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Post by: whembly
This is an excellent breakdown. Check out the embedded scribd powerpoint slides. Graphs galore!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/when-work-punished-tragedy-americas-welfare-state
Some snippet:
the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.
For every 1.65 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance
For every 1.25 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance or works for the government.
The punchline: 110 million privately employed workers; 88 million welfare recipients and government workers and rising rapidly. 
Check out the section "State Based Solutions: Lessons from Rhode Island" of the scribd slide.
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Post by: JEB_Stuart
Forbes posted their list of "Death Spiral States", and I found their description of California's current fiscal and economic situation to be particularly apt.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2012/11/25/do-you-live-in-a-death-spiral-state/
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Post by: Chongara
Man, I wish I was a fat-cat welfare queen. I'd be so much better off than I am now. With all that free time they have from not working, and all the free money the government throws at them it's no wonder women working for minimum wage are basically running this country!!!
EDIT: Whoops! I almost forgot:  OBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post by: whembly
 Chongara wrote:Man, I wish I was a fat-cat welfare queen. I'd be so much better off than I am now. With all that free time they have from not working, and all the free money the government throws at them it's no wonder women working for minimum wage are basically running this country!!!
EDIT: Whoops! I almost forgot: OBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Uh... do you have anything else to add??
This isn't about Obama.
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Post by: Ratbarf
Man, I wish I was a fat-cat welfare queen. I'd be so much better off than I am now. With all that free time they have from not working, and all the free money the government throws at them it's no wonder women working for minimum wage are basically running this country!!!
EDIT: Whoops! I almost forgot: OBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have no clue about what you actually meant with this.
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Post by: AustonT
 Ratbarf wrote:Man, I wish I was a fat-cat welfare queen. I'd be so much better off than I am now. With all that free time they have from not working, and all the free money the government throws at them it's no wonder women working for minimum wage are basically running this country!!!
EDIT: Whoops! I almost forgot: OBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have no clue about what you actually meant with this.
I see you've never met Chongara.
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Post by: Mannahnin
That arguments which purport to demonstrate that a person is better off not working and being on welfare generally vastly exaggerate its appeal, usually by not mentioning all the difficult and unpleasant aspects of it.
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Post by: d-usa
IT's amazing that as a nation we are dumb enough to even have a single person work for less than $60,000 a year. Why are we so dumb that we would lift a finger if we could just rake in the government dough. Working people are sheeple!
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Post by: AustonT
Powerball is the ultimate welfare.
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Post by: AustonT
Did you hear about the guy that bought 5 tickets at five places with the same numbers and hit 5?
I feel like he may have had some sort of OCD.
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Post by: whembly
 AustonT wrote:Did you hear about the guy that bought 5 tickets at five places with the same numbers and hit 5?
I feel like he may have had some sort of OCD.
O.o
No... people do strange things...
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Post by: AustonT
I think it's on the wiki for powerball.
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Post by: Mattman154
 whembly wrote:This is an excellent breakdown. Check out the embedded scribd powerpoint slides. Graphs galore!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/when-work-punished-tragedy-americas-welfare-state
Some snippet:
the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.
For every 1.65 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance
For every 1.25 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance or works for the government.
The punchline: 110 million privately employed workers; 88 million welfare recipients and government workers and rising rapidly.
Check out the section "State Based Solutions: Lessons from Rhode Island" of the scribd slide.
This is why I feel that able-bodied welfare recipients should receive a more negative attitude from the public. I work for a living, I net about 22k every year. I pay for my own car, living space, and groceries. When I see people that are my age (early 20's) purchasing unnecessary foodstuffs on foodstamps and cigarettes on welfare I get a little irked.
Washington state actually passed a law stating people couldn't use their welfare cards to withdraw money from casino ATM's. I'd rather the state tracked down anybody who did that and revoke their benefits.
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Post by: The Foot
I think one issue with welfare states is the fact that if a person works full time for min wage will where I live (Oregon) will only make $358 per week before taxes come out* I have no idea how much people on welfare make but I am pretty sure that it is higher than that. Fact is many people are simply playing the system where if you don't work you make more than if you worked some craptastic min wage job. There are many more factors but that is a big one that I have seen
*Minimum wage will be going up to 8.95 per hour according to this story http://www.oregonlive.com/money/index.ssf/2012/09/oregons_minimum_wage_climbs_in.html
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Post by: Polonius
Pro Tip #1: Be wary of any article that "solves" a complex issues with a handful of charts or grapsh.
Pro Tip #2: Be wary of any analysis that is inconsistent about it's target. Is the problem that the working poor get too many benefits, or is it the people that refuse to work getting too many benefits?
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Post by: sebster
whembly wrote:This is an excellent breakdown. Check out the embedded scribd powerpoint slides. Graphs galore!
First up, it's rare that you find meaningful, quality analysis from a character from Fight Club, and even less so when the blog's tagline is from the same movie. I mean, Fight Club was great and all, but it's impact on analsyis of economic and social policy has been fairly minimal. Anyhow, the quickest look at their figures shows some real dodginess. CHIP doesn't cut off at $30,000, the cut off depends on the state in question. Simply putting it up there at $30,000 is wildly misleading. For a single mum SNAP eligibility cuts off at an annual income of $19,680, while the graph, again, puts it at $30,000. It's no wonder they show such an amazing cliff, when they dodge up the figures like that. Now, don't get me wrong, the US has an troubling tendency to put hard lines in place on many of its programs - earn $x and you qualify for a few hundred dollars of stuff, earn $x+1 and you get nothing, and when that happens you'll get screwy, but you can't just fudge a load of figures like this and pretend you have proof of anything. the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.
For every 1.65 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance
Of course, the trick they're playing here is to have people assume 'receives welfare assistance' means someone who gets all their money from government. An individual can receive rental assistance, or childcare or whatever else, and be an employed, tax paying individual. They're not purely a drain on the system, in fact they're likely paying in more than they pay out. Meanwhile it includes rental assistance, but not the deduction people receive for interest on their mortgage, which is total bs. And it keeps using terms like 'unsustainable welfare burden'. Which is simply and utterly total bs. Outside of the impact of the GFC, US federal spending is basically on par with how it's been through history - about 21% of GDP. What's changed is that you used to bring in revenues at about 20% of GDP, and now that's down to 18%. Seriously dude, look for policy analysis from people who aren't characters from Fight Club.
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Post by: LoneLictor
Though its true Tyler Durden wouldn't support welfare, its not for economic reasons. Its because he's an anarchist. Tyler Durden's philosophy is that society is too restrictive and emasculating, and that the only solution is to get rid of it. Yes, some people will die, but the people that live will be a great deal happier. At least, according to him. Humans aren't intended to live in apartments and sit at a desk all day. They're intended to hunt and gak. They'll be living the simple and dangerous hunting and gathering life nature intended for them.
Furthermore, you aren't supposed to side with Tyler Durden. The reader (or viewer, if you're watching the movie) is meant to sympathize with his qualms regarding society, but they should also be intelligent enough to understand that anarchy isn't the answer.
Also Sebster, your signature is offensive. You Australians are just jealous of 'Murika! Because, you know, we chose to live in a pleasant place rather than being a bunch of convicts who were forced to live on deathtrap island.
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Post by: Testify
Not sure what the OP's point is. You can't measure economic freedoms purely by a sliding scale of private:public GDP ratio. Many European nations have a very high percentage of GDP in the hands of the state but still have a vibrant, highly productive private sector.
If sebster's figure is correct, American public spending is about a half to a third of what it is in Europe. Which is amazing considering how much of it is spent in defence. Automatically Appended Next Post:  LoneLictor wrote:Though its true Tyler Durden wouldn't support welfare, its not for economic reasons. Its because he's an anarchist. Tyler Durden's philosophy is that society is too restrictive and emasculating, and that the only solution is to get rid of it. Yes, some people will die, but the people that live will be a great deal happier. At least, according to him. Humans aren't intended to live in apartments and sit at a desk all day. They're intended to hunt and gak. They'll be living the simple and dangerous hunting and gathering life nature intended for them.
The language in that paragraph suggests you don't understand the anti post-modern themes of the book/film.
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Post by: sebster
LoneLictor wrote:Also Sebster, your signature is offensive. You Australians are just jealous of 'Murika! Because, you know, we chose to live in a pleasant place rather than being a bunch of convicts who were forced to live on deathtrap island.
Seriously?
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Post by: Some_Call_Me_Tim?
 sebster wrote: LoneLictor wrote:Also Sebster, your signature is offensive. You Australians are just jealous of 'Murika! Because, you know, we chose to live in a pleasant place rather than being a bunch of convicts who were forced to live on deathtrap island.
Seriously?
I think he's kidding around. 
_Tim?
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Post by: TheHammer
I'm just upset that this thread promised an interesting analysis, when really it's just a bunch of bs.
Seriously, anyone that talks about the welfare state but then forgets to acknowledge that all of these welfare programs subsidize Walmart and the like is just being awful. Without such programs a person would not be able to survive being paid what Walmart and others pay, and this fosters less dependence on entitlements for the villainous poor people than it does to the Walton family.
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Post by: whembly
Forgot this thread...
 Polonius wrote:Pro Tip #1: Be wary of any article that "solves" a complex issues with a handful of charts or graph.
 True... I don't think any graphs could be used to "solve" it.
Pro Tip #2: Be wary of any analysis that is inconsistent about it's target. Is the problem that the working poor get too many benefits, or is it the people that refuse to work getting too many benefits?
Yeah, I noticed that too... hence I used "interesting" rather than "OMG, WHY AREN'T WE DOING ANYTHING ABOUT THIS!" 
I'm okay with the welfare state that we have... if we have any issues, it's the fact that I don't believe enough is done to help those on the dole pull themselves out.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sebster wrote: whembly wrote:This is an excellent breakdown. Check out the embedded scribd powerpoint slides. Graphs galore!
First up, it's rare that you find meaningful, quality analysis from a character from Fight Club, and even less so when the blog's tagline is from the same movie. I mean, Fight Club was great and all, but it's impact on analsyis of economic and social policy has been fairly minimal.
C'mon... its cool to inject Fight Club mantras into these discussion! /sarcasm 
Anyhow, the quickest look at their figures shows some real dodginess. CHIP doesn't cut off at $30,000, the cut off depends on the state in question. Simply putting it up there at $30,000 is wildly misleading.
For a single mum SNAP eligibility cuts off at an annual income of $19,680, while the graph, again, puts it at $30,000.
It's no wonder they show such an amazing cliff, when they dodge up the figures like that.
I broke my own rule... thanks for pointing that out.
Now, don't get me wrong, the US has an troubling tendency to put hard lines in place on many of its programs - earn $x and you qualify for a few hundred dollars of stuff, earn $x+1 and you get nothing, and when that happens you'll get screwy, but you can't just fudge a load of figures like this and pretend you have proof of anything.
Yeah... those who are veterans on public assistance are very aware of that and play accordingly. Like I said earlier, do we want to foster an environment making it too easy to stay on govt assistance (not talking about the old, infirm, etc...) or have an environment to challenge those who can work/go to school while on the assistance.
the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.
For every 1.65 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance
Of course, the trick they're playing here is to have people assume 'receives welfare assistance' means someone who gets all their money from government. An individual can receive rental assistance, or childcare or whatever else, and be an employed, tax paying individual. They're not purely a drain on the system, in fact they're likely paying in more than they pay out.
Meanwhile it includes rental assistance, but not the deduction people receive for interest on their mortgage, which is total bs.
Did you live in US for some time? You have some really indepth knowledge in this...
So how would you distinguish from the providers vs. takers?
And it keeps using terms like 'unsustainable welfare burden'. Which is simply and utterly total bs. Outside of the impact of the GFC, US federal spending is basically on par with how it's been through history - about 21% of GDP. What's changed is that you used to bring in revenues at about 20% of GDP, and now that's down to 18%.
I don't know if it's unsustainable given that our revenue streams is enormous.
If there's a problem, its structural.
Seriously dude, look for policy analysis from people who aren't characters from Fight Club.
Now you're just trying to take the fun out of this...
I was recently accused of being Tyler Durden and I thought that post was worthy of a discussion/dissection.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Testify wrote:Not sure what the OP's point is. You can't measure economic freedoms purely by a sliding scale of private:public GDP ratio. Many European nations have a very high percentage of GDP in the hands of the state but still have a vibrant, highly productive private sector.
If sebster's figure is correct, American public spending is about a half to a third of what it is in Europe. Which is amazing considering how much of it is spent in defence.
The point is this...
We are literally BORROWING money to fund our liabilities and other government expedentures...
THAT is unsustainable.
The largest costs are the collective welfare state.
If it were me, let the sequestration occurs, let the Bush tax cuts expire and hold firm on the debt limit. If we reach the debt limit, cut programs rather than raising the limit.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
TheHammer wrote:I'm just upset that this thread promised an interesting analysis, when really it's just a bunch of bs.
Seriously, anyone that talks about the welfare state but then forgets to acknowledge that all of these welfare programs subsidize Walmart and the like is just being awful. Without such programs a person would not be able to survive being paid what Walmart and others pay, and this fosters less dependence on entitlements for the villainous poor people than it does to the Walton family.
Wait... what?
So, people are poor because of Walmat?
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Post by: JEB_Stuart
sebster wrote: LoneLictor wrote:Also Sebster, your signature is offensive. You Australians are just jealous of 'Murika! Because, you know, we chose to live in a pleasant place rather than being a bunch of convicts who were forced to live on deathtrap island.
Seriously?
Come on Seb, lets be honest. "Tough" Aussies? That is offensive to all of us tough guys everywhere!
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Post by: LoneLictor
Testify wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:
LoneLictor wrote:Though its true Tyler Durden wouldn't support welfare, its not for economic reasons. Its because he's an anarchist. Tyler Durden's philosophy is that society is too restrictive and emasculating, and that the only solution is to get rid of it. Yes, some people will die, but the people that live will be a great deal happier. At least, according to him. Humans aren't intended to live in apartments and sit at a desk all day. They're intended to hunt and gak. They'll be living the simple and dangerous hunting and gathering life nature intended for them.
The language in that paragraph suggests you don't understand the anti post-modern themes of the book/film.
Explain.
sebster wrote: LoneLictor wrote:Also Sebster, your signature is offensive. You Australians are just jealous of 'Murika! Because, you know, we chose to live in a pleasant place rather than being a bunch of convicts who were forced to live on deathtrap island.
Seriously?
I was joking. You supposedly tough Aussies ought to be more thick-skinned.
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Post by: Poppabear
No, thank you. -Mannahnin
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Post by: Goliath
The thing I find ridiculous is the fact that the OP highlighted "Works for the government" as if working for the government is somehow equivalent to being on welfare.
A firefighter that risks his life to save people counts as working for the government.
Soldiers count as working for the government, would you tell them that they're no better than those on welfare?
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Post by: Dr. What
whembly wrote:
TheHammer wrote:I'm just upset that this thread promised an interesting analysis, when really it's just a bunch of bs.
Seriously, anyone that talks about the welfare state but then forgets to acknowledge that all of these welfare programs subsidize Walmart and the like is just being awful. Without such programs a person would not be able to survive being paid what Walmart and others pay, and this fosters less dependence on entitlements for the villainous poor people than it does to the Walton family.
Wait... what?
So, people are poor because of Walmat?
American debt boils down to a simple thing. 70% (Data from Syracuse University) of Americans do not follow a very simple rule:
Don't spend more than you make! (A major part of this is credit).
This was followed by the Federal Government until the Great Depression, when welfare programs were established. These were only meant to be "band-aids" to fix the problems of the depression, not programs still in effect as of 2012.
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Post by: Shadowseer_Kim
Didn't they recently do some simple math that shows what the Federal Government spends on welfare programs, and divided it between the number of people receiving welfare benefits?
I recall the number being something like $60,000 a year.
But of course the Government does not just write checks out to the recipients, they have a ton of Government workers with pensions and benefits, which eats up a lot of the funds on all levels.
I think the average welfare recipient gets around 10,000 a year. I know that a disabled person in Oregon gets something just shy of $9,000 in SSI or whatever, plus foodstamps I would guess for about another 1.000 a year?
What irks me the most is that everyday I hear adds on the radio telling people they might qualify for some kind of welfare and they should come down and apply, or look at a website to find out what they could receive.
I do not think the average welfare recipient is making more than working a low level job, but they are certainly doing less work for it. I suppose a free uncomfortable ride is more appealing to some people than working their way. It is a mindset problem, and as stated before, the system is not helping the situation any by advertising to everyone "hey come on down and maybe you can get on the dole too".
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Post by: Testify
whembly wrote:
The point is this...
We are literally BORROWING money to fund our liabilities and other government expedentures...
THAT is unsustainable.
The largest costs are the collective welfare state.
If it were me, let the sequestration occurs, let the Bush tax cuts expire and hold firm on the debt limit. If we reach the debt limit, cut programs rather than raising the limit.
You're borrowing money because you're still dealing with a recession. How do you think your economy would do if the US government scrapped say, $100bn in welfare. That's $100bn less demand in the economy. It'd be devestating.
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Post by: Mannahnin
As noted, a LOT of that state assistance goes to people who ARE working, and DO pay taxes. Obviously a large percentage of people in our society have annual income below the level where they owe Federal income tax, but all of those people pay other taxes, such as payroll tax, sales tax, meals tax, etc.
This is why "providers vs takers" is a false dichotomy. Everyone is paying into the system. Certainly some people pay more, and others get more out in terms of direct monetary support.
Of course, the folks who pay more in taxes are usually getting much more benefit from the other things our government provides. If you own a business you derive more benefit from government-maintained roads which allow your workers to get to work and their tasks more quickly and safely. You derive more benefit from health and safety inspections which keep your facilities from burning down, or keep your neighbors' building from burning down and taking yours with it. And from a legal system which makes it harder for people to rip off your business, and gives you protection in contract disputes.
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Post by: sebster
Not a problem. Note that I'm not arguing there are no points at which the system actually works to discourage seeking employment or a higher income, just that such points are nowhere near as broad as that blog post claims, and are instead highly situational and quite difficult to resolve (as they involve the interplay of federal, state and even local government systems). Yeah... those who are veterans on public assistance are very aware of that and play accordingly. Like I said earlier, do we want to foster an environment making it too easy to stay on govt assistance (not talking about the old, infirm, etc...) or have an environment to challenge those who can work/go to school while on the assistance.
Absolutely. I think just about everyone wants a system where anyone who can feasibly work is made into a useful and productive member of society, but actually making that happen is really, really difficult. Did you live in US for some time? You have some really indepth knowledge in this...
Nah, I've just heard Americans talk about this for a long time. And my brain being what it is, all of that stuff sticks in my brain. At the same time I honest to God cannot remember what my wife and I agreed to call our firstborn child, if it's a boy. I think she's beginning to suspect, as well  So how would you distinguish from the providers vs. takers?
I think it's an impossible question, to be honest. I mean, consider a simple company. There's a girl who comes in every day, sits on the front desk and answers phones, maybe types up the minutes and stuff like that. It's a job you simply have to have in the company, but it's pretty close to unskilled work (does typing count as a skill in this day and age? I honestly don't know...) and so she gets minimum wage. She gets support, say rent assistance and childcare, so that what she gets from the government is far more than what she pays in. Is she a taker or a giver, I don't know. Then consider some skilled professional in the company. He gets paid an excellent wage, because he's a skilled employee and a very hard working one. But he wouldn't have those skills if he didn't receive a scholarship to college, and lots of loans from the government. Is he a taker or a giver? I don't know. And what about the guy who owns the company. He built the business from the ground up, but it included a generous start up loan from his state. Is he a taker of a giver? Once he's paid the loan back in full, does his status as a giver or taker change? What about when he dies suddenly, and his son takes over, and does nothing to expand the company, just leaves a manager in charge and draws on the profits every month, to fund his 'golfing trips' to Thailand. Is he a giver or a taker? I honestly don't know, in any of those situations. I don't know if it's unsustainable given that our revenue streams is enormous.
If there's a problem, its structural.
The revenue stream is enormous, but it isn't that large relative to GDP, either in comparison to other countries or relative to your own history. Honestly, between the economic recovery and increased taxes you could fix the deficit without cutting anything. Just removing the Bush tax cuts will get you most of the way there. That's neither politically viable or a good idea (there's plenty of good places to cut funding) but we shouldn't go through this debate with anyone pretending that tax increases just cannot be considered at all. Me? Never... Automatically Appended Next Post:  JEB_Stuart wrote:Come on Seb, lets be honest. "Tough" Aussies? That is offensive to all of us tough guys everywhere!
Bare in mind Blunden was talking about guys raised in Australia in the 1930s. They had to be tough. Now we're at least as soft as you lot are. Anyhow, I just thought the quote was interesting. Gave a bit to think about, in terms of how different life was, and what an experience it would have been for anyone to live in a peaceful, gentle place, and then get pushed into war against a hardened, lethal and incredibly cruel fighting force. Automatically Appended Next Post: LoneLictor wrote:I was joking. You supposedly tough Aussies ought to be more thick-skinned.
I... you.... Well played, sir. Well played. Automatically Appended Next Post:  Shadowseer_Kim wrote:Didn't they recently do some simple math that shows what the Federal Government spends on welfare programs, and divided it between the number of people receiving welfare benefits? I recall the number being something like $60,000 a year. But of course the Government does not just write checks out to the recipients, they have a ton of Government workers with pensions and benefits, which eats up a lot of the funds on all levels. I think the average welfare recipient gets around 10,000 a year. I know that a disabled person in Oregon gets something just shy of $9,000 in SSI or whatever, plus foodstamps I would guess for about another 1.000 a year?
No, just no. The administration of welfare does not chew up 5/6 of the total welfare budget, which is what it'd have to be for your numbers to make sense. I think what someone has done, with the intent of deceiving you and others, is to take the total cost of welfare programs, about $725 billion, and divide by the number of people on unemployment insurance and various disability and age pensions, about 14 or 15 million. That'd give you something like your $60,000 per person figure. Of course, they're ignoring that much of welfare doesn't go to unemployed people, but the working poor. There's about 45 million on food stamps, for instance. There's millions more receiving rent assistance, and childcare and all kinds of other benefits. And Medicaid, of course.
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Post by: Shadowseer_Kim
That all makes sense, but it really does equal a lot of money.
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Post by: sebster
Absolutely. Welfare is really expensive. That's just how it is in any developed country.
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Post by: Shadowseer_Kim
Still, wouldn't it be better to just take all the money budgeted for welfare programs and send out checks divided equally to those in need? Certainly the poor people would have more, and not be as poor then.
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Post by: d-usa
Well, we have to pay somebody to administer all the drug tests. Since all poor people are just spending the money on drugs.
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Post by: nomotog
I guess this is news to all of you, but us poor people have know forever about the welfare cliff. It's a rather frustrating negative feedback loop where making more money means you have less money.
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Post by: whembly
 d-usa wrote:Well, we have to pay somebody to administer all the drug tests. Since all poor people are just spending the money on drugs.
Isn't that urban legend?  ( I know you're being cheeky )
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Post by: LoneLictor
d-usa wrote:Well, we have to pay somebody to administer all the drug tests. Since all poor people are just spending the money on drugs.
We ought to make all the Wall Street executives we bailed out take drug tests too.
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Post by: sebster
Shadowseer_Kim wrote:Still, wouldn't it be better to just take all the money budgeted for welfare programs and send out checks divided equally to those in need? Certainly the poor people would have more, and not be as poor then.
I just explained admin isn't that expensive. It's like 4 or 5% of the total cost. And most of that is spent trying to figure out who should get money and who shouldn't.
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Post by: d-usa
LoneLictor wrote: d-usa wrote:Well, we have to pay somebody to administer all the drug tests. Since all poor people are just spending the money on drugs.
We ought to make all the Wall Street executives we bailed out take drug tests too.
Heck, we introduced a few bills in Oklahoma that would require all elected officials to take drug tests since they also get taxpayer money. Who would have thought that they wouldn't pass that bill...
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Post by: TheHammer
whembly wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
TheHammer wrote:I'm just upset that this thread promised an interesting analysis, when really it's just a bunch of bs.
Seriously, anyone that talks about the welfare state but then forgets to acknowledge that all of these welfare programs subsidize Walmart and the like is just being awful. Without such programs a person would not be able to survive being paid what Walmart and others pay, and this fosters less dependence on entitlements for the villainous poor people than it does to the Walton family.
Wait... what?
So, people are poor because of Walmat?
No, that is not what I said. I do not understand how you could read what I wrote and come to that conclusion.
Let me rephrase it another way: WalMart does not pay its employees enough to survive on, and money spent to help their employees survive (such as welfare, subsidized housing, tax breaks, Headstart, Food Stamps, etc) is a subsidy to WalMart because they are able to pay their workers less than they otherwise would.
My larger point, and a point you obviously fail to understand because you would rather just blame poor people for being poor, is that many of our welfare programs that assist the poor assist other wealthy interests far more. But, of course I expect your answer to this problem to be that we just need MORE CAPITALISM so it literally does not matter.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Most unemployed people want a job and can't find one, and there are lots of people who have jobs that don't pay enough.
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Post by: streamdragon
I think a lot of people also misunderstand how the federal government actually "spends" money on welfare.
Welfare, IIRC, is a block grant program. Which means that each state recieves a certain amount of money (usually based on population, jobless rates, cost of living and other state based factors) from the federal government as a giant block of money.
That block of money is then administered by the state, and different states have different laws when in comes to welfare. In MD, for instance, you can only receive welfare for a few years, and you do not get additional funds for having more than 2 children. In CA, I believe, recipients simply get money based on number of children: more kids, more money.
So really, if you have an issue with the way welfare is being handled around you, check with your local state government. The Feds can institue certain policies as a "you must be this welfared" line, but states are free to go above that line (or below it if they don't mind sacrificing funds for certain things).
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Post by: whembly
TheHammer wrote: whembly wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
TheHammer wrote:I'm just upset that this thread promised an interesting analysis, when really it's just a bunch of bs.
Seriously, anyone that talks about the welfare state but then forgets to acknowledge that all of these welfare programs subsidize Walmart and the like is just being awful. Without such programs a person would not be able to survive being paid what Walmart and others pay, and this fosters less dependence on entitlements for the villainous poor people than it does to the Walton family.
Wait... what?
So, people are poor because of Walmat?
No, that is not what I said. I do not understand how you could read what I wrote and come to that conclusion.
Let me rephrase it another way: WalMart does not pay its employees enough to survive on, and money spent to help their employees survive (such as welfare, subsidized housing, tax breaks, Headstart, Food Stamps, etc) is a subsidy to WalMart because they are able to pay their workers less than they otherwise would.
My larger point, and a point you obviously fail to understand because you would rather just blame poor people for being poor, is that many of our welfare programs that assist the poor assist other wealthy interests far more. But, of course I expect your answer to this problem to be that we just need MORE CAPITALISM so it literally does not matter.
Oh... I see now... (not sure why I didn't see it earlier... I was sick and drugged up Nyquil )
You're saying it's a classic catch-22.
I wasn't blaming the poor... nor do I blame big corporate (Walmart). The system exist today because we're a generous society AND we have a capitalist economic system. This is what we get.
I don't see welfare as a "corporate welfare" as you state.
The question I have, is can we create a system that encourage (through assistance... yes) to be better?
Maybe this is it... maybe, for all its worts, this is the best we can down. But, my question is, can we do better? Automatically Appended Next Post:  streamdragon wrote:I think a lot of people also misunderstand how the federal government actually "spends" money on welfare.
Welfare, IIRC, is a block grant program. Which means that each state recieves a certain amount of money (usually based on population, jobless rates, cost of living and other state based factors) from the federal government as a giant block of money.
That block of money is then administered by the state, and different states have different laws when in comes to welfare. In MD, for instance, you can only receive welfare for a few years, and you do not get additional funds for having more than 2 children. In CA, I believe, recipients simply get money based on number of children: more kids, more money.
So really, if you have an issue with the way welfare is being handled around you, check with your local state government. The Feds can institue certain policies as a "you must be this welfared" line, but states are free to go above that line (or below it if they don't mind sacrificing funds for certain things).
The Rhode Island bit in that article was the only thing that jumped out at me. If true, it's an example that the States can do it better than the Feds.
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Post by: KalashnikovMarine
 d-usa wrote: LoneLictor wrote: d-usa wrote:Well, we have to pay somebody to administer all the drug tests. Since all poor people are just spending the money on drugs.
We ought to make all the Wall Street executives we bailed out take drug tests too.
Heck, we introduced a few bills in Oklahoma that would require all elected officials to take drug tests since they also get taxpayer money. Who would have thought that they wouldn't pass that bill...
Sounds like you need to kick some random drug testing on your state congress.
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Post by: whembly
 KalashnikovMarine wrote: d-usa wrote: LoneLictor wrote: d-usa wrote:Well, we have to pay somebody to administer all the drug tests. Since all poor people are just spending the money on drugs.
We ought to make all the Wall Street executives we bailed out take drug tests too.
Heck, we introduced a few bills in Oklahoma that would require all elected officials to take drug tests since they also get taxpayer money. Who would have thought that they wouldn't pass that bill...
Sounds like you need to kick some random drug testing on your state congress.
I'd do it for all political offices.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/30/us/tax-burden.html?hp
This interesting article goes some insight into the pattern of tax and redistribution in the USA.
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Post by: whembly
Good find!
Still looking at it... Not sure what I think about that last graph (But the distribution of the tax burden has become less progressive.), not sitting right with me. Probably more due to wealth isn't taxed the same way as income and/or wealthy take advantage of loopholes/exemptions galore. It's still progressive...
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Yes, it is to do with taxation on earned income versus capital gains or inheritance, and so on.
They are saying it is less progressive than it used to be, though still progressive.
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Post by: nomotog
It's kind of crazy because if you where making a system designed to keep people poor, you would give people money to let them have a livable income, then strip away money as they try to get ahead. trapping them on a treadmill where they can't get anywhere.
Then on the other had. It's not that hard to fix the welfare cliff. You just have to stop taking away benefits when people make money or scale the removal differently.
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Post by: Shadowseer_Kim
*continues to play dumb* but why don't we just give all the poor people like $40,000 a year, then they would not be poor anymore, and we would finally win the war on poverty..
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Post by: Lt. Coldfire
Following is just my personal observation of the welfare system. It's not based on an article or analysis by an "expert" or crackpot. Don't get too wrung out over it.
Maybe this is just a Fresno, CA thing, but often times when I go to a grocery store I see some people (usually with their pajamas on) with a basket full of groceries, and by full I mean soaring over the top of the basket. Half the time they don't speak any English, hand over their food stamps, WIC or whatever and sometimes pay little to nothing for their basket of goodies. It's not just necessities either--it's soda, candy, expensive cuts of meat, ect. I've been in lines before with eggs, milk and some fruit and paid more than some of these people with a full basket of groceries.
I have some stories.
Last Sunday this happened: lady spoke little English, surrounded by three rowdy kids that kept bumping into me. She had some kind of meat that was $6.99/lb. Something I would never comfortably pay for. She used her WIC vouchers and got out with $17 with her full basket of groceries. She paid the $17 with a debit card--an account possibly supplemented by welfare? Who knows. To make matters worse she had an iPhone 5. That's just my most recent experience. This happens all the time. And to think my paycheck is ripped to support these people makes me a little heated, I do say.
Also have three co-workers that were hired back in 2008 under some kind of Obama work program, where the government paid for their salaries for the first year just to get them some work. Not sure how that worked.
Two of the co-workers who are on welfare, both minorities of course. One has 3 kids and is 22, the other has 2 kids and his 28. They've been on welfare for the 3 years I've known them. They get free daycare, free medical treatment and a check in the mail. Last year management tried to get them to sign up for the company's medical and dental plan since they work full time and have for years. They said that they don't want to pay for it . Management can't make them, so once again the tax money's got their back. Both of them have been at the entry position since they've worked here, going on four years. They say that they don't want to move up because they'll lose some of their welfare benefits. Their husbands don't pay for medical or dental either. I'm really not sure how they get away with this. Like I said, must be a Fresno thing. They also have the latest iPhones. Tough life. Should I mention they get free phones and free phone service courtesy of welfare?
The third co-worker is 29 with 5 kids, also a minority. She has since been fired because she took 1-2 sick days per week and was always late. Took about a year to fire her because the company wanted to have sufficient proof and didn't want to get sued for discrimination. I remember one Christmas she was here she was waiting on her welfare check because she said that she "had to buy a gameboy for each of her kids." Not sure which gameboy it was because they're always changing, but it was the newest one at that time. She also had the latest iPhone.
This is just stuff I see in the wild. Who knows what else is going on.
I think welfare can be good, but primarily I think there needs to be a limit on how long you can collect. I mean, does it ever end? These people showing up in their pajamas, buying whatever the hell they want, refusing to pay for their own health insurance and basically discouraged to move up in the work force because they'll lose their welfare benefits does not seem like the right answer. I could be wrong. I lived in South Carolina for 7 years and never saw any of this kind of stuff.
I know a lot of people here on Dakka are in full support of welfare, but have you guys ever actually experienced this kind of stuff? Sure, it's helping a lot of people, but it's also making and keeping a lot of people very lazy beings.
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Post by: whembly
I've seen that stuff... and worst.
But, the trouble is, how do you address that without STOMPING over those who truly needs this system?
There will always be people who will game the system... it's just a fact of life.
Just like athletes will always push the envelop on performance enhancing drugs... that's just the way it is.
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Post by: Lt. Coldfire
whembly wrote:I've seen that stuff... and worst.
But, the trouble is, how do you address that without STOMPING over those who truly needs this system?
There will always be people who will game the system... it's just a fact of life.
Just like athletes will always push the envelop on performance enhancing drugs... that's just the way it is.
True. That's why I think there needs to be a limit on how long you can collect. If you know you can continue to collect this stuff with seemingly no end, where's your motivation to get up off your ass and make something happen? There's nothing to make happen when the government is making it happen for you. It's disabling.
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Post by: nomotog
Actually Lt. cold brings up another broken thing about welfare. They give out a lot of food support, but what you need is money for rent or to fix your car. That's why you have people in ratty clothes buying really expensive food.
I don't know if limiting benefits to 5 years would help. Generally 5 years on welfare dosen't change the circumstances that put you on welfare. (This is especially true with the aforementioned welfare cliff.)
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Post by: Grey Templar
Perhaps they should limit the food items the stamps can be redeemed for, don't allow them to purchase expensive food items or junk food(or severely limit the amount they can buy) and absolutely no Alcohol or Ciggs would be funded. No direct cash should be given out. Instead give them vouchers for any service they might need, such as car repair or rent. Something they can only use for a real need.
And a random sampling of people on welfare would be investigated each year to ensure they aren't abusing the system. The potential of getting busted might reduce the abuse in the system.
There can't be any incentive to remain on Welfare. You should always be worse off then if you had a job. Keep them from starving, but only just. That way they would have a reason to better their condition.
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Post by: juraigamer
I've seen the nonsense were a girl was not coming to work to stay part time so she could get her government money.
I mean, deliberately telling your supervisor she can't work or she won't get her other check?
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Post by: nomotog
 juraigamer wrote:I've seen the nonsense were a girl was not coming to work to stay part time so she could get her government money.
I mean, deliberately telling your supervisor she can't work or she won't get her other check?
This is why the welfare cliff is such a problem. She could lose a lot of benefits from working more. Things work different from state to state, but she would most likely see aid reduced by the amount of money she makes, That's a net loss when you take into account gas and other expenses that come from working. She might also be kicked out of other benefit programs by moving to full time maybe lose her health care. The incentive is to work as little as you can because your not going to start making progress till you get way up there.
Lots of people are saying things should be more restive so we don't accidentally give money to someone who dosen't need it, but that feels like the problem not the fix. The welfare cliff only exist because we are trying to keep the money form thous who don't need it. If we didn't cutoff welfare, at these different levels, then there would be no reason not to work harder and make more money. Other restrictions also cause problems.
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Post by: d-usa
I like the whole "they are on welfare, of course they are a minority" class/race superiority thing going in one of these posts...
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Post by: Shadowseer_Kim
I remember a very similar thing happening with the tax structure when I was younger, I think I was making around $11 an hour, and whatever was withdrawn was withdrawn, I was dating a woman who was making $14 an hour, and she brought home more.
Then she got a raise to $15 an hour, and I got a raise to like $12. Her tax with-holding increased and suddenly she was bringing home less than I was.
It would not have been until she was making at least $20 an hour that the difference would be significant to be worthwhile,, since every raise came with an increase in responsibility at work.
These are the numbers I remember being approximately, nothing exact, but one of those oddities.
I think this is why a lot of people in various jobs turn down raises and promotions, which I have heard plenty of in my group of friends.
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Post by: AustonT
Shadowseer_Kim wrote:*continues to play dumb* but why don't we just give all the poor people like $40,000 a year, then they would not be poor anymore, and we would finally win the war on poverty..
*dur* raising minimum wage would destroy poverty entirely.
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Post by: Shadowseer_Kim
Auston - and yet with the minimum wage raises nearly every year for the past 30 years, poverty has not gone down, it has gone up.. weird.
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Post by: Lt. Coldfire
d-usa wrote:I like the whole "they are on welfare, of course they are a minority" class/race superiority thing going in one of these posts...
I think that was just my post, actually. I've lived in Fresno most of my life and I've only known one white person on welfare. I've known and know plenty of minorities on welfare, however. And if you talk to these people, which I have because I've worked with some of them as you can see from my post above, they will tell you that it's not easy getting welfare if you're white. My sister tried to get on welfare about 15 years ago when she was having a rough patch of her own. She had no job, no husband, one child, and she was denied. Some of her friends at the time straight up told her she was the wrong color. This has been the case for years in California. It's kind of a running joke, but it's true--if you're white in California, then good luck getting on welfare. Again, this is personal experience and not reflective of the entire nation. Just a taste of California. It is most certainly racial, but it's not a superiority thing. So you can take that idea, shine it up real nice, turn it sideways and stick it on top of your Christmas tree for decoration. Thank you.
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Post by: AustonT
Shadowseer_Kim wrote:Auston - and yet with the minimum wage raises nearly every year for the past 30 years, poverty has not gone down, it has gone up.. weird.
It probably has something to do with the fact only 5% of the workforce is paid minimum wage.
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Post by: Grey Templar
AustonT wrote: Shadowseer_Kim wrote:Auston - and yet with the minimum wage raises nearly every year for the past 30 years, poverty has not gone down, it has gone up.. weird.
It probably has something to do with the fact only 5% of the workforce is paid minimum wage.
Yup, if you make more then the new minimum, no increase for you.
Plus there is this funny thing called Inflation...
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Post by: streamdragon
whembly wrote:The Rhode Island bit in that article was the only thing that jumped out at me. If true, it's an example that the States can do it better than the Feds.
Is Rhode Island the state that already has single payer health care, or is that Vermont? I forget. Honestly yes, there are definitely some states that can do things better, for their particular state, than the feds can. Frankly, it should always be that way. The federal government has to oversee 50 states and a handful of territories all with distinct needs and situations. It's why block grants are done the way they are. The bottom line has to be the lowest line, for the lowest state, so states that are far and away not the lowest (like a lot of New England) will always seem super shiny in comparison. Just the way it is I guess.
Maybe it's because I work as a federal contractor, but it truly amazes me how some people (no one here specifically, this is more a general statement) simply do not understand the way things work in the federal government. Money given to the states for social programs is rarely given out with specific instructions. Like welfare and SNAP (food stamps) it's usually just given as a giant payment. Many infrastructure projects follow a similar path. "Here you go, improve your roads or whatever." In simple terms: I think too many people blame the government for things their state is doing, simply because the money was collected by the federal government to begin with.
Lt. Coldfire wrote:Following is just my personal observation of the welfare system. It's not based on an article or analysis by an "expert" or crackpot. Don't get too wrung out over it.
Maybe this is just a Fresno, CA thing, but often times when I go to a grocery store I see some people (usually with their pajamas on) with a basket full of groceries, and by full I mean soaring over the top of the basket. Half the time they don't speak any English, hand over their food stamps, WIC or whatever and sometimes pay little to nothing for their basket of goodies. It's not just necessities either--it's soda, candy, expensive cuts of meat, ect. I've been in lines before with eggs, milk and some fruit and paid more than some of these people with a full basket of groceries.
I have some stories.
>said stories snipped<
I think welfare can be good, but primarily I think there needs to be a limit on how long you can collect. I mean, does it ever end? These people showing up in their pajamas, buying whatever the hell they want, refusing to pay for their own health insurance and basically discouraged to move up in the work force because they'll lose their welfare benefits does not seem like the right answer. I could be wrong. I lived in South Carolina for 7 years and never saw any of this kind of stuff.
I know a lot of people here on Dakka are in full support of welfare, but have you guys ever actually experienced this kind of stuff? Sure, it's helping a lot of people, but it's also making and keeping a lot of people very lazy beings.
CA has literally, the most liberal policy of all 50 states; it is insane in my opinion. As you said, with no 'per child' limit and no lifetime limit, it can indeed create a disincentive to improve. Granted, part of that is an issue of poverty to begin with. For many people, welfare is seen as a stigma but for someone who was raised (sometimes two or three generations deep) in welfare, that stigma simply isn't there.
As to "never saw it in South Carolina", I can almost guarantee that you did, you simply didn't notice it. Confirmation Bias is an amazing thing, where we tend to remember the things we want to and ignore the ones that don't fit our world view. This is not specific to you, but the far right conservative base has done an amazing job of drumming up the "welfare queen" image of the lazy bum (usually a minority) that does nothing but spend government money and live the high life. The reality of the situation is that those people are the vast minority of cases on welfare. As Whembly said, there will always be those who game the system, and there will always be those who simply have never known another way. Like I said,sometimes this is several generations deep. But simply put, you probably saw some of these "regular" working people on welfare assistance but simply didn't notice them. Why would you? They'd be the ones with a modest grocery cart, regular clothes (probably a little worn) being responsible users of the system. They wouldn't stick out, because they don't want to stick out, and your eyes would simply gloss right over them.
 Lt. Coldfire wrote:I've lived in Fresno most of my life and I've only known one white person on welfare. I've known and know plenty of minorities on welfare, however.
Apologies if it seems like I'm jumping on your posts, but I did want to respond to this bit. Here in Maryland, there are two areas (Essex/Dundalk) that are full of poor white people on welfare. Baltimore City has a large number of poor non-whites on welfare as well, but not nearly as many compared to the county that surrounds it. Welfare is simply something that will vary state to state, so when trying to think of policy government has to remember to think beyond "what you see" or "people you know". In fact, much of the midwest and south is a whole hodgepodge of people on welfare, black, white and everything in between.
Also, seriously, California is crazy...
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Post by: Mannahnin
IIRC pretty much the only way to stay on state assistance indefinitely is to be a mom with young kids; and the assistance is there primarily because of the kids. They don't have a choice in the matter.
IIRC we got rid of indefinite welfare for other folks in the 90s, aside from the elderly and the permanently disabled.
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Post by: whembly
streamdragon wrote:whembly wrote:The Rhode Island bit in that article was the only thing that jumped out at me. If true, it's an example that the States can do it better than the Feds.
Is Rhode Island the state that already has single payer health care, or is that Vermont? I forget. Honestly yes, there are definitely some states that can do things better, for their particular state, than the feds can. Frankly, it should always be that way. The federal government has to oversee 50 states and a handful of territories all with distinct needs and situations. It's why block grants are done the way they are. The bottom line has to be the lowest line, for the lowest state, so states that are far and away not the lowest (like a lot of New England) will always seem super shiny in comparison. Just the way it is I guess.
Maybe it's because I work as a federal contractor, but it truly amazes me how some people (no one here specifically, this is more a general statement) simply do not understand the way things work in the federal government. Money given to the states for social programs is rarely given out with specific instructions. Like welfare and SNAP (food stamps) it's usually just given as a giant payment. Many infrastructure projects follow a similar path. "Here you go, improve your roads or whatever." In simple terms: I think too many people blame the government for things their state is doing, simply because the money was collected by the federal government to begin with.
.
What does a federal contractor do?
But, absolutely the Feds do put "strings" on those block grants. That's the gist of that RI bit... the state did it better than the Feds in that regards. Now, there are things that the Fed does much better or is needed.
Do you remember what was the speed limit nation wide was? It used to be 55mph because someone in Federal Agency (don't remember who/where) said, "here's some block grant for your bridges and roads, oh and by the way, the speed limit needs to be 55mph when accepting this grant". That's just a snippet of what happens. Automatically Appended Next Post:  Mannahnin wrote:IIRC pretty much the only way to stay on state assistance indefinitely is to be a mom with young kids; and the assistance is there primarily because of the kids. They don't have a choice in the matter.
You forgot the old and disabled... but those are needed.
IIRC we got rid of indefinite welfare for other folks in the 90s, aside from the elderly and the permanently disabled.
Ah...there you go.
Yep, I think that was passed during Clinton Presidency...
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Post by: Grey Templar
I thought the 55 speed limit was because of gas efficiency during the oil crisis.
Or was it WW2 when it was needed for the war effort?
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Post by: whembly
 Grey Templar wrote:I thought the 55 speed limit was because of gas efficiency during the oil crisis.
You're right...
They had to enforce it somehow and I thought it was linking the federal road money to that requirement. Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oil crisis in '73.
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Post by: Meade
There is nothing broken about welfare. It is one part of a much larger broken system. It is sad that people need to suckle from the government so much, yes. Corporate welfare is far worse, we give contracts, subsidies, you name it. Whatever welfare queens do, corporations do more.
Land, natural resources, rights to water and air, EVERYONE has a right to these, including future generations. To the extent that corporations liquidate natural resources, if we are even to say they have a right to do so, they should at least pay back into the public welfare.
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Post by: whembly
 Meade wrote:There is nothing broken about welfare. It is one part of a much larger broken system. It is sad that people need to suckle from the government so much, yes. Corporate welfare is far worse, we give contracts, subsidies, you name it. Whatever welfare queens do, corporations do more.
Land, natural resources, rights to water and air, EVERYONE has a right to these, including future generations. To the extent that corporations liquidate natural resources, if we are even to say they have a right to do so, they should at least pay back into the public welfare.
I'm sorta nodding my head with ya... except the your phrase "corporations liquidate natural resources"... what do you mean by that?
If you're talking about mining or extracting oil on public lands, the corporation pays a direct royalty to government. That's on top of the jobs they provide in that region that generates tax revenue as well.
If you're talking about excessive subsidies to favored industries... sure. That'll always happen... again, on a larger scale, that's the nature of the beast.
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Post by: Cheesecat
whembly wrote: Meade wrote:There is nothing broken about welfare. It is one part of a much larger broken system. It is sad that people need to suckle from the government so much, yes. Corporate welfare is far worse, we give contracts, subsidies, you name it. Whatever welfare queens do, corporations do more.
Land, natural resources, rights to water and air, EVERYONE has a right to these, including future generations. To the extent that corporations liquidate natural resources, if we are even to say they have a right to do so, they should at least pay back into the public welfare.
I'm sorta nodding my head with ya... except the your phrase "corporations liquidate natural resources"... what do you mean by that?
He means corporations are turning all the natural resources into unusable liquid forms in hopes of killing off all life on earth.
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Post by: whembly
 Cheesecat wrote: whembly wrote: Meade wrote:There is nothing broken about welfare. It is one part of a much larger broken system. It is sad that people need to suckle from the government so much, yes. Corporate welfare is far worse, we give contracts, subsidies, you name it. Whatever welfare queens do, corporations do more.
Land, natural resources, rights to water and air, EVERYONE has a right to these, including future generations. To the extent that corporations liquidate natural resources, if we are even to say they have a right to do so, they should at least pay back into the public welfare.
I'm sorta nodding my head with ya... except the your phrase "corporations liquidate natural resources"... what do you mean by that?
He means corporations are turning all the natural resources into unusable liquid forms in hopes of killing off all life on earth.
Bro... what you're smoking... get another flavor
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Post by: Meade
whembly wrote:
I'm sorta nodding my head with ya... except the your phrase "corporations liquidate natural resources"... what do you mean by that?
pretty much by 'liquidate' I mean turn into money. Because in our messed up economic system money grows more money.
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Post by: Huffy
AustonT wrote: Shadowseer_Kim wrote:Auston - and yet with the minimum wage raises nearly every year for the past 30 years, poverty has not gone down, it has gone up.. weird.
It probably has something to do with the fact only 5% of the workforce is paid minimum wage.
And that minimum wages set a benchmark for prices, the higher the min wage the higher prices go....so nothing really changes, you just have larger sums of money changing hands but quality of life remains the same
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Post by: Mannahnin
Meade wrote: whembly wrote:
I'm sorta nodding my head with ya... except the your phrase "corporations liquidate natural resources"... what do you mean by that?
pretty much by 'liquidate' I mean turn into money. Because in our messed up economic system money grows more money.
There's nothing messed up about that. Although I concur that aspects of our economic system are messed up.
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Post by: sebster
 whembly wrote:There will always be people who will game the system... it's just a fact of life.
Just like athletes will always push the envelop on performance enhancing drugs... that's just the way it is.
True, and one important thing to keep in mind is how little we talk about the dollar cost of the fraud that goes on at the top levels of society. I mean, Bernie Madoff scammed $18 billion out of the system - that's just one guy's scam and it's probably more than what was scammed out of welfare in the last decade across the whole country.
I'm not saying welfare fraud is okay, but it is interesting which one we spend so much more time worrying about. Automatically Appended Next Post: Shadowseer_Kim wrote:I remember a very similar thing happening with the tax structure when I was younger, I think I was making around $11 an hour, and whatever was withdrawn was withdrawn, I was dating a woman who was making $14 an hour, and she brought home more.
Then she got a raise to $15 an hour, and I got a raise to like $12. Her tax with-holding increased and suddenly she was bringing home less than I was.
Tax doesn't work that way. I don't know the exact circumstances of what happened, but the tax system by itself can't leave you with less money after a raise. Either there was some other element in play (the most common one is court mandated child payments) or you got the situation slightly wrong. Automatically Appended Next Post: whembly wrote:Ah...there you go.
Yep, I think that was passed during Clinton Presidency...
And it was thought at the time that when welfare was only temporary then rhetoric about lazy welfare slobs would disappear. It didn't, because it works too well as an easy explanation/scapegoat for other problems for many people.
In hindsight, it'd be like passing a limiting the maximum pay anyone could receive in a single, through salary, stocks and all compensation, to say $500,000, and then expecting the left to stop making noise about greedy corporate fatcats. They wouldn't do it, it just works too well as a rallying call.
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Post by: reds8n
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09/13/welfare-white-and-drugless/
Gov. Voldemort Rick Scott (who, not coincidentally, has a financial interest in a drug testing facility; he just transferred legal ownership of it to his WIFE) decided to drug test welfare recipients. This cost taxpayers millions of dollars and lined his wallet, and they found that only 2% of all welfare recipients tested actually tested positive for drugs. Of that 2%, ALL of them had family members who were eligible for welfare, so NO welfare money was saved by attempting to deny it to people on drugs. (I’ll also note that I heard nothing about getting people who tested positive into a rehab, or any concern for innocent minor children who rely on welfare to, you know, not starve.)
Now considering that data exists that has found that 5% of Americans use illegal drugs (that’s the LOWEST percentage I have found; other data puts it at 22 million people, or 9% of the population), that means that, according to the findings in Florida where only 2% of the tested population tested positive, people on welfare are LESS LIKELY to use illegal drugs. In fact, people on welfare are anywhere from 3% to 7% LESS LIKELY to be using illegal drugs than the general population as a whole.
Also, let’s not pretend that there are not “false positives” when drug testing, because there are. Your legal doctor-prescribed medications can show up as opiates or other “illegal” drugs. You can eat a poppyseed bagel and have a false positive. If there is a possibility that a test could be wrong and deny a family some needed assistance so they can eat, there is something gravely wrong with the idea.
Also, just as an aside, if you think that people on food assistance are rolling in free Government Cheese Bucks, consider that the average allotment comes out to about a dollar and change per meal. What can you buy to eat for less than two bucks a meal? Think on that. Now imagine doing that forever. Until you are denied benefits, of course.
Furthermore, you can’t buy non-food items, which is fair, because it is food assistance, not Food and Toiletries Assistance…but that means that someone who can’t afford to eat without enduring the shame and hassle and difficulty involved to request food assistance (meager as it is) probably can’t afford other things like: pet food, diapers, toilet paper, shampoo, toothpaste, soap, tampons or sanitary pads, shaving razors, aspirin, vitamins, and so on.
In some places, you can’t use food stamps to buy hot food (like a roast chicken from a grocery store’s deli section), prepared food (like pre-made sandwiches, which are, oddly, sometimes cheaper than buying all the bread, condiments and fillings separately), frozen food, and so on. Guess what? People who have never been on food stamps get very angry if folks buy, say, a birthday cake (allowed) or soda pop or chips (allowed, but people have the nerve to bitch about it, because you’re not allowed to eat junk food ever if you’re on food stamps). No, you deserve your suffering because you’re asking for help that your tax dollars help pay for. Now that you have fallen on hard times, you better make sure your cart contents meet with everyone’s approval because they all think it is 100% their tax dollars paying for that pint of store-brand ice cream that you should be ashamed of yourself for purchasing with food stamps.
But I digress.
So. Why would we ask taxpayers to take on this additional burden of paying for drug testing (which lines the pockets of drug testing companies but otherwise does not contribute to the general welfare of society in any way) when people on welfare are less likely to be using drugs, when all those who did test positive were able to get family members to apply for benefits in their stead (so no reduction in amount of welfare paid, at all), and when this actually is arguably, in many cases, actually unconstitutional?
“The U.S. Constitution does not prohibit drug testing of employees. However, in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656 (1989), the high court ruled that requiring employees to produce urine samples constituted a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, all such testing must meet the “reasonableness” requirement of the Fourth Amendment (which protects citizens against “unreasonable” searches and seizures). The Court also ruled that positive test results could not be used in subsequent criminal prosecutions without the employee’s consent.
The other major constitutional issue in employee drug testing involves the Fifth Amendment (made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment), which prohibits denial of life, liberty, or property without “due process of law.” Since the majority of private-sector employees in the United States (excepting mostly union employees) are considered “at-will employees,” an employer need not articulate a reason for termination of employment. However, under certain circumstances, the denial of employment or the denial of continued employment based on drug test results may invoke “due process” considerations, such as the validity of the test results, the employee’s right to respond, or any required notice to an employee.
Finally, under the same constitutional provisions, persons have a fundamental right to privacy of their person and property. Drug testing, although in itself deemed legal, may be subject to constitutional challenge if testing results are indiscriminately divulged, if procedures for obtaining personal specimens do not respect the privacy rights of the person, or if testing is unnecessarily or excessively imposed.”
Which is why Governor Scott was, indeed, ordered to cut it out and to stop giving state government workers a whiz quiz: “U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro ruled on Wednesday that suspicionless drug testing testing for state workers violated the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable search and seizure”.
“The Governor can’t order the state to search people’s bodily fluids for no reason — the Constitution prohibits that sort of government intrusion,” Howard Simon, director of the Florida ACLU, said in a statement. “And the Governor can’t demand that people surrender their constitutional rights for the privilege of working for the state or receiving some other government benefit.” [...]
Derek Newton, a spokesman for the Florida chapter of the ACLU, suggested in February that his group would be happy to sue again: ”We have gone to court twice in the last year to challenge suspicionless drug testing,” Newton said, “and if the state continues to enact policies to require people to be subject to government search and seizure without suspicion, I would not be surprised at all if that’s something we continue to oppose.” (source)
It is “unfashionable” to point out that a lot of these drug testing schemes, in addition to being very profitable for certain corporations and individuals with a financial stake in those businesses, operate on the old and well-debunked Reagan-era myth of the “Welfare Queen” who is always presumed to be both a person of color and someone taking advantage of a broken welfare system to avoid working for a living. In truth, the average welfare recipient is a white mother in the suburbs who remains on welfare about two years and is actively searching for employment (and this is partially true because there are more white people in general). Why is it unfashionable: Because when you say something sounds problematic and racist, conservatives clutch the pearls and act offended. Well, boo hoo. Stop being racist, then. Problem solved!
The idea is that lazy people of color are using “your” taxpayer dollars (it is always assumed that “those people” do not also pay taxes) to avoid work while getting high on illegal drugs, but the truth is that this is bunk and it is not-so-thinly-veiled racism. I, for one, do not want my tax dollars to go towards programs that intend to punish people on welfare for using drugs (when they are less likely to be doing so, and when I have to contribute towards the cost of drug testing) when it is simpler to just help pay for welfare for the needy and not add yet another hurdle to the process that is designed to shame, scapegoat, reinforce racial stereotypes that aren’t even remotely accurate, and make it more difficult to get assistance when it is needed.
Also, full disclosure, here: I have never had an employer that required me to pee in a cup. (I would have passed, incidentally…unless I had the misfortune to be the victim of a false positive.)
I would be very wary of working for an employer that required an unnecessary piss test, frankly. You’d have to justify it very clearly, such as if I were applying to be a drug addiction counselor or if I were to be working with heavy machinery or driving a bus or train or flying a plane, in which case, it is not entirely unreasonable to insist on testing to ensure sober employees.
I am not sure a guy working at Taco Bell needs to pee in a cup to prove he is capable of making me a Chalupa.
http://www.census.gov/sipp/sb95_22.pdf
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/7Welfare.htm
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Post by: Frazzled
 Grey Templar wrote:I thought the 55 speed limit was because of gas efficiency during the oil crisis.
Or was it WW2 when it was needed for the war effort?
The late 1970s gas crisis.
In WWII gas was rationed.
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Post by: Easy E
I have to admit, I didn;t read most people's comments in this thread yet. I will go back. However, after looking at the "analysis" it leaves me wondering about the questions this should provoke?
Is it the fact that our social welfare system is broken and giving too much, or is it the fact that our labor market is broken to devalue labor/working?
The way you answer that question will lead to VERY different potential solutions. The analysis itself doesn't tell you much, it provides data. How you interpret that data is the key.
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Post by: streamdragon
whembly wrote: streamdragon wrote:whembly wrote:The Rhode Island bit in that article was the only thing that jumped out at me. If true, it's an example that the States can do it better than the Feds.
Is Rhode Island the state that already has single payer health care, or is that Vermont? I forget. Honestly yes, there are definitely some states that can do things better, for their particular state, than the feds can. Frankly, it should always be that way. The federal government has to oversee 50 states and a handful of territories all with distinct needs and situations. It's why block grants are done the way they are. The bottom line has to be the lowest line, for the lowest state, so states that are far and away not the lowest (like a lot of New England) will always seem super shiny in comparison. Just the way it is I guess.
Maybe it's because I work as a federal contractor, but it truly amazes me how some people (no one here specifically, this is more a general statement) simply do not understand the way things work in the federal government. Money given to the states for social programs is rarely given out with specific instructions. Like welfare and SNAP (food stamps) it's usually just given as a giant payment. Many infrastructure projects follow a similar path. "Here you go, improve your roads or whatever." In simple terms: I think too many people blame the government for things their state is doing, simply because the money was collected by the federal government to begin with.
.
What does a federal contractor do?
But, absolutely the Feds do put "strings" on those block grants. That's the gist of that RI bit... the state did it better than the Feds in that regards. Now, there are things that the Fed does much better or is needed.
Do you remember what was the speed limit nation wide was? It used to be 55mph because someone in Federal Agency (don't remember who/where) said, "here's some block grant for your bridges and roads, oh and by the way, the speed limit needs to be 55mph when accepting this grant". That's just a snippet of what happens.
Federal contractors do all sorts of things, but it was mainly meant to illustrate that I'm working with 'the evil gubbermints!', so I'm sort of forced to see how it's actually run and deal with not just my own corporation's nonsense, but the government's as well. In my particular case, I provide litigation support to various government entities, handling all sorts of evidence used during antitrust law suits and merger checks. It does provide a rather fascinating look into how the supposed "free market" would actually work without any government regulation.
And yes, I'm afraid I wasn't being clear with the "bottom line has to be the lowest line" bit. The feds absolutely do put strings on the money they give out, I agree. But usually those strings are set as a "lowest common denominator" type situation. It's not usually "You WILL do X", it's more along the lines of "You must at least do X". ACA is a good example of this policy (regardless of actual LAW content). States must have a public option at least as good as the one the Fed implements, but are free (like RI) to implement an option that exceeds the specifications of the Federal one. It's a way for the feds to make sure states aren't taking that Federal money meant for one thing, and basically funneling it to another thing.
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Post by: nomotog
Here's a question. How would you all fix welfare?
For my idea, I would get rid of minimum wage implement universal single payer health care. (This is just to make it easier for businesses to higher people.) For the actual welfare program I would scrap it completely. No more food stamps, or home heating credit. Rather I would replace it with a simple wealth redistribution check. given to everyone on their birthday. (If your a child, the money goes to your parents.) It would be a fairly sizable amount of money. Basically all the money spent on welfare only spread out among everyone. (Maybe a little more if we need it.)
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Post by: d-usa
This might be the dumbest proposal I have heard.
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Post by: dogma
 reds8n wrote:What can you buy to eat for less than two bucks a meal?
I'm Lovin' It.
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Post by: Testify
From reds' post
In some places, you can’t use food stamps to buy hot food (like a roast chicken from a grocery store’s deli section), prepared food (like pre-made sandwiches, which are, oddly, sometimes cheaper than buying all the bread, condiments and fillings separately), frozen food, and so on. Guess what? People who have never been on food stamps get very angry if folks buy, say, a birthday cake (allowed) or soda pop or chips (allowed, but people have the nerve to bitch about it, because you’re not allowed to eat junk food ever if you’re on food stamps). No, you deserve your suffering because you’re asking for help that your tax dollars help pay for. Now that you have fallen on hard times, you better make sure your cart contents meet with everyone’s approval because they all think it is 100% their tax dollars paying for that pint of store-brand ice cream that you should be ashamed of yourself for purchasing with food stamps.
This is the way I can see us going in the UK. The hysteria over "taxpayers money" is bizarre and sickening.
Also doesn't surprise me about drug use. Most people on welfare can't afford drugs, the poor bastards
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Post by: dogma
Testify wrote:
Also doesn't surprise me about drug use. Most people on welfare can't afford drugs, the poor bastards
I'm surprised by how low the use rate is, but then strategies for evading a piss test are basically high school curricula.
Study hard and you'll never test positive for THC.
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Post by: Testify
They seriously test for weed? I assumed it'd only be heroin/cocaine et al.
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Post by: dogma
Testify wrote:They seriously test for weed? I assumed it'd only be heroin/cocaine et al.
Yes.
If you want a summer job, expect to take a full drug test. You would have to pay for it too, if it weren't for discrimination law.
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Post by: Testify
That's mess up man I don't think you could get cheap labour over here without weed use of 25-50%. If the factory where I work instituted drug tests they'd need to replace about half the staff.
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Post by: AustonT
Huffy wrote:
And that minimum wages set a benchmark for prices, the higher the min wage the higher prices go....so nothing really changes, you just have larger sums of money changing hands but quality of life remains the same
Since bloody when?
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Post by: Grey Templar
AustonT wrote:Huffy wrote:
And that minimum wages set a benchmark for prices, the higher the min wage the higher prices go....so nothing really changes, you just have larger sums of money changing hands but quality of life remains the same
Since bloody when?
Its because those companies that employ minimum wage earners must now increase their prices to maintain the same level of profitability.
So as a result prices of everything goes up slightly, so nothing changes.
The people who get the minimum wage increase may have the illusion that they are making more, but they don't notice the extra few dollars their grocery bill has gone up by. So at the end of the day they arn't making any significant amount more then they used to. Maybe by a little bit, but certaintly not the amount their wages went up by.
People forget that one man's wages is another man's expenses.
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Post by: Testify
I think the minimum wage is supposed to prevent isolated cases of exploitation rather than an attempt to raise the living standards of the poor generally.
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Post by: Grey Templar
Yeah, thats what it is supposed to do. Yet some people think that increasing it can simply increase people's standard of living, when really all it does is make the bottom closer to the top.
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Post by: AustonT
That's inflation not minimum wage. Or how do you explain price increases before minimum wage? Precognition?
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Post by: Grey Templar
Both can happen at the same time. Some price increases are Inflation, others are reactions to increased costs from wage expense.
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Post by: sebster
Testify wrote:This is the way I can see us going in the UK. The hysteria over "taxpayers money" is bizarre and sickening.
Definitely. And the whole thing is built around this absolute conviction that some portion of welfare recipients are utterly undeserving drek. No interest is taken in what number that might be, just that they exist and something must be done to punish them.
Also doesn't surprise me about drug use. Most people on welfare can't afford drugs, the poor bastards
Well, there are the folk on welfare who take a welfare cheque because all their income is under the table, because it's from growing weed and other stuff like that. Those folk would be smoking some of their own supply, and I guess it'd stop them taking cheques. Not really sure that's worth the price of administering all those tests, though, given there'd be no more than few hundred in any major metro area.
Add in the idea that you'd discourage those people from claiming cheques by putting in work for welfare programs, and those programs would also help all the folk who are long term unemployed but not taking drugs, and give an incentive to go out and get a job to anyone who might theoretically be choosing to stay on welfare rather than get a job. And it'd mean some parks and highways get cleaned up as well.
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Post by: whembly
sebster wrote: Testify wrote:
Well, there are the folk on welfare who take a welfare cheque because all their income is under the table, because it's from growing weed and other stuff like that. Those folk would be smoking some of their own supply, and I guess it'd stop them taking cheques. Not really sure that's worth the price of administering all those tests, though, given there'd be no more than few hundred in any major metro area.
Add in the idea that you'd discourage those people from claiming cheques by putting in work for welfare programs, and those programs would also help all the folk who are long term unemployed but not taking drugs, and give an incentive to go out and get a job to anyone who might theoretically be choosing to stay on welfare rather than get a job. And it'd mean some parks and highways get cleaned up as well.
I don't buy that there's a significant folks on welfare are also drug abusers... but, I wouldn't be opposed to random drug testing (but would it be worth it?).
But.. totally agree with you Seb.
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Post by: sebster
Grey Templar wrote:Its because those companies that employ minimum wage earners must now increase their prices to maintain the same level of profitability. So as a result prices of everything goes up slightly, so nothing changes.
No, in order for that to work you'd have to have an economy where the inputs into every good is entirely wage payments to employees on the minimum wage, and you have a perfectly non-competitive market. Both assumptions are ludicrous, but for simplicity's sake we'll assume the latter and just look at the former. So let's say that the assumption holds, and the only cost in production is employees on minimum wage. They're paid $10 an hour, and it takes two hours to produce a widget, that means the cost of production is $20 (no fixed costs because we're giving your 'theory' every chance of being plausible). The owner wants to make 10% profit on every unit sold, so he puts it on the market for $22. This means the average worker, earning $10 an hour, can buy 0.45 widgets for every hour he works. Then a filthy left wing socialist gets in to power, and he increases the minimum wage to $12, because he hates America. It still takes 2 hours to make a widget, but now the cost is up to $24. The owner still wants to make 10% on every widget, so the final selling price is $26.40. This means the minimum wage worker, earning $12 an hour, can buy 0.45 widgets per hour. Exactly as Grey Templar claimed, the inflation due to the minimum wage cancelled out the wage increase, and left everyone back where they started. But let's think about that original assumption, because the idea that the entire cost of production is from minimum wage is not even slightly plausible. Let's say, instead, that minimum wage labour only makes up about 50% of the cost of production. Because we know there all kinds of wages for management and skilled labour, and there's rent of premises and plant depreciation and other such expenses as well. So, when the guy works two hours, he earns $20, and he produces one widget. But there's all those other costs to be added on as well, so the cost of producing that widget is $40, to which the owner adds his 10% profit, and so the final good costs $44. With his $10 wage the worker can only buy 0.23 of a widget. Then that filthy left wing socialist gets in to power, and as before he raised the minimum wage to $12. It still takes two hours to make a widget, and so as before the cost of the minimum wage labour added to the product is $24. But now we're adding that $20 of other costs, and then the employer's 10% profit, to get a total product cost of $48.40. With his $12 an hour the employee can buy 0.25 widgets, up from the 0.23 widgets he could buy before the minimum wage increase. That 20% increase in minimum wage produced a 9.09% increase in real purchasing power for the minimum wage employee. But of course even that example is hopelessly contrived, because minimum wage makes up nowhere near 50% of the costs of input. We know all wages make up about 70% of GNI, and we know from information posted earlier in the thread that around 5% of the workforce is on minimum wage. That means that about 3.5% of the cost of production of all goods is impacted by an increase in minimum wage. Which means that if minimum wage went from $10 to $12, the cost of an average $100 basket of goods would inflate to $100.70. The minimum wage worker, who previously on $10 an hour would have had to work 10 hours to buy that basket of goods, now only has to work 8.39 hours to buy it. tldr? The idea that minimum wage just inflates prices to the amount of the minimum wage is simply not true, to be true the only cost of production would have to be minimum wage. Which is beyond stupid. Automatically Appended Next Post: whembly wrote:I don't buy that there's a significant folks on welfare are also drug abusers... but, I wouldn't be opposed to random drug testing (but would it be worth it?). But.. totally agree with you Seb.
Yeah, I'm not opposed at all to the principle of the state being allowed to drug test people on benefits if it wants to. I mean, if you want your privacy then don't take the money. If you want the state to give you money, then the state has the right to make sure that money is going to good use, and that means they have the right, if they choose, to require a drug test. The issue to me, basically, is that from what we've seen the system catches stuff all people, probably because stuff all people on welfare can afford drugs (or that those who do drugs are smart enough to lay off for the period before their test). It costs more than it detects, and is therefore a waste of taxpayer money. I think this really is a classic issue of policy being driven by popular perception of welfare recipients as drug addled suckerfish, as opposed to being driven by the reality of what people on welfare are really like.
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Post by: Grey Templar
I was just overly simplifying the situation. I know its not going to completely devour the wage increase of the people that recieve it.
However it will cut into the budgets of people not on minimum wage. So an increase of minimum wage will hurt them.
Lets take your given situation and tweak it,
There are 100 people in a factory making widgets. And this factory is in a town where there are other people working for other things but those details arn't important.
Lets also say that the Factory is the only minimum wage payer in town, with 80 of its 100 employees making minimum wage. Everyone else in the town makes above minimum wage.
Minimum wage at the moment is $10 an hour, there are material costs associated with each widget of $5, and it takes 1 hour to make a widget. Thus it costs $15 to make a widget.
The factory owner wants to make 20% profit on each widget. So the widgets are sold for $18 a piece.
Now just about everyone in the town buys widgets because they are a basic needed resource for most people. Both minimum wage earners and non-minimum wage earners. Minimum wage earners earn .555 widgets per hour of work.
Minimum wage is increased to $12.
So now it costs $17 to make a widget.
maintaining the 20% profitability on the widgets, the cost is now $20.40 a piece.
Minimum wage earners can now buy .588 widgets. A slight increase.
But what about the people who don't earn minimum wage? For them the price of widgets has increased by 11%, yet they have recieved no increase in pay.
So overall, the standard of living for people not on minimum wage has gone down.
IRL the increase will be very small, for the reasons you mentioned that wages are a small portion of expenses, but its still a decrease.
Minimum wage increases only benifit the people who are recieving minimum wage. A tiny portion of the working population.
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Post by: dogma
Grey Templar wrote:
Minimum wage increases only benifit the people who are recieving minimum wage. A tiny portion of the working population.
I'm not sure why that is a problem.
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Post by: Grey Templar
Its not a problem persay, but it does reduce the standard of living for those who don't get the pay raise(if only be a tiny amount)
The bigger issue is that its not a viable solution for reducing poverty or increasing the standard of living. All it does is mean you can't have exploitative wages. which is a good thing of course. But I think some people see it as a poverty fighting tool when it really isn't.
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Post by: dogma
Grey Templar wrote:Its not a problem persay, but it does reduce the standard of living for those who don't get the pay raise(if only be a tiny amount)
If Bill Gates earns more money next year, will it reduce my standard of living?
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Post by: sebster
Grey Templar wrote:IRL the increase will be very small, for the reasons you mentioned that wages are a small portion of expenses, but its still a decrease.
You didn't read my whole example, did you? Because at the end I point out the portion of the cost of production taken up by minimum wage workers at about 3.5% of national production (rough figure, admittedly, but within the right ballpark). That means a 20% increase in minimum wage translates to a 0.07% increase in the cost of goods. That means that a 20% raise in the minimum wage represents an increase in real income of 19.2% The inflationary impact is trivial in reducing the benefit of the raise. Minimum wage increases only benifit the people who are recieving minimum wage. A tiny portion of the working population.
That's not a complaint, that's the whole point of raising the minimum wage. And yeah, the benefit is to very few. That's how it works like it does - significant benefit to a few, very minor loss to many. The point of the exercise being, of course, that those benefitting are at the bottom of society, with very little, while the expense is coming from those of us who are a lot more comfortable. If you have any concern over income equality at all, it's a no-brainer. The only real concern comes in when you measure up the productivity of unskilled work, and conclude that an increase in the minimum wage will make some industries no longer viable. That's an issue facing, say, Australia's present minimum wage, as it's $15.59 and that's pushing at the limit of productivity in many competitive industries (steel is a prominent one here, but manufacturing in general). In that case there's a fair case that increasing it further will cause a material number of layoffs. But in the US, where the minimum is $7.25, that argument is pretty weak.
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Post by: Grey Templar
I suppose so.
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Post by: Shadowseer_Kim
Actually minimum wage increases do not only affect the minimum wage worker in a positive way though ever so slightly.
The Union workers, you know the 3%-8% of the working population depending whose numbers you use, almost all have in their contracts an automatic wage increase to the same % that the minimum wage goes up. This includes all those public sector (government workers) jobs.
So if the minimum wage of $8.75 goes up to $8.95 an hour, an increase of 1.02%, the union worker making $20 soon makes $22.44.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
So since we are on the minimum wage discussion, what should minimum wage be? pick a number any number, $20 an hour, $30 an hour?
What is it worth to you to have a kid pour your coffee at the local coffee house? or bus tables at the cafe, or sweep the floor?
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Post by: Grey Templar
It depends on the area. Its more expensive to live in some areas, thus the minimum amount needed will be different.
Also depends on what the job is worth.
What are currently minimum wage jobs may not have the same value.
Working as a waitress/waiter in a Diner and being a clerk at a 7-11 are both minimum wage jobs that I would not consider to be worth the same amount of pay. A waiter/waitress doubtlessly works harder then the guy that restocks shelfs and runs the register at the 7-11.
Its hard to pinpoint the minimum for what people should work for. It can seem like you are shortchanging some and giving too much to others.
Take the current $7.25 we have in the US. I would say that is plenty for the guy working at 7-11, but not enough for someone working as a waiter/waitress. For the work the job involves anyway.
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Post by: sebster
Shadowseer_Kim wrote:Actually minimum wage increases do not only affect the minimum wage worker in a positive way though ever so slightly. The Union workers, you know the 3%-8% of the working population depending whose numbers you use, almost all have in their contracts an automatic wage increase to the same % that the minimum wage goes up. This includes all those public sector (government workers) jobs. So if the minimum wage of $8.75 goes up to $8.95 an hour, an increase of 1.02%, the union worker making $20 soon makes $22.44.
Thanks for the info. I didn't know that. Over here group contracts are pegged to inflation, if at all (normally you have negotiated increases year by year). That said, I think the maths in your example is a little off. If the union workers wage is increasing in line with the minimum, it'd be going from $20.00 to $20.46. So since we are on the minimum wage discussion, what should minimum wage be? pick a number any number, $20 an hour, $30 an hour?
Probably somewhere around $12. Don't do it all at once, though. Have regular increases moving towards that number, and that will give analysts the information needed to know when to stop. What is it worth to you to have a kid pour your coffee at the local coffee house? or bus tables at the cafe, or sweep the floor?
The other option is an award scheme, where you have different minimum wages depending on the job in question. So the person who sits on the reception desk in the air conditioned office and answers phone calls and tells people when their 2:30 has arrived would get a lower wage than the person who works outdoors, doing heavy lifting all day long. Automatically Appended Next Post: Grey Templar wrote:It depends on the area. Its more expensive to live in some areas, thus the minimum amount needed will be different.
People working in different areas gets kind of tricky. I mean, if the wage isn't enough to cover living expenses there I think moving is a reasonable expectation. I know it isn't always practical with the costs of moving and being around family, but we expect it of workers all the time.
Its hard to pinpoint the minimum for what people should work for. It can seem like you are shortchanging some and giving too much to others.
Take the current $7.25 we have in the US. I would say that is plenty for the guy working at 7-11, but not enough for someone working as a waiter/waitress. For the work the job involves anyway.
Definitely. That's what leads to the idea of an award type scheme, where you have different minimum wages for different jobs.
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Post by: djones520
I can't understand how flipping a burger or shoving taco meat into a shell is worth $12 an hour. Not every job should pay a "livible" wage. And by livible I mean a single 20 year old should be able to afford his own apartment because he's a burger flipper. Having a roomate should be a fact of life if your skill set doesn't offer anything beyond the ability to do basic tasks.
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Post by: dogma
djones520 wrote:I can't understand how flipping a burger or shoving taco meat into a shell is worth $12 an hour.
Rick Bayless shoves taco meat into shells for far more than 12$ per hour.
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Post by: djones520
 dogma wrote:djones520 wrote:I can't understand how flipping a burger or shoving taco meat into a shell is worth $12 an hour.
Rick Bayless shoves taco meat into shells for far more than 12$ per hour.
I had to Bing that name.
I did it for two years for much less. Then I moved onto a job that required real skills, and my pay began to reflect it.
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Post by: dogma
djones520 wrote:
I did it for two years for much less. Then I moved onto a job that required real skills, and my pay began to reflect it.
So you're saying that being a chef entails no "real skills"?
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Post by: djones520
dogma wrote:djones520 wrote:
I did it for two years for much less. Then I moved onto a job that required real skills, and my pay began to reflect it.
So you're saying that being a chef entails no "real skills"?
Calling an employee of Burger King a chef would probably get you punched by the likes of Rick Bayless.
By the way, it's Burger Kings birthday. Go eat Whoppers!
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Post by: sebster
djones520 wrote:I can't understand how flipping a burger or shoving taco meat into a shell is worth $12 an hour. Not every job should pay a "livible" wage. And by livible I mean a single 20 year old should be able to afford his own apartment because he's a burger flipper. Having a roomate should be a fact of life if your skill set doesn't offer anything beyond the ability to do basic tasks.
So your basic idea is that some people should be in poverty as a point of principle.
Dakka, the gift that keeps on giving.
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Post by: djones520
sebster wrote:djones520 wrote:I can't understand how flipping a burger or shoving taco meat into a shell is worth $12 an hour. Not every job should pay a "livible" wage. And by livible I mean a single 20 year old should be able to afford his own apartment because he's a burger flipper. Having a roomate should be a fact of life if your skill set doesn't offer anything beyond the ability to do basic tasks.
So your basic idea is that some people should be in poverty as a point of principle.
Dakka, the gift that keeps on giving.
No my idea is that employers shouldn't be forced to pay large salaries for basic labor that requires no job skills to do.
If a person doesn't want to live in poverty then they should work to better themselves. Sure you've got an example of a person with a bad lot in life here or there, but a large majority of folks who end up in that portion of the labor pool did so by the choices they made in life. I could still be sitting at Taco Bell making minimum wage today, but I chose to move onto better things. I went from a kid who grew up in poverty in the poorest county in Michigan to someone who will be retiring from their first career at 37 with a high paying job skill, and 3 seperate college degrees. It is all because of the choices I made for myself. And for most out there, it's the exact same thing.
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Post by: dogma
djones520 wrote:
Calling an employee of Burger King a chef would probably get you punched by the likes of Rick Bayless.
Fair enough, but the point was that some taco meat is better than other taco meat and compensation reflects that.
Also 12$ per hour is ~24k per anum, I don't know many places where that entails a studio apartment without state assistance.
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Post by: Ahtman
I didn't realize a living wage was considered 'a large salary'.
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Post by: Grey Templar
The sad fact is, we need people to flip burgers and stuff taco shells.
Skill is honestly a secondary reason for the pay rate for a particular job. Behind how much the job is needed and how many people there are competing for the job.
There are plenty of jobs that don't require any particular skill but still pay well because people either don't want to do that job or its a necessary job.
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Post by: Kilkrazy
Like what?
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Post by: Grey Templar
Harvesting produce for one.
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Post by: azazel the cat
Grey Templar wrote:The sad fact is, we need people to flip burgers and stuff taco shells.
Skill is honestly a secondary reason for the pay rate for a particular job. Behind how much the job is needed and how many people there are competing for the job.
There are plenty of jobs that don't require any particular skill but still pay well because people either don't want to do that job or its a necessary job.
Kilkrazy wrote:Like what?
Grey Templar wrote:Harvesting produce for one.
Huh? Are you seriously trying to say that strawberry picking is a high-paying job?
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Post by: Grey Templar
No, its a well paying job. that =/= high paying. I never claimed it was a high paying job.
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Post by: Shadowseer_Kim
@ sebster - thank you for double checking my math. I thought it was wrong at the time, and did it twice, but since I was tired, I did it twice wrong.
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Post by: AustonT
Garbage men.
Trim Carpenters, Framers, Security, Hooking.
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Post by: Testify
djones520 wrote:I can't understand how flipping a burger or shoving taco meat into a shell is worth $12 an hour. Not every job should pay a "livible" wage. And by livible I mean a single 20 year old should be able to afford his own apartment because he's a burger flipper. Having a roomate should be a fact of life if your skill set doesn't offer anything beyond the ability to do basic tasks.
This has to be the worst post i've ever seen on dakka, and that's saying a lot.
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Post by: the color purple
Real wage, IE wage adjusted for inflation, have been decreasing in the US since the 1960s, and have decreased massively in proportion to how much our businesses make.
The current minimum wage in the US is simply not enough to support oneself in many places, even if one is working full time, and the situation is even bleaker if you have a family.
What's more, the places that pay minimum wage, like Walmart and McDonald's, make huge profits. Their workers, when you take into account their wages compared to how much revenue they generate for the company, are extremely underpaid. Business lobbiyists love to shout that raising the wage will raise prices, but the fact is that these companies could swallow the cost without raising anything if they so chose, and it has already been demonstrated in this thread how little minimum wage payouts affect a company's bottom line. If that's not enough, they often exploit their employees in frightening ways. It's par the course for fast food restaurants to hold employees overtime without paying overtime wages, for example.
Raise minimum wage to the point that a single person working a full-time job can expect to support themselves without fear, and punish companies that exploit their workers, then we can talk about how lazy our poor are or are not.
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Post by: Testify
It's not a hidden secret that unskilled migrants are driving down the cost at the lower end of the wage market. Why bother paying above minimum wage when there is an infinite number of people who'll work for any pay and no conditions.
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Post by: Laughing Man
 azazel the cat wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:The sad fact is, we need people to flip burgers and stuff taco shells.
Skill is honestly a secondary reason for the pay rate for a particular job. Behind how much the job is needed and how many people there are competing for the job.
There are plenty of jobs that don't require any particular skill but still pay well because people either don't want to do that job or its a necessary job.
Kilkrazy wrote:Like what?
Grey Templar wrote:Harvesting produce for one.
Huh? Are you seriously trying to say that strawberry picking is a high-paying job?
Surprisingly, yes. Most harvesters make about $15 to $20 an hour.
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Post by: whembly
Testify wrote:It's not a hidden secret that unskilled migrants are driving down the cost at the lower end of the wage market. Why bother paying above minimum wage when there is an infinite number of people who'll work for any pay and no conditions.
You mean illegals?
Bring serious sanctions against the employers. The illegals would come here if there aren't any jobs to work under the table.
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Post by: Grey Templar
However, we must consider that a significant portion of our agricultural products are harvested by migrant workers, both legal and illegal.
If we make it harder for companies to hire illegals, we must face the consequence of potentially harming our food supply. Specifically vegetables and fruits from CA.
Oddly enough there is currently a labor shortage for these kind of positions. http://www.cnbc.com/id/48725145/California_Farm_Labor_Shortage_Worst_It_s_Been_Ever
The other thing is that there are enough unemployed people already living in the country to fill the positions.
However there is a stigma associated with these sort of jobs. Most people in the US would never accept such a position, dispite it paying a pretty good rate and requiring almost no skill that can't be given with 10 minutes of instruction.
Our society is so lazy we have to import our manuel labor, not a good position to be in. Especially with such a important industry.
And any pressure on Illegals will also put some pressure on people who are here legally as well.
So any measures to cut down on illegal immigration will also need to be accompanied by increased avaliability for Legal entry.
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Post by: Testify
whembly wrote: Testify wrote:It's not a hidden secret that unskilled migrants are driving down the cost at the lower end of the wage market. Why bother paying above minimum wage when there is an infinite number of people who'll work for any pay and no conditions.
You mean illegals?
Bring serious sanctions against the employers. The illegals would come here if there aren't any jobs to work under the table.
No I don't mean illegals. They're a red herring. All immigrants drive down the pay and conditions of unskilled work.
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Post by: d-usa
I think I remember seeing stories of fruits and vegetables rotting in the fields in Georgia after their immigration crack down?
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Post by: Testify
d-usa wrote:I think I remember seeing stories of fruits and vegetables rotting in the fields in Georgia after their immigration crack down?
I'm sure the market has the nessesary flexibility to support higher wages for agricultural workers. Bare in mind that a huge amount of wealth generated over the past 20 to 30 years has flowed straight into the higher income brackets. If they have to pay more for their goods, so what? We'll experience problems when we run our of available labour, but we're no where near that.
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Post by: Grey Templar
The issue is that americans arn't willing to work as laborers harvesting tomatos, not wages for picking them.
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Post by: whembly
Grey Templar wrote:The issue is that americans arn't willing to work as laborers harvesting tomatos, not wages for picking them.
No...
If there's not enough workers, then the employer would raise the pay. That's how it works. I'm sure I have a hourly rate to pick tomatos!
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Post by: Ahtman
Grey Templar wrote:Our society is so lazy we have to import our manuel labor, not a good position to be in.
It isn't laziness, it is the stigma of it being below them. All sorts of Americans do manual labor and physically intense jobs, such as construction and serving in the military.
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Post by: Testify
Grey Templar wrote:The issue is that americans arn't willing to work as laborers harvesting tomatos, not wages for picking them.
Not true. Anyone would pick tomatoes for $1,000 an hour. If there is sufficient demand for a product (which there is) then the market will support viable wages. As I said, there is sufficient purchasing power in economy to sustain a modest pay increase for most low-paid jobs. Some people are just ideologically opposed to wealth distribution.
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Post by: d-usa
Then why were the vegetables left to rot in the field, instead of raising wages to pick them?
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Post by: whembly
d-usa wrote:Then why were the vegetables left to rot in the field, instead of raising wages to pick them?
Uh... you have citations?
It's probably because it's mismanagement... but that's a W.A.G. (Wild Assed Guess)
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Post by: Testify
d-usa wrote:Then why were the vegetables left to rot in the field, instead of raising wages to pick them?
Probably a publicity stunt.
Or possibly because since the rest of the country still had all those immigrants, buyers could simply buy vegetables for cheaper in other states rather than raise prices. But that's federalism for you.
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Post by: Grey Templar
Yes, there is a salary where anyone will do anything.
At the moment, the average american will not pick vegetables in a field for $15-20/hour.
The reason is probably a combination of it being below their percieved station, the work is hard*, and its not quite enough money to counter the previous two reasons.
*by hard, I don't mean its somehow too labor intensive. Its monotonous work done in the hot sun, a job in construction is probably just a wee bit more mentally stimulating.
I'd take the job paying $20/hour. I'd probably find it boring as heck and it would kill my back, but hey, $20/hour is pretty damn good money.
 Ahtman wrote: Grey Templar wrote:Our society is so lazy we have to import our manuel labor, not a good position to be in.
It isn't laziness, it is the stigma of it being below them. All sorts of Americans do manual labor and physically intense jobs, such as construction and serving in the military.
Should have thrown that in there too.
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Post by: whembly
Shoot... if I was out of work, hell ya I'd pick veggies for $15/ hr! Especially if its under the table .
So, I don't by the whole "American won't do those jobs".
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Post by: Testify
That works out at £9.30.
Atm I get paid £6.20 (ish) to work in a warehouse stacking crates if I'm lucky, or scooping sauce onto pizzas for 8 hours if I'm not.
So yes. I'd happily work for those wages.
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Post by: Grey Templar
It is truth in most areas. Americans as a whole won't stoop to a job they think the Mexicans should be doing. Especially if the person in question has a degree in something and is qualified for skilled labor jobs that were paying six figures or reasonably close to it.
Someone would rather work at Macy's for slightly above minimum wage then work in the fields, even though it would be almost double their current salary.
Fortunately I have no pride
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Post by: whembly
Grey Templar wrote:It is truth in most areas. Americans as a whole won't stoop to a job they think the Mexicans should be doing. Especially if the person in question has a degree in something and is qualified for skilled labor jobs that were paying six figures or reasonably close to it.
Someone would rather work at Macy's for slightly above minimum wage then work in the fields, even though it would be almost double their current salary.
Fortunately I have no pride
That may be true... but I don't really buy that...
I've been out of work before and I'd clean up animal poo if the pay was good.
But, then again... I always wanted to be Mike Rowe on Dirty Jobs.
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Post by: Grey Templar
Welcome to the "I have no Dignity Club"
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Post by: dogma
Grey Templar wrote: Most people in the US would never accept such a position, dispite it paying a pretty good rate and requiring almost no skill that can't be given with 10 minutes of instruction.
Harvesting is actually a very skill-intensive job where product quality and speed are concerned. It also, unfortunately, isn't a position which involves the acquisition of skills which transfer to other industries.
Grey Templar wrote:
Our society is so lazy we have to import our manuel labor, not a good position to be in. Especially with such a important industry.
Freudian slip?
Grey Templar wrote:
Someone would rather work at Macy's for slightly above minimum wage then work in the fields, even though it would be almost double their current salary.
A job at Macy's is indoors, air-conditioned, and doesn't involve (physically) bending over for the entirety of the day. Also, retail experience transfers well into a number of corporate positions; most notably marketing, sales, and human resources.
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Post by: sebster
djones520 wrote:No my idea is that employers shouldn't be forced to pay large salaries for basic labor that requires no job skills to do.
$12 is a large salary?!
If a person doesn't want to live in poverty then they should work to better themselves. Sure you've got an example of a person with a bad lot in life here or there, but a large majority of folks who end up in that portion of the labor pool did so by the choices they made in life. I could still be sitting at Taco Bell making minimum wage today, but I chose to move onto better things. I went from a kid who grew up in poverty in the poorest county in Michigan to someone who will be retiring from their first career at 37 with a high paying job skill, and 3 seperate college degrees. It is all because of the choices I made for myself. And for most out there, it's the exact same thing.
None of that changes when the minimum wage is $12 an hour. It's still a basic wage that anyone with some get up and go will look to go beyond.
Over here the minimum wage is $15.59, and it still marks you as the bottom of the rung, enough to get by with a very basic living standard, sharing a rented house with a couple of other people, buying cheap food and sticking to cheap entertainment.
Only time I ever earned anything close to minimum wage was when I was at uni, and had a part time job for some spending money. At no point did I see that whopping $11 or so an hour that minimum wage was at that time and think 'well that's enough'. Instead I went through uni, went on to get my professional qualification and work my up the ladder. Because at no point did I look at that minimum wage and say 'that'll do nicely' when I could do better.
But a lot of folk really can't do better. Some are lazy, but plenty really are folk that just aren't going to claw ahead in any kind of skilled position. Insisting they should be forced to live on $7.75 an hour just ain't right. Automatically Appended Next Post: Shadowseer_Kim wrote:@ sebster - thank you for double checking my math. I thought it was wrong at the time, and did it twice, but since I was tired, I did it twice wrong.
Not a problem. Thanks for telling me about contracts being linked to minimum wage, that's an odd little system I hadn't heard of.
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Post by: whembly
sebster wrote:djones520 wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Shadowseer_Kim wrote:@ sebster - thank you for double checking my math. I thought it was wrong at the time, and did it twice, but since I was tired, I did it twice wrong.
Not a problem. Thanks for telling me about contracts being linked to minimum wage, that's an odd little system I hadn't heard of.
That right there is a killer. That's why whenever this debate pops up, you'll see all the Union folks clamoring for it... which at first glance, seems odd since Union pay are usually decent to good.
As to state workers, some states have laws that takes an average of industry pay (ie, MO). That seems to work better.
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Post by: sebster
Here in Australia, particularly in Western Australia, you can earn an excellent wage, as in near to or in excess of six figures, as a storeman or kitchen hand out in the mines.
The trick is that they fly you out there, you spend four weeks of your life in oppressive heat away from your friends and family, and then you fly back for a week of leave before flying out again.
A lot of folk talk about how good it would to command that kind of wage, but not that many of them do it because they don't want to be away from their families for that length of time.
But that's a fairly example, a case of a particularly profitable industry paying a very high price for a particularly gak job. In the main those kinds of jobs, where an unskilled or semi-skilled guy can make up for that by taking on a job that pays a premium because it's particularly hard work or has oppressive conditions, have been steadily disappearing over the last 40 to 50 years. That's kind of what 'the decline of manufacturing' means.
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Post by: Grey Templar
Just about any job that involves mining, fishing, or logging out in the middle of nowhere pays really good money. It has to to get people to do it.
Of course the work also tends to be seasonal. but you can make a years salary in 3 months.
I salute anybody that does work like that. Its tough.
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Post by: sebster
AustonT wrote:Garbage men.
Trim Carpenters, Framers, Security, Hooking.
Trim carpentry and framing are semi-skilled professions.
A security guard earns somewhere between $8 and $12 an hour, from the figures I just checked on-line.
Garbage men I'll grant you, in exchange for gak working hours and a messy, tiring job you pick up about $20 an hour.
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Post by: Grey Templar
sebster wrote: AustonT wrote:Garbage men.
Trim Carpenters, Framers, Security, Hooking.
Trim carpentry and framing are semi-skilled professions.
A security guard earns somewhere between $8 and $12 an hour, from the figures I just checked on-line.
Garbage men I'll grant you, in exchange for gak working hours and a messy, tiring job you pick up about $20 an hour.
Thats probably because of a union.
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Post by: whembly
sebster wrote:
Here in Australia, particularly in Western Australia, you can earn an excellent wage, as in near to or in excess of six figures, as a storeman or kitchen hand out in the mines.
The trick is that they fly you out there, you spend four weeks of your life in oppressive heat away from your friends and family, and then you fly back for a week of leave before flying out again.
A lot of folk talk about how good it would to command that kind of wage, but not that many of them do it because they don't want to be away from their families for that length of time.
But that's a fairly example, a case of a particularly profitable industry paying a very high price for a particularly gak job. In the main those kinds of jobs, where an unskilled or semi-skilled guy can make up for that by taking on a job that pays a premium because it's particularly hard work or has oppressive conditions, have been steadily disappearing over the last 40 to 50 years. That's kind of what 'the decline of manufacturing' means.
Working on oil slopes in Alaska is just as lucrative.
You even live like a rock start there as the company provides many things for you... the only bad thing, is being away from family.
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Post by: sebster
Ahtman wrote:It isn't laziness, it is the stigma of it being below them. All sorts of Americans do manual labor and physically intense jobs, such as construction and serving in the military.
There's probably a combination of laziness and the stigma. Between the two you end up with a job that demands a premium over what the necessary level of skill would normally command in the market. Right now that premium is too much when there's the option to bring in migrant labour (legally or illegally).
Change that, and you'd find farmers having to pay that premium to local workers. The issue is whether you want to be paying that premium for your produce.
Oh and welcome back, haven't seen you around lately Automatically Appended Next Post: d-usa wrote:Then why were the vegetables left to rot in the field, instead of raising wages to pick them?
Wages are inherently sticky, and take time to adjust to market conditions.
The price of tomatoes also won't have shot up to justify the new, necessary price of labour. Might as well leave the tomatoes to rot, than pay $25 an hour for a mediocre picker to come in, when you'd end up selling them for less than the picker cost you. Long term, of course, the price of tomatoes would increase to account for that price of labour (if similar restrictions on migrant labour were brought in in every state), and it'd become viable to pay that high price of labour.
The question, of course, being if you really want to be paying that much for your tomatoes, or if it would be better to have migrant worked programs doing more for less.
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Post by: Grey Templar
And sometimes it is more benificial to let your crop die on the vine then harvest it. You may be losing money on harvesting, packaging, and shipping so that you will lose less money if you simply do nothing.
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Post by: sebster
Grey Templar wrote:Just about any job that involves mining, fishing, or logging out in the middle of nowhere pays really good money. It has to to get people to do it. Of course the work also tends to be seasonal. but you can make a years salary in 3 months. I salute anybody that does work like that. Its tough.
Yeah, absolutely. They get paid that much because the job sucks enough that that's what has to be paid to get someone to do it, and good luck to them for doing a tough job and earning what it offers. Automatically Appended Next Post:
Maybe in some places it is. But I think its more likely to figure that they pay is what it is because the job sucks pretty bad. Running around behind a diesel truck, throwing in rubbish in the wee hours of the morning is the kind of thing that demands a premium. Automatically Appended Next Post: whembly wrote:Working on oil slopes in Alaska is just as lucrative.
You even live like a rock start there as the company provides many things for you... the only bad thing, is being away from family.
Being away from family, and the weather sucks
I spent some time contracting as an accountant to country local governments that were merging, setting up the financial systems for the combined entity. I only took jobs a few hours from home so I could drive back every weekend, and got paid really nicely, and I still gave it up after about 8 months. Spending every night on your own watching the two TV stations available just did my head in. Automatically Appended Next Post: Grey Templar wrote:And sometimes it is more benificial to let your crop die on the vine then harvest it. You may be losing money on harvesting, packaging, and shipping so that you will lose less money if you simply do nothing.
Yeah, I said that.
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Post by: AustonT
sebster wrote:
Here in Australia, particularly in Western Australia, you can earn an excellent wage, as in near to or in excess of six figures, as a storeman or kitchen hand out in the mines.
The trick is that they fly you out there, you spend four weeks of your life in oppressive heat away from your friends and family, and then you fly back for a week of leave before flying out again.
A lot of folk talk about how good it would to command that kind of wage, but not that many of them do it because they don't want to be away from their families for that length of time.
Its kind of like working the oil fields. My father did it in his youth, and is considering it again while pushing 60. Its not crazy hard work, it just the middle of nowhere with no life work.
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