40 Hour Work Week & Poverty

[mrswdk]

it's clear panhandling one can make a lot more than they can working

I dread to think what job you do that pays worse than a day on the streets asking for quarters.

You get a break.... and also to be considered, strawman.

Panhandler Shane Warren Speegle Says He Made $60,000 A Year Begging On Street
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/2 ... 94577.html

selfproclaimed-professional-panhandlers-net-182-per-hour
http://www.kcra.com/news/selfproclaimed ... r/23849924

Never underestimate the power of playing on people's emotions. Many people make a living doing it, many politicians as well.

Hey, an anecdote. That's cool. I've got one too: beggars who lie on the pavement all day near my apartment and in that whole time only collect a few dollars.

1-1, now what?

[Phatscotty]

it's clear panhandling one can make a lot more than they can working

I dread to think what job you do that pays worse than a day on the streets asking for quarters.

You get a break.... and also to be considered, strawman.

Panhandler Shane Warren Speegle Says He Made $60,000 A Year Begging On Street
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/2 ... 94577.html

selfproclaimed-professional-panhandlers-net-182-per-hour
http://www.kcra.com/news/selfproclaimed ... r/23849924

Never underestimate the power of playing on people's emotions. Many people make a living doing it, many politicians as well.

Hey, an anecdote. That's cool. I've got one too: beggars who lie on the pavement all day near my apartment and in that whole time only collect a few dollars.

1-1, now what?

An anecdote is all that is required. I said 'one can make' and there, there are 2 who made much more than they could working. Try putting your back into it

Or else, I guess all that's left would be for me to go panhandle for a week or two as Mets is the referee to make sure to disqualify any money that isn't gotten within the rules and Tzor can hide in the bushes with a sound amplifier recording all audio and saxi can hide in the closet with the door cracked just enough to video record everything

[mrswdk]

So two people made an unusually large amount of money out of begging. So what?

[hotfire]

So two people made an unusually large amount of money out of begging. So what?

how about that Indonesian who made 23 cents an hour making that beggars shoes?

[Metsfanmax]

ITT: conservatives believe in freedom to buy any product one desires, except when that person is getting assistance from the government -- then we're going to tell you exactly what you may or may not spend your money on.

[tzor]

Thanks for your always valued (treasured? ) contribution Tzor. While you accurately describe one important aspect in your first paragraph, the other aspect I am going to be pounding on is those who claim they need aid for food, then when they receive that aid they go and trade it for drugs/cash.

One of the biggest problems that people have is that they have no idea how real charity agencies operate. You just give money to people who ask, because people will use that to cheat the system. At local charity organizations (such as the outreach in my parish) there is a person who objectively investigates all those who are asking for help, determine if their needs are genuine and what the best charitable action would be best for the person and perhaps their family.

Government doesn't do this and the Federal Government definitely doesn't do this. Instead they proceed to dole out money in a manner that not only humiliates the receiver (eventually they become numb to this humiliation) but places them dependent upon the giver (the government). One might even suggest that such actions leaves to an enslavement, but it's an odd one since the "work" government wants their "slaves" to do is blindly vote for them every election.

It's an argument that "charity" needs to be at the local level, on a personal basis because all needs are local and personal.

[strike wolf]

I worked in a grocery store for years on and off. A lot of the people there drove well out of their way for a full time job that paid below the living wage because it was the closest full time job they could find. I am not going to support all fiscal reforms that have passed or congress is trying to pass because Ive seen some of them actually hurt more than they have helped (laws requiring companies to provide benefits for employees that work more than so many hours per week have resulted in some companies cutting hours to avoid having to pay for those benefits). A lot of peoplec are having to work a part time job on top of a full time job to pay the bills. Its not becayse these people are all blowing their money on cigarettes or alcohol or strip clubs. Many of them have families to support or as I said are not making anywhere near current living wages.

[ChrisPond]

disclaimer: i did not have the time to read all the comments but had some insight into the subject as i employ laborers in my business so I see this all the time. It is hard to know all the varaibles, but you can get a decent idea over time.

First of all, i think minimum wage is a joke and not meant for someone who is supposed to be the main bread winner. I am guessing i could argue that a minimum wage actually keeps wages low. i obvioulsy build ponds (landscape industry). I start my new guys 20-30% higher than the market pays for a landscaper in my area. Many of the larger landscape companies in my area set their starting wages a couple of dollars over minimum wage as it is seasonal work and demands physical labor. it is not a living wage. My guys have overtime available pretty much every week. i pay more and offer overtime because i want to attract the best people, and the pool is not exactly over filling with great talent. when i get a good guy and i want to keep him, I give him more money and responsibility so he does not leave. If i have good people working for me and making above market wages, they will be happy and my business will make more money and grow and i can hire more good responsible employees. I am also one of the highest priced landscape/pond contractors in my area for what I do, and I am ok with it. we still get work and stay busy...usually fixing or redoing the low costs guys work

My laborers make more money than most landscape companies foreman. My foreman makes more money than a large landscape companies operations guy (in charge of all the construction done by 6-8 crews..my guy is in charge of 3-8 guys and is currently in charge of training 2 guys to be a foreman.

I also quickly drop any employee that is toxic to my business. I currently have 4 full time employees and they all are very good at their job and great employees.

One of these guys is extremely good with his money and another is not very good. the one that is not good with his money is constantly asking if payroll checks are ready a day early. the other one may not deposit his check for a week or 2 after he gets it, and sometimes deposits 2-3 checks at a time. i have employees in the middle as well.

here are some other things i have seen over the years. an employee said he needed $10 for fuel to get to work the rest of the week before payday. I gave him $10...2 hours later i stopped at a gas station to take a piss and when i came out of the bathroom he was getting the change from the $10 i gave him for a pack of cigarettes he had just bought with it. He said the change would get him to the work the rest of the week. the next day he showed up with no lunch and did not eat because he did not have the money (kind of hard to do manual labor on an empty stomach..)

I hired a guy i had met through my wife and our infant son (they had a baby at the same time as us). anyway, he had lost his job at a bank and wanted a change of scenery. he seemed to have his shit together and i hired him with the thoughts i would train him to be a foreman. so i gave him more money than i typically give a new hire. the first week on the job he informed me thursday morning that he would be on overtime by 2pm that day. i said great...overtime is time and a half so he could make some really good money and this would be a regular thing every week. he then said he could not work overtime because he would lose his "benefits". after a few questions, I started learning how much he was getting in value from food stamps, free healthcare for his wife and daughter, and so on. i asked him if he wanted to be promoted to a foreman and get a raise and get off that stuff and he said he would rather just work 40 hours a week and keep his "benefits". he obviously did not last much longer with me.

some people want to work and succeed, some want to do as little as possible and get by. some people take adavantage of employers and the system, others are model employees.

i saw a comment that kids are not taught to balance a checkbook and budget. i completely agree with this. i grew up with my parents earning middle class salaries but there was never any money and my parents marriage ended because of money. coming out of college, i could easily spend $1.50 for every $1.00 i made. my wife's parents made the same amount of money as my parents, had the same amount of kids but knew how to handle money. they paid for all their kids college (my wife's siblings have masters and phd degrees, my siblings and i had to pay our way through college) and then lived comfortable in retirement. they had crappier cars than my parents and a smaller house but they invested well and did not live beyond their means. my parent s will both die in debt...

I slowly learned to be better with my money by watching my wife handle it. I am still a bit wreckless with it but i am entrepreneur and do some pretty high end ponds so a lot of money goes through my business. i like the risk /reward mentallity of being in business but I am a drastically different person with money than i was 15 years ago. Our son will not start his adult life handicapped like i was in the education of finances. the cycle breaks with me in that department.

my .14 cents...

[tzor]

I remember reading a study done by someone (it might have been in Canada) that basically found a strong correlation in unemployment impact when the minimum wage was over a certain specific percentage of the average wage for a particular demographic. We can see this especially in the United States where the demographics with the highest unemployment rates are the ones with the lowest average wage (specially young minorities).

It is hard for someone who has no "resume" and may come from a background employers might not consider preferable to get a position over someone who does not have these potential disqualifiers. One such way is to offer your services for lower than the prevailing wage. This lowers the financial "risk" to the employer and raises your chances for employment (because, let's fact it, any wage is better than no wage).

Here is an article from Forbes that quotes from Thomas Sowell on a number of minimum wage laws throughout the world.

In 1925, a minimum-wage law was passed in the Canadian province of British Columbia, with the intent and effect of pricing Japanese immigrants out of jobs in the lumbering industry.

A Harvard professor of that era referred approvingly to Australia’s minimum wage law as a means to “protect the white Australian’s standard of living from the invidious competition of the colored races, particularly of the Chinese” who were willing to work for less.

In South Africa during the era of apartheid, white labor unions urged that a minimum-wage law be applied to all races, to keep black workers from taking jobs away from white unionized workers by working for less than the union pay scale.

So we can see, the primary reason to enact a minimum wage law is to keep those other people out of the job market. The fact that a minimum wage keeps a significant number of a certain demographic unemployed isn't just an effect, it's the purpose of the law in the first place. It prevents what would otherwise be the "free market" of wages from allowing the hardest working to succeed over those who are privileged.

The business-friendly National Center for Policy Analysis points out “the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, requiring ‘prevailing’ wages on federally assisted construction projects, was supported by the idea that it would keep contractors from using ‘cheap colored labor’ to underbid contractors using white labor.”

[Lord Arioch]

We have beggars in sweden and we ARE really generous in social wellfare:) ... Poor i sweden and poor in US i dont know but i have a feeling its kind of not the same?

[Phatscotty]

wow, really glad to see so many other uniquer perspectives! But I want to try a different angle.

Let's talk about how much of the poverty situation has to do with reckless spending and irresponsibility, or people who are addicted to feeding every impulse they have, fly by nighters etc. 10%? 20%? Maybe you can't guesstimate a number but I think we can talk about things that might give us a ballpark.

[Phatscotty]

ITT: conservatives believe in freedom to buy any product one desires, except when that person is getting assistance from the government -- then we're going to tell you exactly what you may or may not spend your money on.

That's ridiculous, this has nothing to do with buying products. Also ridiculous that you imply there is nothing wrong at all with someone getting food stamps and trading away their months worth of benefits for a 2 night drug binge. Yeah, the people who are trying to help those who need it with food...they have no say at all if someone takes the food aid and trades it for drugs. I can't believe you cannot even admit that it's wrong.

ITT, Mets believes taxpayers are his bitch, and there is no possible way the taxpayer could ever be taken advantage of and played for a fool. So yeah, see the thanks we get? If you guys aren't even thankful, that's all the more reason to change the way we do things.

[Metsfanmax]

So we can see, the primary reason to enact a minimum wage law is to keep those other people out of the job market. The fact that a minimum wage keeps a significant number of a certain demographic unemployed isn't just an effect, it's the purpose of the law in the first place. It prevents what would otherwise be the "free market" of wages from allowing the hardest working to succeed over those who are privileged.

This depends heavily on what you mean by 'succeed.' It's not necessarily the case that two $5/hour jobs is better than one $10/hour job. A $5/hour job is not enough to support a reasonable standard of living basically anywhere in the US. So you can either have two people who have a job but need government assistance, or one person who has a job and one who needs even more government assistance. This is a values question, but of course it's also meaningless in a vacuum because it's not usually the case that two jobs will be created by halving the pay for one job. That money will often go somewhere else.

That's ridiculous, this has nothing to do with buying products.

Well I have to say it can't really be my fault for thinking this, given that you start off with

$200-300-400-500 per month on cigarettes, and/or $100-200/month on pot, perhaps $100-300 dollars on cocaine, meth, prescription pills, possibly combined with/separately $100 on gas driving to a casino back n forth and probably dropping another $100-300 on average more into games tilted against them winning? Perhaps $50-100 a month on lottery tickets? Many of them go to restaurants at least once a day if not twice

Also ridiculous that you imply there is nothing wrong at all with someone getting food stamps and trading away their months worth of benefits for a 2 night drug binge.

What do you mean that it's "wrong?" Don't you value freedom to do whatever one wants, so long as it doesn't hurt others, even if what one wants to do is stupid and shortsighted? I'm not going to say that it's "wrong" if you're not even willing to say what you mean by wrong.

[Metsfanmax]

Hey you know what would be better than a poll based on uninformed opinions? How about some actual scholarly research on this topic? Phatscotty, let me know if you care to read some, I will find some.

[Phatscotty]

Also ridiculous that you imply there is nothing wrong at all with someone getting food stamps and trading away their months worth of benefits for a 2 night drug binge.

What do you mean that it's "wrong?" Don't you value freedom to do whatever one wants, so long as it doesn't hurt others, even if what one wants to do is stupid and shortsighted? I'm not going to say that it's "wrong" if you're not even willing to say what you mean by wrong.

Yes, I value Freedom very much, and that is the essence of the entire topic here. Freedom cannot exist where everyone else has a right to take your money and property, to lay claim to another's time and labor for themselves. That is the principle made a slave a slave. It's even worse that you think it's okay for even one person to make a claim based on a lie that they cannot afford food when in reality they can afford food, they just wan't to use the money that would have been for food for other things. It's a total mockery of the very compassion you claim it to be

[Phatscotty]

Hey you know what would be better than a poll based on uninformed opinions? How about some actual scholarly research on this topic? Phatscotty, let me know if you care to read some, I will find some.

Well, let's start with 1%. Mets, do you think that 1% of people who are in poverty are in poverty because they smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day, totaling nearly 500$ a month? Maybe we can get you to rule out 0%

[Phatscotty]

I worked in a grocery store for years on and off. A lot of the people there drove well out of their way for a full time job that paid below the living wage because it was the closest full time job they could find. I am not going to support all fiscal reforms that have passed or congress is trying to pass because Ive seen some of them actually hurt more than they have helped (laws requiring companies to provide benefits for employees that work more than so many hours per week have resulted in some companies cutting hours to avoid having to pay for those benefits). A lot of peoplec are having to work a part time job on top of a full time job to pay the bills. Its not becayse these people are all blowing their money on cigarettes or alcohol or strip clubs. Many of them have families to support or as I said are not making anywhere near current living wages.

Right, and I wasn't talking about the people who are working 2 jobs, I was talking about the people who are working zero jobs and even the people who work but keep very careful track not to work too much, not to earn too much, or else they would lose all their benefits. Imagine how those 2 jobs holding people feel about that when they look at their check that says they earned $520, but only really get to have $379. I have 2 jobs, and a couple times I had 3 jobs and one of those times I even did a forth on weekends once a month. You know how I feel at least. It's one thing to see a truly starving down on their luck person eating food because of a program your taxes fund, it's another completely to see a crack dealer making $1,000/night with a thick stack of EBT cards he uses to buy only top of the line food for himself and his family and trade the rest 2-1 for cash.

The apologists can sit here and say it doesn't matter if the food aid goes to a starving person or to fund a gambling addiction all they want, I'm saying your damn right it matters! If we are going to do the right thing and help people get food, then that is exactly what we should expect the aid will go for. Why wouldn't we?

[Phatscotty]

So two people made an unusually large amount of money out of begging. So what?

It's a lot more than 2, it's just that I only looked up 2 for you. There are hundreds more examples. Yeah, I know, so what there are hundreds more. So what is that at least you know now it is a reality out there and it's not ridiculous at all.

[Lootifer]

I want to post, but im too busy.

I know what you mean, as I am too busy as well. My woman just so happens to actually have other plans than my penis, so the forum is lucky tonight.

Tough crowd.

[mrswdk]

So two people made an unusually large amount of money out of begging. So what?

It's a lot more than 2, it's just that I only looked up 2 for you. There are hundreds more examples. Yeah, I know, so what there are hundreds more. So what is that at least you know now it is a reality out there and it's not ridiculous at all.

Even assuming there are significantly more than 2 beggars out there who summer in the Maldives, I still don't understand why it's a problem. If people choose to give that much money to a beggar then so what? It's their money to give.

[danfrank666]

Some interesting posts here . Ah, YES, Quantitative Easing. Hmm, Crude Oil Crashing, When Half The reserves are threatened
One thing i have learned thru the years is poverty has no face, Yes there are the obvious and that can be said about any Factors in life.

Government Giveth and Government Taketh Away. This thought popped into my head as the regime in afghanistan changes face. Well you ask why am i talking about afghanistan. The government giveth the people opioid painkillers , many are addicted and have turned to heroin after the goverment taketh away. Heroin is afghanistans only viable commodity. Just another example of The US government exploiting its citizenry.

[BigBallinStalin]

Wow, huge generalization. Thinking like that makes me think that all people that think like PS are out of touch with reality.

Seriously, yes some have go there due to addictions, but many haven't. In the US some may have got there due to having to pay for medical procedures.

Young people can easily work 40 hours a week and remain below the poverty line. I don't blame them, I blame the greed of our governments and corporations. We are taxed to death and then we get gouged at the grocery store. We were all a lot better off when the local grocery chains were actually a series of small chains or independent stores, not all of them owned by one or two corporations. Electricity keeps going up, sometimes beyond inflation. The big fish keep eating the small fish, that is the problem.

are we really getting gouged at the grocery store? Or is it possible that the value of our money which we use to buy those groceries is being gouged by printing trillions more dollars to chase the same amount of goods? Could our currency be gouged of it's value because our government spends almost double what it takes in annually? hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people’s savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments.

In the long-run, inflation doesn't affect real income because nominals (money) do not affect reals (bundles of good per labor-hour). Real income has been increasing--even when controlling for inflation, so that picture is totes wrong, dawg. In the short-term, nominals can affect reals, but the inflation has to be drastic. Otherwise, your argument doesn't hold. Finally, your argument doesn't apply to nearly all of US history because your concern only applies to severe recessions with huge changes in the money supply (including--gasp!--deflation).

(I agree about the government using inflation as another means to extract revenue (namely through monetarization)).

[BigBallinStalin]

I remember reading a study done by someone (it might have been in Canada) that basically found a strong correlation in unemployment impact when the minimum wage was over a certain specific percentage of the average wage for a particular demographic. We can see this especially in the United States where the demographics with the highest unemployment rates are the ones with the lowest average wage (specially young minorities).

It is hard for someone who has no "resume" and may come from a background employers might not consider preferable to get a position over someone who does not have these potential disqualifiers. One such way is to offer your services for lower than the prevailing wage. This lowers the financial "risk" to the employer and raises your chances for employment (because, let's fact it, any wage is better than no wage).

Here is an article from Forbes that quotes from Thomas Sowell on a number of minimum wage laws throughout the world.

In 1925, a minimum-wage law was passed in the Canadian province of British Columbia, with the intent and effect of pricing Japanese immigrants out of jobs in the lumbering industry.

A Harvard professor of that era referred approvingly to Australia’s minimum wage law as a means to “protect the white Australian’s standard of living from the invidious competition of the colored races, particularly of the Chinese” who were willing to work for less.

In South Africa during the era of apartheid, white labor unions urged that a minimum-wage law be applied to all races, to keep black workers from taking jobs away from white unionized workers by working for less than the union pay scale.

So we can see, the primary reason to enact a minimum wage law is to keep those other people out of the job market. The fact that a minimum wage keeps a significant number of a certain demographic unemployed isn't just an effect, it's the purpose of the law in the first place. It prevents what would otherwise be the "free market" of wages from allowing the hardest working to succeed over those who are privileged.

The business-friendly National Center for Policy Analysis points out “the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, requiring ‘prevailing’ wages on federally assisted construction projects, was supported by the idea that it would keep contractors from using ‘cheap colored labor’ to underbid contractors using white labor.”

Walter Williams has a book on South Africa where he mentions how the white labor unions supported a minimum wage in the post-apartheid regime. Why would such "well-intended" groups support the minimum wage?

[mrswdk]

@tzor The point your 'Harvard professor' is making is that domestic workers having to compete with much cheaper foreign labor would cause everyone's wages to drop, not that a minimum wage will shut Chinese people out of Australia.

Say a Chinese guy and an Australian guy are equally qualified and capable, and due to a relatively high minimum wage will both work for the same price should they be hired. Why would the minimum wage make the Chinese guy more likely to lose out? It wouldn't. It just stops the race to the bottom getting so intense that everyone ends up significantly poorer.

[Metsfanmax]

that they cannot afford food when in reality they can afford food, they just wan't to use the money that would have been for food for other things. It's a total mockery of the very compassion you claim it to be

I don't see it that way. I want to help people to give them the option to make a decent life for themselves. If people f*ck it up, there's not much we can or should do about that, except for try and educate people on the importance of spending money wisely. For example, despite not knowing much about the economic implications, I support in principle the idea of a universal basic income. That doesn't mean I think we should put strings on it and try to dictate how people spend it. America is about giving people the opportunity to succeed, and I do believe in that.

So where you and I will differ, and this is something that is very deep-seated in the difference between conservatives and liberals, is in how much of this I am willing to tolerate before I start thinking the policy was a bad idea. And if it's 1% (which, to answer your question, I think would be a reasonable a priori guess), I am completely willing to accept that to help the 99%.