Series Overview: Why do humans have to pay to stay alive?

Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard just to stay alive in this world? Why it takes so much time, money, and effort to give yourself the basic necessities to just stay at home and do nothing, much less perform to your fullest potential at a job or hobby?

I classify necessities as the following: transportation to work, food, water, housing, medical insurance, and power. If you can live without any of those things, more power to you!

Here’s a look at some numbers based on the average American:

Money: The average US salary is $31,000 per year before taxes. Having this job assumes that you have previously purchased transportation (the average car payment is $5,760/year), actively maintain its functionality and legality (let’s lowball at $700/year), and constantly refuel your vehicle (let’s estimate $1,300/year). You still need food, water, housing, medical insurance, and power. Those numbers add up to $20,250 (3000, 850, 9500, 5500, 1400 respectively). Assuming you have a car and rent payment, you are left with a precious $2,990 (<10% of your salary) for whatever you want to buy for the entire year. Don’t spend it all in one place! Oh, and don’t forget about your cell phone, data plan, internet plan, computer, pets, children, spouse, etc.!

If you don’t have one or both of those payments, you have considerably more to work with, but you seem to be in the minority! On the note of medical insurance, the $5500 number assumes no work compensation but also no claims that you have to pay out of pocket.

If you prefer a visual, here is a graph:

Time: If 90% of your job goes to provide necessities, that means that 2,340 hours of your year are dedicated to that. A 40-hour/week job adds up to 2080 hours per year plus 520 if you take an hour before and after work to prepare, travel, and transition to casual life). Out of the 8760 total hours in a year, 3650 hours are spent asleep or being sleepy (assuming 8 hours of sleep and 2 hours of sleepiness per night/day). That means that of the time you are awake, you spend 46% working to provide a roof over your head, power to regulate temperature and cook your food, water, transportation to work, and not being dead.

If you prefer a visual, here is a graph:

Effort: Now that you are off work and home at 6:00, are you ready to better yourself? Change the world? Make a difference in the life of someone else? Drink a 6-pack in front of the television before your 10:00 bedtime?

In this series, I will explore the basics of survival and how they could be made free in the future. The following concepts will be thoroughly investigated:

Food

Water

Housing

Medicine part 1

Medicine part 2

Power and Transportation

I am using the image of a hamster in a wheel for this series because that is how I view working for necessities. Lots of work is being done but the overall progress is null. This image will come back in my next series, Why do humans have to pay to thrive? My goal is that instead of precious human minds and bodies running ragged on a wheel to do slightly more than stay in place, technology can go to work for us and we can move as far forward as we like without the pressure of working for survival.

Please read my other posts to continue to learn about my dream for the world. Thank you for reading this one!