• usernamesaredifficul [he/him]English
    7•1 year ago

    yeah you also have to look at cost of living when talking about income. What kind of life does that money buy

    although if he was talking about Ukraine in the 90’s and early 2000’s it is entirely possible his family were just really poor. But that would be capitalism by then

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]English
      6•1 year ago

      There was still a ton of infrastructure that’s credited to the Soviets. And one of the big appeals of a place like Bulgaria is how you can privatize those incredibly valuable capital projects.

      Then you build a gradient that siphons wealth from one corner of the county to another, you create a Rich cohort of professionals and a Poor cohort of day laborers, and you brag about all the new Burger Kings you’ve introduced to the post-Soviet frontier.

      It’s possible that they were on the poor end of that spectrum. It’s also possible that $200/mo spent significantly farther than it does today.

      Certainly, they weren’t homeless and they weren’t starving. That means their $200 was getting vastly more mileage than what an American in 2023 receives.