If your dad is Bill Gates, you’re probably not getting a Starbucks gift card for graduating college.
In 2018, Jennifer Gates walked off the Stanford stage and onto a 124-acre, $15.82 million horse farm in North Salem, New York. According to Architectural Digest, the lavish estate was a graduation gift from her billionaire parents—and came complete with rolling pastures, three parcels of land, and proximity to New York City for her future studies.
But in case that sounds too much like the plot of “Succession: Equestrian Edition,” Melinda Gates would like to remind everyone: their kids were absolutely raised “middle class.”
Self employed, nonprofit. Pay lots of taxes, but zero benefits or retirement. My kids are aging out of the child tax credit but they’re still at home. We don’t qualify for Medicaid. We used to but not now, my wife runs a big High School cafeteria only for the health insurance. She gets the privilege of collecting “lunch debt”. Still driving my 17yo daughter to school because there’s no busing, and drivers ed isn’t offered and private driving instruction is closer to $2k than it is to $1k. Hoping to be able to be able to go to the dentist soon but life continuously gets in the way. New roof. New HVAC and ductwork. Foundation repair and waterproofing. Currently taking down a massive half-dead tree that leans over my son’s bedroom. The cost of life is massively outpacing wages.
Man that must be rough. Poor people only have to worry about where their next meal is coming from and whether they can afford rent. I can’t imagine having to deal with repairing my house.
FYI. Not trying to say you don’t have struggles or challenges. But to say that it’s harder to live like that than being even more poor is insane. Just like the rich people this thread is about.
I’ve been poor too, I get it. And my job is to a large part helping under-esourced people get connected with food and other resources. So I still see it firsthand almost every day, and I know there are people who are way worse off than me.
My wife did work three jobs through COVID and I worked two, to try to save up a chunk of money so that we could afford to try to catch up on our dental care. We also saved all of the stimulus money. And we were there, but instead we got foundation repair - oh, and also replaced the water heater. You can be however fucking smug you want to be, but it sucks. I didn’t even mention the car repairs. There are no non-car options here and we can’t afford to move. My wife is now back to three jobs and Im back to two. We’re in our fifties with no retirement savings and just hoping to pay off the house before 70 so we have some hope of a short retirement. It still sucks.
Also, I never said I had it worse than people who are poor, you’re putting words in my mouth. They have it worse no question, but they do get free care I can’t afford.
Yeah, again I’m not saying you don’t have struggles. I get it. But to phrase it in a way that suggests you have it worse than poorer people is insane. These people don’t have half the shit you do.
Also you said that sometimes poor people have it better than middle class. And that’s just not true.