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I live in the north east and of the dozen or so restaurants/bars we frequent enough that we are super friendly with the servers, the most they get is half price meals right before or after their shift. Most are not chains, but this is normal for the chains like Texas Roadhouse and Chili's also.
I think these free meals before lunch/dinner service might be a tradition in the Asian restraint. I've heard it many times, that one chef is designated to cook for the whole staff. Using mainly food left over from the previous day and nor producing restaurant quality meals. I have no idea how common this is...
And where are you getting your information? And where do you work and live?
The two Japanese restaurants I worked out in 1980's offered their employees two free meals. One after we closed after lunch, the second at night after the final close. Even Anthony's Pier 4 Restaurant in Boston, where the sons taking over the business were cheap @ssholes, they fed their employees a staff meal for free.
All the hotels offer their employees a free meal, at least that's how it is in Boston.
Now I do a lot of catering work. And I see a good number of temp workers passing through. We all get a free meal after the event is over. It's all food leftover from the event and going to be thrown out anyway.
And the bonus for the employers in feeding their staff, is that they work better when they aren't starving. And they are less likely to steal bites to eat from the guests' food.
I put myself through college in the early 80's working as a waitress and bartender and the ONLY free food I ever got was the oysters the guys working the oyster bar would slip to me..... oh yeah.... they would also give me a bowl of seafood gumbo every now and again, too.......
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Originally Posted by 2sleepy
Are you serious, you expect women to give up their kids because they are poor? wow...just wow
Right??
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Originally Posted by Corn-fused
Exactly this! ^^
*sigh* The abundance of ignorance in this world is downright astounding and appalling, isn't it?
Currently, taxpayers lose half their paychecks to pay for so-called "entitlement" programs. Those on welfare get a subsidized private apartment; food stamps (which can used to buy fattening junk food); a check to buy cigs, beer, and lottery tickets; money enough to have cable TV and Internet; they get extra money for having more kids they can't support; many just sit around all day or get into trouble (gangs, drugs, crime), and the cycle continues for generations. Those in homeless shelters wander the streets of the city all day randomly.
So I have a solution. You set up essentially camps in the country. Everyone has everything they need: food (communal dining; only healthy diets), shelter (same-sex bunkhouses, trailers for families), and everyone works on the farm all day growing vegetables, raising livestock, perhaps making marketable craft items. No one sits around idle. Reasonable health care is provided, as are opportunities to get a GED and job training.
If they want better, they can do better ("poor" isn't an immutable state, as many seem to think); if not, continue there, where they are self-sustaining and not a drain on society. Seems like a decent life to me.
In the 1930s, we had the CCC, and those men say it was the best time of their lives. They had all they needed to live and were productive. "Something for nothing" demoralizes both the giver and the receiver.
Thoughts?
Are you serious right now? You must not have ever been poor or needed help, huh? Not all poor people are leeches, groceries are expensive as lleh, people get what they can afford.
The total Federal Budget is over 4T. Housing and welfare for families and children totals around 350B for all levels of govt: Federal, State and Local - that is less than 1% of the budget! Welfare was converted into workfare waaaaay back in 1996. This cut the welfare problem. Today, the big items in the budget are Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense. If you throw in Social Security, then you have accounted for 80% of the budget. If you want the government to work right, then you have to adjust the taxes to meet the needed programs. Taxing the middle classes and homeowners and not taxing the corporations or the rich is the problem.
Last edited by FaitMarch; 07-21-2017 at 04:00 PM..
Reason: missed a word
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
11,974 posts, read 25,468,595 times
Reputation: 12187
Medicaid, Medicare, and SS are mostly welfare programs. Anyone that is on welfare if possible switches to get on SS disability because you get so much more money. From my own family experience many people that are on disability are defrauding the system.
Currently, taxpayers lose half their paychecks to pay for so-called "entitlement" programs. Those on welfare get a subsidized private apartment; food stamps (which can used to buy fattening junk food); a check to buy cigs, beer, and lottery tickets; money enough to have cable TV and Internet; they get extra money for having more kids they can't support; many just sit around all day or get into trouble (gangs, drugs, crime), and the cycle continues for generations. Those in homeless shelters wander the streets of the city all day randomly.
So I have a solution. You set up essentially camps in the country. Everyone has everything they need: food (communal dining; only healthy diets), shelter (same-sex bunkhouses, trailers for families), and everyone works on the farm all day growing vegetables, raising livestock, perhaps making marketable craft items. No one sits around idle. Reasonable health care is provided, as are opportunities to get a GED and job training.
If they want better, they can do better ("poor" isn't an immutable state, as many seem to think); if not, continue there, where they are self-sustaining and not a drain on society. Seems like a decent life to me.
In the 1930s, we had the CCC, and those men say it was the best time of their lives. They had all they needed to live and were productive. "Something for nothing" demoralizes both the giver and the receiver.
Agreed. It is always best to leave the child with their own loving biological parent and just cover the shortfall with assistance, then to set up the child with the psychological issues of being abandoned.
It would be far better if people gave some thought to costs of raising a child before becoming pregnant or impregnating someone. In today's New York Times, this article appeared, Foster Care as Punishment: The New Reality of ‘Jane Crow’. What one wonders is why people decide to bring single-parent children into the world, particularly if they totally lack any support system to raise the child.
It would be far better if people gave some thought to costs of raising a child before becoming pregnant or impregnating someone. In today's New York Times, this article appeared, Foster Care as Punishment: The New Reality of ‘Jane Crow’. What one wonders is why people decide to bring single-parent children into the world, particularly if they totally lack any support system to raise the child.
You obviously didn't even read those because many of the women had a parent or grandparent or other family member to help them. The standards of care are much different for poor women taking care of their kids as they aren't given the same benefit of the doubt that middle and upper class parents are.
There are about 250,000,000 adults in the U.S. and about 4/5 of them make under $100K. So that's 200 million people receiving $25K each for a total bill of $6.25 trillion. That is about 34% of the GDP of the country, which of course would go down because any group of four adults could make $100K a year just sitting around instead of doing the hard work it takes to make yourself worth that much. Hmmm.
I see. You think it's because people don't want to work hard so that's why they're poor. Um, I don't want to be rude, but the fact it, most businesses are looking for people who work smart - those are the ones who have college degrees.
The people who work hard are usually the ones in service industries. You know, the minimum wage people who work their butts off at low paying jobs and no one thinks they're worth the amount of money they earn.
But just suppose someone wants to get skills and a college degree. How? If you have enough money to pay your way through college, you're already making enough so that you don't need it.
Well, I find it ironic that you're assertion is I don't know what poor is. That isn't actually untrue, so fair enough. OTOH, you seem to be judging both actual poor and those close to that threshold them yourself [shrug]
I've never liked it when people use a blanket statement for all people, and yes, I know, I'm guilty of doing it myself at times. It's something I try to guard against, but I'm not always successful.
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Originally Posted by miu
And MY parents were responsible for my education. When I was young, every weekend had a trip to a museum, zoo or nature walks in the park. My mother read to us at night the classics like Stuart Little and Charlotte's Webb. And in third grade, she was reading to us chapters out of The Hobbit. And that greatly expanded our vocabulary. Visits to the museums sparked my interests in the sciences and also antiques. Later on in middle and high schools, once a week we were taken to the public library for several hours. We would browse the stacks and check out a pile of books for the week. We listened to a lot of classical music at home too. And tv was watching NOVA and Masterpiece Theatre... yes, so parents can do so much more for their children than they are doing today. And most of that can be free. Instead of parents trying to be their children's best friends, then need to be exposing their children to good influences. And like my parents, they should tell their kids that their job is to go to school, respect their teachers, and do their schoolwork well.
First of all, if I only have $194 a month to spend on food, I'm certainly NOT going to get pregnant and have babies until I make more money than that. As to the food budget, getting a job at a restaurant or other industry that has food service would provide me with one or two free meals a day. So that means only buying groceries for my days off from work. However, I would also pick up temp work as a banquet server or other food industry worker (cook, bartender) and once again I would be able to eat for free AND use most of that $194 to use in some other way.
And I would keep working that hard until I was able to make better wages. If I liked cooking, I would study the techniques on the cooking show contests and whatever else I find on YouTube for free to watch. Then approach a restaurant and earn my way to an apprenticeship in the cooking staff, even if I had to start as a dishwasher. Great servers and bartenders can also do very well at upscale restaurants... it's really all about putting in some real effort and hustle ones @ss off. Not sitting back, making babies and waiting for handouts.
And in regards to a $194 a month food budget, I'd eat more like a traditional Asian. Buy a giant bag of rice, get a rice steamer. Then buy mostly veggies to steam on top of the cooking rice. Finally a very small portion of protein. Chicken thighs go on sale frequently. Or buy whole chickens. Whole pork shoulder roasts are also cheap. And then there is the tofu option. Americans eat way too much meat. Veggies are way cheaper than meat. And veggies can be home grown in window boxes in the warmer months. And for variety, one can experiment with different spices and herbs. There is no need to resort to unhealthy mac and cheese dinners.
And I would drink tap water instead of buying milk, soda and juices. If one is leery of tap water, then buy a Brita water filtering pitcher.
BTW those immigrants coming in from the Dominican Republic and South America, such as Chile, do have a problem with choosing to drink soda over water, and also feel uncomfortable drinking tap water because of the water systems in their home country. Drinking soda is also showing affluence. And many actually don't like the taste of water. (Read an article last year in the NYT on Colorada giving classes to immigrants trying to persuade them to drink water instead of soda.)
Unless you were home schooled, your parents were not responsible for the majority of the education you received. That is, if you received it in the US. Public school is free in the US, paid for by tax dollars, local and federal.
And as for not getting pregnant before making the big bucks, it's perfectly possible you may find yourself in a totally stable relationship with a house and a good job and you might decide to have a baby. Two or three years down the road, you might find yourself divorced and supporting that child all by yourself. Maybe your husband turned into an alcoholic, a wife abuser, a child abuser, or decided he just wanted out of the marriage. It's easy to say if I do X, life will be Y, but that doesn't always happen.
As for cooking, I learned to cook completely from videos on the computer because my mother taught me nothing about cooking. She didn't want me in her kitchen because I would "make a mess". But as I said, I'm one of the lucky ones. I have a computer and I have electricity for a computer connection. I have a stove to cook on and a fridge to keep food stored. How would you cook if you lived in a motel with only a hot plate and maybe not even that, no fridge, no computer connection, or maybe even no electricity?
By the way, if you tried to buy some food to go from a grocery store with your food stamps, you'd be out of luck. You can't buy hot food on food stamps. So anything you'd buy from a store would have to be heated up if you wanted it warm.
People sometimes live where they can't grow any vegetables. I live in a room with a west facing window and I'm not allowed to have anything on the window sill. Other people don't have yards or know less about growing things than they do about cooking.
You're right, you could eat more Asian foods and so could other people. But don't forget, you have to eat both cheap and nutritious. Sometimes you can't combine the two.
You talk about things like buying a water filter like it was so easy to do. Again, if someone is having a hard time buying food, they may not be able to afford a water filter and the cartridges on a regular basis. And just because you work at a restaurant doesn't mean you will have free access to food. Some restaurants let you have one free meal per shift and some don't. The restaurant I worked at let us eat some things free and charged us for others. And let's not forget, restaurant food isn't exactly known for being healthy, either.
While some people have worked their way through college at a restaurant, you need to be aware that restaurants are one of "those" jobs. Your hours and days can change every week. You may be on call for any shift at any time and told you will be fired if you don't show up. Managers in these kinds of jobs don't give a hoot about your class schedule. All they're interested in is if you can and will show up to work. Likewise for working a second job.
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It's the Tax Policy not the Welfare Policy
