The poor don't work because it doesn't make economic sense to hold a job

[woolfe9999]

I'm not much of a numbers guy so I can't claim to have fact checked the below, but it's interesting if true. Sort of dovetails with how Clinton's welfare reform actually lowered the number of people using the system.

Crazybear's blog - The poor don't work because they are economically rational

A point missed so far is the idiocy of the quoted blog. The blogger observes that, surprise surprise, a high percentage of people "below the poverty line" aren't employed. What a revelation, since not having a job would, you know, tend to put you below the poverty line. He then goes on to argue the cost-benefit of working and posits that the poor make a conscious decision not to work. It's an interesting theory, but his statistics are from 2009, the heart of the worst recession and employment crisis since the Great Depression. But no, it isn't that these people want to work and can't find jobs (or have given up for the time being) in said catastropically bad economy. We must instead posit that they have chosen not to work. If we want to spin our theories about the psychology of welfare, fine, but let's not skip over the simple explanations first. I'm afraid someone has failed Occam's Razor 1A and needs to return to critical thinking school.

- wolf

 

[Throckmorton]

Make people who are on medicaid work and become educated while on it. No more benefits for children except for food and clothing. No cash, no stamps. A card for each person which limits what can be purchased. No alternator size tenderloins. No HDTVs.

Watch what happens then.

What happens then? Nothing because the unemployment rate is still 10%

 

[Throckmorton]

They could try riding the bus.

I have a good job, i own a car, but i still bus to work. The only people who cant are rich fucks in the suburbs or guys making 80k per year at some chemical plant or refinery outside of town.

Have you ever been to America? Ride a bus, lol.

 

[ShawnD1]

Have you ever been to America? Ride a bus, lol.

Why doesn't the US have buses? According to wikipedia, my city's population density is quite a bit lower than most US cities I can name.

people per square mile, rounded to the nearest 100:
Edmonton (where I live) - 2700
Las Vegas - 4200
Los Angeles - 8200
Austin - 3100
Washington DC - 9800
San Diego - 4200
Miami - 12000 (omg!)
Phoenix - 3100
Baton Rouge - 3000
Sacramento - 4800
Albany - 5500

These aren't little shit towns. This is half your country. USA is so dense that I can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone.

 

[0roo0roo]

So we can lose more jobs overseas?


Why can't all the liberals just stick to ruining CA and IL.....why the need to branch out?

sorry you can't pack meat overseas or flip burgers over seas, the fact is these things are limited to workers at hand. that is the problem though, we've been massively importing cheap scab workers to flood the labor market to undermine our poor, meat packers, a dirty job, used to pay a lower middle class income not that long ago, but well now it pays near minimum wage because scab workers have been imported from mexico, so now we pay for the results of towns that are dying from meth epidemics instead, and filled jails, who are we kidding? in order not to seem racist and to provide cheap labor we undermine ourselves in the end, nothing comes cheap.

 

[Jhhnn]

A point missed so far is the idiocy of the quoted blog. The blogger observes that, surprise surprise, a high percentage of people "below the poverty line" aren't employed. What a revelation, since not having a job would, you know, tend to put you below the poverty line. He then goes on to argue the cost-benefit of working and posits that the poor make a conscious decision not to work. It's an interesting theory, but his statistics are from 2009, the heart of the worst recession and employment crisis since the Great Depression. But no, it isn't that these people want to work and can't find jobs (or have given up for the time being) in said catastropically bad economy. We must instead posit that they have chosen not to work. If we want to spin our theories about the psychology of welfare, fine, but let's not skip over the simple explanations first. I'm afraid someone has failed Occam's Razor 1A and needs to return to critical thinking school.

- wolf

Just stop it. Stop making sense. Righties need somebody to blame other than the greed at the top that's really the cause of our current malaise.

Pulsar makes a good point as well. Sharp cutoff points in the current system discourage work, particularly for single moms wrt childcare and healthcare.

 

[0roo0roo]

hey you can make 10 dollars an hour signing phony home ownership documents for banks
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7361572n

too bad thats over!!

people tend to worry about the wrong people ripping things off, the really bad eggs have so much more power to do damage.....

 

[Throckmorton]

Why doesn't the US have buses? According to wikipedia, my city's population density is quite a bit lower than most US cities I can name.

people per square mile, rounded to the nearest 100:
Edmonton (where I live) - 2700
Las Vegas - 4200
Los Angeles - 8200
Austin - 3100
Washington DC - 9800
San Diego - 4200
Miami - 12000 (omg!)
Phoenix - 3100
Baton Rouge - 3000
Sacramento - 4800
Albany - 5500

These aren't little shit towns. This is half your country. USA is so dense that I can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone.

American suburbs are usually not serviced by buses at all. They're designed to be unwalkable and therefore not be able to support public transportation.

I'm looking at Edmonton on Google Maps and it's the exact opposite. The streets are gridded, even in the suburbs, and in a tight grid too.

 

[halik]

Well no shit, the whole point of TANF was to eliminate these perverse incentives of welfare programs. The idea is to make it economically attractive to work more while still having the safety net.

It's still by far the best piece of public policy in the recent history; no doubt Clinton's best work.

 

[ProfJohn]

Well no shit, the whole point of TANF was to eliminate these perverse incentives of welfare programs. The idea is to make it economically attractive to work more while still having the safety net.

It's still by far the best piece of public policy in the recent history; no doubt Clinton's best work.

You mean Newt's best work, right?

After all it didn't pass until after the Republicans took over congress and when signing the bill Clinton promised to go back and 'fix' all the parts that liberals were upset over.

 

[ShawnD1]

American suburbs are usually not serviced by buses at all. They're designed to be unwalkable and therefore not be able to support public transportation.

People who live in the suburbs typically don't fall into the welfare category

We're talking about people on welfare (not UI) and someone mentioned the cost of gasoline (implying that people on welfare own cars?). Welfare people usually live in the main city in the middle of the metro area. In the main city with the welfare people, the population density is quite high, so the bus service is a lot better.
We have suburbs here too and yes the bus service is terrible, but it's basically impossible to be on welfare and live out there. There's no such thing as "cheap" housing in the suburbs and they do that for a reason. It keeps the cost of rent and transportation waaaay up so there's no feasible way poor people could start moving out there and lower the land value. People can bitch about racism or elitism all they want, but that's the way she goes. It sucks they try to keep people like me out of the suburbs, but then again I wouldn't want people like me living there either. Damn corollas on every block...

 

[BoT]

meh, let me give you an example.
my wife requested assistance from a government support program to pay for child care.
not the whole amount, just anything that could help ease the cost.
she was denied because she doesn't receive any other government assistance.
she is going to school full time while i work full time, we don't qualify for government assistance.
if she would receive money from the county or state she could get assistance with child care.
makes sense? no? not to me either.

unless you sit your a@$ down and squad for a living you won't get any help
thats what it sounds like to me

 

[ShawnD1]

unless you sit your a@$ down and squad for a living you won't get any help
thats what it sounds like to me

Yep, pretty much. I applied for student loans and I was turned down because I have too much money. Really? So because I saved some money and I had a piece of shit Ford Tempo that was over 10 years old, I'm too rich to get a loan? If I smoked meth every day they would be at my door and begging me to take their money. God damn assholes. Whoever created this system is a retard.

 

[halik]

You mean Newt's best work, right?

After all it didn't pass until after the Republicans took over congress and when signing the bill Clinton promised to go back and 'fix' all the parts that liberals were upset over.

Err where did Newt come into picture? Clinton ran on the welfare reform platform IIRC and wasn't Gingrich that introduced the bill either.

 

[yllus]

The personal responsibility and Work opportunity act was signed by Clinton. It was part of the republican's Contract with America. Give credit where credit is due.

No credit is due - Clinton campaigned on welfare reform independently.

A point missed so far is the idiocy of the quoted blog. The blogger observes that, surprise surprise, a high percentage of people "below the poverty line" aren't employed. What a revelation, since not having a job would, you know, tend to put you below the poverty line.

The report the blog post quotes from states that its definition of "labor force" is "persons in the labor force are those who worked or looked for work sometime during the calendar year." Thus we are to believe that the other 76% did not work, or look for work, during the year.

He then goes on to argue the cost-benefit of working and posits that the poor make a conscious decision not to work. It's an interesting theory, but his statistics are from 2009, the heart of the worst recession and employment crisis since the Great Depression. But no, it isn't that these people want to work and can't find jobs (or have given up for the time being) in said catastropically bad economy. We must instead posit that they have chosen not to work. If we want to spin our theories about the psychology of welfare, fine, but let's not skip over the simple explanations first. I'm afraid someone has failed Occam's Razor 1A and needs to return to critical thinking school.

- wolf

Again, I think definition clears this up in saying that the majority of welfare recipients did not worked or look for work that year. The relative state of the economy is somewhat irrelevant if the issue is a lack of effort (supposedly due to a lack of incentive).

 

[Liberator21]

Yep, pretty much. I applied for student loans and I was turned down because I have too much money. Really? So because I saved some money and I had a piece of shit Ford Tempo that was over 10 years old, I'm too rich to get a loan? If I smoked meth every day they would be at my door and begging me to take their money. God damn assholes. Whoever created this system is a retard.

Best post of the thread! Unfortunately it's true, and can only be explained logically with the correlation that the government wants a massive welfare class. The more people relying on uncle sam, the more power uncle sam ultimately has. Flame on~

 

[Macamus Prime]

And the rich do not follow any moral code of conduct because it doesn't make economic sense to be good to your fellow man.

But, that point is moot - since most of those in power view the poor as something less than human.

 

[Macamus Prime]

Best post of the thread! Unfortunately it's true, and can only be explained logically with the correlation that the government wants a massive welfare class. The more people relying on uncle sam, the more power uncle sam ultimately has. Flame on~

Don't worry, the rich are already in our government. Taking what they want (bail out of 2008) and press their heels on the slime you feel don't deserve any help.

 

[Atreus21]

And the rich do not follow any moral code of conduct because it doesn't make economic sense to be good to your fellow man.

But, that point is moot - since most of those in power view the poor as something less than human.

...Yes it does, because people will pay you to sell them a good product. You think you'd buy from someone you didn't like?

Where do you get this stuff dude?

 

[PingSpike]

If I understand this correctly, this compounds problems associated with minimum wage. Companies aren't going to be able to find people to fill minimum wage jobs because the government pays more to be unemployed.

The government doesn't even have to pay more. Free time has value too. It's perfectly rational to choose not to work if you barely make any more money than if you didn't. Throw childcare into the mix and you might lose money.

You don't necessarily have to be unemployed for this either. You could work under the table to maintain the benefits. This seemed to be a pretty regular scam run by landscaping companies or any place that has seasonal laborers around here. There is also the classic live in boyfriend who doesn't (for tax purposes) live there.

I saw New Hampshire had a couple people busted for this kind of stuff in the news a couple days ago. I was actually shocked that some one was actually busted for it! It is so common I had just assumed the state did not care. Maybe its different over in NH. Over here the state was taking out ads to try and get people onto social services programs that hadn't joined them on their own accord.

 

[PingSpike]

American suburbs are usually not serviced by buses at all. They're designed to be unwalkable and therefore not be able to support public transportation.

I'm looking at Edmonton on Google Maps and it's the exact opposite. The streets are gridded, even in the suburbs, and in a tight grid too.

US housing developments (at least around here) are placed in cul de sacs that are designed to prevent any through traffic while of course contributing more traffic to the existing roads. But that is another topic entirely.

 

[PingSpike]

Just stop it. Stop making sense. Righties need somebody to blame other than the greed at the top that's really the cause of our current malaise.

Pulsar makes a good point as well. Sharp cutoff points in the current system discourage work, particularly for single moms wrt childcare and healthcare.

You have kids that you want the best for. You can work a minimum wage job cutting meat at a grocery store all day with no healthcare benefits and then pay for paycheck to daycare or you can stay home with your kids, get food stamps, maybe paid for housing and healthcare assistance for the poor. Seems like you'd be an idiot to work.

Why do illegal aliens do the shit jobs? Because they can't get the welfare benefits.

 

[woolfe9999]

Again, I think definition clears this up in saying that the majority of welfare recipients did not worked or look for work that year. The relative state of the economy is somewhat irrelevant if the issue is a lack of effort (supposedly due to a lack of incentive).

Except that it is well known that people give up looking for work in droves during a recession, and that it happened en masse in this particular recession. It's why the unemployment rate sometimes drops even though jobs aren't being created, because the BLS determines the unemployment rate based on those who are actively looking for work. And of course, when jobs are being created, the reverse will happen, like last month, where a sizeable number of jobs are created but the unemployment rate actually went up because lots of people actually re-entered the job hunt. The bottom line is that you can't assess the overall willingness to work in the most extreme job crisis that the economy has experienced in 80 years. Any analysis that starts with a false premise is a fail because it's garbage in, garbage out.

 

[Pulsar]

People have to do those jobs. In what world does it make sense for them to work necessary jobs while making a wage that isn't sufficient to survive?

Even if everybody "gets a damn education", those "menial" jobs will still exist. Hell, there's already a glut of people with degrees, and they're working in the service industry for less than living wages. The fact that it's possible to move up does not change the fact that those jobs MUST exist and be filled by some people.

The reason you think that's the natural state of the economy, a big chunk of the population working but not making enough to survive in the economy and needing welfare, is probably because of a century of brainwashing. Back in the subsistence farming days, if you farmed you had enough. Only if your crops failed would you need community support.

Of course people have to do those jobs. It makes sense for them to be paid less than a living wage because it is totally 100% UNSKILLED.

If I can plug a high-school drop-out with the IQ of a moron into a job and get him to ask "Do you want fries with that", there isn't a chance in hell that job should pay a living wage.

You completely sidestepped the reality of the situation: just like any commodity, there is a job MARKET. Educated, high skilled individuals in a certain profession make a certain amout: that amout is what the market can support. Uneducated unskilled individuals make far less, because to make a crappy cheeseburger that costs $1.00, you can't pay your workers all that much money.

It's simple market economics. Our disagreement goes far far deeper here. You believe socialism works. Most rational people understand that it doesn't.

Up the minimum wages, and the price of a Cheeseburger goes up. If the price of a cheesburger goes up, then the prices of the higher-quality products will go up (or NO one will buy cheeseburgers). This is simply supply and demand economics. It's pretty much a natural law.

Screwing around with the lower payscales, in the end, simply creates inflation. Pay inflation and product cost inflation. It's a never ending cycle. Unless of course you go that step further that all socialist countries do and start putting price limits on everything. Then no one ends up being able to make a living wage, and you create artificial shortages, bread lines, and disaster.

Socialized economies /DO/NOT/WORK.

Ever worse is the 'why should I get an education effect'. See what the high pay rates that the unions managed to negotiate have done. We have a chunk of the population that dropped out of school and went work. They are now largely uneducated, almost totally unskilled, and most are on unemployement now as those high-paying unskilled jobs disappear (welcome to the free market at work).

 

[Pulsar]

And the rich do not follow any moral code of conduct because it doesn't make economic sense to be good to your fellow man.

But, that point is moot - since most of those in power view the poor as something less than human.

I'm sorry, but I'm over here laughing my ass off.

Your overgeneralization and demonization of 'rich' people is ridiculous (as are most of your poorly thought through posts).

Sure, there are those that don't do much for us. Most of them reside in places like, oh, the NBA, the NFL, Music artists.... consumerists with no social conscience. (And oddly enough, because our culture idolizes them, many of our kids are turning out just like them. /shock)

On the flip side, you have people like Bill Gates. Dean Kamen. Amir Bose. Bill Ford. Alan Mulally. Warren Buffet. Gordon Moore. Alfred Man. Sidney Frank. Stephen Ross. Michael Dell. Cheryl Saban. Just to name a few.

Grow up and lose your stereotyping.