# The role of the working poor in our society **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 31, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904 "2009-07-31T19:26:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/301 "2009-08-06T21:15:09Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Apparently, rich people are those people who open factories, which I had always thought were owned by stockholders. One more thing… when govt officials run advertisements trying to lure economic development to their countries, exactly who are they targeting? The stockholders? Think about how ridiculous that sounds. Have you ever seen any of these advertisements I’m talking about? Your sarcasm and analysis does not add up. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/302 "2009-08-06T21:17:23Z")
Luci, can you narrow down what exactly it is above that you think is insane? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/303 "2009-08-06T23:10:27Z")
> [@torie](#): > > This is possibly the most frustrating debate I have ever read, with neither side getting it quite right. > > We need the rich, and we need the working class. There are no machines without the rich, and no one to use the machines to create the wealth without the workers. I don’t think you can decide one is inherently more ‘useful’. We all make money off the work of others’. That’s the way this whole ‘society’ thing is supposed to work. Yes, and what we are arguing is that poor, middle class and rich alike should be free to enter into agreements that maximize the value each group brings to the table. [QUOTE=The Tao’s Revenge] So the rich are about as fat as the poor, and they have less physically demanding jobs. How could some do a physically active job and be lazy? [/QUOTE] It’s not that the poor are “lazy”. They just do not possess the type of skills someone is willing to pay a lot of money for. They may work hard, but they may also be uneducated and untrained. > [@elucidator](#): > > Just answering insane with insane. I get tired of reasoning with some of these people sometimes. You aren’t reasoning. You are attempting to appeal to emotion. > [@elucidator](#): > > Apparently, rich people are those people who open factories, which I had always thought were owned by stockholders. If only they would report more often, stuff like Paris Hilton designing and erecting a new car factory, that would be cool. But this is what we’re offered for argument, somebody opens a new car factory, we should credit the rich folks. I thought it was plainly obvious that we were using the term “rich” as shorthand to refer to successful professionals, inventors, entrepreneurs, and business leaders who have become wealthy as a result of their hard work. IOW, we are talking about people like Paris’s great-grandfather [Conrad Hilton](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Hilton) who created the Hilton Hotel chain. Do you think that creating a chain of hotels that employed over a hundred thousand people over generations and is currently worth over $20 billion entitles someone to enough of a piece that their grandchildren can be club-hopping idiots? What is needed isn’t people who are “rich” so much as people who desire to become rich and successful through hard work and ingenuity. If you want to see what a world without those people would be like, look at Detroit, MI or any other city where most of the industry has moved away. ---
**Author:** ![tnstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@tnstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnstaafl)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/304 "2009-08-07T01:03:12Z")
Honestly people need to stop focusing so much on the number that is minimum wage. Increasing minimum wage causes inflation. I think that counts as public knowledge but I’ll cite something if people really want to argue that point. Minimum wage is also not a wage anyone wants to live on. It is clearly too little money to be comfortable. On the other hand, in under 4 years of working a job, I went from 7.00 an hour to 10.50 and will be soon making 11.50 an hour. That’s cause I’m a good worker which allowed me to ask for and get raises. Also I was given a promotion because of my work ethic, and the skills I showed to posses. This was entirely without any special education or anything special, other then hard work. My point is this, who (other then people with incredibly bizarre circumstances) is living with a family and continuing to only make minimum wage? To me it seems they must be bad workers (I’m not saying bad people, but definitely bad workers). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/305 "2009-08-07T01:19:44Z")
> [@bri1600bv](#): > > Yes, Paris Hilton is typical of the “rich”…someone who inherited money and never worked a day in their life. Brilliant. If some fool can say radio thieves are typical of the poor. Why not say that? > [@msmith537](#): > > It’s not that the poor are “lazy”. They just do not possess the type of skills someone is willing to pay a lot of money for. They may work hard, but they may also be uneducated and untrained. No disagreement with that for the most part. Although some people take low income jobs for other reasons, or between high paying jobs. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/306 "2009-08-07T01:27:25Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > . . . and you are full of shit. Let’s leave the personal insults for the **BBQ Pit**. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![fruitbat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@fruitbat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fruitbat)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/307 "2009-08-07T01:33:38Z")
Let’s say I agreed with Elucidator, Der Trihs and Gonzo. I felt that we should go ahead and make the poor people well off and the rich should pay for it. It wouldn’t work. It just wouldn’t. It would take the capital from the people who are creating the jobs and wealth and move it to people without the skills to create similar wealth. This is obvious to me, and I think many other posters, but it is worth restating. I once believed that bringing everyone closer to the middle was a desirable goal and as I studied economics and met my wife who has a Masters in economics I came to understand why that would backfire. So there are two separate discussions. One, is it a worthwhile goal? Two, is there something we could do to make poor people all middle class without reducing everyone’s standard of living? I would also note that if you granted someone in 1930 the standard of living of a poor or working class person today they would laugh at your claims of suffering. ---
**Author:** ![bri1600bv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9fc29f/32.png) [@bri1600bv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bri1600bv)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/308 "2009-08-07T01:39:19Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Ahh you’re some rich snob who’s never worked a working poor job then I see. I know from experience, just because it’s low pay doesn’t mean it’s easy. Ever worked a factory job? Been a janitor? Nurses aids used to minimum wage around here, that’s hard work litterly cleaning up people’s crap. > > Nor do people take jobs just because it’s the best economic job they can get. Some people take jobs because they, and it’s a strange concept to you, I know, value the goodworks the job does over their own wealth. > > Explain this further. Why is protection from dieing from ill health different then protection from dieing from a murderer? > > I wonder why that would be. It’s almost like we have more desperate people at the end of their rope or something. It couldn’t have anything to do with a lack of social safety net could it? At anyrate do you have a cite indicating crime is why the cost of health care is 2x per capita in the US, and why Americans have worse lifetimes? > > Same place the Constitution talks about the federal highway system, the Internet and the goes into great detail about importance of IPv6. In other words the Constitution doesn’t document every little thing. It assigns powers and restrictions to the government, and to the people that. It’s also an evolving document. > > Would you be so kind as to point out where it says the government can’t provide healthcare? Is it near the section that originally restricted voting to 21+ year old white male property owners? > > What happens if you change jobs and have a health problem? Oops uncovered pre-existing condition. Also weren’t you ralying on entrepreneurship earlier? How do small business owners get health care through their employer? What happens if you and your health condition fall into an expensive “class of policies”? > > Also you’ve apparently never heard of Rescission, where health insurance companies try to weasel out of providing healthcare for people who develop expensive conditions by looking for technicalities to cancel the contract. > > See right here. It’s black and white with you. Your world view is so amazingly limited you can’t see anything else. Someone is either a welfare radio thief or a hardworking business owner. The hardworking near minimum wage janitor who keep’s the plumbing business clean and inviting to customers doesn’t count for anything to you. He’s invisible. > > You ever had kids? You ever tried to work a working poor job with kids? You’re saying that women has it easy? I am the child of such of woman and you are full of shit. > > So assembly line workers, janitors, food service, agricultural, and pretty much anyone who does the millions of hardworking but low paying jobs vital to keep you from starving death in a smelly filthy wasteland doesn’t count as work? > > Ahh but it’s more than that. You want to tell people “sorry not rich die of cancer”. You want to tell 10% unemployed desperatly trying to keep their head above water “sorry AIG lied about credit ratings. no food for you”. As well as “although you you’re hardworking we’re shipping your job to china. no food for you.” > > In short you’re policies only make sense from the dysfunctional and incomplete view that the poor are “lazy”. When there’s other causes of poor. > > Ironic, cause: > > [http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-05-02-obesity-affluent\_x.htm](http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-05-02-obesity-affluent_x.htm) > > Now if the poor have obesity problems because they’re lazy then their should be some socio-economic studies to back it up. From link: > > So the rich are about as fat as the poor, and they have less physically demanding jobs. How could some do a physically active job and be lazy? The principle is DELAYED GRATIFICATION. Yes, the woman who kept her legs closed (or was smart enough to use contraception) is smarter than the woman who got pregnant in high school. Survival of the fittest. If you start making the life of poor slobs, unemployed people, high school dropouts, and welfare mothers easier, guess what? You’ll get MORE OF THEM. Maybe the single mother’s job is ‘hard’ as in menial, unrewarding but she chose that. Make the penalty harsh and the behavior will change. Eliminate the penalty and the behavior will increase. Society wants to reward teenage girls for getting pregnant? Bribe them with a free aptartment? Pay them above market wages to change their own kid’s diapers? They SHOULD be hungry and miserable, they deserve it. The gov’t should provide health care! OK, what should it NOT provide? You can’t do much in this country without a car, so free cars? How about free food (have that already and the poor are gorging themselves on sugar soda creating a diabetes crisis), free clothes, free housing? At this point the poor are nothing more than animals…they can’t care for themselves Why would anyone work at all with all this free stuff? Work is for suckers. The true “working poor” rapidly advance and are in the middle class. It’s the “intermittently working” poor who are poor for a reason. They’d rather drink the week’s wages away (see the book Angela’s Ashes) than wake up regularly (not hungover preferably) and show up and do a job. It’s about delayed gratification. Why should the people who work hard suffer for the partiers and slackers? Screw them. And no, they don’t get free healthcare. Die in the street for all I care. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/309 "2009-08-07T01:46:11Z")
> [@tnstaafl](#): > > My point is this, who (other then people with incredibly bizarre circumstances) is living with a family and continuing to only make minimum wage? To me it seems they must be bad workers (I’m not saying bad people, but definitely bad workers). That’s a logical fallacy. You’re trying to define a whole class by one example. Do you have any data samples other then your self? If not one guy earning more then minimum wage for good work doesn’t mean everyone one on minimum wage is a bad worker. Your conclusion is akin to saying “kiwis are birds and can’t fly, therefore birds can’t fly”. It really depends on the company. When I was a kid my mother worked at nursing home for minimum wage. It’s since gone up considerably, but at the time it was minimum wage. They had trouble keeping help. The owner had plenty of money to waste on frivolous stuff like plastering pictures of his show dogs around, but never enough to pay a decent wage. Never paid her more the minimum wage after working there 2 years. A lot of places are like that. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/310 "2009-08-07T01:54:55Z")
What’s insane? Telling me that rich folks build industry and employ people. Obviously, they don’t. Their money does. You could as easily replace Rich Guy One with Rich Guy Two, and the effect is the same. Its their money that is borrowed, its called “investing”. It is done to obtain more money, or at least to keep ahead of inflation. The people are not particularly significant, their money is significant. Thing with the working poor is, we tell them that if they don’t work, they suck. They must contribute, they must be a vital part of the flow. Overlooking that we cannot ever adequately employ all the people who want, or are at least willing, to work. But the rich are exempt, aren’t they? They don’t work unless they want to, this morality does not apply to people with sufficient money. So, get right down to it, there isn’t a “work ethic”, there’s a “money ethic”. So, if you don’t mind, leave off preaching your stern adherence to the work ethic. There is no such thing. Maybe there should be. But there isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/311 "2009-08-07T01:56:19Z")
> [@](#): > > I’ve known far too many people who see nothing wrong with spending their money on drugs/alcohol/other useless stuff rather than things that would help them such as education or birth control- partly because they have a false sense that they can’t improve their own life. > > I’ve seen similar attitudes among poor in the developing world- where often the system really is against them and really is purposely exploiting them and keeping them down. And people actually do experience grinding poverty a la Dickens. It’s silly for anyone in the west to have the same attitude. The ‘working poor’ in the U.S. live a life that would be considered middle class by much of the world I’ve known just as many middle class/rich people who do the same thing. Matter of fact my best friend (COMPLETELY OUT OF TOUCH) is the offspring of a rather wealthy family. She has been trying to live on her own, after trying to recover from alcoholism and drug abuse. She was getting her electrictity turned off…but still had enough money for cigerettes and potato chips!! And yes…poverty is a cultural construct BUT in much of the rest of the world, the middle class doesn’t even exist. It’s basicly giant sky scrapers cheek to jowl with Sowetos! ---
**Author:** ![bri1600bv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9fc29f/32.png) [@bri1600bv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bri1600bv)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/312 "2009-08-07T02:02:44Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > That’s a logical fallacy. You’re trying to define a whole class by one example. Do you have any data samples other then your self? If not one guy earning more then minimum wage for good work doesn’t mean everyone one on minimum wage is a bad worker. Your conclusion is akin to saying “kiwis are birds and can’t fly, therefore birds can’t fly”. > It really depends on the company. When I was a kid my mother worked at nursing home for minimum wage. It’s since gone up considerably, but at the time it was minimum wage. They had trouble keeping help. The owner had plenty of money to waste on frivolous stuff like plastering pictures of his show dogs around, but never enough to pay a decent wage. Never paid her more the minimum wage after working there 2 years. A lot of places are like that. Yes, so let’s confiscate the money of the rich and distribute it to the poor. Then the poor will ‘invest’ it in great industries. Actually they’ll blow it on beer and soda but whatever. Then who would be stupid enough to ever start a business knowing that if they suceed the fruits of their ‘labor’ and ‘ideas’ will be taken from them. Didn’t they try something like that in the Soviet Union? How did it work? ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/313 "2009-08-07T02:16:41Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > What’s insane? Telling me that rich folks build industry and employ people. Obviously, they don’t. Their money does. You could as easily replace Rich Guy One with Rich Guy Two, and the effect is the same. Its their money that is borrowed, its called “investing”. It is done to obtain more money, or at least to keep ahead of inflation. > > The people are not particularly significant, their money is significant. > > Thing with the working poor is, we tell them that if they don’t work, they suck. They must contribute, they must be a vital part of the flow. Overlooking that we cannot ever adequately employ all the people who want, or are at least willing, to work. > > But the rich are exempt, aren’t they? They don’t work unless they want to, this morality does not apply to people with sufficient money. So, get right down to it, there isn’t a “work ethic”, there’s a “money ethic”. > > So, if you don’t mind, leave off preaching your stern adherence to the work ethic. There is no such thing. Maybe there should be. But there isn’t. And this gets back to the question I asked you earlier. What do you mean when you talk about “rich people”? To me, it seems that you mean only people that inherited their wealth AND never put any work in to maintain or increase it (i.e., the classic trust-fund baby). Is this the only type of person you mean? For example, do you include Bill Gates in your definition of “rich person”? What about tax lawyers who make over $250,000 per year (ahem)? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/314 "2009-08-07T02:24:20Z")
> [@bri1600bv](#): > > Why should the people who work hard suffer for the partiers and slackers? Screw them. And no, they don’t get free healthcare. Die in the street for all I care. That’s pretty short-sighted, when you consider the poor outnumber the rich 10-1, and can vote to raise taxes and spend revenue. If you don’t care if they die in the street, why should they care if you pay 80% of your income in taxes? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/315 "2009-08-07T02:40:56Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > What’s insane? Telling me that rich folks build industry and employ people. Obviously, they don’t. Their money does. You could as easily replace Rich Guy One with Rich Guy Two, and the effect is the same. Its their money that is borrowed, its called “investing”. It is done to obtain more money, or at least to keep ahead of inflation. > > The people are not particularly significant, their money is significant. I think you’re overlooking an important fact. Not all people are equally adept at starting and building businesses. They are not as easily interchanged as people who work at jobs that require simpler skills, skills that are easier to obtain. It’s a fairly rare skill. If it weren’t, we’d all be Ross Perots, Donald Trumps, Sam Waltons, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/316 "2009-08-07T02:41:43Z")
Fear Itself, I’d appreciate it if you also answered the question posed to luci above. That is, who do you consider “poor” and “rich”? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/317 "2009-08-07T02:51:53Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > What’s insane? Telling me that rich folks build industry and employ people. Obviously, they don’t. Their money does. You could as easily replace Rich Guy One with Rich Guy Two, and the effect is the same. Its their money that is borrowed, its called “investing”. It is done to obtain more money, or at least to keep ahead of inflation. > > The people are not particularly significant, their money is significant. You have it ass-backwards. Where do you think their money comes from in the first place? > [@elucidator](#): > > Overlooking that we cannot ever adequately employ all the people who want, or are at least willing, to work. And yet unemployment has traditionally stayed more or less constant at around 4% in this country. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/318 "2009-08-07T03:09:31Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > That’s pretty short-sighted, when you consider the poor outnumber the rich 10-1, and can vote to raise taxes and spend revenue. If you don’t care if they die in the street, why should they care if you pay 80% of your income in taxes? No, the rich and middle class significantly outnumber the poor. And they have a vested interest in holding on to their wealth. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/319 "2009-08-07T03:30:27Z")
> [@bri1600bv](#): > > The principle is DELAYED GRATIFICATION. > > Yes, the woman who kept her legs closed (or was smart enough to use contraception) is smarter than the woman who got pregnant in high school. Survival of the fittest. If you start making the life of poor slobs, unemployed people, high school dropouts, and welfare mothers easier, guess what? You’ll get MORE OF THEM. Oh yes having kids is so easy even when you’re not poor. I mean people LOVE getting up in the middle of the night to change diapers. You HAVE to discourage the dirty diaper experience with poverty or everyone will wanna do it! Basically you want people to suffer. You want kids to suffer in poverty > [@](#): > > Maybe the single mother’s job is ‘hard’ as in menial, unrewarding but she chose that. Make the penalty harsh and the behavior will change. Eliminate the penalty and the behavior will increase. Haha you’re really are that ignorant, Mr. Scrooge McDuck. You think you’re going to solve teen pregnancy with poverty. About like trying to bring about peace by invading a foreign country. [http://www.genderandhealth.ca/en/modules/poverty/poverty-teen-pregnancy-01.jsp](http://www.genderandhealth.ca/en/modules/poverty/poverty-teen-pregnancy-01.jsp) > [@](#): > > For some disadvantaged youth, particularly for girls whose self esteem tends to drop as they mature, sexuality may be all they have to value. Lack of opportunity and hope for the future, have been identified as a driving force behind high rates of teen pregnancy in Canada. Children of teenage parents are more likely to have problems and to eventually become teenage parents themselves, thus perpetuating the cycle of poverty begun by a teenage birth [2]. > [@](#): > > Society wants to reward teenage girls for getting pregnant? Bribe them with a free aptartment? Pay them above market wages to change their own kid’s diapers? **They SHOULD be hungry and miserable, they deserve it.** Bolding mine. This is what Mr Scrooge here wants. He wants people to suffer. He wants kids to suffer for the crime of having the wrong mom. He wants mothers to suffer as much as one can suffer, including starvation, for things done in high school when they were still basically kids themselves. > [@](#): > > The gov’t should provide health care! OK, what should it NOT provide? You can’t do much in this country without a car, so free cars? Actually a good percentage of the population does just fine without cars. They use bikes, and public transit and the like. Public transit is even available here out in bumfuck Michigan now. A lot of people really seem to make use of it. A $4 ticket gets you anywhere in the county. It’s only $2.50 if you’re picked up from certain bus stops at certain times. I spent a good chunk of last fall biking when my van died. I worked long 54 hour weeks and squeezed out enough to get another car. How might I have fared if instead of the van throwing a piston, my kidneys gave out? Under your system I’d have died in the street. > [@](#): > > How about free food (have that already and the poor are gorging themselves on sugar soda creating a diabetes crisis) They’re gorging themselves on soda now. That’s interesting. It couldn’t possibly a combination of healthy foods being more expensive/longer to prepare, coupled with less time to spend cooking. No it has to be the worst possible thing. The way, Mr. Scrooge, your mind jumps conclusions is truly mind boggling. To live in such a black and white world. > [@](#): > > , free clothes, free housing? At this point the poor are nothing more than animals…they can’t care for themselves Yea they could never decide they want more then a section 8, basic food, such as ramen noodles, basic clothes, usually second hand. Who’d turn down that high life? > [@](#): > > Why would anyone work at all with all this free stuff? Work is for suckers. It’s funny. I typed what I typed mocking your screed, then I scroll down a line, and low and behold, you said the same thing only serious. Anyone since you appear set in this ignorance. Let me fight it. The point of the safety net is that it catches you if you fall, and helps you get back on your feet. It isn’t cushy but it sees to your needs till you can get back on your feet. > [@](#): > > The true “working poor” rapidly advance and are in the middle class. False. I have a counter antidote, after all, which is just as good as your uncited assertion. > [@](#): > > It’s the “intermittently working” poor who are poor for a reason. They’d rather drink the week’s wages away (see the book Angela’s Ashes) than wake up regularly (not hungover preferably) and show up and do a job. Ahh the working poor are Chronic Alcoholics now. I thought they were busy gorging themselves with soda? GET YOUR STORY STRAIGHT. It’s hard to type this with a straight face. Interestingly a google leads to the wiki article about “Angela’s Ashes” that says: > [@](#): > > Their mother was destitute, as there were not many jobs for women at the time, and was forced to beg for help from the Church and the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Sometimes Frank and his brothers had to scavenge for lumps of coal or peat turf for fuel, or steal bread to survive. Angela’s sister and her widowed mother begrudged any help they had to give her, because they disapproved of her husband, mostly because he hailed from Northern Ireland and therefore he had a strange accent and what Angela’s family called ‘the odd manner.’ > > In the damp, cold climate of Ireland, the children had only one set of ragged clothing each, patched shoes and no coats or boots. Frank developed typhoid and is hospitalized. Later, he got a job helping a neighbor with leg problems deliver coal and develops chronic conjunctivitis. The family was finally evicted after Frank took a hatchet to the beams to burn for winter heat and the ceiling collapsed in on them. The family was forced to move in with a distant relative who treated them poorly, and eventually forced a sexual relationship on Frank’s mother, Angela. Kind of a textbook lesson in the value of safety nets, poor kid, poor Angela. They really could have used a safety net. Basically Frank suffered debilitating health conditions, and his mother was repeatedly raped, because the society of the time did nothing to help them after his father walked out on them and his mother couldn’t find work. > [@](#): > > It’s about delayed gratification. Why should the people who work hard suffer for the partiers and slackers? Screw them. And no, they don’t get free healthcare. Die in the street for all I care. Now see there you go again. Anyone who’s poor is a slacker. It couldn’t possibly be because they were socialized to that lifestyle, live in an impoverished area, have other things to worry about such as kids, stuck in a bad situation, such as Frank’s. Nope if your poor you’re lazy. Well I say anyone who makes that kind hasty generalization is a bleedin’ moron. On the bright side if the doper **Frank** does a vanity search he’s gonna have an awesome ‘double tee eff mate’ type moment. Hi **Frank**! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2009, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904/320 "2009-08-07T03:35:25Z")
> [@bri1600bv](#): > > Yes, so let’s confiscate the money of the rich and distribute it to the poor. Then the poor will ‘invest’ it in great industries. Actually they’ll blow it on beer and soda but whatever. > > Then who would be stupid enough to ever start a business knowing that if they suceed the fruits of their ‘labor’ and ‘ideas’ will be taken from them. > > Didn’t they try something like that in the Soviet Union? How did it work? Actually the US had high taxes on the rich after WWII. You’d think since you’ve compared my views to Stalin then I must be wrong. Anyone remember how the economy did? Oh yeah it worked great. Maybe if you compare my views to Hitler it’ll change the facts? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-role-of-the-working-poor-in-our-society/504904.md?page=17)