Study: Welfare pays more than minimum wage in most states

Fair enough Private. I get that, whats gas cost per gallon there? Milk? Which commodities are they paying more for? More out of curiosity then anything mind you.

And ya know, i think many people might actually be inclined to agree with the premise of a free market if the people who argued for it didn't completely ignore the many cases in which large corporations have entirely screwed over their employees, their customers and the environment itself. Instead every argument i hear essentially comes down to the very basic premise that Big Business should be able to do what it wants, how it wants to ensure only the profit and well being of itself and its share holders while completely disregarding everyone else who it affects negatively. THIS is the reason we have so many regulations and THIS is the reason that small business ends up taking the shaft while Big Business dodges taxes, skirts laws and pushes lower quality products onto consumers because it can afford to purchase and ship in bulk.

Mom and pop stores might employ more people, but they also completely lack the power and influence in congress that large corporations have. Therefore if you expect any real change in the way business operates in America then it MUST come from the biggest businesses first otherwise all is for naught.

Welcome to Corporate America. If you have any complaints, kindly shove it and get in the unemployment line.

How about a different incentive plan to hire more Americans in American businesses.

1. Eliminate all tax breaks and other incentives to American companies that do not have 85% of their labor force as American workers. This would fix the outsourcing problem.

2. Eliminate all welfare, but allow 100% tax deduction for charity contributions.

3. Publish the names, addresses and phone numbers along with photos of the so called job creators and let the angry mobs of unemployed haggle their way into employment by whatever means they feel necessary.

People in need will be fed, clothed and have a roof over their heads in order to flip the bird to the IRS. Businesses will hire to avoid paying full taxes. People will have jobs or become independently wealthy in the process while over zealously greedy individuals will find another country to live in or find that they are no longer living as large when they discover that their wealth no longer matters as much when their life is on the line.

Call it leveling the playing field, viable trickle down economics or aggressive wealth redistribution if you like. But currently the government is in violation of ant-trust laws if you think about it. With cradle to grave benefits for a large segment of society at the expense of the working, it allows for the accumulation of wealth into fewer hands. It further protects that limited wealth by eliminating what would be an expense and a risk of competition from a smaller company. Walmart does not have to worry about a small business owner overtaking a local market. Without providing competitive pay and benefits to their employees, Walmart can afford to lower the retail price and still have a profitable edge over competition. Later when the competitor is forced out of business, prices can rise at that store to cover a different store's competition elsewhere. It's not exactly a free market when Walmart can foster labor expenses to welfare programs to remain competitive.

Of course another method around this would be to eliminate minimum wage and institute a law that states that the highest paid can only make 10 times the lowest paid otherwise the company will forfeit their business license and all corporate assets....but considering the government ran a brothel into bankruptcy, I have no faith in them keeping a gas station open.

reply to post by Thorneblood


Here is a breakdown i was looking at comparing Aus to U.S. Link

Another option is taking the lobbyists out of politics so that mega corps don't have such a stranglehold on policies. Also repeal corporate personhood.

Objective media would help in this situation as well if the actual horrors were reported on then the corporations would be abandoned and fold. Corporate law needs changed as well the way it's written profit is the end all be all. Corporations are beholden to shareholders as it is.

Keep in mind though that not all business is incorporated and the little guy should have a different set of rules by all means in order to survive.

reply to post by Thorneblood

And if said small business does become big business and continues to pay its employees a low wage as a means of ensuring its own profit and survival against big businesses then it is somehow the employees fault for working for said business in the first place?

Or is it the consumers fault for wanting the product said business produces and charges a hefty price for, even though said business is paying the employees a miserable wage to produce said product while the business owners and investors continue profiting from said product?

Culturally we have placed not only great value but the ONLY value on profitability. A corporation is literally an "entity." ITS good is the priority. Its owners' income is the only priority. That a company should be a positive part of a community, and to its workers, is not recognized in our culture. So, we grow the corporations to match the definition -- legal and cultural -- that we have for corporations.

Corporations function as complex inorganics (in the Casteneda sense); they become parasitical. The (minimal) resources they provide to the employees are just enough, like most parasites, to keep them entrenched.

In tech news forums I've read many instances where corporations assure all employees they're really working through a financial hardship but they'll come through it and they really need everyone'e special effort. And people end up working 18 hours a day a weekends and totally dedicating themselves to trying to help the company they believe in come through, and people are getting cancer and other major illnesses and their health and social life and family life is destroyed but they think it's temporary and all will be better, and then abruptly the corp unemploys all of them and hires only people in india or pakistan or wherever, they used them up like batteries and then they were done with them. And all that health and family and social destruction and sometimes a year or two of life are just gone, for nothing. Because our corporate culture insists that we are all cheerleaders and dedicated to the company, but there is zero requirement or even expectation that they are dedicated to the employees for anything more than pretend, while it is convenient for the company to let them think so.

I don't think every company has to operate this way it's just that most of them do and the worst part is, once a company is a corporation with shareholders, officers and CEO can be sued like crazy and have their business reputation destroyed if they do something to support the employees and what's just instead of what is best for the business's bottom fiscal line. Their job isn't to help employees, except inasmuch as it helps the company. All jobs are to "provide value for the company stakeholders."

About 20 years ago, Rolling Stone had a great cover story featuring GE. It was all about how corporations have usurped government things made for individuals, and how the corporate shield protects from about anything. I've tried to find a reprint of it. It was really well written and educational.

reply to post by Ahabstar

Publish the names, addresses and phone numbers along with photos of the so called job creators and let the angry mobs of unemployed haggle their way into employment by whatever means they feel necessary.

So if I own a tiny graphic arts consulting biz, or a taco stand, you want to make sure that any number of thousands -- tens of thousands possibly in big cities -- of people can come to my house, where my children are, to harrass me, demand money from me, demand jobs from me, "whatever means they feel necessary" -- threaten to kill my kids? Burn my house down? -- for money? Is that REALLY what you are saying? Because that is INSANE.

reply to post by RedCairo


Is your small graphic arts consulting firm existing on millions in subsidies, millions in tax liability write-offs in exchange for not relocating, actually paying no taxes despite posting 1.5+ billion in profits or signing 30+% of your employes up for welfare programs so you have the extra profit to price gouge all competition out of the market nationwide?

If not, then no. If so then there is a problem that needs rectified for the benefit of the country.

Bottom line is that unethically immoral business practices tend to ruin a company unless it is protected for political reasons. I ran a small business once upon a time myself. Financially speaking, it qualified as a hobby but having a license (for wholesale purchasing) required filing a 1065 as it was a limited liability partnership.

I have a simple solution to all of this.

Make people on welfare do 10 hours a week community service. The money would still be payed out as long as you logged 10 hours per week of service. Sorting recyclables, empty garbage cans in parks or cleaning up refuse off county highways. There are tons of menial jobs each and every city pays workers to do. There would be a built in cost of managing schedules and the logistics of it all but that cost would be made up by the people that just refuse to work. If you are legally disabled you would be waived.

It would be an open system, if you don't want to sort trash you wouldn't have to. If you want to volunteer at a homeless shelter or ring a bell at christmas thats fine too. It would all go thru a county welfare officer. They would be very very lenient. I'm sure it would be abused like any program but its a one strike your out program. If you're found to be lying or don't show up, you're cut off.

There should be no "free money" system in place like we have now. I have no problem with a social safety net, I have a problem with lazy people taking advantage of it.

reply to post by Privateinquotations


Interesting break down, though considering how awesome Australia seems to be i might just pay those higher prices for a shot at living "down under"......well i would if i hadn't seen the size of the spiders there....

Corporations function as complex inorganics (in the Casteneda sense);

As in Carlos Castaneda? If so, righteous!

Make people on welfare do 10 hours a week community service.

I have actually always loved this idea, it would make welfare well worth the cost as there would be some return on the investment and things might actually get better in many communities as a result of it.

I appreciate all of the thoughtful responses to this thread.

It seems there are a lot of good ideas out there. The best idea I have seen involves having corporations pay a better wage for their workers. It would not apply to small businesses. Thus, small business would be come more competitive with the big corporations.

We would also need some way to bring jobs back to the US. It seems the easiest way to do that is through the tax code. We could simply reward and/or punish those businesses that send jobs overseas.

I think a better title would be " minimum wage pays less than welfare"

Since the government has determined that welfare is the bare minimum necessary to survive what does that say about jobs that pay less than welfare?
Welfare even comes with medical benefits, a person would have to be crazy to give up welfare and the medical benefits that come with it to take a minimum wage job paying less than welfare with no benefits.
Are america`s businesses really that bad off that they can`t afford to even pay their workers more than what welfare pays?
If they they can`t at least pay more than welfare rates then they should just shut the doors and go out of business because they aren`t doing anyone any favors by staying open and paying their workers sub poverty wages with no benefits.

It seems to me that paying sub poverty level wages isn`t going to save any money in the long run.A lot of the people who are making minimum wage still qualify for at least some welfare from the government.
Paying minimum wage is basically a form of corporate welfare because all the tax payers are picking up the tab for those employees making minimum wage and collecting some type of welfare from the government to subsidize their below poverty level pay checks.

reply to post by neo96


I think what Neo is saying is that the market dictates the wages, when government intervenes the market moves, when you have people dependent on government it creates a suction, and those who are not dependent on government are sucked down right with it.

You can raise minimum wage all you want, the markets will suffer, because government policy enables people to live in successful poverty, example; if someone can live comfortably making minimum wage with a flat screen, iphone, and all of the food they can eat, then those people wont challenge the market and the market will continue to employ those that are complicit, those that want to get out of the hole of dependency will suffer.

Corporations function as complex inorganics (in the Casteneda sense);

As in Carlos Castaneda? If so, righteous!

Yes. You know, I never had any interest in his woo stuff until a couple years of incredibly bizarre personal experiences, followed by reading his 'The Art of Dreaming' in late 1995. I felt like someone had peeked into my private journals in places, it was freaky. (Actually it kinda reminded me of reading about Bradshaw's dysfunctional family stuff and realizing all the bizarre BS I grew up with was not unique or a secret LOL.) Anyway I think he really nailed it on the inorganics.

Make people on welfare do 10 hours a week community service.

I'm all for having to work for a living no matter where that living comes from. As long as it isn't something retarded like breaking rocks...

That reminds me that back in the early 1980s I was in the CCC, the California Conservation Corps, that was a "re-visit" of the early 1900s group that was men who got paid damn near nothing, but did get a place to sleep and food, and in exchange they did every kind of construction, roadway, hard manual labor you can imagine. When I was in it, it was still something you lived on base for; there was a 3 week 'training' (boot, of a sort) up in the San Andreas mountains, on the location of an old reform school, which fit the vibe of the military reject retards running morning PT at the time really well. Where was I. Oh yeah, so when I was in that, we watched a number of films and slides that featured stuff the original CCC men had done, and man, they were AMAZING. I mean you wouldn't even believe the staggering amount of damn hard work these guys did, and how much they got accomplished, in incredibly short times. Everything you can imagine, from winding mountain roadways to steps hammered into cliffs to massive quantities of brush cleared and buildings (plumbing, everything) built.

Back then, there was no work to be had, no money for them to "just get jobs" so even having a place to sleep, food to eat, and something to DO -- and it was a bit of training and experience you could say, as well -- was apparently worth it. I never had so much respect as seeing what those men got done.

That was a trip. I was like the only one of maybe 5 straight women out of probably 75, with about 1 woman per 10 men -- I was damn popular with the boys as a result LOL! -- and I nearly got knifed my first day (by a lovely gentlemen from the inner city who came to be my biggest fan and supporter, and without whom I would never have passed the final test -- since he finished the two mile mountain run, came BACK to get me and dragged my puking butt off the side of the trail and made me carry on -- his name was 'Snake' LOL, ah the good old days!) -- and there were only slightly more drugs there than the annual Grateful Dead concerts back home, but it was still a very -- interesting, experience.

Speaking of jobs, I have never understood why all jobs at any level of government that are telephone, some computer jobs, some warehouse, could not offer training and be given, if they were qualified, to combat veterans who might be injured or missing body parts or senses, but who might be able to do quite a number of things if only the situation were set up for it and it wouldn't be rocket science to do it if someone with the power just cared.

Back to jobs and welfare: it is true that "the market" controls wages.

Unfortunately our "market" thanks to our asinine laws for business makes 5 year old chinese kids and people in the poorest regions of Pakistan part of "the labor force." Can we compete with the wages of a 5 year old who works 20/6 for cents an hour? Er, probably not. So to me the "market" argument is pointless: not only is it a rigged situation set up by the government itself, but we have a huge market of consumers in this country, who pay money most of which LEAVES the country and goes to another.

By the way, next time you wonder how a country as big as China deals with toxic waste, ask yourself how easy it is to put small amounts of nearly anything into everything formed, plastic, rubber, wax, etc. Export it!

And next time someone is wondering why our gov't would want to import stuff instead of make it here, or import oil instead of drill it here, it isn't just because of price. It's because the government makes all the import fees. Our country's people paying back into the country competes with them making a profit by our sending money out of the country. It isn't about the good of the people, companies, market or country. It's about the money pouring directly into the government.

You know, the one giving billions and more to unknown entities they won't tell us about.

The story here shouldn't be that evil welfare claimants have it easy. The story should be, what on earth are so many employers doing where they are paying a wage for a job that is less than the pittance people would get on welfare?

Wages should reflect the cost of living, companies and the super rich are getting away with paying people way too little for entry level jobs, it's essentially creating a slave workforce.

reply to post by Metallicus


to me news such as this boils down to one thing.. and one thing only.

Money

the purchasing power of money is one nickel to a dollar since the creation of the FED.



Q3 is printing 85bilion dollars a month..

jobs have been exported by the thousands overseas..

people really need to wake up to the cash situation..









also theres the matter of people reading and understanding their local/state/federal CAFR
and realizing how your tax dollars are being double dipped on & then used to purchase controlling interest in private corporations and using proxy votes steering these companies while setting government policies in line with corporate interests.. and this money is in the billions.. off the books.. untouchable.. but every year we all here about how they need to raise taxes..





once you see this big picture..

understanding why the welfare nanny state is upon us is simple..

we let it happen.

Originally posted by neo96

Originally posted by darkbake
reply to post by neo96

 

Big corporations are proven to act like psychopaths. They are villains. It's more small businesses that we need. Although there is one thing I should note -

People making $200,000 a year are the ones who go out and spend that money and create jobs, they are not villains. But you have those people making $500 million plus or whatever when they are simply let go, that's a huge difference there.

edit on 21-8-2013 by darkbake because: (no reason given)

Sorry try again SMALL business is the largest employer's in this country that is the small mom and pops next door neighbors who are being strangled because of certain peoples obsession with corporate vilification.

The only narcissistic sociopaths I see are those who appear to have nothing but contempt for their fellow man buy pushing outright demagoguery of business.

edit on 21-8-2013 by neo96 because: (no reason given)

Well I think there is a difference between supporting small businesses and corporate vilification that is not clearly understood by the people in Occupy Wall Street, for example.

The top 1% probably includes people with moderate incomes, it is more like the top 1/100 or 1/1000 % that should be scrutinized?