This article is surreal and out of touch

[Kron3007]

As crazy as it sounds, a 100k income can be quite challenging depending where you live and what stage of life you are at.   To afford a home in Toronto, you need a family income of over 200k (Canadian).  A family living in this area with 100k income would be struggling to some extent.  Many are worse off, but it is hard to balance the household budget these days.

[dismalist]

Most recent studies indicate workers are more productive at home: https://www.apollotechnical.com/working-from-home-productivity-statistics/

those who work at home are more consistent, work more hours, and get more done.

working more minutes per shift because of fewer breaks and sick days.

That's more input, not more output per hour of work.

If the numbers in the article were anywhere near true, those sectors would have shed labor like crazy. No, the end of the epidemic marks the end of the lap top class, though of course some bits will remain.

[jimbogumbo]

Kron: I don't think it's crazy at all to think that- I was just questioning the choice of who to feature in the article, and what they thought were hardships.

Teachers have indeed been putting out lists of supplies for students to bring for decades, and yes in many higher need schools the teachers are supplying things for students. Our church served an inner city area, and each fall we donated many things, including underwear and socks to a couple of local partner schools.

[apl68]

If a backpack is needed, one bought last year ought to be plenty good enough. 

My Jansport rarely lasted more than one year before disintigrating.

I normally get four or five years out of one, and I and the local climate are not particularly gentle with them.  I'm kind of odd in still wearing a backpack to walk to work every day in my 50s.

Hand-me-downs are pretty common where I live.  My younger brother didn't ever have to wear hand-me-down clothes, since he was built differently from me, but I, the eldest, occasionally got them from an older cousin.

We have a major school supplies drive every year in our town for children who can't afford them.  There's a major need for them.  We're in many cases talking here about households that are in poverty by any First-World standard.  I've known of cases locally where a grade-school student had to go to school wearing his grandfather's coat in a cold day.  That's the kind of need that disturbs me most.

[mamselle]

There were four of us, and it wasn't exactly 'organized (that would have been too structural...) but we sort-of shared stuff on our list each fall for school: there were 3-4 wooden rulers around the house, so everyone got one, and maybe a couple full boxes of crayons (I always made sure mine had the turquoise and magenta shades that often went missing)...etc.

We only went to the drugstore the night before classes started to get whatever we didn't already have.

Backpacks were for camping; we had schoolbags--well, I did, because by 4th grade I'd started carrying all my books home everyday on principle--and by 7th grade I'd given up on any kind of a bag and just stacked them under my chin--the others had, maybe those string bags with the ropes that pull both ways?

But backpacks were for camping, at least until I got to college in the early 70s or so.

I don't recall feeling like we were poor, but we didn't waste money; we each had a desk to work at, and I think a couple of us still have those, too.

But so did everyone else,  I think.

M.