“Poverty” pays better than middle-class employment

[antiquity]

“Poverty” pays better than middle-class employment

Exactly two years ago, some of the more politically biased progressive media outlets (who are quite adept at creating and taking down their own strawmen arguments, if not quite as adept at using an abacus, let alone a calculator) took offense at our article “In Entitlement America, The Head Of A Household Of Four Making Minimum Wage Has More Disposable Income Than A Family Making $60,000 A Year.” In it we merely explained what has become the painful reality in America: for increasingly more it is now more lucrative – in the form of actual disposable income – to sit, do nothing, and collect various welfare entitlements, than to work.

This is graphically, and very painfully confirmed, in the below chart from Gary Alexander, Secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (a state best known for its broke capital Harrisburg). As quantitied, and explained by Alexander, “the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.“


The “welfare cliff” is far more dangerous than the “fiscal cliff” everyone is talking about these days. The welfare cliff nullifies the stated purpose of the social safety net – which, as noted, is recognized by most of the voters in all political parties. Dependency has become inescapable for too many people. The rational incentives for climbing out of that safety net have been removed, and it reaches well into what earlier generations would have called “the working poor,” rather than “welfare dependents.” There is simply no logical reason for someone on the wrong side of this cliff to climb over it, barring a remarkable turn of fortune that vaults them from the minimum wage to over $60,000 per year in a single mighty bound.

This problem is particularly acute when the benefits piled up into that formidable cliff face are regarded as effectively “cost-free” by the beneficiaries. They simply do not believe that anyone suffers or sacrifices to provide the funding for those benefits. They think it’s all paid for with pennies skimmed from paychecks, idle loot confiscated from greedy fat cats who will never miss it, and money printed in the basement of the Treasury. Even the healthy degree of shame afforded by reliance upon private charity is removed, when benefits become “entitlements” dispensed by a soulless, impersonal bureaucracy. A lot of this stuff just shows up in your mailbox. And one of the crucial truths “compassionate” liberals have never accepted is that shame is an indispensable component of responsibility. Shame is a species of guilt, after all, and only the responsible are capable of feeling guilty.

 

[waltky]

Philadelphia has worst deep-poverty rate...

Of big cities, Phila. worst for people in deep poverty
Tuesday, March 19, 2013, Philadelphia has the highest rate of deep poverty of any of the nation's 10 most populous cities; The annual salary for a single person at half the poverty line is around $5,700; for a family of four, it's around $11,700; Philadelphia's deep-poverty rate is 12.9 percent, or around 200,000 people.

Philadelphia has the highest rate of deep poverty - people with incomes below half of the poverty line - of any of the nation's 10 most populous cities.The annual salary for a single person at half the poverty line is around $5,700; for a family of four, it's around $11,700. Philadelphia's deep-poverty rate is 12.9 percent, or around 200,000 people. Phoenix, Chicago, and Dallas are the nearest to Philadelphia, with deep-poverty rates of more than 10 percent. The numbers come from an examination of the 2009 through 2011 three-year estimate of the U.S. Census American Community Survey by The Inquirer and Temple University sociologist David Elesh.

Of the 4,300,000 people living in the area around Philadelphia, there are nearly 160,000 in deep poverty - a rate of 3.6 percent - in Bucks, Chester, Montgomery, Delaware, Salem, Gloucester, Burlington, and Camden Counties as well as New Castle County, Del., and Cecil County, Md., Elesh's analysis showed. Nationwide, more than 20 million people live in deep poverty, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. These deep-poverty numbers don't include noncash benefits such as food stamps, which help families survive, experts said.

The Philadelphia deep-poverty figure wasn't a complete surprise for antipoverty advocates, since the city already has the highest poverty rate - 28.4 percent - of any of America's biggest cities. Still, it's significant, because while many people who live just below the poverty line often move out of poverty, those in deep poverty are in such a profoundly disadvantaged state that they're more likely to stay mired in it, according to Judith Levine, a Temple sociologist. "Poverty becomes a long-term experience, and it's very different, especially for children," she said.

Children in deep poverty do worse in school than less poor kids, said Arloc Sherman, researcher with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "The consequences may last decades," he said. Sherman added that it is difficult to imagine how someone living in deep poverty gets by. "It's so stressful," said Emily Edwards, 29, who is sleeping at night on the floor of a friend's apartment in Germantown while her 4-year-old son sleeps near her on a mattress.

MORE

 

[ShootSpeeders]

This is why we can't grant citizenship to illegals. They are illiterate trash and cannot get high paying jobs and will all go on welfare given the chance. And then they will vote dem all their life as the dems well know.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

This is graphically, and very painfully confirmed, in the below chart from Gary Alexander, Secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (a state best known for its broke capital Harrisburg). As quantitied, and explained by Alexander, “the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045.“

That's very confusingly phrased. And there is no word "quantitied". Are we trying to say "quantized"?

 

[SteadyMercury]

The debunkery...

Comparison of Benefits for Poor Families to Middle-Class Incomes Is Deeply Flawed ? Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The Sessions document derives its numbers by adding up the cost of a large number of programs that are targeted on low- and moderate-income households — or on schools and communities with large numbers of low- and moderate-income students or residents — and dividing the total cost of these programs (all of which it labels “welfare&#8221 by the number of households below the official poverty line. It claims this shows that we spend the equivalent of $168 per poor household per day — or more than $60,000 per poor household annually. It then compares this per-household amount to median household income.

This comparison rests, however, on a series of serious manipulations of the data that violate basic analytic standards and are used to produce a potentially inflammatory result

Counts payments to hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, and other medical providers — including payments for care for sick elderly people at the end of their lives and for people with serious disabilities who are institutionalized — as though these payments are akin to cash income that is going to poor families to live on

Counts, as spending on poor people, benefits and services that go to families and individuals who are above the poverty line. As noted, Senator Sessions divides the cost of a broad set of programs by the number of households with income below the official poverty line. Yet many of these programs, by design and for good reason, serve substantial numbers of low- and moderate-income Americans whose incomes are above the poverty line. For example, 65 percent of the lower-income working households receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in 2011 had incomes above the official poverty line.

Counts the value of health coverage for low-income households but not for middle-income households. Finally, when the Sessions analysis compares its figure for the benefits that poor households receive to median household income, it ignores the employer-provided benefits — most notably, employer-sponsored health insurance — that many middle-income households receive. Senator Sessions thus counts the value of the main source of health care coverage for low-income people, while excluding the value of employer-provided health care for middle-income workers.

In 2011, the typical person in a family whose income was below the poverty line before means-tested benefits are counted remained12 percent belowthe poverty line after the means-tested benefits are counted. Moreover, the Supplemental Poverty Measure shows that even with these benefits, the typical poor person’s standard of living is 57 percent below that of the typical middle-income American

Etc. follow link for more thorough trashing of OPs article, or just use common sense and look around you... how do does a single mom with in poverty with no income living off benefits compare to someone earning 67k?

 

[ShootSpeeders]

Etc. follow link for more thorough trashing of OPs article, or just use common sense and look around you... how do does a single mom with in poverty with no income living off benefits compare to someone earning 67k?

What are you saying? The welfare is equivalent to a mere $50K?? Outside of health care, a single mom with say 3 kids should get a max payout ( food and shelter) of $10K a year.

 

[tjvh]

The debunkery...

Comparison of Benefits for Poor Families to Middle-Class Incomes Is Deeply Flawed ? Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The Sessions document derives its numbers by adding up the cost of a large number of programs that are targeted on low- and moderate-income households — or on schools and communities with large numbers of low- and moderate-income students or residents — and dividing the total cost of these programs (all of which it labels “welfare”) by the number of households below the official poverty line. It claims this shows that we spend the equivalent of $168 per poor household per day — or more than $60,000 per poor household annually. It then compares this per-household amount to median household income.

This comparison rests, however, on a series of serious manipulations of the data that violate basic analytic standards and are used to produce a potentially inflammatory result

Counts payments to hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, and other medical providers — including payments for care for sick elderly people at the end of their lives and for people with serious disabilities who are institutionalized — as though these payments are akin to cash income that is going to poor families to live on

Counts the value of health coverage for low-income households but not for middle-income households. Finally, when the Sessions analysis compares its figure for the benefits that poor households receive to median household income, it ignores the employer-provided benefits — most notably, employer-sponsored health insurance — that many middle-income households receive. Senator Sessions thus counts the value of the main source of health care coverage for low-income people, while excluding the value of employer-provided health care for middle-income workers.

In 2011, the typical person in a family whose income was below the poverty line before means-tested benefits are counted remained12 percent belowthe poverty line after the means-tested benefits are counted. Moreover, the Supplemental Poverty Measure shows that even with these benefits, the typical poor person’s standard of living is 57 percent below that of the typical middle-income American

Etc. follow link for more thorough trashing of OPs article, or just use common sense and look around you... how do does a single mom with in poverty with no income living off benefits compare to someone earning 67k?

I followed your link, and once I saw that one of the priorities of your source was the reduction of Greenhouse gasses, well... Let's just say it isn't too hard to see which side of the fence their heart lies politically.

 

[Oldguy]

The debunkery...

Comparison of Benefits for Poor Families to Middle-Class Incomes Is Deeply Flawed ? Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The Sessions document derives its numbers by adding up the cost of a large number of programs that are targeted on low- and moderate-income households — or on schools and communities with large numbers of low- and moderate-income students or residents — and dividing the total cost of these programs (all of which it labels “welfare”) by the number of households below the official poverty line. It claims this shows that we spend the equivalent of $168 per poor household per day — or more than $60,000 per poor household annually. It then compares this per-household amount to median household income.

This comparison rests, however, on a series of serious manipulations of the data that violate basic analytic standards and are used to produce a potentially inflammatory result

In 2011, the typical person in a family whose income was below the poverty line before means-tested benefits are counted remained12 percent belowthe poverty line after the means-tested benefits are counted. Moreover, the Supplemental Poverty Measure shows that even with these benefits, the typical poor person’s standard of living is 57 percent below that of the typical middle-income American

Etc. follow link for more thorough trashing of OPs article, or just use common sense and look around you... how do does a single mom with in poverty with no income living off benefits compare to someone earning 67k?

I followed your link, and once I saw that one of the priorities of your source was the reduction of Greenhouse gasses, well... Let's just say it isn't too hard to see which side of the fence their heart lies politically.

Just as it's not hard to see which side of the fence the OP lies on, yet you're willing to accept it and not this? Why?