20 Million Felons, 47 Million on SNAP, 13 Million on Welfare, 15 Million Unemployed

reply to post by MOMof3


Sooooo, the Conservative doesn't pay taxes???

Yeah, you may need to bounce these things off someone, before you post them here.

reply to post by macman


Mmmm...now I am wondering who I am debating with. A grownup taxpayer would understand.

reply to post by MOMof3


Awwww, isn't that cute. You think you have made a great retort, with your sly backhanded comment and such.


Your funny.


Since you want to go biblical and all, isn't there some great big saying about feeding a man with a fish or teaching him to do something or other.......

So, yeah. You keep pitching the whole Progressive mantra. It is very quaint.

Is anyone going to support their position with fact like i have mine or is this going to continue to turn into a childish debate from an emotional standpoint?

Anyone have anything constructive to add?

reply to post by onequestion


It is a political debate.

Do you expect logic?

People like shiny objects more than logic.

No, I'm serious - go watch TV for proof. People like shiny object more than logic!

Does logic have background music that increases in tempo?

reply to post by onequestion


I say more Welfare.
I give you the welfare state www.cbsnews.com...


And what "Facts" have you given exactly?

Not being snide, but I can't find he cold hard facts you suggest. Maybe I am not looking in the right place.

marg6043
I guess spending billions on supporting the growing none productive class (created by the system) is ok as long as is somebody to exploit so they can pay for it.

Oh wow. Marg ... that's really nailing it.

onequestion
The biggest problem is that we have a greedy society and the real underlying problem are the zealots of greed and wealth.

And those that want to exploit the working class in order to get a free ride are zealots of greed and selfishness just as much as the so-called '1%' are. Same/same. If their bank accounts suddenly switched, the old 1% would be exploiting the working class for free stuff, and the newly-1% would be hoarding their wealth. It's human nature.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Hoarding is not human nature. It is a mental illness or learned behavior in humans.

I can think of four ways - right now - of looking at what it means when the newer generations have expectations lessened and benefits increased...

1) Because of their inability to meet the standards YOU met, society is bending over backwards for them - they're the future after all.
... In this case, they just plain fail to do what you did when you were young. Maybe society failed to teach them. Maybe it's a character problem. They will not be able to impress you and you'll look down on them. This elicits the most scorn from you because it's a slap in the face to your hard earned experiences.
2) Something has changed and it's too subtle for you to easily notice
... Something has genuinely changed to make life harder for young people and you don't comprehend it. You'll have the tendency to look down on them. Sometimes you may understand the subtlety and not look down on them.
3) The newer generation experiences a war or devastation and afterwards - because of their service or sacrifice - they're granted more leeway.
... They will be given admiration but the benefits won't be infinite.
4) You despised the hardships in your youth yet it was too early for them to change, so you look upon the relaxing of those hardships as a boon.
... You felt they were excessive and wrong when you were young, so it's good to see them go. In some cases a hardship is relaxed that you think wasn't harmful, so not every case is going to cause you to be relieved, but many will.

I think there's some overlapping between these; It's not exclusionary. I'm just in a very convenient way defining extremes to make categories. I think reality isn't convenient in this way, so it usually is going to try to mix things up.

reply to post by FlyersFan


BS lmao

The majority of people who remain poor throughout their lives are either unwilling to step on a bunch of people to get somewhere, or they got sent to prison a lot. And, despite popular perception, it is often a combination of the two. Of course, there are some exceptions.

Hoarding is not human nature. It is the nature of some humans.

Aazadan

The only solution is to lower the work week so that everyone can contribute again.

So if we have people making 10 bucks an hour for 30 hours instead of 40 how does that help in anyway?

I find your numbers a little off in the post your linked.

When you look at federal minimum wage we see that in 1950 minimum wage was . 75c per hour, $1.45 in 1970, $3.80 in 1990, $7.25 in 2010 and close to $10 today in 2014. Doing the historical doubling of minimum wage every 20 years in 2014 we should only be at 8.85 per hour, but we are well on our way to exceed $10 per hour and even $15 in some stats.

Now lets compare this the to inflation of 1 dollar.

What cost $1 in 1950 would cost $1.61 in 1970. Should have been $1.20 for minimum wage not $1.45

What cost $1 in 1970 would cost $3.37 in 1990. Should have been $5.20 for minimum wage not $3.80

What cost $1 in 1990 would cost $1.65 in 2010. Should have been $8.60 for minimum wage not $7.25

What cost $1 in 2010 would cost $1.08 in 2014. (8% increase) Should be $9.30 today not $10 that it soon will be.

All in all I am missing your point but I do know where the problem lies.

Take houses for example: In 1950 the average was 300 sq ft per person, in 2000 it was over 900 sq ft per person. A 300 percent increase that was really not needed, so the reality is people today live well beyond their means as a social norm. So how would a 160k house today figure into your 2010 number if it was only 800 to 1000 sq ft? After realigning the cost to the size it lowers the price to about 60k and so we see a totally different number than your 2010 House - 16,107 hours example. It ends up being about 6000 hours to pay for the same size house that is perfectly in line with 1956 or 1967.

Look around you and count everything that was a luxury of the past that is now seen as a need. I did my own numbers and the main problem is that a person today spends a lot more on luxury expenses that they justify as a need.

In 1980 I had rent, a cheap house phone, gas, food, car payment... that was about it. Today add in all the electronics and services that are all seen as a need and in 1980 I would have had 3 times the cost than I did. A cost that in no way could I afford on minimum wage.

Until we decide to stop being a spoiled brat consumer society we will always need more money.

Xtrozero

Aazadan

The only solution is to lower the work week so that everyone can contribute again.

So if we have people making 10 bucks an hour for 30 hours instead of 40 how does that help in anyway?

Prices adjust to income levels. Why is a 40 hour work week the standard? Prior to 1950 it was 44 hours, back in 1900 it was 65 hours, in the 1400's it was 20 hours. A 40 hour work week is completely arbitrary and can change pretty much by the stroke of a pen with little issue

When you look at federal minimum wage we see that in 1950 minimum wage was . 75c per hour, $1.45 in 1970, $3.80 in 1990, $7.25 in 2010 and close to $10 today in 2014. Doing the historical doubling of minimum wage every 20 years in 2014 we should only be at 8.85 per hour, but we are well on our way to exceed $10 per hour and even $15 in some stats.

You're using CPI which isn't accurate. Lots of things are flat out ignored or the numbers are otherwise fudged to make the official inflation rates low. Also, we're at $7.45 right now not $8.85 so even by your numbers the wage is low. The better way to measure wage parity is to measure how long it takes to purchase a good at minimum wage. For example in 1956 gas cost about 18 cents/gallon, because minimum wage was $1.00/hour that means it took 10 minutes 48 seconds of work to buy a gallon of gas. Right now here in southeastern Ohio which uses the federal minimum wage, I can look out my window at a gas station down the street and check the price of gas. It is $3.40. At minimum wage that is 27 minutes 23 seconds of work to buy a gallon of gas, a bit over 2.5 times as long.

Take houses for example: In 1950 the average was 300 sq ft per person, in 2000 it was over 900 sq ft per person. A 300 percent increase that was really not needed, so the reality is people today live well beyond their means as a social norm.

The houses I used were on the lower end of the cost scale (a minimum wage earner isn't buying a high end home afterall), however they were quite spacious. 4 bed 1 bath or "6 large rooms+kitchen and bath". By todays standards those are $200,000 homes going by my research into Pennsylvania home prices (where I pulled homes and tuition from). Just to be fair I only used a home price of $120,000. The actual inflation is considerably higher.

So how would a 160k house today figure into your 2010 number if it was only 800 to 1000 sq ft? After realigning the cost to the size it lowers the price to about 60k and so we see a totally different number than your 2010 House - 16,107 hours example. It ends up being about 6000 hours to pay for the same size house that is perfectly in line with 1956 or 1967.

This argument is saying you can get a home at the same number of hours, but it's going to be of lower quality than what you could get in the past. Essentially, you're agreeing with me that wage hasn't kept up.

Look around you and count everything that was a luxury of the past that is now seen as a need. I did my own numbers and the main problem is that a person today spends a lot more on luxury expenses that they justify as a need.

In 1980 I had rent, a cheap house phone, gas, food, car payment... that was about it. Today add in all the electronics and services that are all seen as a need and in 1980 I would have had 3 times the cost than I did. A cost that in no way could I afford on minimum wage.

I have rent, the cheapest possible phone plan, gas (heat, not car), water, sewer, trash, electric, food, and car insurance (I "borrow" internet from others, and don't get TV). No extra electronics/services. All together it comes to about $1000/month (I live in a pretty cheap area, and have a very small apartment... it's under 100 sqft) which is 134 hours of work at minimum wage, or 84% of all money earned, and I didn't include fuel for the car yet.

Minimum wage in 1956 would get you a 1000sqft home (or more), a phone plan, utilities, food, and a car with associated expenses, health insurance, and I've only touched 60% of the wage. In my previous examples I used out of pocket college tuition to fill in the other 40%, and after that there was STILL money left over for entertainment (on the order of enough for 4 movies/week in a theater). Good luck doing that today.

Aazadan

Minimum wage in 1956 would get you a 1000sqft home (or more), a phone plan, utilities, food, and a car with associated expenses, health insurance, and I've only touched 60% of the wage. In my previous examples I used out of pocket college tuition to fill in the other 40%, and after that there was STILL money left over for entertainment (on the order of enough for 4 movies/week in a theater). Good luck doing that today.

You are missing my point 1000sqft was the average in 1956 and in 2000 it was 2200sqft. Even looking at 20k home in 1956 that had about 5% interest on the loan we see that a guy would make $160 a month on 1956 min wage and his house payment would be about $110 a month, so you are saying EVERYTHING ELSE cost him about 30 bucks a month to live on minus income taxes...lol

today a 200k house is about $950 per month and so a guy today is better off


BTW do you make minimum wage? What job actually pays that, that isn't design for some high school kid's first job?

Xtrozero
You are missing my point 1000sqft was the average in 1956 and in 2000 it was 2200sqft. Even looking at 20k home in 1956 that had about 5% interest on the loan we see that a guy would make $160 a month on 1956 min wage and his house payment would be about $110 a month, so you are saying EVERYTHING ELSE cost him about 30 bucks a month to live on minus income taxes...lol

today a 200k house is about $950 per month and so a guy today is better off

BTW do you make minimum wage? What job actually pays that, that isn't design for some high school kid's first job?

But we're not comparing the difference in the average home. If we compare average we're better off today because quality of life has gone up, and it's tough to quantify the financial difference. That's why you have to compare the price of a similar good. In this case I'm comparing the price of a similar sized home. In both instances they're on the lower end of the housing spectrum, however they have things in common like sqft, neighborhood, and so on.

A house payment would not be $110 per month in 1956... this is the problem with relinking things I've said before (and why I don't like to do it) because without requoting the entire post which simply spams the discussion context can't be copied over. Here's the budget for 1956, quoting myself

1956 - The minimum wage just rose to $1.00/hour. We'll use the same scenario. A low end house at this time cost $7000 ($60,000 house today going by CPI... closer to $120k in reality) and the work week fell to 40 hours/week. We'll take the same idea that someone worked part time (20 hours/week) for 2 years in high school and put half of those earnings into savings. That's $416 into savings per year after taxes. If those savings went to a down payment on that same house that's $832 down (12%), a 4.75% interest rate, and a 25 year loan, which was standard back then the mortgage payment would be $42.46 or $509.52 in a year
Because University of Pennsylvania has these stats published I'll continue to use them, although their tuition is above average. I'm also going to stick with the 6 year college plan because full time school+full time job is a lot. Particularly at a time when classes were tougher and education wasn't corrupt. In 1956 tuition cost 835 per year which comes to $559.45 at a 6 year schedule.

Now comes food costs. While the USDA claims people spent about $24/month on food, that's because they were eating higher quality foods and had an abundence of cash. If you eat a more budget diet of things like sandwiches, condensed soup, beans, and rice while ignoring things like eating a steak every night, you could eat fairly inexpensively. Here's a sample grocery list for a month:
3 pounds cheese $1.35
3 pounds turkey $1.47
3 loaves of bread $.36
1 jar peanut butter $.29
1 jar jelly $.19
8 cans of soup $.80
12 eggs .49
6 cans pork & beans $.50
6 frozen chicken pie $1.14
5 pounds potatoes $.35
1 box of crackers $.32
1 pound pork roast $.39
1 pound frozen vegetables $.48

That's fairly similar to my current groceries for a month, though I do eat out every now and then. So lets take this grocery list which comes to $7.33 and then double it. That's 14.66 on groceries. Also, we'll add 8% because these food prices are from all over the decade. Just to be sure it's 1956 prices we'll assume it's 1950's prices and just inflate to 1956 values. That brings us to $15.83 per month in groceries or $189.96 per year.

And we can add in utility prices like water and electric. Unfortunately there's no records I could find of water/electric prices, so we'll just take todays prices and scale them down. Water+electric in a small home comes to about $90 today which is $10.48 in 1956 dollars which is $125.76 per year.

Last we have taxes. The income tax rate was 20% at this income level, and about another 4% for state and local taxes. That comes to $499.20 taken in taxes.
So add everything up we have
$499.20 in taxes
$125.76 in utilities
$189.96 in food
$559.45 in tuition
$509.52 in housing

That comes to $1883.89 in expenses. Since annual income comes to $2080 there's still $196.11 in the budget for fun. That money could be spent on several things such as a car and gas or movies, or my favorite... health insurance. I can't find the source now to link but I found it a few days ago it listed 1956 health insurance costs as being around $8/month. It was also less popular as hospital costs were less extreme. Regardless, at $96 for a year that still leaves $100 in the budget. Which at the time is a perfectly reasonable extra amount.
There wouldn't be enough money left to afford a car, gas, and insurance unless you dropped the health coverage, but you can't have everything.

And yes, I do make minimum wage, I have 4 college degrees... 3 science 1 art (computer science, computer engineering, game & simulation design, digital graphic design) and work for a local college tutoring pretty much every computer related class they have (which requires degrees in the programs in the first place), and have had the job for the past 4 years. On top of that I design games and related products in my spare time which goes totally unpaid since I haven't made anything I would be willing to sell yet... but I'm getting there (note: I have high standards here and consider over 99% of games on the market complete and utter trash).

reply to post by onequestion

I am not asking for fairness im asking for opportunity.

I am truly with you OQ. I'm sure you know that nobody ever said
life is fair. But when you're at a certain pinnacle and all you need is for just
one fair occurance to accomadate? And you can't even find that? Because of a stiff
necked, self righteousness and the rigidity of a system that now sentences a person
to economic death, on top of their original sentence? There is no such thing as making
amenze to society these days.

And that! Is not justice.
But persecution!

Nothing better than a thread about poor people issues to bring out every a-hole in the forum.

"Work hard and shut up and stop complaining"..........

Everyone saying and thinking that way should burn in hell.

reply to post by Red Cloak


Got to love when people applaud stealing from one person, to give to another. All in the name of "compassion".

macman
reply to post by Red Cloak

 

Got to love when people applaud stealing from one person, to give to another. All in the name of "compassion".

edit on 7-2-2014 by macman because: (no reason given)

But living in society and reaping the benefits of such requires taxes to some extent. Basic comforts so that those without aren't committing crimes to have their basic needs met, sewers, roads, electricity, police, fire departments... all things that require tax money. It's not a coincidence that the nations with the best infrastructure and best safety nets also have the lowest crime.

Aazadan
$499.20 in taxes
$125.76 in utilities
$189.96 in food
$559.45 in tuition
$509.52 in housing

That comes to $1883.89 in expenses. Since annual income comes to $2080 there's still $196.11 in the budget for fun. That money could be spent on several things such as a car and gas or movies, or my favorite... health insurance. I can't find the source now to link but I found it a few days ago it listed 1956 health insurance costs as being around $8/month. It was also less popular as hospital costs were less extreme. Regardless, at $96 for a year that still leaves $100 in the budget. Which at the time is a perfectly reasonable extra amount.
There wouldn't be enough money left to afford a car, gas, and insurance unless you dropped the health coverage, but you can't have everything.

And yes, I do make minimum wage, I have 4 college degrees... 3 science 1 art (computer science, computer engineering, game & simulation design, digital graphic design) and work for a local college tutoring pretty much every computer related class they have (which requires degrees in the programs in the first place), and have had the job for the past 4 years.

The problem is minimum wage has never been considered a solo living wage, and why should it be? Do you feel what you do now should be enough to live on?


So we take your 1 buck an hour and make it 10 bucks per hour. This means we can add a zero to all your 1956 expenses.

2014

$4990.20 in taxes (a little high since you would get back most of your taxes)
$1250.76 in utilities
$1890.96 in food
$5590.45 in tuition (a person who makes minimum wage doesn't really need this do they?)
$5090.52 in housing

Between taxes and tuition you have 7k or 8k to use in other areas. Now, drum roll please... what if two people who made 10 bucks an hour actually lived together and shared expenses, or 3... but that is just crazy talk isn't it?

You are like a starving artist, trying to do your thing.... But doing your thing without roommates is close to impossible.

Xtrozero
The problem is minimum wage has never been considered a solo living wage, and why should it be? Do you feel what you do now should be enough to live on?

Except as I've shown here, including actual prices from the era minimum wage was perfectly livable. People still made above it of course, but people could also live on the wage.

So we take your 1 buck an hour and make it 10 bucks per hour. This means we can add a zero to all your 1956 expenses.

The value of the pay is irrelevant, $1, $10, $100, none of that matters. What matters is the cost of goods. The cost of goods has gone up at a rate higher than wage inflation has gone up. This leads to not just people making minimum wage making relatively less, but people making above minimum wage as well.

Between taxes and tuition you have 7k or 8k to use in other areas. Now, drum roll please... what if two people who made 10 bucks an hour actually lived together and shared expenses, or 3... but that is just crazy talk isn't it?

You are like a starving artist, trying to do your thing.... But doing your thing without roommates is close to impossible.

Why is it an acceptable solution that someone can't support themselves? The wage that people need roommates to get by keeps getting higher and higher. Do you not see any problem with that? I know people making $60,000 in low cost of living areas and they still need roommates... how is that in any way, shape, or form reasonable?

Also, your inflation doesn't work because it didn't represent the actual prices of goods right now... they were too low, while your wage was too high.