I have usually seen the things that increase your risk of being poor as dropping out of high school, having a child before you are financially stable and doing drugs/getting arrested.
I agree that many people today are foregoing getting married. But an unmarried couple who are financially stable can have kids and be successful. Same is true for single female.
If hard work and social status were intertwined, the lettuce pickers and roofers of this world would be the ruling class. My job designing parts for airplanes is half the effort but four times the reward. Most of the factory workers building those parts hold two full-time jobs but eat Ramen noodles. My son’s orthopedic surgeon works 3 days/week and has three houses. Many seem to casually equate “hard work” with economic reward, but there are way more variables in that equation. Being born with a top 10% intellect is a good start, and having top 10% parents (attentiveness, not income bracket) helps.
We should also stop pretending that paying taxes is a passive way of helping the poor in our country.
That’s how it was with us. We are nowhere near the income level required to be one of the 1 percent, or even the 20 percent, but we did send our sons to parochial elementary/middle school for religious reasons. Interestingly, though, they encountered a lot of “privileged” children who were there because our local parochial schools are the only non-Evangelical alternative to public. When S2 transferred to public school in 7th grade, one of the first things he told us was that at his old school, he was the poor kid, now he was one of the rich ones.
It is idiotic to me to tell the top 20% to be guilty about what they have achieved, among other things they don’t index that for cost of living, what is rich in rural Mississippi would be maybe middle class in other areas. However, It also would be good if people in the top 20%, top 5%, top 1%, also were mindful that in many ways where they are is a combination of factors that yes, include luck, include the luck of the family they were born into, or finding mentors, or whatnot, and that while hard work is needed for success for the most part, that many people who work hard every day of their lives no matter how hard they work, didn’t have the other factors that allowed someone else to succeed. Andrew Carnegie was not a fan of hard work, he said he worked hard towards being successful so he doesn’t have to work.
This is especially true for people who are born to well off, privileged families, where to use a common analogy, it is a lot easier to come home if you are born on third base, then it is to do so hitting from the plate, the kid who has parents who are educated themselves, can send them to world class private or public schools, can reinforce what they learn, parents have contacts that can help the kid when they get out into the world, has an easier time then the kid who grew up on the wrong side of the railroad tracks.
Through a combination of things, I have done well, but I wouldn’t consider myself rich, either, I was able to afford my son going to private schools when he was younger, I was able to afford to support him with music, pay pretty much full freight for conservatory, but it wasn’t like I took it out of pocket change, my wife and I don’t buy fancy clothing, we haven’t had a real vacation in many, many years, we don’t have fancy cars or hobbies, we are fortunate we can afford to buy things like organic food and the like, we are comfortable, but we also don’t have things many other people would consider ‘typical’, either shrug. I am grateful that I had the skills and knowledge to do what I did, to get into the jobs I did, to have the education I did, that I am comfortable, but I still have worries, I could lose my job tomorrow and be scrambling for a new one, I could get sick or disabled, face a medical crisis with the costs of that, and it wouldn’t be like “no problem”, it would be…which is the difference with being truly rich, where you may not have to worry about those mundane things. CEO of a company? They fire you, you likely have a nice compensation package where you won’t exactly be wondering where the next meal is coming from, there is a difference, to me the difference between being rich and not being rich is if you can look at tomorrow, at the things that can happen to you, and know you will be okay, you are rich, if each day you know it all could come crashing down and not have much of a net if any at all, you aren’t:)
“We should also stop pretending that paying taxes is a passive way of helping the poor in our country.”
What? Of course it is.
That would depend on how the tax revenues were used by the government.
I know that the majority of our federal income taxes go to medicaid, medicare and defense. So why isn’t that helping the poor? I am not saying we shouldn’t -but just asking why it isn’t helping them.
I am thankful for taxes - they are helping my mentally ill son live somewhat independently. If the government were NOT helping my son, I would not be able to work because I would be caring for him, and the country would lose a lot more in my tax payments than they are paying him each month.
One of the larger chunks of our taxes go to entitlements, which includes social security, medicare and medicaid, but that doesn’t all go to ‘the poor’, and if you look at the rest of the federal budget that includes things that benefit us all. Not saying any posters on here said it, but I get tired hearing people tell me time and again the federal budget is stretched out because of all the money we spend on ‘the poor’, the idea that government spending all helps the poor is both wrong and also to be honest, mean, and what it boils down to is people trying to deflect the fact that those taxes that are paid go all over, I wonder if the people whose towns and areas rely on defense contractors think about what is helping maintain their economy? Do the people who live in states/areas that get significant percentages of their school money from the feds ever wonder about that? Do the businesses that depend on international shipping wonder about the cost of the military that helps safeguard trade routes and keep shipping on the high seas open, when US (and other nations ) patrol off of Somalia and the like, to try and stop piracy, do they think of it? Do they think of the other programs the US has to support businesses? Obviously, businesses pay taxes, so they are on both sides, but I would wish people instead of trying to find people to blame, ask themselves about the common good and what that means…is helping the poor a good thing, for example trying to have decent schools in poor areas that don’t have the tax base to pay for it (as they say, what is the cost when someone can’t get a good education.)? Is it bad that the federal government helps pay for roads that people drive on, subsidize mass transit to help people commute and keep the economy going, and so forth? One of the biggest problems with this whole tax thing and paying is that many of those benefits are hidden, the people who claim 'they pay their taxes and don’t get anything like ‘those’ people do, often are getting a lot they don’t know about, and that is the problem.
Then, too, many people are so sure they are right they never do something, like google a pie chart of the federal budget, and see how much of the budget goes to what, they simply assume.
I know taxes benefits us all 
Some of the policies that I think are divisive like say fees for probation, seizure of property etc…
I don’t know how to evoke any kind of change in those areas. Occasionally I call or write a lawmaker but I don’t know how to really be effective.
The underlying assumption of all of these articles is that your wealth and effort belong to the government, and you should be happy that they are only taking 20/30/40/50% of it because someone else needs it more. True privilege is being the group that seizes and re-distributes the fruits of other’s labor, enriches themselves in the process, and just knows better than you despite adding no value of their own.
The vast majority of funds dedicated to ‘the poor’ funds government workers. What ‘the poor’ actually need, apart from those who are truly disabled, are skills and employment.
I try to stay out of these threads because they end with the same pointless bickering, but thank you for stating this.
“The vast majority of funds dedicated to ‘the poor’ funds government workers.”
So do defense - which benefits both government and contractors (guilty on both counts), but I don’t ever hear any objection to that.
Defense workers defend us. Re-distributive workers take money from some of us, give it to others, and keep much of what they collect and distribute for salaries and expenses.
Poor people pay taxes as well. It may not be as much as someone making 200k, but they do pay something. And income tax is not the only taxes people pay. There is sales tax, property tax, your utilities bills have taxes etc… There are hidden taxes every where. And poor people are not exempt from them and its not adjusted for their income. They have to pay the same 8% like everyone else.
I’ve heard plenty of people complain about defense spending. You must live in an isolated area.
If the point of the article was just to tell whiny people to stop whining, I’m all for it. I didn’t let my kids get by with whining, and I don’t want to hear it from you. I also don’t want to hear poor-mouthing - “We had to cut back to one vacation this year since Susie is starting at Duke in the fall.”
But there did seem to be an implied obligation to shut up and hand over more money so the government can improve life for the poors. Somehow. Don’t ask whether it works, just pay.
Could be worse. I could be paying for a subscription to read that stuff.
No one said they don’t. They do get certain refundable credits for fica, but the rest they pay just like anyone else. And they can least afford it. (What is poor? Like rich, people define it very differently!)
“Defense workers defend us. Re-distributive workers take money from some of us, give it to others, and keep much of what they collect and distribute for salaries and expenses.”
Not necessarily, about the politics behind defense systems and how we often end up paying for weapons systems that the military themselves don’t want or need (example, several years ago pentagon put in for 10 more transports, saying that would hold them for the next 10 years…congress made them take 20).
‘and keep much of what they collect and distribute for salaries and expenses.’
That is the nature of work, and it doesn’t change whether it is the government or private industry. When you buy a new car, pay for a new car, you get a car, and the money you spend goes to the dealership, who pays rent, utilities, and yep, salaries and insurance for their workers, the portion of that that represents what the dealer paid goes to the car company, and that is split up.
With the government, that money doesn’t just go to employee salaries and benefits. For every tax dollar we send in, the money is allocated to a number of things, it goes yes to pay for the salaries of federal workers, it goes to pay the interest on the debt, it goes to pay into medicare, it pays for defense, for weapons and the people who use them, it also pays the salaries of our representatives…and what this makes it seem is like all it does is pay for people working for the government…
Yep, defense workers defend us, diplomatic staff all over the world maintain our embassies, represent us to foreign governments, monitor what is going on in those countries, the people who work for the CIA and NSA are there to help protect the country, the people who administer the National Highway fund make sure projects happen, disburse money to the states, the EPA makes sure that industries and others are following the rules, NOAA staff are those who monitor the atmosphere and weather, including the national hurricane center, that federal dollar also pays for a huge portion of the basic research done in this country, that leads to things like the technology we have, the internet, the medicines we use, the very understanding of the universe, it goes to make sure our waterways are navigable, and it pays for a lot of the beaches people enjoy, pays for the coast guard, pays for the nautical charts NOAA puts out, pays for the lighthouses and indicators in navigatable waterways, pays for the cheap electric power that helps drive more than a few economic zones in this country and so forth. Pays for the NIH doing research on diseases like AIDS and Cancer…the point being that those salaries and expenses are not going into a black hole, it is doing something…
Is everything the government does great IMO? Nope, there are a lot of things I question, like the heavy subsidies for corn and agribusineses like ADM and Cargil that I think are ridiculous, it goes to the ethanol subsidy for a product that makes zero sense, it goes to pay for services in some states who are proud of being “low taxes” while other states pay for themselves, I think a lot of defense spending is quite frankly pork barrel politics, many of those saying we should be spending more on defense see the $$$ flowing into their districts IMO rather than real need…but I also realize that is the price of living in a society like ours…but I also think that the idea that the government exists only to employee people who otherwise aren’t doing anything is the view of people who frankly want to have the protections and services the government gives them but don’t want to pay for it shrug…and I’ll add something else, coming from a part of the country that overwhelming helps support a lot of the rest of the country when it comes to federal taxes, if you want to watch a bunch of anti tax types turn red in the face, propose a federal tax bill that says no state can receive more back from the federal government then they pay in…the reason for that is reasonable people realize that in a country like ours, we want to make sure that people have a decent life and that the more well off places often do sacrifice for places that are less well off, if it weren’t for federal education dollars some states education system would be staggeringly worse, you think it is bad today? If it weren’t for federal dollars and help, some congressional districts instead of thriving would be what they were 80 years ago, poor dirty farms without a lot of hope (read up sometime on what the TVA did for a very economically depressed region).
Do I like paying taxes, do I like having state taxes being high to pay for services other places get a lot of money from the federal government for? Nope, but I figure it is the cost of living in a society that actually tries to make sure people have hope for a decent future, I don’t want to live in a society like India where a relatively few people are really well off and 2/3rds of the country lives in grinding poverty, I don’t want a country where a kid who is poor has few options for a good education., I don’t want a country where a state desperate for jobs can basically create a wild west where toxic dumpers, factories and the like can pay workers nothing, have them work in unsafe conditions, thrown away if they get hurt, and where not only the state ends up a polluted mess, but they foul the air and water for people in other states, and I want a country where people who are out there to cheat and steal their way to wealth, end up being put in jail for doing it and protecting what little others have…and the taxes I pay are often the difference between living in the 21st century where rivers can actually be enjoyed or the 19th and 20th century when they became so polluted they caught fire and the great lakes were literally dying.
Perhaps we should pay the taxes with pride? Lol! I don’t mind it. The amount is mind blowing, but I can pay it, so I should.
If we didn’t have big federal/state/county/town/village government workers, imagine who would employ all those unemployed people!!
Taxes are also spent supporting other industries such as agricultural or oil and gas subsidies, natural disasters (money going to wealthy people who built or bought expensive homes along the shore), education, environment, parks and other things. Social security benefits rich or poor and medicaid also benefits elderly who once had money and may have spent it on their own care or gifted it away and end their days on the government’s dime. People who become disabled may well have worked hard for many years. Yes, there is fraud but there is plenty of fraud in the defense industry or in other uses of government money. Not all of defense money goes to defend us, some of it clearly goes to support the industry, not the services themselves.
I don’t think that the entire answer is to raise taxes dramatically, but lets not blame the poor, old and disabled for the budget problems in the US.