This you just said is wrong, and I will explain why. The percent of the population that receives welfare is pretty flat. Its true that people are on it for a few months, and then go off. The problem, is that they then go back on. To say that the average user is only on it for 4 months is misleading, if over a 5 year span the person would have been on it for 20 months in 4 month increments. Its late and I am not going to look up the actual figures right now, but you can find them pretty easy. I know its something pretty close to 30% who leave welfare come back around 1 years, time, and over 50% come back in 5 years.
Also, the major people leave welfare is because they find a job. I see why you would make the assumption its for more money, because it could be, but that is not 100% correct either. When you look at after tax income, it is often that they end up making less money.
The implication of your statement was that people are not on welfare for very long, but that is not true. If you wanted to say that people were not on welfare for long consistent periods of time, then maybe.
Dignified work? WTF?Most people that espouse that view have never actually been in poverty within the last twenty years. They can get back to me when they know what it feels like to eat creamed corn as dinner for a straight week because it was all the food pantry had on hand. This, for me, was during the "boom times" of the mid to late nineties. My family eventually clawed their way out of that situation, but I know many that did not despite their best efforts. Nobody WANTS to be poor and be without the staples of food, clothing, shelter, etc., nor do they want to live where one or more of those things are uncertain from week to week.
It isn't about big or small government, laziness, dependency, or any of the other boogeymen/code words people use to describe the situation. For God's sake, its time that we put down the Ayn Rand crackpipe. People have the natural instinct to provide for themselves and their families by any means necessary. What people don't have are the ready access to dignified work.
Except there are multiple people in this thread who choose to live in poverty.
Dignified work? WTF?
I grew up fairly poor - not so poor as to think myself poor (poor to me meant hungry or on assistance or living in the projects) but poor enough to be cognizant that other kids grew up with bathrooms, televisions, nice cars, houses with insulation and without holes in the walls, Christmas presents that took electricity or had moving parts rather than molded plastic army men, that other kids ate meat regularly and not beans, turnip greens and fried potatoes every day, bacon and eggs for breakfast instead of cream of wheat or oatmeal. As I watched my parents claw their way out of that poverty, I never once heard them bemoaning the lack of "dignified work". If it's honest work and someone is willing to pay you to do it, and you need that work, then it's dignified. My mother started as a soda fountain girl and retired as the county financial director simply by asking what else she could do, what else she could learn to do - not by asking for "dignified work".
Personally I started work on farms - hauling hay, picking rocks, clearing brush, stringing fence, picking tomatoes and vegetables, mucking out barnyards. It never once occurred to me to wonder whether shoveling cow shit or picking rocks out of fields was "dignified work". It was what was offered at that particular moment.
If you're hungry and your family is hungry and you're concerned about whether the available work is "dignified work", then you aren't worth saving, period. No matetr what charitable programs are available.
Well said, although subsistence farmers typically lived on the edge of famine until the Industrial Revolution. Many things - a bad crop, increased taxation, a dying beast - could kick him from just enough to not enough, because the government and often the Church took its cut first. After the Industrial Revolution Westerners seldom died from starvation except from widespread crop failures, but even in the early twentieth century it was not at all uncommon for subsistence farmers or, much more often, laborers to be malnourished to the point of dying from otherwise nonfatal diseases. And here the old leftist saw "women and children hit hardest" was particularly appropriate, especially among laborers. The man earned the living; his rations couldn't be cut for fear of him losing his job and what little income the family had. Therefore whatever the shortfall, it had to fall on the wife and children. This is an unrestrained free market, feast and famine, and anyone wishing that to return is probably not really educated on its effects on the poor. It's every bit as casually brutal as communism.This is a topic Spy and I have talked about before. I know that Spy and many others think that many people die from starvation and have in the past as well. The problem is that data is very misleading, so anyone who takes a stance would not likely be doing so with data. The global stats I have see use malnutrition and hunger as the same thing. The reason I did not pick a side here, is because I cant say who is right.
To give some some context to history, we should define poor though. For the vast majority of history, many people were subsistence farmers. It was not until farming was able to make far more food that people moved from being farmers to other things. Back then, everyone was doing the same thing, so calling them poor might be misleading. Being a subsistence farmer was hard, but you had to do it to live, like most everyone else. They would be poor by modern standards, but poor is relative, so I think it would be incorrect to say they were poor in their time.
Also well said. I think though that usually it isn't so much that people realize how much easier is the dole than working, but that people lose the belief that they can succeed, whether because of their skin color or lack of education or gender or whatever circumstances apply. They also fear losing their benefits, especially housing assistance, if they earn too much. There is a middle ground where one's income is high enough that assistance is cut but also not high enough to live the same (poor) lifestyle on that income alone. That's on us as a society - it's just a poorly designed system of assistance. I very much agree that assistance should be geared toward getting one off of assistance, but designing a financial low point is an obstacle toward that end. The whole system - assistance, training programs, work programs, housing assistance, minimum wage - needs to work together to assure that when people work, they are better off than when they don't work.Correct. Poverty is a relative term. What we consider living in poverty now would be considered middle class not that long ago.
I think if we look back to the Dust Bowl days, we can learn a lot. The people hardest hit were what we would consider poor before the sand storms and crop failures. They worked hard and did what they had to do to survive. Then the disasters happened. They didn't just lay down and die. A lot of them moved, a lot of them banded together. A lot of them asked for help.
The government helped them figure out what went wrong, how to fix it and helped them get back on their feet. They didn't sit on their couches waiting for checks to come in. They did the work they had to do.
Now look at what happens today. People catch a bad break in life, collect welfare, get things for free, then realize how much easier that is than working. Their children grow up understanding the world of welfare and not the working world. They feel like victims of poverty and not people. The politicians preach to them about how evil rich people are and the victim mindset is locked in.
Poverty should be a temporary circumstance. Welfare should be a system to get people out of poverty. Instead society has made welfare a lifetime source of easy income and people have discovered that a lot of times it's easier to be poor than to work.
Well, obviously a better choice than English tutor. (Which is an ironic statement since I mispelled "matter", but still.Exactly, That's why I became a hired assassin.
Exactly, That's why I became a hired assassin.
Well said, although subsistence farmers typically lived on the edge of famine until the Industrial Revolution. Many things - a bad crop, increased taxation, a dying beast - could kick him from just enough to not enough, because the government and often the Church took its cut first. After the Industrial Revolution Westerners seldom died from starvation except from widespread crop failures, but even in the early twentieth century it was not at all uncommon for subsistence farmers or, much more often, laborers to be malnourished to the point of dying from otherwise nonfatal diseases. And here the old leftist saw "women and children hit hardest" was particularly appropriate, especially among laborers. The man earned the living; his rations couldn't be cut for fear of him losing his job and what little income the family had. Therefore whatever the shortfall, it had to fall on the wife and children. This is an unrestrained free market, feast and famine, and anyone wishing that to return is probably not really educated on its effects on the poor. It's every bit as casually brutal as communism.
I'd say the OP's question is badly phrased. Clearly no one chooses to be poor. The question then is whether being poor is usually or often the result of one's choices throughout life. Even that is a fairly useless question, as everyone's circumstances are different and the cumulative amount of bad choices one is allowed depends almost totally on one's accident of birth. But at least it isn't a nonsensical question.
Also well said. I think though that usually it isn't so much that people realize how much easier is the dole than working, but that people lose the belief that they can succeed, whether because of their skin color or lack of education or gender or whatever circumstances apply. They also fear losing their benefits, especially housing assistance, if they earn too much. There is a middle ground where one's income is high enough that assistance is cut but also not high enough to live the same (poor) lifestyle on that income alone. That's on us as a society - it's just a poorly designed system of assistance. I very much agree that assistance should be geared toward getting one off of assistance, but designing a financial low point is an obstacle toward that end. The whole system - assistance, training programs, work programs, housing assistance, minimum wage - needs to work together to assure that when people work, they are better off than when they don't work.
I'd say involuntary poetry is one of our modern society's evils. I specifically include Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber in this.*is poetry voluntary?
Personally I'm torn between sandwich assassin and hammock assassin. I don't want to kill people, but I could sure kill a nice bacon, lettuce and tomato. Or a nice shady hammock - albeit a lot more slowly.Where do I sign up these days in old age.
I used to be one in my younger days, I can still shoot things and out of work atm
I'd say involuntary poetry is one of our modern society's evils. I specifically include Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber in this.*
lol Point.They took your advise and concerned themselves not with the dignity of work and you have the temerity to criticize them? Shameful..
Dignified work? WTF?
I grew up fairly poor - not so poor as to think myself poor (poor to me meant hungry or on assistance or living in the projects) but poor enough to be cognizant that other kids grew up with bathrooms, televisions, nice cars, houses with insulation and without holes in the walls, Christmas presents that took electricity or had moving parts rather than molded plastic army men, that other kids ate meat regularly and not beans, turnip greens and fried potatoes every day, bacon and eggs for breakfast instead of cream of wheat or oatmeal. As I watched my parents claw their way out of that poverty, I never once heard them bemoaning the lack of "dignified work". If it's honest work and someone is willing to pay you to do it, and you need that work, then it's dignified. My mother started as a soda fountain girl and retired as the county financial director simply by asking what else she could do, what else she could learn to do - not by asking for "dignified work".
Personally I started work on farms - hauling hay, picking rocks, clearing brush, stringing fence, picking tomatoes and vegetables, mucking out barnyards. It never once occurred to me to wonder whether shoveling cow shit or picking rocks out of fields was "dignified work". It was what was offered at that particular moment.
If you're hungry and your family is hungry and you're concerned about whether the available work is "dignified work", then you aren't worth saving, period. No matetr what charitable programs are available.
Yes, dignified work. You know, work where you aren't actively being exploited by your employer and earn an honest wage for an honest day's work. Since you also come from a rural area, I'd think that is something you would understand. The jobs you listed still typically fall under that umbrella, provided they were paid a fair wage for doing them. Hell, I've done some of them myself. Perhaps they didn't use that particular qualifier, but I do believe that it was implied.
Who determines what is classified as "dignified" and "honest"
The dignified and honest politicians!Who determines what is classified as "dignified" and "honest"
We just have to find some first....^_^
Who determines what is classified as "dignified" and "honest"
I'd say the OP's question is badly phrased. Clearly no one chooses to be poor. The question then is whether being poor is usually or often the result of one's choices throughout life. Even that is a fairly useless question, as everyone's circumstances are different and the cumulative amount of bad choices one is allowed depends almost totally on one's accident of birth. But at least it isn't a nonsensical question.
Exactly, That's why I became a hired assassin.
Someone has to. Its a decision that society as a whole must come to a consensus on. What we agree is dignified and honest, even in the realm of employment, represents who we are as a people. As a whole, we do have a sense of what may constitute this, but the devils are in the details. That is why we have things like labor laws, minimum wage, some worker protections, etc. They, in the most basic sense, are an attempt to preserve the dignity of workers and of work itself. But, many fall through the cracks anyway even if jobs are available. In a lot of cases, there are not. That does not mean that unemployed/poor people should be allowed to be exploited for work. To some on this forum, The Grapes of Wrath is being used more as an instruction manual for what you can get away with than a cautionary tale about the limits of human dignity.
Why only sometimes? Make sure you include the Playstation and Xbox in there and for this next generation the iPad and Android.I sometimes wonder if some children are brought up by this brainwashing machine we call the TV.
I have a contract for you. The upside is that if you're successful, I won't have to worry about paying you.
Yes, dignified work. You know, work where you aren't actively being exploited by your employer and earn an honest wage for an honest day's work. Since you also come from a rural area, I'd think that is something you would understand. The jobs you listed still typically fall under that umbrella, provided they were paid a fair wage for doing them. Hell, I've done some of them myself. Perhaps they didn't use that particular qualifier, but I do believe that it was implied.