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Comedian Josh Johnson perfectly describes what it's like to be broke in today's America

"My friend turns to me and says, 'Josh, you must not mind the rain.'"

Josh Johnson.

Income inequality isn't exactly new. However, it seems more people are aware of it than ever. In fact, according to a Pew Research poll that surveyed 36 countries, a "median of 54% of adults across the nations surveyed say the gap between the rich and the poor is a very big problem in their country."

Money, hundred dollars, hundred dollar bills, wealth, richWealth Inequality is a rampant problem. Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

The good news is people are learning to educate themselves—from financial planning to paying attention to where special interest money goes in terms of political leaders. But still, for many of us, it's hard to understand what it must be like to be wealthy when we've never had real wealth. Without having a lived-in experience, even the concept of money itself can be difficult to grasp.

Comedian Josh Johnson, who is also a correspondent and writer on The Daily Show, is an expert at taking complex notions and putting them into hilarious context through his long-form comedic storytelling. In a TikTok clip labeled "That Time I Almost Drowned," Josh begins by talking about the literal fabric of money. "We look at money as paper, right? At least when it's in its physical form, it's this paper thing. But it's more than paper. There's fabric that weaves into it. There's linen, there's cotton."

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I Almost Drowned At A Party

Josh likens the actual fabric of money to society. "It works the same way that society works. There's fabric that weaves all of us together." He adds, "But there are people who have not been able to participate in the opportunities of making money...so when you tell them a recession is coming, they're like, 'What? Okay. I was already broke.'"

He proceeds to illustrate with a story. "One time, I was at a party with my friends, and I fell in the pool." He makes sure to note that it wasn't a "pool party" and, therefore, deeply embarrassing. But more than that, "terrifying," because he reveals, "I can't swim. And when you don't swim, being surrounded by water out of nowhere is very concerning."

swim, pool, water, party, story, Summer Fall GIF by Mark RoberGiphy

He describes the sudden shock of the water. "I feel like I turned around, and water surrounded me." What he did next was not so much swim, but rather "drown," and he hilariously describes his friend fishing him out of the pool like a cat picking up its kitten. Wet and still in shock, Josh understandably wanted to leave immediately. But "the dude who saved me was my ride... and now has 'mack points' and begins to use them to hit on people."

When they finally try to leave, alongside a few other friends, his car won't start. "Luckily, he did live close enough to the party that we could walk. It was maybe a mile and some change. And as we start walking, it starts drizzling... and then really starts raining." After describing how his various friends responded to the rain (one hunched into "turtle" position and another put one hand over his head), Josh has an epiphany: "My friend turns to me and says, 'Josh, you must not mind the rain.' And I was like, I almost drowned 20 minutes ago. And THAT'S what it's like when you're broke. You're almost drowning all the time. So when people try to scare you with talks of a recession, you're like, 'Why would I... what?'” He puts a hand over his head. "You're doing this... I'm already WET!"

rain, drowning, drown, downpour, metaphorRaining Stick Figure GIF by State ChampsGiphy

Many in the comment section truly empathize, and there seems to be comfort in being "seen." One fan wrote, "This is incredible. You're the Kendrick Lamar of comedy." Another said, "This is such a good way to explain it."

One top commenter perfectly sums it up: "What is loss to a man who has nothing? What's a little rain to a drowning man?"

When customers at one San Francisco grocery store went to the checkout one day, they were outraged. The cost of their groceries had increased astronomically.

Look, we've all cringed once or twice while the cashier rings up the fancy yogurt we decided to get last minute because "screw it, I wanna eat fancy yogurt," but this wasn't a few pennies or dollars here and there. This was $25 for a box of spinach and $40 for a loaf of bread and some cigarettes.

The cost of their groceries had inflated. But why?

It was all part of a social experiment meant to show people what buying groceries is like for people living in poverty.

1 in 10 families in the Bay Area live on $24,300 or less per year, below the poverty line and well below the Bay Area average. The experiment was set up by Tipping Point Community, a poverty relief organization, which set up a register in a Nob Hill grocery store where customers checking out would be given "poverty line prices," or prices that were proportionally representative to living in poverty.

"If eggs cost $6 for someone living on the poverty line, or 1.4% of their weekly salary, the adjusted price would be $29.64 for someone living on the average San Francisco salary," TPC's website explains.

Tipping Point also set up a website where anyone can plug in their annual salary and see what grocery shopping would be like if they lived in poverty.

While those skyrocketed prices were temporarily frustrating for the people trying to buy groceries, the sticker shock they experienced is one millions of Americans face every day.

In 2015, over 43 million people in the United States were living in poverty. That's down 1.2% from 2014 but is still a massive number. Sticker shock doesn't just affect people below the poverty line either. According to the Corporation for Enterprise Development, nearly half of all Americans are one financial shock — a job loss, a medical emergency, etc. — away from poverty. Feeling financial discomfort while you shop for basic needs is something that could happen to any of us.

The income gap between the rich and poor in the United States is ever-widening, and closing it would require landmark financial restructuring, or at least some out-of-the-box thinking.

If you had to pay $30 for cold medicine or $15 for a gallon of milk, you might be outraged like the folks in the video. Most of all though, you'd want to do something about it. You'd want somebody to recognize that it's an unfair burden on you and your family.

You'd want things to change.

Watch people react to poverty line prices here:

In 2015, Roman Ostriakov was sentenced to six months in an Italian jail for attempting to steal $4.50 worth of cheese and sausage.

Ostriakov was convicted for stealing cheese and sausage. Photo via torange.biz.


His sentence was finally overturned this week by a panel of judges for the sort of reason that restores your faith in humanity just a little bit.

Italy's Supreme Court in Rome. Photo by Tiziana Fabi/Getty Images.

According to a BBC report, the judges ruled that because Ostriakov was homeless and had stolen the food because he was desperately hungry, the theft was not a crime.

A man in Italy sleeps outside a train station. Photo by Tiziana Fabi/Getty Images.

The ruling was a stunning display of compassion and a rare acknowledgment of the cost of being poor.

A man in India eats in a prison yard after having been rounded up for begging on the street. Photo by Chandan Khanna/Getty Images.

Ostriakov's conviction and acquittal highlights the often harsh (and disproportionate) punishment meted out to crimes that are born out of poverty and desperation.

In the United States, things like conviction and sentencing disparities for crack versus cocaine and petty theft versus financial crime serve to reinforce the notion that being poor deserves an increased level of criminal scrutiny.

There is evidence that poverty — even when less extreme — primes people to make negative decisions.

A 2013 study, published in the journal Science, found that for the subjects of the experiment, who were poor, worrying about money noticeably impaired their ability to perform well on unrelated spacial and reasoning tasks.

Rather than wasting public resources throwing people in prison for being hungry, we can and should use those resources to make sure they're not hungry in the first place.

Photo by Paul Sableman/Flickr.

In the U.S., that means supporting programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly known as SNAP or food stamps), which feeds millions of the hungriest Americans every year despite frequent efforts to draw down its funding or defund it entirely. It's not always sufficient, but it's often better than nothing — and ultimately a fairly small component (2.3%) of the federal budget.

Recently, more radical measures like universal basic income, which would provide in place of targeted social programs, have gained some traction with advocates on both sides of the aisle.

We can't give everyone a free pass, but we certainly give them enough of a hand that they shouldn't need one.

People eat at a food bank in New York City. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.

An editorial in an Italian newspaper — translated by the BBC — hailed the ruling for being a guided by a concept that "informed the Western world for centuries — it is called humanity."

Better yet, let's extend that humanity to hungry people before they're forced to a choice to steal or starve — a choice that no person should have to make.

Rep. Paul Ryan did something that is all too rare in politics.

Paul Ryan. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.


He admitted he was wrong.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.

For a long time, Ryan (R-Wisconsin) had divided Americans into two groups: "makers," working people who contribute to society, and "takers," (mostly) poorer people who depend on government benefits.

A Florida woman looks for a job at a placement office in 2014. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Here's how he put it at a fundraiser in Wisconsin in 2012:

"Do you want the American idea of an opportunity society with a safety net where you can take a risk, start a business, make a difference, succeed and be honored for being successful? Or do we go down the path the president is proposing — a social welfare state, a cradle-to-the-grave society where we have more takers than makers."

And here's how he framed it earlier, speaking to a fellow Republican congressman in 2010:

"Right now about 60 percent of the American people get more benefits in dollar value from the federal government than they pay back in taxes. So we’re going to a majority of takers versus makers in America and that will be tough to come back from that."

But this year, Ryan had a revelation: Most people don't take government aid because they like free stuff. They take it because they need it to survive.

A girl pays for food with an EBT card. Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images.

According to the USDA, in 75% of all households that both received food stamps and had a member who was able to work, that person had a job in the year before or after receiving the benefit.

How did Ryan realize he was wrong? By listening to actual poor people.

A New York City man guides a cart of recyclable cans down the street. Photo by Jewel Samad/Getty Images.

Here's what he had to say in his speech. It's really, really different than the way he's framed the issue many times before (emphasis added):

"There was a time that I would talk about a difference between 'makers' and 'takers' in our country, referring to people who accepted government benefits. But as I spent more time listening, and really learning the root causes of poverty, I realized something. I realized that I was wrong. 'Takers' wasn’t how to refer to a single mom stuck in a poverty trap, trying to take care of her family. Most people don’t want to be dependent. And to label a whole group of Americans that way was wrong. I shouldn’t castigate a large group of Americans to make a point."

It's not just poor people who benefit from government assistance. Most of us do at some point in our lives.

The thing is, we're often unaware of it, according political scientist Suzanne Mettler, whose arguments were summarized by The Washington Post in 2015. That's because the benefits that most of us receive — for things like housing and health care or through the GI Bill, if we're veterans — often come to us through lower tax bills rather than as cash handed directly to us.

If we live long enough, most of us will eventually collect Social Security or have our medical bills paid through Medicare.

There's still plenty not to love about Ryan's approach to poverty, which doesn't do much to reflect his change of heart. Yet.

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

His 2014 anti-poverty plan still includes provisions that make the poorest Americans jump through hoops in order to receive benefits while wealthier Americans continue to receive tax credits for things like mortgages and college tuition "just because."

But at least where his thinking is concerned, he's starting to get it. And that's progress.

As Ryan said in his speech, "People with different ideas, they're not traitors. They're not our enemies. They're our neighbors."

It's possible to disagree with Ryan — on this or even on most things — and still believe he deserves credit for listening, grappling, and changing his tune on the poorest Americans.

You can watch Ryan's full address here. The important part starts at 9:40: