Today I was graced with the great gift of consoling my wife after she had a bad day at work. We make enough to survive above the curve of poverty, but its not the day to day that determines economic survival. We can get by just fine financially if we never do anything at all, at least until something breaks or an unexpected expense blesses us with a mandatory investment opportunity.
My wife and I are both educated individuals. My wife has a masters in a field that the United States desperately needs, but the restrictions like licensing and excessively specific hiring requirements set by the government limit her ability to find a job that pays a livable wage. The jobs that do pay a living wage, only pay a living wage because they're essentially positions that are only desirable for perspective candidates who have never participated in the field, but have been told their entire life that the job is “the promised land.”
I've been offered jobs that pay well enough on the condition that leave the state every week for work, or they put my life in great peril, or essentially are so restrictive work wise that my personality would have to become that job. All of which are things that would disqualify my from being able to fully give myself to the greatest woman I've ever convinced to fall in love with me.
As of right now me and my wife are fine financially. The concern is that I don't know how much harder we can push ourselves to stay above the curve of poverty. There's not much my wife and I can do legally to make money. The issue is that every time we advance toward the legal means to make money, someone restricts the market, HR reps do private hires, or someone else has control over the resources.
Really, I feel as if my only options are to gradually fall into poverty with my wife, or live my life in hell to meet the unrealistic standards of the people who own the resources.
I have time to make my decision, and time to find a third option, but there are people who don't have the time that I do. I can't help but be concerned about the individuals who have to watch the people they love suffer without having any legal recourse to even manage a losing fight.