender pay gaps persist despite progressive branding. The societal emphasis on colorblindness from past decades is reexamined, pointing to the necessity of recognizing and valuing diverse identities beyond mere tokenism.
Finally, we delve into the societal norms and systemic pressures affecting communication, education, and identity. Reflecting on personal experiences, I recount how my once-criticized talkativeness became a career strength, illustrating how narrow educational norms can limit potential. We scrutinize cultural narratives perpetuated by Disney and rom-coms that set unrealistic ideals and lack diverse representation. As we discuss the mounting financial stress faced by Americans and the shrinking middle class, we stress the importance of collective action to dismantle entrenched social and economic barriers. Join us as we challenge these myths and work towards a more unified and equitable society.
The Story Behind “Fitch the Homeless” | The New Yorker
What Is the Average Student Loan Payment? | Student Loans | U.S. News
5 facts about student loans | Pew Research Center
Average Utility Costs by State Breakdown – Forbes Home
Childcare Costs By State: 2023 Statistics | Self.inc
Salary: Entry Level College Grads (Dec, 2024) United States
“The question is not whether the American Dream contains room within it for all those who wish to play a part, but whether the United States can tolerate within its midst those who have a radically different dream, and grant them the freedom to pursue that dream on their own terms.” Stephen Cornell, 1987, UCLA American Indian Culture and Research Journal
Immigrant Perceptions of U.S. - Born Receptivity and the Shaping of American Identity
M. Jones-Correa, H. B. Marrow, D.G. Okamoto, and L. R. Tropp, Russell Sage Foundation, 2018
(Study from the Federal Justice Statistics, 2021)
Black prisoners released in 2021, spent an ave
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https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/no-time-to-die
License code: S4CEQWLNQXVZUMU4
Artwork and logo design by Misty Rae.
Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.
Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic advice or to replace any professional treatment. These opinions belong to us and do not reflect any company or agency.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the United States of PTSD. I have Cora back with me today and we are going to be discussing the illusion of the American dream, which is so apropos for the holiday we just had, thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:Hi everyone, it's good to be back we just had Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, it's good to be back. Cora, do you want to give?
Speaker 1:a little information about the background, sure, so there are a bunch of different ideas about what the American dream is, but most people recognize the American dream as two things it's an individual spirit we're a country that has a lot of potential, a lot of individual possibilities and that idea is really based on one person's ability to economically climb that ladder of success, and that really means without any help.
Speaker 2:When you say without any help, you're referring to social welfare systems. Yeah, you're not referring to things like money being handed down in generations, or is that included in there?
Speaker 1:I think the idea is that you can be a self-made person without having generational wealth. Okay, in reality, generational wealth plays a big role in whether or not you can succeed as an individual. Most people have this idea that you can come to America, you can get a new, fresh start and you can make a lot of money. And then the other part of the American dream is related to the Constitution and America's history of ideas of equality, independence, individualism is probably the biggest point within the Constitution that you have all these rights that are ensured.
Speaker 2:To be perfectly honest with you, I wonder if you stop the average American and ask them what's in the Constitution. If the average American would even know, I'm sure that there were no snippets of it, because we have a tendency to just know things that are relevant to us. However, we also have a tendency to edit things too, so we may misinterpret stuff and say here's what the Constitution says. I mean, we've seen people do this very frequently, where they will cite something and it's really not accurate.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and you know the way the constitution was originally written. It was all men are created equal, but that was really written for white people, not for African-American people.
Speaker 2:Well, and it was also written for men Right, because women certainly didn't have the right to vote. I mean, there's lots of things women didn't have as well, so we are talking specifically white men.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and so I looked at a study by Jones, correa, marrow, akamoto and Trapp and we can have a link to that study. But it was looking at how immigrants view American identity and what they found is that most people see Americans through identity, through ascriptive characteristics, so that's being native, born, having a religion, that's Christian, white skin color and English as a first language. But most Americans actually define American identity through the principles of the Constitution, but they actually in practice, in daily face-to-face interactions with people, will point out Americans through characteristics such as skin color.
Speaker 2:Yes, and this goes back to what we've talked about on many, many of the different episodes about cognitive dissonance. What people think they're doing and what they're actually doing are two different things. There was a study and I don't have it with me because I didn't think I was going to actually reference it today there's a study, particularly with therapists and mental health providers, where they had them observed by other providers and the person who was being observed would then talk about the theories they used. So they would say I used CBT or I used motivational interviewing with my client, and most of the time they were wrong. The observer would say that's actually not the theory you're using. You're using this theory.
Speaker 2:So there is this um level of cognitive dissonance that happens, I think, all over the place in in different things. We see it in religion all the time, particularly with what's happening right now with the genocide which I've talked about numerous times. You can't say you're for human rights and you're for love and respecting everybody and then turning a blind eye to people being massacred. But we do it every day. We did it at Thanksgiving. I mean. You think about again how apropos that is. You have a holiday that's based in this lie, lie, and I'm sure you were fed the same lie when you were growing up. That absolutely you know. The white, non-native americans came here as immigrants, ironically, because of how much we our country loathes immigrants, but anyway, we came here as immigrants seeking refuge and there's this picture that's painted about the native americans and how welcoming they were and we all sat down and broke bread and had this great meal when, when, in reality, we were slaughtering them, committing genocide, spreading disease, breaking down their way of living, and we continue to do that today and now they're all relegated to reservations and we make very little reparations as a society, and we see this pretty much in every non-dominant group. So the fact that here we are celebrating, giving thanks to each other, while we're bombing other countries and slaughtering people is again it's this big level of cognitive dissonance it happens. I almost think it's.
Speaker 2:The basic tenant of the American culture is to live in a fantasy world that doesn't exist. You had mentioned the study for other people coming here and I remember I had a student one year and I don't remember where in Africa she was coming from I really don't because this was probably about a decade ago but she said that she literally believed the American streets were paved with gold, because that's what she was told growing up. And when she got here and got out of the airplane, she talked about how hostile everybody was to her. Almost immediately, I think, she landed in New York and she talked about how overwhelming it was, and it was. You know, it's like realizing something you believe in doesn't exist anymore. And it's actually. Not only does it not exist, but it's the exact opposite of everything you ever believed existed. That's quite a level of shock.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, quite a level of shock. Yeah, absolutely. What the study that I was referencing was talking about was that when US born Americans are receptive and welcoming to people who are first entering our country, those immigrants have better positive feelings about the country. They're more likely to stay in America and go through the process of actually becoming a US citizen, and it just creates positive feelings on both sides. So that's like a positive. If you are welcoming towards immigrants, it helps you and it helps them. I think it's really hard that a lot of people come here thinking that they will automatically be accepted, when the reality is that's not true.
Speaker 2:If we were to look at all of the different countries on paper, there were certainly countries that the United States would consider good countries for people to be coming from, and then there are the bad countries that people are coming from, and I'm certain that they are treated differently. So the American dream does not. It's not for everybody, right, it's? You have to have a lot of privilege to begin with. You know it's interesting when you're talking about people coming here. When I went to Italy, I was practicing Italian. I did it for three months and I can't tell you how many people said to me repeatedly why are you doing that? They speak American over there. Well, I'm doing that because it's not America and the native language of Italy is Italian. So I am not going to go to another language. I mean to go to another country and expect them to know how to talk to me. That's my job.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:The attitude, though, from people here was really disheartening. Just with this why are you bothering? Like don't do that, use this, use that, like you don't have to do that. The level of respect that I was shown just from trying to speak Italian was really huge.
Speaker 1:I mean that's awesome that that was your reception in a different country. But yeah, I think just individually we take ownership that we're like the best country and that other countries learn how to speak English so that they can interact with tourists, but that absolutely shouldn't be the case.
Speaker 2:Cora has the research related to where I came from. I have the research related to what it's like to live in America financially. You had brought up people see America as the happiest country On the World Happiness Index. We're actually 23. We're 23rd in line, I will say. Ironically, israel, where we send all our money, is number five, so I'm not surprised by that, but we are 23.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, and I think the reason for that is a lot of what you were talking about with the numbers, and we can go through some of those numbers. So many people right now are just facing financial hardship and that creates a lot of disparity within our culture and our society.
Speaker 2:Sorry I had to mute, but not again. I'm curious, what we? There was an age difference between us, so I'm curious when you were growing up, what were you taught about the American dream? What kind of propaganda were you given?
Speaker 1:I didn't learn anything about Native Americans when I was growing up. They were Indians.
Speaker 2:Did they talk about them in all of them, or was it just?
Speaker 1:Just we sang a really racist Indian song around Thanksgiving like the five little Indians and things like that. Yeah, just really bad. I don't remember ever talking about them in positive ways at all was a huge part in the slave trade and how the manufacturing of whiskey in Bristol was and selling slaves created like this town that I visited all the time I had no idea there was any sort of history about that.
Speaker 2:To reflect on that, when we went to do the Mystic tour, was there a lot of similarity between the way you heard in Bristol as how they treated the Native Americans and what you heard in Mystic, because it was also a port town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. There's this weird thing that happens in Bristol, where you have some of the big roads that are named after Indian tribes or Native American tribes. Excuse me, I didn't realize. You know a bunch of like some of the major war battles happened in Bristol. They actually took Metacomet, who was one of the chief how do we say it? He was a very powerful tribe, tribal person and they actually tore his body into pieces and then put parts of his body on display throughout America.
Speaker 2:Well, that's disgusting and very typically American.
Speaker 1:It's horrible. It's just so disgusting.
Speaker 2:Actually I should say it's very typical European, yeah. You know that's a very European thing, white European thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Some of the stuff my parents didn't know until I was grown up. I don't remember having conversations with my parents about this stuff as I got older and my dad got more into history and you know, learning about that area, and he was really disgusted. He was upset that he never heard anything like that. It is interesting. This is like an American thing. I think that if you find out that you have Native blood throughout your ancestry, a lot of people kind of like broadcast that and own it and feel proud of that, Whereas people who discover that they have Black lineage in their ancestry tend to hide it and don't talk about it at all.
Speaker 2:I wonder if that I mean. I think that happens in lots of different things. I remember growing up I had an aunt who told me that we were Irish and when I told my mom that we are not Irish, Like, she was very much like against the fact that we were Irish and didn't believe it whatsoever at all and we were like 100% French, Canadian and I thought, well, I don't know if that's true, but you know, having the DNA testing, I did the DNA testing and I'm like, look, I'm 34%.
Speaker 1:Which is awesome, because I personally love Ireland.
Speaker 2:So certainly depends on what point of history that we're in when people look back at their lineage or their DNA and they either feel shame or they feel pride, based on what they identify with.
Speaker 1:But that is very relevant to what's happening in the media or like current events now you know, at the time, yeah, well, it's just, it's so disturbing to me that we'll, you know, tell these like family stories and be like, oh yeah, we definitely have Native American blood in our family, but then there's no, nothing further Like, yeah, researching to see if that's true or not, but then also, you know, supporting or learning more about where that blood comes from, or just supporting people in general. You know, native Americans in America are treated extremely poor.
Speaker 2:I would also wonder if you're looking at a typical American, non-native American and they do their DNA testing and they find out that they do have Native American in their blood, if that's the product of rape.
Speaker 2:Because that was prolific back then, so I mean, you can say you're proud to have it as part of your identity, but where did that actually come from? That would be what I would be concerned about. Not that we have any control over what our ancestors did, but still, you know, we do have a tendency to whitewash everything and make everything sound like great and wonderful and the American dream. You just try hard enough and everything is going to be great. But we know that that's not true.
Speaker 2:You and I were having a conversation the other day about Rhode Island and how Rhode Island and most of New England tends to be very democratic and very much about human rights, and part of the whole political platform that was going on recently was this fear that you're going to get your rights taken away. And it's so super important that you vote this particular way because otherwise you're not going to have your rights, particular way, because otherwise you're not going to have your rights. Then why is it that Rhode Island, which has been a democratic state for decades and decades and decades, women still only make 85 cents per dollar than men do in this state? And I said to you when I was talking about it you know, clean your own side of the street before you start running around preaching to everybody about what they should be doing, because there's no reason why any state in this country, particularly those that claim to be democratic and all about human rights, that women should be making less money than men ever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think I was telling you a little bit. Just, you know, I grew up in the 80s, so the way to teach kids during that time was to be colorblind and that women and men are equal blind, and that women and men are equal. So I really, until a few years ago, still kind of believed that women were equal to men and should be paid the same amount. I definitely have taken that for granted. I don't do that anymore and I think that it was really damaging for me in terms of being able to understand people of other colors, being able to make friends with people. I was taught that we're all equal, so maybe I wasn't empathetic toward other people because I didn't understand where they were coming from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense what I have started to see more as I get older. Both sides can be super problematic. Obviously, being colorblind, everybody's aware of how problematic that can be, but I also think going to the opposite extreme is just as damaging. We need to find some way that we can recognize people's identities, understand what that identity means and what barriers or what privileges that creates for them, without making that their whole identity, just like we do with mental health.
Speaker 2:I remember being at oh God, what was it? It was like a forum at the school one year where I had a former student of mine, man of color, great student. He was really one of the best students I had, just like you and Mike, and he was talking about I forgot where he's from. He's from South County, somewhere like East Greenwich or one of the more affluent communities in Rhode Island, and he was talking about being pulled over and what it's like for him when he gets pulled over. And then he asked everybody how many people there suffered from white guilt. And when I tell you, everybody raised their hands and I almost vomited because talk about virtue signaling. I guarantee not one person in there left that thinking about the white guilt they had.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's performative. When we start making things performative, they lose value instead of saying like, okay, how do we address this? And a lot of the times, what we end up seeing is we end up seeing people who are not even part of the community giving lessons and giving trainings on how to be inclusive. Well hello, could we, I don't know, be any more ironic about the whole thing? Right, absolutely. That's another problem.
Speaker 1:I would say that's, you know, possibly problem number one Right now. What does scare me and I don't want to get too scared and overwhelmed yet, because Trump isn't in office yet, but that was one of the things he talked about in the campaign quite a bit was just getting rid of all programs that teach ethnic diversity and inclusion, because, you're right, we don't need white people schooling masses, masses of people about how to be inclusive, but we do need really good educators to be out there doing the work in the right way. And they're out there, you know they're, they're doing hard work right now. It's just a matter of finding them and giving them credit.
Speaker 2:I obviously cannot speak for racism as a white male I can't do that but I can speak to homophobia and being gay and having gone the whole gamut, I mean I know, when I was in my twenties I was convinced everybody was homophobic and I was on this need to correct everybody. As I've gotten older, I've realized that actually not as many people as I thought were homophobic were actually homophobic. A lot of that was created by my own experiences and what I was being told was homophobia, and I certainly do not want my entire identity linked to being a gay male. When it's relevant, sure we can talk about it. If it's about me being discriminated against, absolutely let's talk about that. But I think that's really the only time it needs to be talked about.
Speaker 2:Like anybody else, I'm a culmination of lots of different things. That isn't just the whole identity of who I am. It's part of who I am and that's why I think we run the risk of swinging. When one side gets crazy, the other side gets crazy, and that's part of the pendulum. So much as we want to advocate when it gets to a point of absurdity, we can't then look at the other side and be angry that they're getting just as absurd. I mean, there's an equilibrium to things In life. Everything tries to find balance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, definitely, and I think you know identity is a very personal, individual thing. It drives me crazy when people make big, sweeping generalizations about people based on one aspect of one part of who you are. Every person should be able to identify as whoever they are, in whatever way they want to, as long as it's not hurting other people. Which actually, if you want, brings me to a really good quote that I found while I was researching. The quote comes from Stephen Cornell, 1987. And this was an article in the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, and the quote is the question is not whether the American dream contains room within it for all those who wish to play a part, but whether the United States can tolerate within its midst those who have a radically different dream and grant them the freedom to pursue that dream on their own terms.
Speaker 2:That's a great quote, because freedom is an illusion. Freedom means that you stay in the confines of what you're supposed to do, which is not freedom. There's a satirical comic, and I don't even know who it is. I just happened to see it one day on media. Didn't write it down so I can't reference it, unfortunately, but it showed a picture of kids in a classroom with their heads open and there was like a light bulb, like a really bright light bulb, and the teacher was like smashing the light bulb as they were walking down the aisles. And I think I jokingly said this to somebody recently when I was growing up. Surprise, surprise.
Speaker 2:One of the comments I got on all my report cards in elementary school was talks too much, but look what I do for a living. That was shot down the whole time I was going through school. That was actually what I ended up making an entire career out of was my ability to communicate. However, I was told over and over and over again bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking. And that's just my personal experience. I would imagine that I have another friend. I haven't talked to her in a long time, but I remember she struggled through through high school and middle school she came. She had a very difficult upbringing and I remember she went to her guidance counselor who told her to drop out of school and become a prostitute, because that's all she'd ever be good at.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that's terrible.
Speaker 2:Right. So you think about again. There's a certain normativity that we have to fall within. That's not freedom, that's a cookie cutter mold of what we're supposed to look like. You see how many people get canceled now when they speak out against genocide. Andrew Garfield just got they're trying to cancel him because he made a comment about what was happening in Gaza. If you don't match the status quo, if you don't fit what the real leaders of this country want, they try to cancel you in many different ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think what you're talking about, especially with schools, is the way that culture defines American identity and the idea of an American dream. You know where the schools themselves teach things that just aren't true. Yeah, and they ignore huge tracks of you know, part of our history, and then it becomes like this big political conversation on the news about what's right or not right to teach kids. You know.
Speaker 2:It's funny that history becomes so controversial when it's just history and I'm not trying to minimize it, I mean there's no, you can't change history. It is what it is and we can pretend that it's something else. The problem is that it just keeps repeating itself and anybody who understands history can predict where everything is going to go, because it always ends up in the same way. When you talk about the American dream, I think of what I learned growing up. You go to college, you get married, you get the big house with the white picket fence, the 2.5 kids and you live happily ever after with your great retirement Boy. What a lie.
Speaker 2:That is Many different ways. That that's a lie. Growing up as somebody who couldn't get married, you know that obviously was not true for me. I mean, you know now that's not the case, but back then it certainly was. And again, that's just one of my experiences. But talk about other, like racial disparity, being a woman, poverty, like all of those Native American, all of those other things that impact people growing up, and what that American dream looks like when it's not true to begin with, I mean we're all chasing something that doesn't exist.
Speaker 1:Right, and you know, when I think about my childhood specifically, I think about how big a part Disney played in my childhood, yeah, and, and the Disney princess, and what a crack of baloney that was, you know. But I do think that's another area, you know, like we didn't have a black princess until like 10 or 15 years ago. Like that's ridiculous, that's absolutely ridiculous. So not only do we have these very distorted ideas of like these dreams that were never possible, but then we have just pure racism in the midst of it too I have to tell you I was never a disney kid, but I was a disney adult for many years, from like 2015 to 2021, I think.
Speaker 1:I went three to four times a year well, I could say the same thing about rom-coms. Right, true from the 80s and 90s. How many gay rom-coms are there?
Speaker 2:either. The great part I have to say this is the funny I think I even mentioned this on one of the other episodes the great part of seeing the first gay hallmark movie, for, like the holiday, I watched it. I'm like god. It's just as bad as the straight ones. They certainly did give us equality, because it's garbage like the rest of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, actually, I think the funny thing about that is the two men that were actually actors are husbands in real life. So I mean, how much were they really acting to begin with? I mean, it's just, it's such, a, such a lie. You know, hollywood sells us and I will say that I do not support disney anymore because of their political stances and what they fund, but I used to be their biggest advocate. I do. You know how many people I got to go to disney? Oh my god, I probably got like 15 people to go to disney and I I spent. I added up how much money I spent and it was more than my mortgage, like what I had left on my house wow, in that amount of time, and now they're not getting another dime from me ever again.
Speaker 2:So, speaking of money, I do want to talk about some of the financial stuff, because this is the stress that Americans feel. I did a lot of looking at numbers, and I did not. You would ask me earlier if I looked at racial disparity on this. I did not. I do think it's important in terms of how much worse it would be. I think what I wanted to highlight, though, is that it's bad all around, so it just becomes worse and worse. Understanding how bad it is is just the umbrella, and then, if people want to look at how it impacts them, they certainly can.
Speaker 2:The average salary in this country this is according to ZipRecruiter of a person who goes to college and immediately gets hired outside of college is about $50,000. It's $49,574, which, if you ask me, is really low. The median rent in the United States is $1,634, which is $19,000 a year just in rent. According to HUD, no more than 30% of your income should be spent on rent. That is, 4,000 more than 30% of the income based off the $49,000 that I gave you so already. There, you're a little bit screwed the $49,000 that I gave you. So already there you're a little bit screwed. The average credit card debt in this country is $9,000. That's for the average single person. The average student loan debt and this is from the Federal Reserve and Census Bureau is $38,000 per year. The average payment for that student loan, according to US News, is $352 a month, which translates to $4,030 a year.
Speaker 2:The average cost of child care for one child ironically the highest in the country is Connecticut, where I live is $27,000 a year for one child. Now the lowest was South Dakota, I believe, and that was $14,800 annually. So if you average it out, that is $1,708 a month for child care. As a national average, 64% of Americans this is according to Forbes who do not have health care insurance have it because they can't afford it. According to Forbes, who do not have health care insurance have it because they can't afford it.
Speaker 2:The average cost of utilities in this country and that is according to InvestGuiding is $429 a month, which breaks down to $5,148 annually. The average cost of groceries again this is according to Forbes for one person is $336 a month, which averages out to $4,032 a year. According to Experian, the average car payment in the United States is $734, and the average insurance is $158. I did actually lower this just for the math, because most people, I'm sure, are not paying $734 for the car insurance. I dropped that down to about $600. The average insurance is about right. That comes out to $9,696 per year.
Speaker 2:Now, when you add all of that up and I don't think I missed anything Let me go through the numbers Now. Keep in mind this is not including things like cell phone bill, gas utility I mean no, it isn't killing utilities like expenses, other things you might, clothing, things you would buy for yourself, things you would buy for your kids. Once that is deducted from that number, I gave you a 49 000. That leaves 5 760 left from your annual salary, which equates to $480 of expendable money a month. Oh, quite the American dream.
Speaker 1:Which most of that money would go to things like cell phone, wireless, things like that. And Matt, just to clarify, did that include healthcare or not?
Speaker 2:No, that actually did not include healthcare. The only thing healthcare costs are wildly different depending on if you work for an employer that matches it or if you are self-employed like me, who has to go through the healthcare exchange against the shittiest insurance possible for like super high money. That does not include that. So if we were to take that out, I mean obviously the number would be a lot lower. I mean, I pay almost $500 a month for healthcare insurance, so that would wipe that out for me if I made that number. But then again, if I made that number, there would actually be a subsidy for healthcare, so it'd probably be less than that, but we could say definitively it would cut that number in half.
Speaker 1:So I mean we're looking at a family or an individual that can't survive. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then what we do as a country is we look at these people and we call them lazy and we say, god, they're just, they're living with their parents and they can't get out. Well, of course they can't get out. It's impossible. It is like statistically and financially impossible. You can't get out. It's impossible. It is like statistically and financially impossible. You can't get blood from a stone.
Speaker 2:And if you're already coming out of college in this incredible debt from student loans oh, there was a number I had about that, by the way According to I'm sorry, I forgot about this According to the Pew Research Center, americans had $1.6 trillion in student debt as of June 2024, which is 42% more than it was 10 years ago. Wow, that's so much. That's almost. I mean. Think about that. In 10 years it's almost doubled.
Speaker 2:And, of course, the cost the annual salary, has not doubled, right, by any means. Why are we? This is the average, this is what the average American. Of course, the annual salary has not doubled by any means. Why are we? This is the average, this is what the average American. I would actually say this is probably what the average privileged American looks like. Getting out of college, yeah, so if you are not privileged. Again, it's worse. Why are we all fighting amongst ourselves when there's clearly a bigger issue here? The bigger issue is these costs are not sustainable. They're outrageous and they're predatory and they affect the large majority of Americans, regardless of what your identity is, unless you're in that 1%. This affects everybody.
Speaker 1:Especially for housing. These days. That used to be one of the few things that Americans could count on to create wealth for a family over time, but now most people can't afford basic mortgage or down payments. After COVID, so much cash went into the housing market. Average people just couldn't afford things anymore.
Speaker 2:I can tell you even here I mean, I bought my house two and a half years ago my mortgage has gone up a hundred dollars every year because of taxes. Wow, I mean, that's a lot, that's a lot I've never seen it. I've never seen it go up that much. When I lived in Rhode Island it never went up that much. I was shocked, I was very shocked.
Speaker 1:Another number I found that was kind of crazy is to be considered poor in America. For one person you have to make $15,480 or less. So if you make, less.
Speaker 2:That's not poor, that's homeless.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because you couldn't even afford to live basic rent at that point.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So you have to earn that amount or less to actually receive any sort of federal money or Medicaid and things like that.
Speaker 2:When I tell you it's an absolute trap. For those of you that maybe are not in the United States, I know we have a lot of international listeners. This may surprise you. I don't know how much you know about it. I'm sure it's not going to surprise anybody in this country, but I had a client that I worked with for a really long time. They made $11 an hour and she made $11 an hour for a good I don't know seven, eight years. She could not get a raise because if she did get a raise I did the math on paper with her at the time and I think the number was 13,000, if I remember correctly she would have lost her child care subsidy, she would have lost her health care subsidy, she would have lost food stamps, she would have lost utility subsidies.
Speaker 2:She would have lost utility subsidies when you looked at everything she lost as opposed to how much she gained from making a dollar extra an hour. She ended up having to pay $13,000 more after making a dollar more an hour, which creates a trap because she can't get out of it. At the time this was like I said. This was probably like seven or eight years ago In order for her to get out of that trap, she had to make $23 an hour or more, wow, otherwise she would be stuck. Yeah, and unfortunately, that's the large majority of Americans, and that is a 100% testament to all of the special interest groups that actually own our country. Again, it doesn't matter if you're Republican, democrat, independent. It doesn't matter where you fall on the political spectrum. All of the politicians that we have caused this.
Speaker 1:And I think one other thing that we can sort of talk about when we're talking about the American dream is quality of health of life. I'm sorry, when we're talking about the American dream is quality of health of life. I'm sorry. Right now or in 2019, we had 1.36 million people in prison.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm assuming the large majority of them are for drug-related crimes as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, yep.
Speaker 2:Not surprised by that, because you have to be high in this country to seriously to deal with half this shit.
Speaker 1:So you know, as a country, we imprison a huge population of people. People of color tend to have longer sentences and not to be Debbie Downer, but in 2022, we had 49,000 people die by suicide.
Speaker 2:I don't have the numbers in front of me now, but I do know I talked about this on another episode. The numbers of suicide in this country have been going up every year as have the numbers of depression, anxiety, ptsd, adhd, autism, every mental health disorder you can possibly think of, including interpersonal violence. Everything in this country is going up Everything Postpartum depression, everything, which is no surprise that we are number 23. Because you can only push people down so far, right before they break. Yeah, absolutely, that's what's happening.
Speaker 1:it's all by design, all of it and I think I don't have no like exact numbers, but um, you know that we're seeing that with children too, children who need mental health services. Younger and younger children are considering suicide. That is insane to me that young people feel so terrible and are so depressed that this is something that's happening to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the American dream is a fallacy. I think we can all agree to that. It's actually more like the American nightmare. Do you see it ever changing in our lifetime?
Speaker 1:I don't think so just because we've had such a long history of it, you know. But you know, I do always see glimmers of hope and I try to hold on to those. You know, whenever we see somebody else who is marginalized get more rights, or when we see people showing more compassion or, you know, doing really excellent jobs. There's glimmers, you know. But I think the main problem of financial disparity is really disconcerting and it worries me. It definitely worries me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. It certainly is going to collapse at some point in time. There is no. This is not sustainable by any means. And the illusion of the middle class is disappearing as well. So we're starting to see more and more people who can't afford to live on a day-to-day basis, while we have major CEOs and companies getting billion dollar raises every year and we wonder. But we keep supporting them. You know, you think about things like recycling like as, as as dumb, as that is the first time I ever saw the trash company picking up both the recycles and the trash and putting them in the same in the same like truck container.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Was when I started to realize how much of an illusion that is too, because the large majority of recyclable problems does not come from the average consumer. It comes from these big corporations that get waivers on all that stuff and don't have to recycle. But you know, the average American feels that. Remember that stupid thing they did in Rhode Island and I don't know if it's still there where, in order to attempt to decrease pollution and straws, they made it so that Dunkin' Donuts and any sort of restaurant like McDonald's, they couldn't give you a straw unless you specifically asked for it. Well, all that led was to the service people being abused by the customers, because the customers realized how ridiculous it was and then would displace their anger on the service workers, when in reality, those straws are doing less damage than major companies who are dumping toxins all over the place. But again, let's blame the average consumer, let's blame the average person and turn them against each other. That is not an American dream. That is creating chaos. That's dystopia.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, during the summer I pick up a lot of trash on the beach and number one product I do pick up on the beach in Rhode Island is straws. I don't think that measure had any effect at all on the amount of straws that are out there. Of course it didn't, but it's definitely disheartening to be blamed as an individual for something when you know that carbon, like large industrial carbon emissions, causes so much more problems.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's disturbing. I mean, the whole thing is an illusion, and I think more and more people need to wake up to that and change the way they not only spend money, but really start to analyze what type of country we live in and how we fix it, because we don't fix it by turning against each other right that is certainly not the solution.
Speaker 2:There's strength in numbers, there's strength in unity, but it's easier to control people when you divide them, keep them fighting against each other, keep them in poverty, keep them fighting over resources, when there's plenty of resources to go around for these people, you think, think about those extreme shoppers, the couponer, people who would go in and get like 67 things of toilet paper and it's like you don't need that, or the ones that I guess that's a bad example 67 boxes of cereal because they're never going to eat it, all it's going to expire. So you think about they're doing it because it's like a high, it's like this hoarder mentality, but there's plenty of resources. Had you not done that? And I know that that's very small scale, but you look at that on a bigger scale. Sure, and that's what happens is we don't. We have the resources, we just choose who we're giving them to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you see that with clothing all the time, right Like right now, there probably exists enough cloth in the United States to clothe everyone. You can either go to a thrift store and get like a perfectly fine sweater, or you can pay a lot of money from a designer and be, you know, culturally accepted.
Speaker 2:Was there one time in history I think I'm remembering this correctly where somebody was donating abracadabra clothes to the homeless people and like abracadabra was like flipping out over? It is that oh, I don't remember that I think that that I could be making that up, but I vaguely remember that because there's such a you you know a niche clothing store that likes to market sex.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, that was a fun topic and forgive Cora and I, both struggling with colds, so that's why we are coughing and sound nasally, but we do have. Oh, I do want to say, core, I don't know if you had a chance to listen to the episode with donna, but I did get tumblers that I'm giving away to listeners and I did have one listener email me, so I'm sending them a tumbler. Why? There's a couple, there's four left. If people want to email thoughts or ideas, I will certainly send you a tumbler with our logo on it, and we have quite a few guest speakers coming up right, quite a few that we have some great topics coming up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I don't know if, uh, if, you want to go into it, but we do have a lot of guests trying to schedule for the next month or two, so lots of exciting stuff coming.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I I have this thing that every time I mention a specific, it falls through. So I'm not mentioning specifics anymore.
Speaker 2:I like that we just have a lot of guest speakers lined up with some pretty good topics that we're going to be discussing, and we are still open to topics from listeners or having other people on the show. If you know anybody that wants to guest speak, certainly we are open to that. So, everybody, thank you once again for tuning in to the United States of PTSD and we will see you. Well, you'll hear us, I should say, in a couple of weeks. Thank you again.
Speaker 1:Bye, take care.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody and thank you again for listening. This is just a reminder that no part of this podcast can be duplicated or copied without written consent from either myself or Wendy. Thank you again.
