Agreed.
This discussion reminds me of a couple I rent an apartment to. He works full time plus, and in spite of many illnesses, she works part-time. Neither make any real money; no skills, no education, no trade.
When he gets home from work, he quickly helps her load her car for her office cleaning chores. They both head out to clean offices until 7:30 pm when they return home. When she doesn't need his help, he runs around town collecting scrap metal which he turns in to the scrap yard during his lunch time at his full-time job.
He does pretty well turning in junk. All cash, no paper trail. Because he knows the people so well at the scrap yard, they save him bicycles that he buys from them. He fixes them up and sells them on Craigs List. When he's not doing that, he refinishes furniture he picked up out of the garbage and sells that too.
They are early with the rent every month by at least one week. They both drive new vehicles. Yes, they still have to watch their money, but they are the quintessential of real Americans in my opinion. You don't see younger people like that anymore.
Sounds great, working like dogs all over town when 1 job should be enough to make them satisfied. Thanks GOP! at least now they have healthcare.
They are quite conservative and therefore, believe that people should support themselves if anyway possible. That's unlike liberals who believe in having only one job, and if the job doesn't pay enough, blame somebody else and get on a government program(s) to make up the difference.
And don't try to blame Republicans. People having two jobs is an old school thing that's been around for decades. Many times I've held two (or more) jobs and the same holds true of my parents. Of course back then, people had pride. Government handouts were for losers and only a failure would accept government assistance. Then again, liberalism is all about removing integrity from our country.
It's Walmart and companies like that who are pushing for welfare for people who don't earn enough.
They are? Why would Wal-Mart have a care in the world about welfare? It doesn't benefit them. But I suppose you have evidence of this push for welfare Wal-Mart is involved in?
I didn't think so.
Walmart pays people so little that they can get welfare payments and work at the same time. This is why Walmart care, because without this they wouldn't be able to get such cheap labor.
For example, healthcare coverage. Walmart has a much lower proportion of workers on healthcare than other companies that are similar to Walmart. Why? They make it hard for them to get on the company health insurance plan.
A full time worker has to wait 6 months before they can get on. A part time worker 2 years.
This costs the US money because these people end up on state funded health care. We're talking more then 50% of the workers here. The average time at large companies is 1.3 months to get health insurance.
Also workers pay a lot of their healthcare costs. 16% is the average in the US, Walmart employees pay over 40%.
Walmart spent around $3,500 per employee on healthcare. The national average is $5,600.
Employees take some of this, the govt takes the rest.
California spend $20 million covering the cost of Walmart not paying people their healthcare. Walmart actively encourages its employees to seek funding for healthcare from the government.
Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay For Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart's Labor Record / CONGRESSMAN GEORGE MILLER / Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce / U.S. House of Representatives 16feb04
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The Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce estimates that one 200-person Wal-Mart store may result in a cost to federal taxpayers of $420,750 per year – about $2,103 per employee. Specifically, the low wages result in the following additional public costs being passed along to taxpayers:
- $36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families.
- $42,000 a year for Section 8 housing assistance, assuming 3 percent of the store employees qualify for such assistance, at $6,700 per family.
- $125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families, assuming 50 employees are heads of household with a child and 50 are married with two children.
- $100,000 a year for the additional Title I expenses, assuming 50 Wal-Mart families qualify with an average of 2 children.
- $108,000 a year for the additional federal health care costs of moving into state children's health insurance programs (S-CHIP), assuming 30 employees with an average of two children qualify.
- $9,750 a year for the additional costs for low income energy assistance."
Basically Walmart costs the US loads of money.