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Old 07-27-2013, 11:11 AM
 
505 posts, read 763,094 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by malamute View Post
Wrong -- while you might not live exactly like a king on $61,000, you can live quite well --- far better than many working middle class who make $30,000 to $40,000 and even must pay taxes and health insurance premiums.

Over $60,000 in Welfare Spent Per Household in Poverty | The Weekly Standard

"If you divide total federal and state spending by the number of households with incomes below the poverty line, the average spending per household in poverty was $61,194 in 2011."
That statistic is highly misleading because:
1. It uses an incredibly broad definition of welfare spending
2. It counts spending on many programs which benefit a large number of households above the poverty line, so dividing by just the number of household below the poverty line, instead of the number of households who benefit, inflates the average

For example, it includes education programs like Pell Grants, various public works programs, and tax credits like the child tax credit and EITC. The largest portion of the "welfare" spending is on healthcare programs like Medicaid, which includes many formerly "middle class" older people in nursing homes, and CHIP, which also provides coverage for a number of "working class" kids whose parents don't have insurance.

You can read the actual report and see the numbers for yourself here: http://www.budget.senate.gov/republi...2-fa8ac8a8edad
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Old 07-27-2013, 11:22 AM
 
10,097 posts, read 9,965,451 times
Reputation: 5225
Quote:
Originally Posted by shamrock847 View Post
That statistic is highly misleading because:
1. It uses an incredibly broad definition of welfare spending
2. It counts spending on many programs which benefit a large number of households above the poverty line, so dividing by just the number of household below the poverty line, instead of the number of households who benefit, inflates the average

For example, it includes education programs like Pell Grants, various public works programs, and tax credits like the child tax credit and EITC. The largest portion of the "welfare" spending is on healthcare programs like Medicaid, which includes many formerly "middle class" older people in nursing homes, and CHIP, which also provides coverage for a number of "working class" kids whose parents don't have insurance.

You can read the actual report and see the numbers for yourself here: http://www.budget.senate.gov/republi...2-fa8ac8a8edad
To be fair to the article, they excluded Medicare and SS. But regardless, the only program considered "welfare" in the nation is TANF. The right wing tends to define "welfare" with a really really broad brush.

Except of course when it comes to corporate handouts and bailouts. That's not welfare to them.
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Old 07-27-2013, 02:02 PM
 
Location: North Idaho
32,545 posts, read 47,663,179 times
Reputation: 78000
Quote:
Originally Posted by S.S. Lazio View Post
.............................

At work:
If your name is on your shirt- low class
If your name is on your desk- middle class
If your name is on the building- high class

........................
That's an interesting definition. I know several people who are solidly and comfortably middle class that wear their name on their shirt. Mostly, they are business owners, but some of them are saleried employees that happen to work someplace where the salaries are generous.
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Old 07-27-2013, 04:31 PM
 
47,525 posts, read 69,536,408 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by radiolibre99 View Post
To be fair to the article, they excluded Medicare and SS. But regardless, the only program considered "welfare" in the nation is TANF. The right wing tends to define "welfare" with a really really broad brush.

Except of course when it comes to corporate handouts and bailouts. That's not welfare to them.
Maybe the liberals decided to redefine welfare handouts as only the big cash giveaway program and not the others -- but why? That's rather absurd to limit the definition to only free cash when there are very many welfare programs including free health care, free housing, free cell phones, free food --- they all have cash value don't they?

Back to the topic of this thread -- I would think no one defines the government dependent as middle class, so whether or not someone thinks welfare recipients are living high enough on the hog or not, they are the poor in the USA and are the most trapped classwise.

Someone working for a living generally needs a paycheck to pay for housing, food, medical care -- and it doesn't matter too much if he earns $30,000 or $250,000, he needs that pay check or will no longer be middle class for long. Someone who is rich I believe doesn't really have to work, their trust funds would be enough.
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Old 07-27-2013, 06:20 PM
 
6,790 posts, read 8,179,618 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by radiolibre99 View Post
The articles premise seems more like a sleight of hand technique to stir up more anti-welfare sentiment among the right wing (*cough*, baby boomers). I mean to evenly divide the total spending on welfare with the total number of people living below the poverty line is so deceptive. First off, not all those families apply or receive assistance, middle income earners also receive some aid, and not all those families who do receive assistance receive 60k worth of it. I am not even sure this is the case for a small portion of the families on assistance.

This is just another article in a line of many that attack social services as the main burden. Poor people are the scapegoats here, not rich people avoiding taxes ("but they provide jobs, dur hur", "why punish success, ahyuck"), not defense overspending, not two trillion dollar wars, corporate welfare and bailouts.

It's those darn poor people who buy cigarettes and booze with their food stamps, gosh darn it!

If that BS article you posted was true these households wouldn't be below the poverty line anymore.
People also ignore that many of the people who receive these benefits are working full time jobs, not layabouts who do nothing but sit around, and wait for handouts. I know a young family who would be homeless, and have difficulty feeding their children without the very small amount of government aid they receive. This family includes a married couple who both work full time jobs. He works during the day and she works in the evening, they rarely see each other and she gets little time with their son who is in school all day, but they have no choice because they can't afford child care. These are hard working people with two full time jobs, but they still don't earn enough to support their family, and anyone who thinks these people are living great, getting everything they could want in life for free is insane. This couple almost lost their trailer, and would have been evicted without family help. Two full time workers are struggling to pay rent on a trailer!

People attack them because they receive benefits, and blame them for our country's problems, but maybe they should be thinking about the companies that don't pay their employees enough to live on, and do everything they can to avoid paying employee benefits like health care. Taxpayers pay around 6K in welfare benefits for every Walmart employee while the company rakes in record profits, and it's top executives are among the highest paid people in the country.

In the US, it used to be that we had a working class who could have a modest, but decent life, they could own a small home, support their families, and with hard work, and a couple promotions many could become middle class. We are quickly becoming a country where a few wealthy elite get insanely rich off a huge underclass of people who will never get out of poverty. The working and middle classes are disappearing.
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Old 07-27-2013, 07:12 PM
 
117 posts, read 60,850 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by malamute View Post
Wrong -- while you might not live exactly like a king on $61,000, you can live quite well --- far better than many working middle class who make $30,000 to $40,000 and even must pay taxes and health insurance premiums.

Over $60,000 in Welfare Spent Per Household in Poverty | The Weekly Standard

"If you divide total federal and state spending by the number of households with incomes below the poverty line, the average spending per household in poverty was $61,194 in 2011."
I worked for human services 30 years for around 60k. I guess I was on the wrong side of the desk.
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Old 07-27-2013, 07:22 PM
 
10,097 posts, read 9,965,451 times
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I don't know why right wingers scapegoat the poor so much except that they're literally being fed spoonfuls of corporate propaganda. Their opinions aren't really organic but a strong mixture of anecdotal evidence, racism and free market presumptions (espoused by corporate America).
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Old 07-27-2013, 07:36 PM
 
1,212 posts, read 2,245,570 times
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I always thought middle class indicated certain values, like caring about education, community, and family.
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Old 07-27-2013, 07:55 PM
 
Location: near bears but at least no snakes
26,649 posts, read 28,528,829 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by arrieros81 View Post
I always thought middle class indicated certain values, like caring about education, community, and family.
Agree. That's the reason I do not agree with one of the previous posts that said teachers are working class. There is nothing more middle class than teachers. Traditionally, it was the pathway out of working class. Today it is just pure middle class.
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Old 07-27-2013, 08:29 PM
 
Location: Duluth, Minnesota, USA
7,641 posts, read 18,076,039 times
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Your net worth does not determine your class. Often middle class adults go through a period of their lives in they have negative net worth due to student loans and the like.

The middle class is one of the two largest classes in the U.S., about the same size as the working class below it. It consists of people working in jobs that are neither closely-supervised nor completely autonomous (a small contractor and some owners of a small business may be exceptions), and that (today) often require about four years of post-secondary education, or rely on a specialized skill-set. Examples of typical middle-class occupations are registered nurse, teacher, police officer, and electrician. This is in contrast with working-class occupations, which traditionally require minimal or no post-secondary education, and the upper-middle class above it, which largely consists of people with graduate or professional degrees.

Families (this forum seems to have too individualistic of an outlook) or households in the middle class can generally afford two cars, a home mortgage (eventually terminating in outright ownership of the home if they stay long enough), and to put away money for retirement (if such is their priority). They may or may not be able to afford a vacation home, but can probably at least take a flying vacation every once in a while. They will perhaps be able to afford a motorized boat and/or motorcycle and/or motorhome, etc. They almost always require a constant income to maintain their consumption habits, and soon find themselves having to make difficult decisions upon the loss of a job or reduction in salary (as many personally experienced during the recession).

This video comes to mind when thinking of the middle-class:


Dad Life (Father's Day Opening 2010) - YouTube
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