No, you don’t understand. His entire point was that his income, though small, was not desperate nor anything like “abject poverty”.
Okay, so what do you propose to do for “these people”?
Free latte giveaways? A $700 check for “other” every month? Hookers and blow?
Really - I don’t understand what you think could be done to remedy this, in any kind of practical way.
“Perks” can come in many forms, and not all of them cost money. When I was broke, a $7 pair of slacks from the thrift store perked me up just as much as a $30 pair from Kohl’s would do so today (Although, honestly, I can’t see myself paying $30 for a pair of pants). It’s all relative, and charities do a great service in this area.
I am middle class, and an unexpected expense can push into the red as well. I think the fear of a financial catastrophe doesn’t phase out until you get well into a upper class lifestyle, with great financial reserves. So should we send money to everyone making under $250K a year just in case?
And, the “accumulation of assets” is nebulous. Do you mean a house or car or cash? All of the above? Who decides which equal asset and which is just stuff?
Yes, it’s sad when bad shit happens. But if you think we should remedy this by handouts, then it will just be a race to the bottom.
Thank you - I thought the point had been missed.
I also have no chip on my shoulder. Too many people who have been poor never quite recover, even when they’re doing well…
That’s gross income. Factor in taxes, and other payroll deductions, and now you’re looking at that $15,000 dropping down to $11-12k, maybe even lower.
Of course it will, if the issue is availability. There are too many people who won’t abuse the emergency room and are being punished for it.
This is called “gambling” - you bet on your health. (Possibly because you can’t afford insurance anyway.) If you don’t get sick, you win - which means, “stay in the black”. Otherwise, you’re screwed.
Hey you, conservative person who speaks without knowing what the fuck you’re talking about over there, yea you.
Health insurance, or heat, food, and transportation this month?
Let’s try this a different way, by month:
Minimum wage = $7.25
At 40 hours/week that’s 290 a week.
At 4 weeks per month that’s $1160 per month. Ignoring taxes (and yes, some people on minimum wage do pay taxes, but let’s ignore that for minute…)
1 room apartment in my area: $500/month
4 weeks of food for 1 person at $25/person/week: 100/month
Gas for vehicle (assumed the car is paid off, otherwise you’re screwed), assume $10/week (pretty minimal): ** $40**/month
Sundries like soap, toilet paper, etc. $20/month
I have a hard time imagining a budget more minimal that that - it ignores new clothes, for example, or anything other than food and shelter and assumes utilities are included in the rent. There isn’t even a telephone bill.
Rent: 500
Food: 100
Gas: 40
TP, etc.: 20
660 outgo
Income 1160
Outgo 660
left over 500
Average annual premium for someone in my age range with NO pre-existing conditions whatsover (meaning no high blood pressure, no hayfever, etc.) is $254 per month BUT - * how many people over 40 have no pre-existing conditions?* HAYFEVER can increase your monthly premium.
In my case, I have a disabled spouse (who is still trying to get onto disbility - it takes time). Average family premium with NO pre-existing conditions comes out to around $489/month - assuming an additional $100/month for food for him, that means, after the most basic food and shelter is paid for, a health insurance premium is $89/month more than we have!
Thank god I make more than minimum wage. Not MUCH more, but seriously, private insurance really IS out of our grasp. With my husband’s pre-existing conditions we’ve been quoted as high as $1200/month! - that’s MORE than 40/hours a week at minimum wage without paying for food or rent! And that’s a problem - we can NOT insure my husband at our current income. Assuming a bare bones $800/month for both of us, I’d have to make at least $2,000/month in order to buy health insurance for us. That’s $2,000 after taxes. At least $24,000 a year post-taxes - and we only grossed $20k total last year.
Can we live on minimum wage? Yes, we actually can - but we CAN’T buy health insurance on minimum wage, not this family. We aren’t denied, but the premiums are so high we simply can’t pay them. We’re priced out of the market.
Regards right back atcha! 
I WAS supporting a family on min. wage or slightly above it (and slightly above it is similarly challenging)
Well, as I said, I never opted for health insurance because I simply could not afford it…may BE cheaper in the long run, but that means nothing if it is unaffordable in the short-term. Is a lot cheaper to be able to buy in huge bulk or to buy a house right about now, but that means nothing to those who can’t afford the up-front costs to benefit from such bargains. 
The definition of “middle class” is vague, and, as I said, largely dependent on personal perceptions:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21272238/page/2/
"Based on 2005 Census Bureau reports, some 40 percent of the nearly 115 million households in the U.S. earned less than $36,000 a year. That represented just 12 percent of all income. The 40 percent on the next rung up the economic ladder took in between $36,000 and $91,705 — or about 37.6 percent of all income. The top 20 percent, who made $91,705 or more, collected half of all income.
But those numbers don’t adequately reflect the state of mind of those who consider themselves middle class. Surveys have shown that, while people consider $40,000 a year to be the low end of what it takes to buy a middle-class life, some people who make as much as $200,000 a year still consider themselves middle class, the researchers said. In the end, they wrote, “There is no consensus definition of ‘middle class’; neither is there an official government definition. What constitutes the middle class is relative, subjective and not easily defined.”"
Household income distribution :
Bottom 10% : $0 to $10,500
Bottom 20%: $0 to $18,500
Bottom 25%: $0 to $22,500
Middle 33%: $30,000 to $62,500
Middle 20%: $35,000 to $55,000
Top 25%: $77,500 and up
Top 20%: $92,000 and up
Top 5%: $167,000 and up
Top 1.5%: $250,000 and up
Top 1%: $350,000 and up
Source: US Census Bureau, 2006; income statistics for the year 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html
"Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans — those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 — receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows. The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than $100,000, also reached a level of income share not seen since before the Depression. While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.
The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent.
The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980."
At any rate, if we go by the common perception of a min. income of 40 grand constituting “middle class”, we can see that a majority of Americans earn that or less or slightly higher (a more realistic estimate of what it takes to constitute “middle class” living standards being 55 or 60 grand.) And that the income gap is wider than since the last great depression. (and wider since these stats were made available)
Typically by sleeping 5 or 6 people to a room, or living in cars or vans, or campsites.
:rolleyes:
Up until 2 years ago my husband and I were both college-educated, middle class people. He worked as a robotics engineer for many years before opening his own business - which he had to shut down when he became too disabled to work. No problem - I was still gainfully employed and earning a very comfortable middle-class living for both of us, with money left over for a few expensive hobbies as well as savings and no debt whatsoever… yes, were “the sort of person who becomes a poor person”.
Oh, and my husband’s 5 patents and his copyrighted work did bring in some money… for awhile…until new technology superseded the old and no one bought his stuff any more.
Then I was laid off. And I couldn’t find work that paid as much as my prior job, despite my college degree. So I have doing “ditch-digger work” so we can eat. Oh, yes, we’re just the sort of losers who “deserve” to be poor.
Thanks a lot for throwing us on the trash heap of society. That makes me feel soooooooo good to be labeled a loser by the likes of you.
If you are making over $250,000 and your taxes are raised to 80%, I don’t see why it suddenly becomes my problem.
The point is, if you don’t care about the poor, they won’t care about you, and there are a lot more of them than there are of you. Majority rules.
Broomstick, even near Chicago I guarrantee you I can find aparytments for a lot less than 500 bucks a month. That is flat wrong.
Wow, I have rarely seen such an ill-thought-out post in my life. Your entire train of logic is “the poor who blow their money on stupid thinsg rather than budgeting wisely are the majority, so everyone else has to buy them off.” but I suspect you simply didn’t actually think out your response.
So, is your concept of democracy is for us smart people to go around and force the stupid and poor to spend their money wisely? Frankly, that’s a lot easier and more moral than taking my money to pay for their mistakes.
I hear you. My husband and I always worked and may have been lower income due to our career choices (me a preschool teacher and he a silkscreen printer) but by God, we paid our bills, lived fairly well but not beyond our means, and were responsible, decent folk.
He ran his own business for several yrs, then we had to dissolve the corporation due to a dispute with a business partner (who was NUTS!) He then went on to work for others for a few yrs and then became disabled due to a genetic condition. (he died 16 mths ago from complications of this condition, at 45).
I continued working (office work) until the economy slowed to the point that there was simply nothing available. (I still do temp work as it comes up, pending my FT college attendance…just finished a wek-long gig with the Dept. of Transportation, before that for the Census, before, a few bank jobs…working there, not robbing them:D)
And I decided to go back to school, on a Pell Grant and student loans, because I figured I might as well do something productive as opposed to sitting home drawing unemployment. Hopefully things will have improved by the time I have graduated with my higher degree and I can get back to gainful employment.
Anyway, people who stereotype the “poor” as lazy, shiftless, defective in brains or character piss me right off. :mad: You do not know me. You do not know my situation. Shit happens, ok?
And fact is, 75% or so of us are “working poor”/earning less than what can reasonably be considered “middle class”.
Also by having their underage kids work full time.
No, he’s clearly making the point that if you want to play dog eat dog, it’s important to remember which pack is bigger. You and those like you are the ones who dismiss compassion as unimportant or even wrong. But you are relying on the people you despise on being nicer than you are.
In a dog-eat-dog culture like you want, why shouldn’t the common people just vote to support politicians who want the rich to be looted to the ground ( or just tossed in prison or shot ) and have the proceeds handed over to them? If might makes right, why shouldn’t the common people gang up on the wealthy and destroy them?
You know, from my recollection of the conservatives and libertarians on this board, far more of them come from poor backgrounds than you would think. So you might want to be a little careful in tossing around accusations.
I’ve been in every income quintile there is. I was 27 years old before I made more than $20,000 in a year. When I was a child, I lived with a single mother and another sibling, and she earned minimum wage or close to it the entire time I lived at home.
We did just fine. We lived in a crappy little apartment, and had an old black-and-white TV with an analog tuner you had to stick a penny into to keep it tuned to a channel. My brother and I shared a room. We ate a lot of Kraft Dinner and leftovers. Our clothes were hand-me-downs. I didn’t have a bicycle until I eventually found one for $5 at a yard sale, and that eventually got stolen. But at no time were we starving, or even unhappy. We played board games, we watched that crappy old TV, and we learned to amuse ourselves inexpensively. I spent a lot of time at the public library.
As soon as we were old enough, we got jobs to help out. For me, it was first delivering papers, then doing yard work, then finally a ‘real’ job in a grocery store as a stockboy.
I paid my way through college by working summers and part time during the semester. I lived in a basement suite with another student. I survived those years on about $8,000 per year.
The problem I have with trying to make minimum wage existence more comfortable is that there’s a big damn moral hazard that comes with it. Life at the bottom end of the income scale should be uncomfortable - that’s what gives people the motivation to get out of it. Getting divorced should be financially painful - or you get too many easy divorces. Paying for child care should be a bit painful, or you get too many people shuffling their kids into child care who could otherwise not do so.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t help people at the bottom of the ladder. We should. But we should help them help themselves. We should provide them with job training, with life skills, with access to computers and public business centers with printers and fax machines so they can improve their desirability to potential employers. We should provide them with moving assistance should jobs in their region dry up. We should not give them a handout, we should give them a leg up. We don’t need to give them money to use to buy new TV’s and cigarettes.
And by the way, the world average income is just over $8000. In terms of purchasing power, the U.S. poverty line is only $9,000 less than the median income in Britain. Even the poor in the U.S. are wealthy by world standards.
It’s quite impossible to reason with certain people who have their heads so far up … hmmm … in the clouds that they effectively live in some alternative universe. None the less, anyone who is actually interested in what’s happening in this one, take a look at this.
Now compare the U.S. rate of income growth to those other countries. Compare the U.S.'s average standard of living to those other countries. Compare the U.S. rate of private charity to those other countries. Compare the U.S.'s spending on R&D to those other countries.
You’re making the assumption that income inequality is by definition a bad thing. Many of us don’t believe that. My standard of living is what it is, and I could give a rat’s ass if everyone else makes exactly what I do, or whether there are a bunch of rich plutocrats having a grand time. So long as they’re not taking my money from me, I don’t really care.
And they’re not.
You misunderstand their advice. It isn’t about surviving in low wage jobs, it is that anyone in a low wage job has it because they are lazy, and if they just got around to apply for a rocket scientist position their worries would be over. If everyone did that, and got jobs, then we would indeed not have anyone working in the low paying jobs.
I trust you agree that solving poverty by just telling everyone who is poor to apply for a better job is a real “let them eat cake” answer.
Really?
I work for a landlord. I know what rents are where I live. We currently have a housing shortage in my area, and yes, a one-room IS $500/month.
You claim you can find apartments for less than $500/month? SHOW ME. I’m serious, SHOW ME.
What, you never preview your own posts?
Why should I care if your taxes go up?