Grendel
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2005
- Messages
- 704
- Reaction score
- 298
- Location
- Northern Virginia
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Liberal
That's not enough to live on here. I'd need that plus food stamps.
Go buy yourself a mower and weedeater, live in the south, and work your ass off. You'll make better that 47,000.
Charge $50 per yard and mow 33 yards per week from March 1-September 30. That equates to $49,500 per year.
That's not enough to live on here. I'd need that plus food stamps.
I've been working for nearly a decade, 3 of those years with a college degree. Not once, have I made even close to $25,000/year. If those options were offered to me, I'd have to be insane not to take it. Socialism and govt. dependency aside, simply from a capitalistic viewpoint, it's the choice of more money or less money. I'd rather simply have the option of getting a good job; but we're talking hypothetical situations. Within the confines of this scenario, I'd take the $25k and then do volunteer work with my free time.
That's shocking. I guess that college degree didn't really pay off much.
If you were guaranteed a $25,000/year income by the government would you quit your job and stay unemployed?
I know I wouldn't, how about you?
If you were guaranteed a $25,000/year income by the government would you quit your job and stay unemployed?
I know I wouldn't, how about you?
If you were guaranteed a $25,000/year income by the government would you quit your job and stay unemployed?
I know I wouldn't, how about you?
That's shocking. I guess that college degree didn't really pay off much.
It depends on what you go there for. Interpretive Dance and Psychology don't pay very well. Petroleum Engineering starts you out at a six-figure salary.
I get by and spend more than $1000 per month on rent. If I could live just about as comfortably as I do now, but don't have to work, then I take that deal without hesitation.
You are excluding both leisure as a good and off-book labor as a source of supplemental income. If you are currently making (as an example) $27,000 a year, then quitting your job to make $25K only reduces your (official) income by $2 Grand, but in trade you get all your free time back to raise your kids, or work (or not) as you please in simple cash-jobs. If you were having to pay for child-care with your slightly higher income, then shifting to 25K a year may well improve your family's standard of living. Or, if you are a single young adult, then simply sharing a rented apartment with a buddy increases your "household" income to $50k, which is the median income in the U.S., and far from the dregs of poverty.
Until a few months ago I lived in central California; I've just moved to a home I built in Nevada. Most of my food is grown or hunted. Most of my power is solar or the gasoline I purchase. I had a nice business until 2009, closed it then, and sold everything off. I had a big tax break thanks to the closure and losses which off set some of the income. Though I still have most of that savings I bought a pick up to haul materials out to where I built the home, and a hydrolic compressed earth machine for about 2k, and some of the building materials that went into building my home - then did it myself.
Why do you assume that $25K/year (per person) is a pay cut? For two, cohabiting adults that is $50K/year or about the current median household income in the US without any requirement to work at all. If that base income is supplemented with "off the books" income (from say mowing lawns, cleaning homes or even recycling scrap metal) that can easily be an increase for the typical couple.
As soon as you add any income from work, the premise of the OP is not met.
If you change your lifestyle, then the premise of the OP is not met. Your post changes the goalposts.
As soon as you add "off the book" income or two cohabitating adults, you change the goalposts of the OP... which is what you did.
Yeah, a BA in Psychology is pretty worthless if you stop there and want to make a decent salary.
Folks... look at the OP poll question. It ends with "remain unemployed". Once you add ANY work, even work that is "under the table" you change the goalposts and are employed. This negates the premise of the OP.
And I'd still like to understand the motivation of folks arguing for taking the money. Something feels suspicious about it.