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Th incentives are the same as they have always been -- the opportunity to make a better life. The ignorant stereotypes haven't changed much either, by the way.
I guess you're starting to listen to some of the wisdom here. You now admit there are plenty of opportunities to make a better life in this country. They're just all there for the taking.
I guess you're starting to listen to some of the wisdom here. You now admit there are plenty of opportunities to make a better life in this country. They're just all there for the taking.
Same sort of wisdom one would expect from a bunch of agitated magpies. Meanwhile, picking lettuce and strawberries in the US isn't actually much different from picking lettuce and strawberries anyplace else. It's a dead-end job anywhere, but the pay -- while still terrible -- is better here. The average income of a farm worker family in the US is between $17,500 and $20,000. What a great opportunity to get on the gravy train THAT is!!!
uh yeah... being poor in the USA is better than being poor in the third world but being rich in the third world is still much better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dayton Sux
Looking at the HHS poverty guideline for a one person household: $11,190/year, which is $932.50/month.
Deduct rent, say $300/month (for low-end rental housing in Dayton), and you are at $632/month
FYI $300/month won't get you anything here. As a university student, I'm paying $490/month for a bedroom in a run-down house on a noisy road sharing a tiny kitchen and 2 bathrooms with 6 other guys (no living/dining room, although there is a common room in the basement). I also don't own a car and rarely eat out, but I don't consider myself poor, this is pretty normal for students around here and I think I've chosen a good degree that will help me get a decent job after I graduate.
Clearly Dayton is quite cheap, what kind of jobs are available to someone without a car there?
There are obviously things one can do to try to get out of poverty as an individual, and for some people it will work, but I think the rewards are getting smaller, the chances lower and the effort required greater, especially in certain areas for people from certain backgrounds. I don't think poverty is especially unusual from a historical point of view (although it's been better too), but rather advancement is more difficult than it used to be. I get how capitalism works, the possibility of wealth and the discomfort of poverty acts as motivation to work hard/smart, but if "making it" becomes more difficult, more people will be tempted to give up.
I don't think the solution is income redistribution per se, (although the pandering to corporations needs to stop) but rather bringing middle class jobs back into the country, and ensuring people have equal opportunity to become successful or even middle class. This means more middle class jobs in inner cities or wherever the poor are, an equal quality of public schools (not an issue everywhere, but certainly some places), lower post-secondary tuition and more scholarships for students with good grades, and looking at ways to fix various inner city issues. I understand that perfect equality of opportunity can't realistically be achieved, but I do think it's possible and important to do better.
You cannot afford anything you you like, even though you work harder than most and deserve more!
Being poor is like a vicious cycle, it's extremley hard to get out of, despite what people say.
It depends upon your definition of "poor". "You can't afford anything you like"... well, if you have champagne tastes and a beer budget, yeah, you're going to have problems. But if you have beer tastes and a beer budget, you'll be just fine. The trick is to learn to "like" what you can "afford".
You have to consider that there are benefits to being poor.
1) You won't have to buy health insurance under Obamacare - it'll be totally subsidized. Those who can afford it must pay for it.
2) You don't have to pay income taxes to anywhere near the same extent as richer people. Translation: you may not make much money but at least you get to keep pretty much all of it. (You might even qualify for the "earned income tax credit" which could possibly net you a check from the Feds worth more than you paid out in taxes!)
3) You don't have as much stuff that people can steal. When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.
4) Things you buy are not likely to depreciate anywhere near as much. Say you can only afford to buy a $1,000 car... do you really think it's going to become worth much less than that no matter what you do to it? Contrast that to a new car, which loses at least $1,000 in value the moment you drive it off the lot.
5) You can live a simple life. If you match your income and expenses (meaning: don't ever put yourself in a position where you run a measurable risk of having to "overspend"), you can have a simple job with relatively little responsibility / stress, and still be able to live. Trust me on this one. My wife and I are presently making about 1/3 of what we were making just last year, and we love our lives a heck of a lot more than we did last year. The trick was that we simplified, de-stressed, and matched our expenses to the income we were going to have.
6) There are programs, grants, safety nets, etc. out the ying-yang for poor people. Free this, free that, free something else. Shelters, community centers, education programs, job placement offices, food stamps, section 8 vouchers, free health clinics, etc. People with money have to pay for this stuff.
You can find, online, studies to show the real differences (or lack thereof) between poor people and rich people. I read one, one time (though its Web location escapes me) which showed that the total economic benefit of a person making $15,000 per year, one making $30,000 per year, and one making $60,000 per year are approximately the same. The $15,000 guy gets free stuff that's worth what others would have to pay for similar services, the $30,000 guy about breaks even, and the $60,000 guy loses money to taxes, insurance, etc. that the others wouldn't ordinarily have to pay.
The 2013 federal poverty level for one person is $11,490. Dividing by 12 yields $957.50 per month. If you are one person with an average appetite, you can live on $200 per month for food and be eating good stuff. (You could do $100 per month or even less, but you'd be eating a lot of rice, beans, oatmeal, and Ramen.) You're left with $757.50. Live near your job and you won't have to do much commuting - cost of automotive fuel can be zero if you use a bike. Furthermore, using a bike will keep you in shape so you don't have to pay for a gym membership. At that salary level, you'd qualify for free medical care whether there's Obamacare or not, so we don't have to include that as a line item. It is plenty possible to find a $300/month apartment, or to get a roommate or two and share a nicer, more expensive apartment or house. You have to live in an inexpensive area, but they exist and they're not always scumholes either. Subtract out $300 for rent - now you have $457.50 left over. Let's estimate an average of $150 per month for utilities... it'll be higher in the rough weather months and lower in the nice weather months... but that seems like a good high estimate for the cost of utilities for a $300 apartment or for your share of a larger, more expensive dwelling unit. You're down to $307.50. Cheap cell phone with unlimited talk and text- $50 per month after taxes and fees. $257.50 remains. That's all discretionary income, right there.
And the nifty thing is that you can achieve this level of living by working one minimum wage part-time job. Assuming your net income tax burden is zero due to getting a refund and an Earned Income tax credit, you could work 31 hours per week at $7.25 per hour and make this amount. Stands to reason that if you have one full-time minimum wage job, or two or more minimum wage jobs whose hours sum up to 40 per week, you'd be doing even better (approximately $65 per month better, give or take a bit). Most people don't understand that someone making "right on the poverty line" wages in America is wealthier than 97% of the people in this world. Stop giving in to the profiteering corporations' propaganda about how you have to have all of their expensive stuff in order to feel good about yourself, and you'll find that having a poverty-level income really isn't so bad. I should know. I've done it. I'm pretty sure my wife and I are doing it right now, when the costs of making our money are factored out.
Usually "rich" people wind up indenturing themselves to their high-rolling lifestyle by purchasing (on credit) a bunch of really expensive things... or purchasing huge homes which require exorbitant property tax payments every year. We could all learn a thing or two from Warren Buffett. He is one of the richest men in the world... and he still lives in the same modest home he purchased when he was 28 years old - over 50 years ago. He drives a 1996 Volvo, as of the last time I heard anything about it (which was sometime in 2013). Nothing about Buffett would scream "rich" to the average observer. He could purchase anything he wanted. He chooses to live simply... because trusting in riches is a feeble thing.
When I was making tons of money, I also had tons of expenses. I'd collect huge wads of cash from my tenants at payment time, and it wouldn't be that impressive because I'd know it was going right out the door toward some expense. I'd collect large numbers of checks from students' families and add them up in my head to make sure I was going to clear that month's expenses. The grass ain't greener on the other side of the fence. I got to envying people who were living a simple life with low income, low stress, and low expenses. (I don't know of any method of making lots of money which is low-stress... and believe me, I've researched them and tried a few myself. They don't exist.) Now I am one... and it's everything I imagined it'd be. Oh, we'll get off the road at some point and buy a house... but it'll be a small house, with a small payment, and we'll be able to keep our expenses so low that we won't have to worry much about what'll happen if we lose some income. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
Same sort of wisdom one would expect from a bunch of agitated magpies. Meanwhile, picking lettuce and strawberries in the US isn't actually much different from picking lettuce and strawberries anyplace else. It's a dead-end job anywhere, but the pay -- while still terrible -- is better here. The average income of a farm worker family in the US is between $17,500 and $20,000. What a great opportunity to get on the gravy train THAT is!!!
Easy there Mr"IWANTWOODTONIGHT" We know you like to set yourself up for the protector of the downtrodden. I have worked along side of many illegals. Most have gone onto many jobs beside the fields. Unlike what you think, when they see opportunities, they go for them. Many find good paying construction jobs. Plus many other well paying jobs. Life is not stagnate, people move up and down due to many reasons. Point is people move in and out of poverty everyday. I am sure they appreciate your good intentions, but many can do it with out your so called help.
Easy there Mr"IWANTWOODTONIGHT" We know you like to set yourself up for the protector of the downtrodden. I have worked along side of many illegals. Most have gone onto many jobs beside the fields. Unlike what you think, when they see opportunities, they go for them. Many find good paying construction jobs. Plus many other well paying jobs. Life is not stagnate, people move up and down due to many reasons. Point is people move in and out of poverty everyday. I am sure they appreciate your good intentions, but many can do it with out your so called help.
About one-third of farm workers have less than 4 years experience. About one-fourth have more than 20 years experience. The average is 13 years experience. That's not so much moving on as all your "first-hand" experience has led you to claim.
Poor, poor, pitiful you. We all pay taxes. Even in the bottom 20%, better than 16% of income goes to taxes. We all pay them and our elected representatives decide what to do with them. There are flights out if you don't like the system. I'll come wave goodbye.
Ideally the huddled masses would be loaded onto garbage barges and dumped off an island somewhere.
Just think of how great life would be without the evil Bootstrappers keeping you down!
Clearly you'd have a thriving society in no time given your track record of personal and financial success.
Or without evil Bootstrappers to leech off of you'd die of exposure and starvation, just as you would here without a host to parasitize.
Yes -- and they're pouring over the border by the thousands and having no trouble finding jobs --- and they'll be the first to tell you that being "poor" in the USA is far better than being rich in most other countries.
Why whine and why not instead get to work like some of these immigrants who understand that there are loads of opportunities in this country? They have a work ethic, they're doing great.
I've gotten to know a few more of those "immigrants" recently. I'm impressed by many of these people's willingness to move to where the work is. They may only work for a few months per year at a job, but their feelers are always out there, so quite often, they're putting in more than 40 hrs per week, when you average out their yearly total.
Some of these people thrive on the lifestyle. They work the seafood industry on the coast, but then head to Eastern Washington, in the summer time, to pick produce. They can't wait for things to slow down over here, so that they can head East for a couple of months. They have another community over there, people who are thrilled to see them, catch up on events from the past year. They're not constantly whining about their menial labor, minimum wage jobs, either. They are so happy to have ANY work. None of it is beneath them. It is simply work that they're grateful to have.
In a world where money is the lubricant - being poor is like living on sand paper. It is stressful and it can ruin your health...no so much that poverty can kill you but the artificial world based on disposable cash seems to crush those who don't quiet fit in- It's not that poor sucks - it is that if you are poor you get persecuted. My mother used to say "Never tell anyone how much money you have or you don't have"
What I do to counter act the natural persecution of being poor is - I dress well...I am groomed...clean and shrewd. I NEVER let anyone know my full business...people assume that have resources. I have nothing - but I am not about to tell you that.
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