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I don't think its an issue of victims as we should look at the issue of why in our modern society an average american can't just work one job and pay there way thru college? My grandfather did on just a grocery job in the 50s and 60s. Are we lazy or are some just greedy?
I reflect on the stat that half of the births in our country are paid for by medicare etc. But in the back of my mind i ask is this because half the people in our country are lazy and want a handout or is it that healthcare is so insanely expensive? Reality is about perception, can we also look at big business and remember a time where a million dollar profit was something to celebrate, then we needed a billion, now we need multi trillion. Thou we talk about supply and demand being what dictates prices, i can't help feel that the monopoly of healthcare professionals determines prices. Monkey see monkey do. Could we see crazy prices as a way to comp lifestyles?
People are still sharing apartments and renting rooms but some here seem to have never heard of it or consider it cruel.
But you can't ignore that times have changed? I live as simple as possible and i own a small business and i wouldn't be able to afford to pay my own way thru 4 years college today.
In many (not all) places in the United States, a minimum wage job could provide shelter, water, food, clothing, public transportation, AND catastrophic health insurance, WITH MONEY TO SPARE for one person. With the leftover time and money, the poor person could further their education and skills, and stop being poor.
Regardless of rents or costs or anything else, this mythical person does not exist. A single person without disabilities or some other extenuating circumstances would not be on "welfare."
they dont. the affluent fat cat managers that run the program get the lions share of the money.
Ding Ding Ding, ladies and gentleman we have a winner. Rule of thumb. Any illness in society the reason it exists is because somebody is profiting from it. Take the profit away the problem will go away. And the ones profitting are not who you think are.
Ding Ding Ding, ladies and gentleman we have a winner. Rule of thumb. Any illness in society the reason it exists is because somebody is profiting from it. Take the profit away the problem will go away. And the ones profitting are not who you think are.
Or just all the social service providers for homelessness and poverty etc. When alot of charity CEOs are making a mil a year in wages thats not going to who they serve.
First off, a lot of people don't have jobs, and a significant portion of those who do can only find part-time work that brings in very little income. For instance, let's say Sophie works 20 hours per week at $8 per hour for 50 weeks a year, a very typical scenario among the working poor - Sophie's earning $8000 per year. This is the reason I think the talking point that "no one who works full-time should live in poverty" is irrelevant - the vast majority of minimum wage jobs fall well short of full-time work, which I think is what the OP might be talking about.
Let us take another hypothetical person, Jake, who earns $8 an hour but is lucky enough to be working full-time; he can make $16000 per year, which is still very little. In most cities Jake is going to find that the cheapest non-ruined shelter of his own is $400 per month; that's $4800 per year. Food is rather expensive nowadays - decent groceries for one person might be found for as low as $50 per week, another $2600 per year. So groceries and housing alone cost at least $7600 per year. Even before spending on clothing, utilities, and transportation Sophie's almost out of money. Decent clothing will run at least $100 per year, so we're up to $7700. Electricity and water for one person doing much of anything in temperate months will run at least $100 per month, which amounts to at least $1200 per year. Now we're spending $8900 per year. Sophie is now out of money and is thousands of dollars in the red - without help she'll have to choose between basic utilities, food, and having shelter, so she seeks assistance. This is before transportation and health insurance and doesn't even include heating and air conditioning - sure, one can live without climate control, but if you can't afford it few would dispute that you're in poverty.
Jake still has some money left, and will try to be self-sufficient and avoid becoming a welfare dependent like poor Sophie. He'll be spending $50 per month on climate control even if he only uses enough to keep from freezing or roasting. Another $600 per year. Transportation will vary from $1400 per year if he can take the cheapest public transit to $1700 if he has a viable used car, assuming he has an average commute of 10 miles to his job and his non-job-related trips he takes like anyone in the mainstream of American life would come to 20% of that. Now his living expenses come to $10900-11200 per year. Even pre-Obamacare catastrophic health insurance that pays 100% above the already-high deductible came to $300 per month at the cheapest. That's another $3600. That takes care of the OP's list of items plus utilities bought as cheap as possible. Jake's living expenses now come to $14800. He only has $1200 per year, which will probably be nickel-and-dimed to nothing once he makes the minimum level of annual purchases of household goods, furniture, and unexpected expenses necessary to live in that housing he's renting. Although Jake makes just enough money to avoid needing assistance he is pretty impoverished by mainstream America's standards considering that after a minimum level of expenses related to sleeping, eating, and working he has nothing left for anything else.
Jake also has to work full-time: 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year to just barely pay the most basic living expenses. He has no money for any tuition, and even if he did if he took enough time off to study for any reasonable length of time his income would plunge and he'd have to go on welfare like Sophie. To even have a shadow of a chance at going to any kind of school he'll have to seek aid. Jake daydreams of finding a sweet and capable wife and helping her raise their children, but back in reality he'll never be able to afford a wife and children. He's also terrified about his prospects for retirement, since he can't save anything and Social Security might not be there when he retires in 30 years, and if he loses his job, can't work as many hours, or prices for food, housing, and gasoline go up, he'll have to seek assistance like poor Sophie had to.
If Jake and Sophie can make their way to a free public library and log onto the Internet together (which being as poor as they are they don't get at home) they'll be in for a shock. Jake will find that a quarter of earners and a fifth of households make less money than he does. Sophie, so sad that she had to beg the state for welfare, will find that a sixth of earners and a tenth of households are even worse off than she is financially. Jake and Sophie, knowing that they're so poor themselves, are concerned that so many people, most of which unlike them have dependents, are even poorer than they are.
Even a tenth of the population, the smallest of those figures, amounts to 30 million people who are in need of assistance, and even if the government only spends $5000 on each of them, enough to provide for the deficiency in funding the OP's basic needs, that amounts to $150 billion in total - and remember that these are only people who are poorer than Sophie, who is firmly in poverty. Considering that Jake, who makes twice as much as Sophie, is just a few paychecks away from needing assistance the true amount of need is probably significantly higher than even that monstrous figure.
One can debate (and I have debated) the expediency, morality, and fairness of state welfare and the concomitant redistribution of taxpayer dollars - that is the question of whether the need for assistance should be provided for and if so by whom. Whether the need exists is an entirely separate question, and as I have outlined it is abundantly clear that currently a large fraction of the population is truly in need of assistance.
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