How many of those poor who don’t work fulltime are elderly or disabled people who can’t? I’d imagine a not insignicant portion. If the statistic is bandied about by conservatives to prove the poor are lazy or unemployable, to use that stat honestly you would have to discount those people.
You clearly did not read the cite, nor do you know anything about vermin infestation, which makes your condescension particularly funny.
2/3 of the poor do not work full time year round because they work in businesses such as agriculture which do not offer work all through the year.
And I’ve never had a serious roach or rat infestation (thank GOD) but I know that they can absolutely get into crock pots, ovens, and refrigerators.
I’m sure this will make no difference to your opinion, but I thought other readers might want to know.
I didn’t say or imply otherwise
I doubt that this is workable–are there really enough man-hours available in that pool?
This may be true. So let’s guarantee every person can quit their job without it being a disaster for them or their family and see what happens, right?
Yipes, I wish I could. One of them I remember was very stark, and I called it out on the spot IIRC. The second incident was just something I noticed in passing. Sorry I don’t recall enough details to successfully search them out. Possibly the actual phrase “grunt work” was involved.
So you’re spinning not being able to find a full time job into one of the advantages of being poor? And what’s full unemployment - a permanent vacation?
Probably time to move this one over to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Cite?
Regards,
Shodan
Working part time is not an advantage per se, but it certainly contraindicates “I can’t do X because I work too much”.
For heaven’s sake, Shodan, don’t you read your own cites? That information is from the link in your very own post #63:
On rereading, it occurs to me that you may have thought miss elizabeth was claiming that seasonal agricultural employment accounts for all the working poor who don’t work full-time year-round. But I don’t think that’s what she meant.
I’m not getting defensive.
I don’t think that’s a constructive way of looking at capitalism. It’s not about making “winners and loser”. It’s about giving people the freedom to make choices about what products they buy, what jobs they apply for, who they hire and so on. Capitalism gives anyone the right to go start whatever company they want to start. It doesn’t guarantee it will stay in business.
Well, I think people are confusing an economic system (capitalism) with government services.
Does that 2/3’s figure count under-the-table work?
Because a lot of people work under AND over the table to make ends meet.
I find this thread, in which you were the OP and which explores the issue, but i don’t find an exchange that matches your description.
It isn’t constructive only if you want to retain the status quo. It is constructive if you want to argue that capitalism has problems and that we need to fix them.
Your way of looking at it is just handwaving the problems. Even if you think that capitalism is the best system we have, you should be able to acknowledge its faults. If your view minimizes the faults, then it is the nonconstructive one.
If anyone thinks that poor people don’t go to college out of choice, they are horribly deluded. Everyone knows that a college education correlates with a higher income. The thing is, college is not free.
Furthermore, the people who drop out of high school are almost invariably bad students. They wouldn’t graduate. That’s why they drop out.
Unless “part time” means 35 hours a week (which it often does.) Or if it means you are on call and have an unstable schedule. Or if it means you work two part times jobs to make ends meet…
$520 dollars can do quite a lot to help someone out of poverty. Among my neighbors are people who have lifted themselves out of poverty into at least stable lower middle class by using $500 dollars or less to purchase things like sewing machines, landscaping tools, freezers, vocational training, etc.
That’s the issue I’ve been grappling with while thinking about this thread- it seems like there’s not much that can be done for people with that mentality without either being patronizing, oppressive or controlling. And throwing more money at them doesn’t really help either.
I don’t know how you change attitudes like that; but nor do I want to subsidize people with those attitudes either; I have better things to do with my money.
Oh, and the point of the $10 per week / $520 per year isn’t what you can buy with $520. That’s a perfect example of the counter-productive windfall mentality at work actually.
The point is that once you have that $520, you have a $520 cushion against issues- you can pay for a doctor’s visit and a prescription, without it putting you in dire straits. You can get those new tires if the others go flat. You can get the fridge fixed, or whatever other issue befalls you. Or you have the capital to actually save money by buying in bulk. Rather than buying little bottles of shampoo because they’re $1 each and that’s what you can afford, you can spend $10, and get 15x the amount of shampoo.
And, I’m guessing most people don’t have $520 of emergency issues year in and year out, so in your average year, you may actually come out ahead- that $520 may end up being $750 the following year, and $1000 the next year.
At that point, you have some freedom to start making decisions beyond the immediate needs of “What do I have to pay today?”.
THAT is why saving that $10 per week is important.
She claimed that 2/3 of the poor do not work full time year round because they work in businesses such as agriculture which do not offer work all through the year. I would like to see a cite backing up that specific claim.
She has been repeatedly and seriously misrepresenting what my cites say, and claiming that they don’t back up my specific assertions. They do. She should not expect to throw out assertions without any cites at all.
So, let’s see a cite that [ul][li]2/3 - not three quarters, not 9/10, the specific figure of two thirds[/li][li]of the poor - not some of the poor, the poor in the US[/li][li]work part time because they work in seasonal agriculture, or industries that only offer part-time work.[/ul]I have made several specific claims, and backing them up. Let’s see her do the same.[/li]
Regards,
Shodan
You rock my world. Thank you for this post.
You are guessing way, way, way wrong.
If your guess was even close, insurance would cost a lot less than it does.
And a car affordable for a poor person is likely to cost much, much more than $500 a year in “emergency issues.”