some reflections on 'the working poor'

What's going on with many of our nuclear families?
Both parents working and still falling behind financially; many using charity to supplement their income / lifestyle.
The gap between income and 'needs', at least for many, increasingly unbreachable.

[H]unger [sic] gnawing away at children and families of the working poor

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25693743-5012465,00.html

McMillan says charities as far away as Hervey Bay are sending someone south weekly to collect food, as a new "working poor" emerges in the long queues.

The "working poor" includes families, he says, where both parents have a job. But after clothing their children, paying a mortgage and filling the family car with fuel, the parents are often caught short on food.

(Do your own search if you like; find your own link/s.
The above is simply an apposite, contemporary report.)

I'm not a nostalgic: the post-War years through the 70s were far from ideal.
Many aspirational 'working-class' families (like mine) went without many 'basic' goods – TVs, certainly, but also appliances like vacuum cleaners and washing machines – we now take for granted;
women were in many ways second-class citizens;
domestic violence and sexual abuse were all too often trivialized or swept under the carpet;
many smart kids missed out on a university education because they couldn't afford it.
Et cetera.

So I'm not suggesting that Then was 'better' than Now.
Yet I'm really curious to find out Why – 30, 40, 50 years ago – most families could survive and pay off a mortgage on a single income when, these days, a combined income is often insufficient.

I've read that the ratio between household income and housing affordability has stretched to breaking point; i.e., property is way over-priced and mortgage repayments are in many cases unsustainable.
I've also read that society's idea of 'essentials' vs 'luxuries' has changed: that our collective addiction to consumption is the culprit, since 'too many' expect to own a McMansion, a widescreen plasma, an X-Box, a boat … three or four cars in the driveway!, the nett effect of which is a shrinking disposable income.
(Begs the question: when did FOOD become a 'luxury'? Well …)
There's also the fact that many parents are so 'time-poor' that they feel compelled to purchase take-away and / or prepare packaged, 'convenience meals' for the family. Quite aside from the health impacts – increasing obesity and diabetes in kids for example – these foods aren't cheap.
'Labour market reform' suggests many people – particularly the unskilled and semi-skilled – simply don't earn enough.
No doubt there is a host of other contributing factors.

I've tried to keep this post apolitical and honest: I really don't have any answers.
I'm starting to conclude that, in an increasingly secular society, consumerism has replaced religion as 'the opiate of the masses'.
And, being addicted to revenues, governments of all persuasions are pushing the 'production–consumption' mantra.

Yet that's only a symptom.
What's the disease?
You tell me.

what's the real cost of the mythical 'free' market?

I'd be the first to admit that, as a general rule of thumb, you can't change human nature.
Example. There's nothing wrong with communism in its purest sense but as applied, historically, it has too often brought out the worst in humanity: criminality, genocide, elitism and privilege, incompetence, lack of accountability, exploitation, suppression and repression.
Substitute communism with Catholicism or Islam (or any cult you like) and you'll observe a similar phenomenon: the finest altruistic principles corrupted by human opportunism and manipulation.
Another time, I'll look at this phenomenon a little more closely.
Suffice it to say, most communist states have broken down because the vision, in practice hasn't matched the theory – thanks to human nature.
Why? Too many of us don't really believe, in our hearts, that we are no better than everyone else.

A global economy underpinned by the 'principles' of Supply and Demand is humanity's panacea.
Damn! I didn't vote for it but I'm really impressed!
As with most noble precepts, capitalism works - on paper …
Production and consumption increasing in harmony, in equilibrium.
Innovation, excellence and hard work rewarded: wealth for all!
Mutual obligation - so no free rides at society's expense.
Productivity and Competition keeping prices down; mediocrity and underperformance penalised.
'Just In Time' management offering efficiency gains to benefit the marketplace.
(insert your favourite cliché here)

How much needs to go wrong before our collectively-thick-as-pigshit human nature perceives that the free market is a complete crock?
Six billion of us live in a closed system which can't sustain anything approaching continual growth.
In fact, if we all stopped breeding tomorrow, our manufactured environmental crisis is still inevitable.

When I was in high school 35 years ago, we learnt that a quarter of the world's population lived in poverty.
Thanks to the market, they still do.

As for aspirationalist 'working families' - a favoured tool of the overpaid and largely underworked notional 'left' here in Australia - this term needs to be replaced with 'WORKING POOR'.
REAL workers are being screwed worse than ever.