<p>The truth is we dont pay people enough. Just look at the last 30 years. Pay is down big time on an inflation adjusted basis. Pensions are going away. </p>
<p>It is not just unwed teenage mothers living in poverty. Working people too. The guy I know who works at the neighborhood deli commutes 50 minutes each way. Works 60 hours a week at two delis. Makes about $45,000 a year. He never got pregnant. </p>
<p>We couldnt get money allocated to infrastructure after the worst financial crisis in over 70 years. That would have helped create jobs. Owners of businesses would have made more money too.</p>
<p>I dont get the bs about certain areas of government spending. Government can create jobs with the help of business. I dont know why businesses put up with the bs. </p>
<p>When they work on the freeways out here, I see Ghilotti trucks everywhere. People actually working. I dont know who owns Ghilotti…probably Ghilotti. I think the owners and workers both like the work. </p>
<p>Every year this country spends tens of billions less than is necessary to keep up the existing infrastructure. There is a need and lots of decent paying jobs can be made available. </p>
<p>I agree that people’s salaries are too low and have stagnated. The demise of private sector unions hasn’t helped. But if one can avoid the major issues that will make people’s lives far more difficult, it will decrease their odds of being poor. Stay away from drugs. Stay away from jail. Don’t have kids when you are single, young, and can’t afford it. Just obvious choices that we should spend more effort encouraging people to make, however we do it.</p>
<p>I know somebody who has been on housing for 18 years. I told my husband, we have been supporting that guy, an able body and so is his family. He does work, not sure how much is under the table.
I’m now part of the moocher class too, don’t make that much money, getting ready to retire. I told my husband we should thank our neighbors everyday for being high paid doctors. They do pay lots of taxes.</p>
<p>Perhaps the real problem is that we don’t pay people enough that they can ever afford children. Is it fair to say that you are too poor to have children? Only the rich are allowed to procreate?</p>
<p>I am not in favor of teenagers making babies. :)</p>
<p>We have different rules for different economic classes and as a society we like to pretend we dont.</p>
<p>I wouldnt judge somebody unless you really know him or her and even then…</p>
<p>A friend of mine looks great on the outside. He can lift a shocking amount of weight . Strong as hell, but he had lung cancer. He has afib controlled by drugs.</p>
<p>He feels crummy. He suffers from fatigue.
He takes a lot of naps. </p>
<p>Looks great though. Nobody sees his scars. </p>
<p>Then perhaps people should not have been so disparaging of the 47%. 6.9% of people who pay no federal income tax are the elderly. That’s 15% of the people who were being described as takers and moochers. So your “no one” was really lots of people. </p>
<p>Then there are those who claim to be infirmed, but are perfectly capable of working and earning an income, rather than sponging off of others and leaning on the backs of those who are willing to work.</p>
<p>My mom was constantly complaining about the moochers until I pointed out that she was part of the moocher scum. I do her taxes, and she doesn’t pay any federal or state income tax. </p>
<p>“But if one can avoid the major issues that will make people’s lives far more difficult, it will decrease their odds of being poor. Stay away from drugs. Stay away from jail. Don’t have kids when you are single, young, and can’t afford it. Just obvious choices that we should spend more effort encouraging people to make, however we do it.”</p>
<p>!/4 of all disabled adults in this country fall below the poverty line.</p>
<p>And maybe we should save money - yes, save it - by sending minor offenders to schools and rehab instead of jail. That way they could be employable and find a life outside of crime. In my ministry I come across more than a few people out of jail from petty crimes who can’t get work because no one will take the chance. Had they been adjudicated to a trade program they might have been able to get a job. Odds are if they stay on the street they will end up with another bad crowd and offend again.</p>
<p>Indeed. Do you suppose that someone with marginal abilities has a possibility of making enough money to have a roof over his/her head and eat enough to survive without government assistance? Many do not. So they take what they can find. Better they should bring their families to the side of the road or the railroad station or the airport and become professional beggars?</p>
<p>@dadx - So, you are saying that you think it is a little strange that the non farm payroll figure is 140 million and there are over 14 million on social security disability and supplemental security income disability?</p>
<p>Reread my post, kkmama. I was obviously stating the obvious things that one can obviously do to help their lives, obviously. How anyone can argue that ones life and financial circumstances will not be better if they stay away from jail, substance abuse and having children while they are young and poor is beyond me. Obviously.</p>
<p>busdriver, did you even look at the link? The states that have drug tested food stamp and welfare clients have found that the drug use among their clients is FAR LESS than the average population. The MAJORITY of the poor do not waste their limited money on drugs.</p>
<p>“Despite stereotypes that the poor people who need welfare assistance use drugs at a high rate, other states have had similar results. In Utah, just 12 people tested positive in a year of drug testing applicants. In Florida, 2 percent of applicants failed the tests in 2011 but the state has an 8 percent rate of illegal drug use.
And when Maine’s governor set out to prove that welfare recipients in his state were using their benefits to buy drinks and cigarettes at bars and strip clubs, he turned up next to nothing.
Many other stereotypes about how welfare recipients use their money turn out to be untrue when data is examined. Those who get public assistance spend less than half of what families who aren’t enrolled spend and still put a larger share of those small budgets toward basics like food, housing, and transportation. At the same time, they spend less on luxuries like eating out and entertainment.”</p>
<p>In the town where I live, it is not the poor that are being found dead from heroin overdose or arrested for purchasing drugs. It is the middle class and the suburbanites WITH JOBS that are the biggest population of drug users these days. Same with designer drugs among the more affluent teen agers in other parts of the country.</p>
<p>I suspect the drug of choice for poorer people are drugs like crack cocaine or meth, not heroine or designer drugs. I never mentioned welfare recipients. I suspect many of the truly poor are mentally ill or drug/ alcohol addicted people, who don’t even file for welfare. </p>
<p>My point is not that welfare recipients do more drugs. My point is that addiction will not enhance your financial situation. Even if you are wealthy or middle class… Do you disagree with this?</p>
<p>When people tend to start mentioning things like drug use (which is less common among the poor than the middle class), it is often to explain away poverty - the old “blaming the victim” thing instead of looking at is as a problem OF society. We can then look at those shameful drug users and focus on THEM instead of those very hardworking lower-tier job holders who can’t afford to visit a doctor or eat three meals a day. In reality, the lower income class is made up of more working poor than it is of homeless people and drug users.</p>
<p>Going off in this direction will probably get this shut down but many of the people that we know who are poor are mentally ill and/or drug addicts. This is why one of my goals for the rest of my life is to focus attention on the poor mental health system along with addiction issues that plague us.</p>
I think the owners and workers both like the work. </p>
</p>