Poverty is about mindset !!!

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I like to know what you think about poor people? Are they just stupid and lazy? And rich guys are all smart ones? (having lot of money is proof of being hard-working genius?)

I can imagine fancy ways to reduce poverty by making their lives even more miserable and increasing desperation to level where suicide is lovely relief. So that way poor people have built-in fix in their "bubble" and it's shrinking naturally every day.

Another way is just jail them all, make it illegal to be poor - so you can clean up your streets and let shiny stuff shine.

or

Socialist way is increasing equality by setting up needed standards / rights (education, healthcare, bernie stuff), but that isn't popular way to do it - I guess.

Right now, in the United States, Americans are being "taught" that all poor people are just lazy bums.
Not some, not most, ALL.

Look, every society has an underclass, vulnerable people, folks who have been hit by massively horrible circumstances, mentally ill...AND, of course, BUMS, addicts and vagrants. That latter group is the minority.
The mentally ill generally get incarcerated in jail, because the USA no longer even HAS state or federal mental health infrastructure anymore, not since 1983 when Ronald Reagan defunded all of it.

There is always an underclass and the key to MANAGING an underclass is to deliver enough upward mobility enhancing programs as possible, thus making poverty more of a temporary condition instead of permanent or semi-permanent. Most people are generally ambitious when it comes to helping their lot in life.

Any assumption to the contrary smacks of the same kind of malaise that grip most banana republics that require a permanently entrenched underclass for their exploitation.
So, if Fox and Friends are right, then it means we really ARE just another banana republic now.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

At least on paper that is the way it works. But add in the various "safety net" programs and that (3 or 4 person) "household" is making 40% or more over their stated income without anyone working for a higher wage or working any more hours. Medicaid alone adds (or makes unnecessary) about $8K/year. Of course, to supply those "safety net" benefits means reducing the (net) pay of others and/or increasing the cost of everything that those in poverty must buy.

Well let's take away the Medicaid then.
Bold strategy there, twtt..let's see if it works for you.
I mean, we sure don't want those Walmart workers putting you in the poorhouse, do we?

 

[Cynical]

No, it should not.

This is the statement from your previous post:

According to the MIT living wage model:

"Living wage draws upon geographically specific expenditure data related to a family’s likely minimum food, childcare, health insurance, housing, transportation, and other basic necessities (e.g. clothing, personal care items, etc.) costs. The living wage draws on these cost elements and the rough effects of income and payroll taxes to determine the minimum employment earnings necessary to meet a family’s basic needs while also maintaining self-sufficiency."

The fact is - and we can agree upon this - a single person does not need as much money as a person with say 12 children. So if you are advocating the model above please explain how salary should not be based on the number of children a person has with in the Living wage model?

 

[Cynical]

Right now, in the United States, Americans are being "taught" that all poor people are just lazy bums.
Not some, not most, ALL.

Look, every society has an underclass, vulnerable people, folks who have been hit by massively horrible circumstances, mentally ill...AND, of course, BUMS, addicts and vagrants. That latter group is the minority.
The mentally ill generally get incarcerated in jail, because the USA no longer even HAS state or federal mental health infrastructure anymore, not since 1983 when Ronald Reagan defunded all of it.

There is always an underclass and the key to MANAGING an underclass is to deliver enough upward mobility enhancing programs as possible, thus making poverty more of a temporary condition instead of permanent or semi-permanent. Most people are generally ambitious when it comes to helping their lot in life.

Any assumption to the contrary smacks of the same kind of malaise that grip most banana republics that require a permanently entrenched underclass for their exploitation.
So, if Fox and Friends are right, then it means we really ARE just another banana republic now.

The key is having a robust private sector economy that produces enough good paying jobs with relation to the number of citizens within the country.

 

[imagep]

Unfortunately, there are people in society who cannot fend for themselves, either because of physical, mental, or emotional handicaps. It's funny how some Right-Wing political idealists simply want to deny that these people exist.

Exactly!!!

How productive we are is a function of exactly what tasked are needed to be done, the skills required, and the availability of that sort of work. We all have various degrees of "lazyness", mostly depending on a lot of factors that are either out of our control, or we perceive them as being out of our control. Not everyone has the God given intellegence to have a $100/hr hour job, or a $50/hr job, or a $20/hr job or even a $10/hr job. It's not like the range of our capabilities is either handicapped or fully capable.

Many life long fast food workers only have the intellectual ability to be fast food workers. Fast food preparation IS a job skill, and for many it's the most highly skilled job they can handle. Telling them to become licensed electricians or x-ray technicians isn't a viable answer.

There was a time that just having a strong back had a lot of value, so jobs like digging ditches were available for those with strong backs but not-so-strong minds, but those types of jobs have largely been replaced by the heavy equipment operator. The heavy equipment operator doesn't have to have even an average IQ, but they need to have at least a 90 IQ or so. So what do we do with the people who have 85 IQ's, or the people with bad backs? Does picking the wrong parents, or being raised in the wrong environment mean that those people aren't worthy of anything but poverty?

What about the person who suffers from long term depression. The conservative answer is "just snap out of it" or "get over it", but it's not really that easy. What if the depressed doesn't have access to medications or to counseling due to not having insurance that covers such? So are people with chronic depression simply not worthy of living in anything other than poverty?

I've never met a person who said that we shouldn't help those who truly can't do for themselves. But how do we define "can't do for themselves"? And would it be better to give those people handouts, or better to give them decent paying jobs and insurance and whatever level of education that could improve their lives?

I dunno the answer to any of these issues. But I do know that the "work harder" or "get some jobs skills" type answers don't work for many people because they simply aren't viable options.

 

[imagep]

You are correct about mindset: About 9% of the population is borderline retarded and capable of only menial tasks, they account for a large portion of the poor. Whatever extra income they do get will go to low-income wastes of money like lottery tickets, alcohol and cigarettes.

Those things are are not a waste of money, if it's those things that allow them to mentally and emotionally make it to the next day. For many, those things are what temporarily takes away the pain and/or worries. If we concentrated on solving what causes their pain and worries, then they likely wouldn't be as dependent upon the short term high they may get from gambling, drugs, tatoos, or whatever else "waste of money" things that they partake in.

 

[imagep]

Actually, I do not know where you stand until you define what you mean by a "living wage" - keeping in mind that household size and the number of workers in a household vary. I agree with you that the median household income is an important factor, but person A becoming rich does not cause person B to become poor.

Assuming that the amount of production remains the same, person A receiving more income means that someone else has to receive less. This means that person A becomes richer while person B becomes more poor. Who does more work, a billionaire heir, or the elementary school janitor?

We could make up all sort of scenarios, and all sorts do happen, all at the same time.

 

[imagep]

Is a homeless vet just someone who doesnt have the right mentality? Or someone treated as a disposable cog after risking their lives?

Most homeless vets are homeless because they chose to be (many refuse the dozen or so assistance programs that are available to them), or because of mental illness or physical issues or addiction issues. I don't know why being a vet would make any difference on how we treat those people.

 

[imagep]

Although there is some truth to the list of ways to screw up your life, and I certainly agree many do just that, I would argue that most of us on this forum have been given more opportunity than most poor people. Be it learning a work ethic or being given a career path to follow or even a few bucks to buy that first house or car or even the clothes worn to that first job interview, we've all caught breaks that helped us succeed.

I know it is hard to imagine, but a lot of people do not even get that much. And, yes, what we've had was indeed a head start.

Absolutely!!!

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

The key is having a robust private sector economy that produces enough good paying jobs with relation to the number of citizens within the country.

If you grow up with almost nothing, ideas like attending a career college for trade training or a university for higher education often seems impossible, because oftentimes, it is. The key is to create a workforce that is highly educated and trained, so those good paying jobs can be filled, by Americans.

If you don't water the crops, they won't grow, and yelling at them and calling them lazy won't make them grow either.
The same goes for a society and all levels of its workforce.
It just so happens that the underclass often needs more care and feeding by society in order to make ready for better opportunities as they arise.
Growing up in the tail end of the New Deal era, the one thing I noticed back then was that ANYONE who worked, could get by.
They lived like poor people to be sure, but they were not homeless and they WERE able to access what they needed to climb out of the underclass and all that was required was willingness and sweat equity.

I was even able to afford an apartment for 110 bucks a month, on the salary of a DISHWASHER at a greasy spoon diner.
A hundred and ten bucks is about 450 bucks today as opposed to 1978 when I moved into that incredibly tiny bachelor pad in Minneapolis.
It was maybe 13 feet by 10 feet at most, but it had its own bathroom and mini-kitchenette built into one wall.

The moment we start seeing more 400 dollar a month efficiency apartments pop up, the sooner we will see the homeless problem begin to subside back to normal manageable levels.
Right now it seems that fancy 1750 dollar a month (and up) apartments are all the rage.

$1750 in 1978 is

$7,093.00

$1,750 in 1978 is worth $7,079.83 in 2019.

Is YOUR mortgage or YOUR rent seven thousand a month?

 

[imagep]

Why bother to work if all needs are supplied without doing so?

Maybe because one desires more than just the minimal needs? Or because we find work fulfilling? Or because we are energetic and intelligent? Or because we find jobs that we love so much that we would be willing to do that job for free, if we didn't have to have an income.

High level folks rarely work just to have basic needs, they work for other reasons. Heck, a corporate CEO could work just one year and save enough money to live nicely for the rest of his/her life, but most corporate CEO's have very long careers as CEO's.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Most homeless vets are homeless because they chose to be (many refuse the dozen or so assistance programs that are available to them), or because of mental illness or physical issues or addiction issues. I don't know why being a vet would make any difference on how we treat those people.

There is a little bit of inaccuracies in your statement about homeless vets.
Most of them do not "CHOOSE TO BE" homeless.

The choices that they sometimes make cause them to get cut out of some of the help they need.
But that is not really a REAL choice.

For instance, an alcoholic/addicted vet has to demonstrate willingness to seek treatment in order to get housing assistance.
Some veterans have the mistaken impression that the VA is charity and some of them bristle at what they seem to think is "asking for charity".
In reality, they were promised all this help and all these benefits when they signed up.
A grateful nation OWES them that much.

But it is difficult to reach some of them.
And if it was really so easy to break addiction, people could just wave a magic wand and POOF!, no more addiction.
Sorry, it's not that easy.

 

[imagep]

Rest assured that being employed by the military involves considerable sacrifice.

As does any employment.

 

[imagep]

Many spend considerable time away from friends/family and must relocate frequently. My father was career Army and the longest we lived in one place was 6 years.

That was his choice.

My father taught college, but had a hard time keeping a job. The longest we lived in one place was 5 years. I attended 4 different elementary schools and two jr. high schools.

Sacrifices may differ, but all jobs require them.

By the way, I spent 11 years in the military.

 

[imagep]

So then a person's salary should be dependent upon how many children a person has.

Maybe how many children a person has should depend on that person's salary.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

We shouldn't wait until people have become homeless and then have shelter/internment facilities for them. That's a safety net laying on the ground to scoop them up and dump them into such a facility. It's all about being a society that has a system to be sure there are the means to provide for mere safe and healthy existence. If we can contribute so much as we have to private enterprise, the rich and large corps, then we can for people to have a cost of living existence.

The more opportunities for upward mobility are available, the more upward mobility we will see.
And with enough upward mobility, the poverty class becomes more and more a temporary thing.

It's okay for societies to have an underclass.
There is no way to PREVENT it.

It's only a tragedy when that underclass is semi-permanent or permanent.
It is only a danger to peace, and democracy, when that underclass is semi-permanent or permanent.
It is only a danger to the health of the larger economy, when that underclass is semi-permanent or permanent.

The trick is to see to it that the bottom is as temporary as possible via the opportunities and upward mobility that we build into our society.
It is a matter of lowering the Despair Quotient and increasing the Opportunity Quotient.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Assuming that the amount of production remains the same, person A receiving more income means that someone else has to receive less. This means that person A becomes richer while person B becomes more poor. Who does more work, a billionaire heir, or the elementary school janitor?

We could make up all sort of scenarios, and all sorts do happen, all at the same time.

How does the heir having no job (yet spending plenty) make the janitor earn less?

 

[imagep]

...

I was even able to afford an apartment for 110 bucks a month, on the salary of a DISHWASHER at a greasy spoon diner.
A hundred and ten bucks is about 450 bucks today as opposed to 1978...

Assuming 40 hrs per week (and what dishwasher gets 40 hours a week?), that would be over $11/hr in todays money. Dishwashing jobs usually pay not much more than our $7.25 min wage, so your job paid about 1.5 times what it would today. My first job was as a busboy (they didn't have male servers at that time), I got 18 hrs a week work, for minimum wage ($3.25 at that time), and occasionally filled in for the dishwasher.

What amazes me is why we used to be able to pay low skilled jobs more than what we can afford to pay now. Have we become a more poor society? The min wage in 1968 was the equivalent to about $14/hr today - nearly twice what our current min wage is.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Maybe because one desires more than just the minimal needs? Or because we find work fulfilling? Or because we are energetic and intelligent? Or because we find jobs that we love so much that we would be willing to do that job for free, if we didn't have to have an income.

High level folks rarely work just to have basic needs, they work for other reasons. Heck, a corporate CEO could work just one year and save enough money to live nicely for the rest of his/her life, but most corporate CEO's have very long careers as CEO's.

Hmm... I guess that (bolded above) is why purely socialist/communist countries are so prevalent.

 

[imagep]

I remember walking home from school with a classmate of mine around 1973. We both lived on the same street, but my end of the street was in a middle class neighborhood, and his end of the street was in a terribly poor neighborhood. When we got to our street, for some reason he turned the same direction that I did, and I pointed out my house to him. It was a typical 1960's era split-level. He looked at it and said it was impossible that I could live there because that was a mansion.

Many poor kids have rarely been out of their own neighborhood, or even if they have, for some reason they don't believe that it's even possible for them to not be poor.

When my son was about 10, he was playing with a friend, who asked him if I was his step-dad, when my son explained that I was his father, he then asked if my wife was his step-mom. The kid had never met anyone who had both birth parents living in the same house.

Children develop ideas and expectations based upon their own personal environment, and often carry those ideas and expectations into adulthood. No wonder we have the "generationally poor".

 

[imagep]

Hmm... I guess that (bolded above) is why purely socialist/communist countries are so prevalent.

I dunno that has anything to do with socialism or communism. Even in socialism and communism, the government doesn't give people money for free. They at least have to pretend that they are working.

I had an economics professor in college who visited the USSR. He said that they had lots of cabs, but it was impossible to get a cab ride because the drivers didn't get paid to give rides, they just got paid to show up at work.

Anyhow, what I was saying is that there are many reasons why one may chose to work, even if they already had a minimally basic income. I know I wouldn't be happy staying in a rat infested apartment with no AC, and nothing to do but watch TV all day. I'd rather work, and supplement my income so that I can live in a nicer home, take nice vacations, etc.

Yes, some people are lazy worthless bums. But many of us aren't.

 

[ttwtt78640]

I dunno that has anything to do with socialism or communism. Even in socialism and communism, the government doesn't give people money for free. They at least have to pretend that they are working.

I had an economics professor in college who visited the USSR. He said that they had lots of cabs, but it was impossible to get a cab ride because the drivers didn't get paid to give rides, they just got paid to show up at work.

Anyhow, what I was saying is that there are many reasons why one may chose to work, even if they already had a minimally basic income. I know I wouldn't be happy staying in a rat infested apartment with no AC, and nothing to do but watch TV all day. I'd rather work, and supplement my income so that I can live in a nicer home, take nice vacations, etc.

Yes, some people are lazy worthless bums. But many of us aren't.

My point is that being a lazy person (working the minimum required 20 hours per week at an entry level job) should not earn them "safety net" benefits.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Assuming 40 hrs per week (and what dishwasher gets 40 hours a week?), that would be over $11/hr in todays money. Dishwashing jobs usually pay not much more than our $7.25 min wage, so your job paid about 1.5 times what it would today. My first job was as a busboy (they didn't have male servers at that time), I got 18 hrs a week work, for minimum wage ($3.25 at that time), and occasionally filled in for the dishwasher.

What amazes me is why we used to be able to pay low skilled jobs more than what we can afford to pay now. Have we become a more poor society? The min wage in 1968 was the equivalent to about $14/hr today - nearly twice what our current min wage is.

I did not say what I took home every month as a dishwasher.
My "pearl diving" was about 425 bucks a month, give or take ten or twenty more OR ten or twenty less.
I also got fifty bucks a month student stipend from a grant.

I WAS making almost TEN dollars an hour in 1976 as a QC tech at a company in Rockville MD that manufactured early computer modems.
I know what ten bucks an hour felt like in 1976. It felt like I was wealthy.

 

[imagep]

My point is that being a lazy person (working the minimum required 20 hours per week at an entry level job) should not earn them "safety net" benefits.

What if they aren't lazy, maybe all they have the capability of doing is being a busboy or dishwasher or Walmart buggy pusher? Maybe they have a physical disability or illness that doesn't allow for them to work longer hours? Should those people just be homeless?

My point is that it isn't a binary situation. We can't just say "screw the lazy but we are willing to help those who truly need it". because how do we define "truly need it"? There is a broad spectrum of reasons that people may not be able to make an adequate income. My first year in college, the best job I could find was a part time min wage job. I was fully willing to accept a more skilled position, or to work longer hours, but in the job market in my area, there simply was nothing (eventually I did find better, but it took over a year to find a job with more income).

There was a time, when just being able to do basic math, and to be able to read, were considered valuable job skills - those days are pretty much gone.

I'm not saying I have any answers, but I do know that we need to have a system that works for everyone, and we are a wealthy enough nation to have that system.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

My point is that being a lazy person (working the minimum required 20 hours per week at an entry level job) should not earn them "safety net" benefits.

I know you normally as a much more reasonable person than that.
Of COURSE there are lazy people. This is nothing new.
But a society doesn't just suddenly "go through some phase" where lazy people triple or quadruple, sorry.
The lower class has a typical size for every kind of economy.
In a very corrupt authoritarian oligarchy the lower class might be as much as 85% of the total population.

Want examples? Sure, here ya go.

Let's take a virtual visit to Haiti.

Are ALL Haitian people lazy? About 85 to 90 percent of them live in poverty and a tiny handful of elites live in places that look a lot like that little Google Image Search I just linked to.

So, my question for you, twtt, and anyone else who is still convinced that all of our poor and homeless people are JUST LAZY:

At what percentage point, what ratio, at what Misery Index point will even YOU finally conclude that it's not JUST a bunch of lazy people?
Currently in the United States, forty percent of WORKING Americans do not have enough savings on hand to deal with a 400 dollar emergency.

And that's with record low unemployment AND a booming stock market.



Oh, by the way, it's not JUST the Walmart lady...this problem extends WAY beyond Walmart because forty percent of the workforce does not work at Walmart even though it sometimes might seem that way. Perhaps that is because 75% of all those new jobs created in the last couple of years are low paying dead end jobs with little roads for advancement. Most of them are glorified semi-permanent "gigs" with no pension, benefits or upward career path.

So, forty percent.
You guys feel perfectly comfortable explaining it all away with "LAZY, made poor choices, etc" at forty percent.
Will that be the same excuse you put out if it hits FIFTY percent?

How about sixty, seventy, or eighty percent.
When EIGHTY percent of working Americans can't handle a four hundred dollar emergency, will you STILL be busy pretending it's just a bunch of lazy bums causing the problem?


I'd normally say you're Baghdad Bob even at forty percent.
Sorry, when that many people are that poor, it is not an accident and it is not entirely all their fault either, that is an impossible, unprovable and unsustainable alternate reality that defies everything we know about human nature in a free environment.
Sorry, but forty percent is Dickens Gone Twenty-First Century writ large.

And FIFTY percent would be Dark Ages Dystopia.
And I guarantee you, sixty percent would be REVOLUTION, the very messy kind that nobody wins, that everyone loses, the very worst kind.

So, you guys on the Right keep fantasizing about how all of you are alright and it's just that you're all surrounded by sixty million people (out of a workforce of about 160 million) who are just lazy bums.

That's bat **** insane thinking, but I guess that is what you have to believe today in order to be a conservative.
Hey, just tell me where that tipping point is.

Don't be embarrassed because I forced you to look at 60 million people as mostly normal human beings for a change, and that 60 million at that level of poverty is dangerous.
Just tell me if FORTY FIVE PERCENT would be the tipping point.