CDZ How poor a lot of Americans are

[Luddly Neddite]

Actually, there is "starving in the streets" in America.

Was it Donald Trump? Mitt Romney? Some dumb Repub said you should just borrow money from your family to start a business. Most can't do that though. Instead, you must rely on your own wits and the fact is, the system is designed to keep you poor.

Do everything you can to avoid consumer debt. Its a trap that will follow you throughout your life. If you possibly can, get an education. If you don't have wealthy parents, go to a country that offers free education for Americans.

Work hard. Don't settle.

I agree with you about don't get your self into consumer debt.
There is no country that offers Americans free education except Germany who just started that in Oct. of this year.
Where will they get 1,400 to 1,500 for the ticket to go there?
You would still have to find a job in order to pay for your food and a place to stay in Germany and that is not cheep.
Best bet, stay here in America get a job and go to a community night college. Then get a better job with that degree and then go to another college to get an even better job with that degree. Hard work yes, but you won't be in debt with a student loan.

Also it's the Democrat polices that designed the system that keeps them poor.

No one in Americas is starving in the streets like other countries who really are starving.
Some Americans have low food security but they are not starving.

Some choose to be blind to starving Americans and many choose to believe the lies spoonfed to them about how the poor have Gameboys, cell phones and refrigerators so they're not really poor. Some also choose to believe that Repub policies did not and would again put us into recession which would result in more job losses and more poor.

7 countries where Americans can study at universities in English for free or almost free - The Washington Post

11 Tuition-Free Colleges - US News

 

[squeeze berry]

@ lugnuts

as I stated before, we did not have most of those amenities when I was a kid. Hardly anyone did and guess what....

we survived without AC, a coffee maker, two TV's, cable tv ( we had antenna and so did everyone else)

all your posts are based on a position of ignorance at best

the reality is that there will always be poor and some deserve it. see post 20 for an example

ps

you might be surprised to know that your house may have been built by a construction crew that was high and or drunk while building it. they don't drug test

 

[jasonnfree]

No, there's not "starving in the street" type poverty like India or Africa generally speaking but I think many people, including a lot of Americans don't realize just how little a lot of people in this country have.

A third of Americans make less than $15,000 a year. You might argue "that's still millions compared to people in the Third World". Well not really and here's why.

In this country healthcare is largely paid out of pocket and a car is a necessity to 80-90 percent of people and maintaining one is not cheap. A typical one bedroom apartment will cost you $8,000 a year on its own and that's in a relatively affordable city. $15,000 isn't even enough to support a bachelor honestly and some people raise kids on little more than this amount! You're essentially forced to borrow and go into debt when you're making that little, so many actually have negative income.

My only wealth is my decent health and my youth. I think this country is increasingly being divided into those who get lucky by having rich supportive parents or their ventures and ideas making them rich, and everyone else who lives off welfare or works jokes of jobs that pay less than peanuts

The tranportation cost can be a factor that hurts the poor in some areas. I can remember as a kid taking a bus near the house anywhere we wanted to go practically. We could take a street car (red car) to downtown Los Angeles even. Affordable for the poor. This was early 50's. One of the major reasons for the Watts riots in the mid 60's was lack of transportation for blacks after the destruction of our street car system. They could come up with daily bus/street car fees to get to work, but couldn't come up with enough money to buy a car. Same today. The cost of a car, insurance, gas, maintenance, is pretty unrealistic at 8 or even 10 dollars an hour. The cities, always lacking funds, use parking fees and parking violations for a lot of income. A $50 dollar ticket can balloon to three or four times that cost with late fees for a single mom who is too strapped for cash to pay the original $50.

 

[pismoe]

you can get free or subsidized bus passes Jason , everything can be payed for with subsidy or taxpayer money plus charity these days . Like I already said , subsidized housing , rent , food stamps , bus fare , hospital care , obamaphones . Agree about the ballooning fines though . Course maybe he poor shouldn't buy cars , pay fer insurance , car upkeep , parking fines if they can't afford it .

 

[pismoe]

problem is that some of you guys figure that the poor should get everything that the rich can BUY . You / ALL people have a RIGHT to Life and Liberty and that's about it

 

[jasonnfree]

you can get free or subsidized bus passes Jason , everything can be payed for with subsidy or taxpayer money these days . Like I already said , subsidized housing , rent , food stamps , bus fare , hospital care , obamaphones . Agree about the ballooning fines though . Course maybe he poor shouldn't buy cars , pay fer insurance , car upkeep , parking fines if they can't afford it .

Of course, the Obama phones, thanks for the reality check. It's actually better to be poor, got it.

 

[jasonnfree]

problem is that some of you guys figure that the poor should get everything that the rich can BUY . You / ALL people have a RIGHT to Life and Liberty and that's about it

In the meantime, Merry Christmas pismoe.

 

[pismoe]

thanks Jason and same to you !!

 

[jasonnfree]

thanks Jason and same to you !!

It will be merry. Being the only one in the family with a truck, I'm the one picking up a lot of furniture on the way. Oh well, later. Thanks.

 

[PratchettFan]

What the whole minimum wage and living wage issue ignores is the real question that must be asked. What is the job worth. Trying to keep an example absurdly simple, if you can make one widget an hour and a widget sells for $6 you can't pay $7 an hour to make them. If mandated to do so you have to raise prices, increase individuals productivity, replace workers with machines or stop making widgets.

Perhaps the solution there is fire the manger who thinks making one widget an hour is a job at all.

As I said I tried to keep the example absurdly simple. Our problem is that too many people in a discussion give such a glib answer and the discussion goes nowhere.

Not glib at all. The worker is not the only factor in this. The management has to make sure the operation is structured to make a profit. If a given position does not produce a profit, then the position should not exist. If it does, that is the fault of management. If the community determines there will be a minimum wage, then the company has to exist within that environment. If it can't, then it shouldn't exist at all. But again, that is the fault of management.

You seem to be ignoring the main point of job worth to concentrate on management ills. I suppose it is my fault for using such a limited example. I thought it would get the idea across without using a whole page to explain the cost of manufacturing an item breaking it down to wages, benefits, production, marketing, storage of unsold inventory, research and development, other overhead and profit.

Of course it is managements responsibility. The community shouldn't set a pay scale. Management should. If they then can't hire people to do the job they will need to determine what action to take. The community already sets the value by what they are willing to pay for the item. Having the community also set the wage is what causes the part of problem.

Whether the community should do it or not is up to the community. A business does not act in a vacuum. The community decides whether the business must provide workers' compensation. It decides whether the working conditions are safe. It decides what constitutes over time. This is no different.

 

[pismoe]

not better to be poor but its the circumstances for many people I'm afraid . Look , I'm not the smartest guy in the world but I finally realized due to my upbringing that I had to work to make a living and that my hobbies and WANTS needed to take a back seat to my NEEDS . That realization took care of me along with speaking nicely and politely along with a clean appearance plus I could add 2 and 2 together. For the truly poor , I have no problem helping , subsidizing the poor , especially the elderly . All goodies though should come from charity , imo !!

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

No, there's not "starving in the street" type poverty like India or Africa generally speaking but I think many people, including a lot of Americans don't realize just how little a lot of people in this country have.

A third of Americans make less than $15,000 a year. You might argue "that's still millions compared to people in the Third World". Well not really and here's why.

In this country healthcare is largely paid out of pocket and a car is a necessity to 80-90 percent of people and maintaining one is not cheap. A typical one bedroom apartment will cost you $8,000 a year on its own and that's in a relatively affordable city. $15,000 isn't even enough to support a bachelor honestly and some people raise kids on little more than this amount! You're essentially forced to borrow and go into debt when you're making that little, so many actually have negative income.

My only wealth is my decent health and my youth. I think this country is increasingly being divided into those who get lucky by having rich supportive parents or their ventures and ideas making them rich, and everyone else who lives off welfare or works jokes of jobs that pay less than peanuts

The tranportation cost can be a factor that hurts the poor in some areas. I can remember as a kid taking a bus near the house anywhere we wanted to go practically. We could take a street car (red car) to downtown Los Angeles even. Affordable for the poor. This was early 50's. One of the major reasons for the Watts riots in the mid 60's was lack of transportation for blacks after the destruction of our street car system. They could come up with daily bus/street car fees to get to work, but couldn't come up with enough money to buy a car. Same today. The cost of a car, insurance, gas, maintenance, is pretty unrealistic at 8 or even 10 dollars an hour. The cities, always lacking funds, use parking fees and parking violations for a lot of income. A $50 dollar ticket can balloon to three or four times that cost with late fees for a single mom who is too strapped for cash to pay the original $50.

I spent five hours a day for two years riding the bus.
If that isn't incentive enough to work hard and make a better life you're hopeless.
And in order to even ride that bus I had to move from the burbs to the city edge,where the rent was cheap but the bus rides were long.
I cant seem to find any sympathy for those not willing to make sacrifices to better them selves.

 

[Silent Warrior]

What the whole minimum wage and living wage issue ignores is the real question that must be asked. What is the job worth. Trying to keep an example absurdly simple, if you can make one widget an hour and a widget sells for $6 you can't pay $7 an hour to make them. If mandated to do so you have to raise prices, increase individuals productivity, replace workers with machines or stop making widgets.

Perhaps the solution there is fire the manger who thinks making one widget an hour is a job at all.

As I said I tried to keep the example absurdly simple. Our problem is that too many people in a discussion give such a glib answer and the discussion goes nowhere.

Not glib at all. The worker is not the only factor in this. The management has to make sure the operation is structured to make a profit. If a given position does not produce a profit, then the position should not exist. If it does, that is the fault of management. If the community determines there will be a minimum wage, then the company has to exist within that environment. If it can't, then it shouldn't exist at all. But again, that is the fault of management.

You seem to be ignoring the main point of job worth to concentrate on management ills. I suppose it is my fault for using such a limited example. I thought it would get the idea across without using a whole page to explain the cost of manufacturing an item breaking it down to wages, benefits, production, marketing, storage of unsold inventory, research and development, other overhead and profit.

Of course it is managements responsibility. The community shouldn't set a pay scale. Management should. If they then can't hire people to do the job they will need to determine what action to take. The community already sets the value by what they are willing to pay for the item. Having the community also set the wage is what causes the part of problem.

Whether the community should do it or not is up to the community. A business does not act in a vacuum. The community decides whether the business must provide workers' compensation. It decides whether the working conditions are safe. It decides what constitutes over time. This is no different.

There is quite a bit of difference. I won't get into whether the community should have the right to make the decisions you say they should, but setting both the value of a product by what they are willing to pay and the wage of the worker by what they want him to have is a lesson in futility. That idea is what is causing many of the economic problems we have today. The community in many cases has decided that they have champagne tastes but want beer prices. Then to make matters worse they want to set themselves a wage that is representative of their wants and not necessarily cost effective for the production of the items they are buying.

 

[Wyatt earp]

Op I did this social test a few times in my life, I made myself poor on purpose, just to see who would help me, you find amazing people out there. They might be money poor but love poor? No.

 

[ALL SOLUTIONS]

Anyone ever heard about personal responsibility?

Know anything about the underground, poor people economy?

How many of those working for minimum wage actually do any work?

 

[ALL SOLUTIONS]

Anyone ever heard about personal responsibility?

Know anything about the underground, poor people economy?

How many of those working for minimum wage actually do any work?

 

[ALL SOLUTIONS]

Anyone ever heard about personal responsibility?

Know anything about the underground, poor people economy?

How many of those working for minimum wage actually do any work?

 

[Wyatt earp]

Try it and understand, like I did, the cream always rises to the top, no matter how much you want to wound your self, you will always.come back

 

[Wyatt earp]

I remember a head hunter trying to tell me one time this is my last break, that.was 8 years ago and 10 jobs latter I still own my world

 

[Disir]

No, there's not "starving in the street" type poverty like India or Africa generally speaking but I think many people, including a lot of Americans don't realize just how little a lot of people in this country have.

A third of Americans make less than $15,000 a year. You might argue "that's still millions compared to people in the Third World". Well not really and here's why.

In this country healthcare is largely paid out of pocket and a car is a necessity to 80-90 percent of people and maintaining one is not cheap. A typical one bedroom apartment will cost you $8,000 a year on its own and that's in a relatively affordable city. $15,000 isn't even enough to support a bachelor honestly and some people raise kids on little more than this amount! You're essentially forced to borrow and go into debt when you're making that little, so many actually have negative income.

My only wealth is my decent health and my youth. I think this country is increasingly being divided into those who get lucky by having rich supportive parents or their ventures and ideas making them rich, and everyone else who lives off welfare or works jokes of jobs that pay less than peanuts

Well, there actually is starving in the street.

Homelessness in Washington, D.C. has increased by 12.9 percent in the past year. In Memphis, Tennessee, nearly half the demand for emergency food assistance in 2013 has gone unmet. The number of requests for urgent food aid in Philadelphia rose by 20 percent. And in Plano, Texas, homeless shelters with limited capacity were forced to turn away 84 percent of those seeking help.

These statistics come from the U.S. Conference of Mayors' 2014 Hunger and Homelessness Survey, a report compiled with the participation of 25 city governments around the country. The annual survey does not offer a representative sample of nationwide trends, but it does provide a narrow glimpse of how those trends affect a handful of large municipalities scattered across various regions.

Overall, 71 percent of participating cities reported an increase in local demand for emergency food assistance between September 2013 and August 2014, and 43 percent of those cities reported an increase in homelessness. Across all cities, homelessness was found to have risen 0.7 percent, and need for food assistance was found to have gone up 7 percent.

Low wages were cited as a key reason for increasing food insecurity, while city governments identified a lack of affordable housing as the main challenge when it comes to fighting homelessness. Some 38 percent of those requesting emergency food assistance were employed at the time, and 18 percent of the cities' homeless population had jobs.
Hunger and homelessness rise in several US cities Al Jazeera America