PBS running "Waging a Living" 30 million working poor, 25% of all children in U.S. now in poverty

[BlancoNino]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
There are quite a few owners of Dunkin Donuts (founded in Quincy MA btw), landscaping outfits, many service industries etc that are wiping their asses with silk while their questionably legal employees are really struggling.

And, it scales upwards. This is my post from the "Where were you on Sept 11" thread:

"I was in a quarterly breakfast meeting with about 500 of my 12-15000 New England co-workers. The regional manager had just told us that the major cuts in our health insurance (which we found out ourselves) had not been announced because of a "lost email" (omfg multimillion dollar insurance program slips under the radar? what a weak lie). I asked him since we're selling more product, at higher prices, to more customers, why can't we get a raise? He didn't like that. Sadly, it took 3000 civilian deaths to save my job that day."

The 500 worker bees in the room earned roughly mid-teens per hour. Many, like myself, have highly skilled and dangerous jobs. This is for a company that makes money like it's going out of style.

There are more than just giant companies out there. Of course, it's easier for them to survive, given that they are already hugely successful and can hire lawyers and can easily afford to deal with new government regulations that are meant to help out the middle/lower class. New entrepeneurs cannot. More government = less competition.

Of course, out of sheer principle, it is also a business owner's right to pay his workers whatever he wants. It's his business...if people don't wish to work for him, don't.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

"it is also a business owner's right to pay his workers whatever he wants"

true, but

"if people don't wish to work for him, don't."

much easier said than done. most people are not pro atheletes, therefore they cannot choose to hold out for a sweeter deal. if you don't have a job, you're taking what you can get.

it certainly doesn't help when the labor supply is over-saturated, partly due to immigration, partly due to overseas outsourcing.

shipping in tons of mexicans? to rebuild the gulf coast? wtf is that?

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: BlancoNino

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
I'm not talking about kids, I'm talking about adults that are a source of cheap labor. I don't know where you're from, but in Boston, an adult making less than 10/hr will starve to death.

Do you think most of the business owners in Boston are sitting fat themselves?

Can they afford the amount or afford the risk of paying their employees more?

Then they should not be in business.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
As for anyone thinks $5.15/hr is a decent wage, I'd like to see you earn that much.

They talk the talk but would never have the guts to walk the talk.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Amused
Once again we have a failure to understand how labor is a commodity. If you want to earn more, you have to have a marketable skill.

Just because you have kids does not mean you are entitled to more money. One should wait to have children until they have a skill that enables them to obtain employment at a wage that makes supporting them possible.

As Ayn Rand said:

"Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others - misfortune is not a mortgage on achievement - failure is not a mortgage on success - suffering is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence - man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone's altar nor for anyone's cause - life is not one huge hospital."

A person's unwillingness to better themselves is not my burden.

In addition poor people make those of us who aren't poor feel superior because made an effort to better ouselves so we can now post condescendingly about those who didn't.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Amused

A person's unwillingness to better themselves is not my burden.

In addition poor people make those of us who aren't poor feel superior because made an effort to better ouselves so we can now post condescendingly about those who didn't.

Which up until 2001 was a very un-American way of thinking.

Now if you're not rich you are scum.

 

[FoBoT]

not me, i think my big fat raise/promotion is finally coming through

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Amused

A person's unwillingness to better themselves is not my burden.

In addition poor people make those of us who aren't poor feel superior because made an effort to better ouselves so we can now post condescendingly about those who didn't.

Which up until 2001 was a very un-American way of thinking.

Now if you're not rich you are scum.

Pull your lower lip over your forehead and swallow yourself Dave:disgust:

 

[lokiju]

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: Amused
A person's unwillingness to better themselves is not my burden.

Maybe you don't think so, but those 30 million people feel otherwise. And they're voting for Hillary.

:shudders;

I just got a glimpse of pure evil.

I think I'm going to be sick now

 

[acemcmac]

I wonder if I can download this.... I'd really like to watch it.

 

[Geekbabe]

Eveey society has had a blue collar and/or service worker sector. The biggest problem is housing, gone are the triple decker apt houses, reasonably priced rooming houses and other places where poorer folks lived while they bettered themselves and worked their way up the ladder.

A person living in Boston needs to pull down something like $15 an hour simply to afford a place to sleep.

 

[Specop 007]

Its always a joy to watch Democrats and libverals argue that theft is a good thing.
Steal from the middle class/ rich to give to the poor. You can sugar coat it by syaing "We're HELPING people" but at the end of the day, your asking for legal government controlled theft.

As for the poor? Screw'm. Ths simple fact is this. You are paid what you are worth. Most of the poor I met reallly dont care. They simply dont have the drive and ambition to get off their asses, go to college and make a better life for themselves. And those that do have that drive and ambition? Well, thats why some people in this country make minimum wage and some make millions.

The system is just fine.

 

[TraumaRN]

Lets do a little example using myself.

I'm a senior in college. My tuition/room and board is paid for and I luckily dont have to worry about. However I pay for everything else. That would be my car payment($120/month), car insurance($74/month), cell phone($82/month), gas to drive and from work(~$150/month), and groceries($200/month)

That adds up to roughly $626 a month.

Now I work in downtown Detroit at a trauma hospital, and while school is in I am working 2X12 hour shifts a week, I could work more but my grades would probably suffer. But anyways I get paid every other week. After taxes I should get about $625. Anyone see the point I just made? And I dont even have to pay for an apartment/condo/house.

And I make $15.11/hour! If I had to pay for a place to live which thank God I dont, I'd obviously have to work at least one more 12 hour shift a week. And that would royally fvck me for school.

Not to mention I'm looking for a place to live when I graduate in May of 07 and either I'm going to end up buying a foreclosed POS house. Or end up overpaying for a new or slightly used condo, because anything decent is so overpriced it's sickening. I'm not too fond over those options.

Thats just my life and my example and I'm sure most people aren't as lucky as I've been. And like I said I make 15.11/hour. That's kinda sad in my mind.


EDIT: Not to mention I work with alot of poor and see what happens when the parent has no money and how it filters down to the children. People in Detroit would KILL for a job that pays 15 bucks an hour. And that's definitely pathetic.

 

[Zolty]

after reading half of this, OMG P&N please go back to P&N.....

 

[I Saw OJ]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Svnla
I am watching the show right now (yes, at 2 a.m. in the morning) and this is what I see.

Those workers have these common characteristics: poorly educated or none, have several kids, broken home <divorce/separate/no child support>, no parential skill <no disciplines>,no valueable assets nor skills, no money/financial management skills, drinking/smoking problem.

No one can fix those deficiencies if those folks can't fix it themselves. You can raise the minimum wage as high as you want but it won't solve those problems.

I do agree about the high cost of health insurance, higher cost for housing, gas, ect.

You guys sound like white supremicists.

Either be a perfect master's degree groomed puppet or die.

How does he sound like a white supremacist? He never said anything about race, and I don?t think race has been brought up at all in this thread.

The simple fact for a lot of these people (not all) is that they put themselves in their position by making bad decisions like Svnla stated. Raising the minimum wage is not the fix for people?s mistakes. Why should the 22 year old unwed mother with 3 kids make more at Taco Bell just because she is poor, thats no ones fault but her own that she is in that situation.

 

[Triumph]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Svnla
I am watching the show right now (yes, at 2 a.m. in the morning) and this is what I see.

Those workers have these common characteristics: poorly educated or none, have several kids, broken home <divorce/separate/no child support>, no parential skill <no disciplines>,no valueable assets nor skills, no money/financial management skills, drinking/smoking problem.

No one can fix those deficiencies if those folks can't fix it themselves. You can raise the minimum wage as high as you want but it won't solve those problems.

I do agree about the high cost of health insurance, higher cost for housing, gas, ect.

You guys sound like white supremicists.

Either be a perfect master's degree groomed puppet or die.

Now it's a race issue. Funny how Svnla made no correlation between the race of those people while YOU did, and yet he is the white supremacist.

The problem is that somewhere along the line, the breakdown of the family unit occured. And I'm not pointing towards the gay agenda or the lack of bibles in school or anything like that as the cause. I'm talking about the endless cycle of unwed mothers and children with inadequate parents, who grow up to be just like their parents, just as uneducated and just as irresponsible. How do you end that cycle? I don't know.

Used to be that you were poor, but you were still a strong person who believed in education, personal responsibility, social responsibility, right/wrong, etc. Black and other minority communities still had a very strong family unit, strong morals, strong sense of duty and responsibility, the only difference was that they had less money than whites. Well somewhere along the line the poor lost those positive attributes, and because the parents don't have those positive traits, the kids don't have them either, and they perpetuate the cycle. I'm not sure where things went wrong or what we can do to fix them, but that's what has happened.

My mother grew up poor. POOR. She was one of 6 kids, four of whom were born on a farm, one was born in a GAS STATION (because that's where they lived), only the last one was actually born in a hospital. My grandmother would bring home table scraps from the restaurant that she worked at to feed her family, telling the restaurant that it was for her chickens. They had NOTHING. And yet not one of the six kids turned out "wrong." No unwed mothers, no criminal histories, everyone turned out well. It's not because of the lack of money that these people remain poor. It's because they're stuck in an endless cycle of destructive behaviour.

 

[FelixDeCat]

American poor > average world citizen.

But this is why we need to eliminate funding for PBS.

 

[TheAdvocate]

The truth on an individual level:

#1

I am watching the show right now (yes, at 2 a.m. in the morning) and this is what I see.

Those workers have these common characteristics: poorly educated or none, have several kids, broken home <divorce/separate/no child support>, no parential skill <no disciplines>,no valueable assets nor skills, no money/financial management skills, drinking/smoking problem.

No one can fix those deficiencies if those folks can't fix it themselves. You can raise the minimum wage as high as you want but it won't solve those problems.

I do agree about the high cost of health insurance, higher cost for housing, gas, ect.

#2

Every society has had a blue collar and/or service worker sector. The biggest problem is housing, gone are the triple decker apt houses, reasonably priced rooming houses and other places where poorer folks lived while they bettered themselves and worked their way up the ladder.

The truth on the Macro level:

#1

The religious right of the republican party fights tooth and nail against abortion, and then the greedy free marketers bitch about poor families having too many kids and the govt wanting to tax them to support them. Catch 22 anyone?

#2

The wage issue isn't to be analyzed solely on an individual level. The real question here is how do we define poverty, and more specifically, why are such a high % of jobs paying below that line? While I do think that our definition of poverty is a little unrealistic, the idea that you can bust your hump and not make any headway in terms of real savings or affordable housing is a real issue. But the bigger issue is that of stratification. I'm not sure what the proper % is, but too many jobs are below the poverty line, and what that suggests, no in fact clearly states, is that there is wealth concentration at the top end of the economic model thanks to the faultiness of trickle down economics which have been re-instituted under Reaganite president George W. Bush.

Is raising the minimum wage the proper way to fix the problem? I'm not sure. First of all, there is something to the rising tide argument. The related problem is that housing and medical care costs are astronomical thanks to speculation and litigation. The real answer is that we need to increase buying power of those same dollars, and reverse the trend of wealth concentration. I'm not sure that raising the minimum wage accomplishes those goals at all, but damned if it isn't a nice looking PR stunt.

 

[mugs]

Sounds like poor people should slow down on the kids.

 

[Mucho]

Its no wonder the Republican wants to nuke PBS.

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: FelixDeKat
American poor > average world citizen.

But this is why we need to eliminate funding for PBS.

People in this country need to get out more. I lived 10 years in the Philippines. Being poor is when you have to sift through garbage that has been sifted through 3 times already so hopefully you can find something worthwhile to sell. Being poor is having to share a 12' X 12' space with your family. Being poor is having burning cooking oil spill on you when you are a child and getting absolutely no medical treatment.

Many Americans are struggling but I don't know if I would call them impoverished.

 

[bennylong]

Why do we have to pay for their mistake? We didn't force them to marry a man that beats them, cheats on them, and are habitually unemployed.

They get to have all the fun and we have to pay for their children. I say, HELL NO!

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
Lets do a little example using myself.

I'm a senior in college. My tuition/room and board is paid for and I luckily dont have to worry about. However I pay for everything else. That would be my car payment($120/month), car insurance($74/month), cell phone($82/month), gas to drive and from work(~$150/month), and groceries($200/month)

That adds up to roughly $626 a month.

holy crap...I am a senior, pay for my own stuff with no tuition/room and I spend less than that on my apartment/utilities/food/everyting else except tuition.

And everytime i start to feel bad about the way AT is going, I see the extreme conservative "screw the poor, it's their fault, and we should tax them for being stupid" attitude. I <3 you guys.

 

[bennylong]

Originally posted by: Triumph

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Svnla
I am watching the show right now (yes, at 2 a.m. in the morning) and this is what I see.

Those workers have these common characteristics: poorly educated or none, have several kids, broken home <divorce/separate/no child support>, no parential skill <no disciplines>,no valueable assets nor skills, no money/financial management skills, drinking/smoking problem.

No one can fix those deficiencies if those folks can't fix it themselves. You can raise the minimum wage as high as you want but it won't solve those problems.

I do agree about the high cost of health insurance, higher cost for housing, gas, ect.

You guys sound like white supremicists.

Either be a perfect master's degree groomed puppet or die.

Now it's a race issue. Funny how Svnla made no correlation between the race of those people while YOU did, and yet he is the white supremacist.

The problem is that somewhere along the line, the breakdown of the family unit occured. And I'm not pointing towards the gay agenda or the lack of bibles in school or anything like that as the cause. I'm talking about the endless cycle of unwed mothers and children with inadequate parents, who grow up to be just like their parents, just as uneducated and just as irresponsible. How do you end that cycle? I don't know.

Used to be that you were poor, but you were still a strong person who believed in education, personal responsibility, social responsibility, right/wrong, etc. Black and other minority communities still had a very strong family unit, strong morals, strong sense of duty and responsibility, the only difference was that they had less money than whites. Well somewhere along the line the poor lost those positive attributes, and because the parents don't have those positive traits, the kids don't have them either, and they perpetuate the cycle. I'm not sure where things went wrong or what we can do to fix them, but that's what has happened.

My mother grew up poor. POOR. She was one of 6 kids, four of whom were born on a farm, one was born in a GAS STATION (because that's where they lived), only the last one was actually born in a hospital. My grandmother would bring home table scraps from the restaurant that she worked at to feed her family, telling the restaurant that it was for her chickens. They had NOTHING. And yet not one of the six kids turned out "wrong." No unwed mothers, no criminal histories, everyone turned out well. It's not because of the lack of money that these people remain poor. It's because they're stuck in an endless cycle of destructive behaviour.

Agreed. My parents raised 5 kids on minimum wage, and we were still able to go to college and none of us turned into criminals. I'm tired of the whining by the poor. No one can help you till you help yourself.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

did i stumble into politics and news by accident