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Would you quit your job?

If you were guaranteed a $25,000 income would you quit your job and stay unemployed?

  • Total voters
    103
That's not enough to live on here. I'd need that plus food stamps.
 
johndylan1 said:
Go buy yourself a mower and weedeater, live in the south, and work your ass off. You'll make better that 47,000.
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Charge $50 per yard and mow 33 yards per week from March 1-September 30. That equates to $49,500 per year.
 
vasuderatorrent said:
Charge $50 per yard and mow 33 yards per week from March 1-September 30. That equates to $49,500 per year.
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You're going to be hitting some pretty big lawns for $50 per - 33 yards per week comes out to 5-6 lawns a day, but a 50 dollar lawn is going to take you at least two hours to get to, mow, clean up, and leave (minimum) - so that's about 12 hours a day for 6 days a week. Minimum.

Just my own experience. Unless you are selling to real estate agencies - then you can charge more because it's not their money.
 
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.
 
douglas said:
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.
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That's shocking. I guess that college degree didn't really pay off much.
 
Yep. I know how to grow pot, find pine mushrooms and pick salal so I don't need a job. 25K would just give me more leisure and better vacations.
 
ChrisL said:
That's shocking. I guess that college degree didn't really pay off much.
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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.
 
Muhammed said:
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?
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$25k a year? I couldn't afford it if I wanted to.

$25k a month sounds like lottery winnings. Probably; hope the offer would allow me to invest and possibly start businesses.
 
Muhammed said:
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?
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1) $25.000 for a family of four is poverty level
2) You certainly will not get $25,000 per year from our government...

Interesting hypothetical... but, irrelevant.
 
Muhammed said:
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?
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Does the $25,000m a year come with free housing, liquor,food and medical care? 'Cause I have a lot of neighbors that probably are given about $25k a year a they exercise their rights to being socially worthless, but oddly seem to have ample supplies of the commodities I listed. Oh, and they dress in more expensive clothing than I do as well.
 
A year ago I might have said yes.

But as I currently make almost that much, and have prospects of increased pay and the addition of benefits in the next year or so, I would have to say no.

Not least of the reasons for this is that I actually like my current job, whereas a year ago I did not.
 
ChrisL said:
That's shocking. I guess that college degree didn't really pay off much.
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I was listening to an economist one day who said something I thought sounded kind of practical: if your tuition is greater than what you expect to be making per year, you're paying too much for your education.

Then again, if I had taken that that advice I wouldn't have become an artist, and I'm actually doing alright with that.
 
cpwill said:
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.
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Psychology pays pretty well. Depends on the level of education, of course.
 
phattonez said:
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.
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Around here with other expenses, it wouldn't cut it at all.
 
cpwill said:
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.
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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.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Psychology pays pretty well. Depends on the level of education, of course.
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:shrug: no doubt it can. I was going off of bachelors degrees, as reported by NPR.

majors-earnings.jpg
 
CalGun said:
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.
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You had money in the bank which really negates your argument. You could have made nothing and been fine.

Btw... neat story. I'm always impressed by those who seem to be "off the grid".
 
ttwtt78640 said:
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.
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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.
 
cpwill said:
:shrug: no doubt it can. I was going off of bachelors degrees, as reported by NPR.

majors-earnings.jpg
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Yeah, a BA in Psychology is pretty worthless if you stop there and want to make a decent salary.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
As soon as you add any income from work, the premise of the OP is not met.
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Incorrect. As soon as you add any income from work that is reported to the government, the premise of the OP (as I understand it) is not met. We have a large cash economy of part time low-skill work that is not reported, and participating is literally easy enough that children do it regularly. The premise of the OP is that you quit your job and remain in an unemployed status - which does not mean performing no labor for remuneration, but rather that you continue to remain officially unemployed.

If you change your lifestyle, then the premise of the OP is not met. Your post changes the goalposts.
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On the contrary:

1. My post points out how this change could either not alter or even improve people's lifestyles.

2. Here is the OP: 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? You will note there is nothing about relative lifestyle in it.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
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.
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Again, here is the OP: 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?

You will note that it includes nothing whatsoever about who you are habitating with.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Yeah, a BA in Psychology is pretty worthless if you stop there and want to make a decent salary.
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Yeah, it's interesting... but so is philosophy. Both are hobbies if you don't want to go for the full-gig.

But I'm surprised - it's not considered a BS?
 
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.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
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.
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It seems to rather implicitly require remaining in a recognized status of unemployment as a requirement for receiving government benefit. In that way, we can assess that it is similar to current "unemployed" individuals who nonetheless do other labor for which they get money. When you help out Bob down the street by getting your cousin to pay him $150 to help him clear out a tree that fell in his yard? That's cash under-the-table employment, and Bob remains unemployed. He has no steady job. He doesn't fall out of an unemployed status for 8 hours and then fall back into it, and his benefits reflect that lack of change in status, as they are not pro-rated.

And I'd still like to understand the motivation of folks arguing for taking the money. Something feels suspicious about it.
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:shrug: people would. Especially given that, with a very few simple steps (such as cohabitation) you can live very comfortably on such a policy. It would be socially destructive as hell, mind you, as it would likely come with a $25k marriage penalty for our poorest population, but that doesn't mean that people wouldn't take up that offer. As evidence by inverse, consider the effects of adding a job requirement in the welfare reform of the 90s - people went out and got jobs. Presumably, they could have gotten them prior to that date, and did not do so because the effort of working and loss of time at home was not worth the marginal gain in income.
 
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