Market Pressure to Reduce Welfare Spending

Yes she had a household of two, she also worked full time as a veterinary assistant, and later as a medical billing clerk. It is fundamentally wrong in this nation to work a full time job and not be able to support yourself without government assistance. On minimum wage in much of the nation you cannot house, feed and cloth yourself, it is just not possible.

 

in most cases that isn't in the best interest of the child or society

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exactly, somehow we as a nation have gotten to the point it takes two working full time to support one family and we wonder why so many parents aren't spending enough time with their children

 

With a young child a single parent often can't even afford to have one job because of the childcare costs. The average costs of childcare for an infant can easily exceed $250/wk (depending upon location) and a person earning federal minimum wage only earns $290/wk in gross income or less than $268/wk after FICA taxes are withheld. Just the cost of getting to and from work can exceed the possible $18 they might net for working 40 hrs a week.

 

The government should provide child care for a small cost then, so the parent can work and only needs one job.

 

What, you think we don't need to do what is suggested?

Some things do need to be regulated; we don't (and never will) live in some libertarian utopia.

 

The most wealthy in our society KNOW exactly what you say above.

But it would be foolish of Americans to think that they actually care about anything but profits.

That is why (IMO) some attention to how the SYSTEM allows for the distribution of the benefits of wealth, is warranted. In other words, there is more than good reason to increase taxes on the most wealthy individuals and corporation in this society. And ultimately, that is going to be a reflection of the will of the people. In my view, the idea is to roll enough of the money back into the working masses, so that the 'balance' (which we do not have now) would cause the economy to be both healthy and sustained.

Making a miniscule number of people into ultra-wealthy oligarchs (essentially), will never be good for this country or democracy.

 

I beg to differ. If the parent is incapable of unwilling to take care of their child and provide that child what it needs then they are engaging in child abuse and it most certainly is in that child's best interest to have it removed.

Now I understand there may be a very small period of time where you just got fired or an act of nature happens or the other spouse dies or something like that where there is a need for assistance. However, I believe if you go over a certain period, 4 months or 6 months, and you have a child then you are not taking care of that child. That child is being taken care of by the taxpayers. You do not need to be allowed to engage in that type of abuse of a child. Furthermore, if you have one child on welfare and then you go out and have ANOTHER child, you should be automatically disqualified from any welfare benefits whatsoever. You are PURPOSEFULLY and WILLFULLY engaging in child abuse at that point. You KNOW that you can't afford a child and yet you choose to spread your legs and be irresponsible anyway, you should, in NO WAY benefit from the taxpayer for that type of lifestyle.

 

Well first of all, I can go to any are of the country on craigslist and find veterinary assistant jobs. Those jobs almost ALWAYS range from $9.00 - $12.00. Very RARELY does a vet assistant make minimum wage. So I'm skeptical of your claim to begin with. However, I'll be nice and assume you're telling the truth, that she was making minimum wage as a vet assistant.

Federal poverty guidelines state that a 2 person household that the poverty line is $15,730. With one full-time job at minimum wage she's making $15,080. Add on a part-time job at 20 hours a week and she's making an extra $7,540. That's a total of $22,620. Well above poverty level.

Now we can go into the costs of feeding, rent, utilities, etc etc but I GUARANTEE you that it's very doable to survive on that.

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Oh I'm sorry. Did they not know that the costs of raising a child are prohibitively expensive for people on a limited income? Wait... you mean they did? And they chose to have a child anyway? Or they chose to be irresponsible and spread their legs knowing what the consequences might be?

Why the (*)(*)(*)(*) should I, or ANYBODY else, have to pay for their (*)(*)(*)(*)-poor decision making?

 

Taxcutter says:
No, I do not think we need what was suggested one little bit.

There are some regulations that are necessary evils. This evil is not a bit necessary except to advance the meddling of government in the process of setting wages. It is doubly evil because it is another waypoint on the road to becoming like Cuba - where wages and prices are set by government.

 

I see.

We must surely disagree.

 

what world do you live in? A lot of people who have lost their jobs in the Great Recession are going years, submitting thousands of resumes and still not getting offered even minimum wage part time jobs. These are people who have worked for years, have worked at good jobs, have skills. Getting retraining can cost tens of thousands of dollars (which the unemployed do not have, nor can they borrow money since they have no income), and while there are a few government programs out there, most people don't qualify.

The world you seem to describe where people can easily get a job if they lose one hasn't existed for over 10 years.

 

Given this fact, do you honestly believe that the answer is to raise minimum wage ? What is raising minimum wage likely to do in regards to the number of those jobs available?

 

It's funny, the vast majority of people who claim they "can't find a job" while they're on unemployment or welfare or entitlement programs... when/if they get cut off from those programs, like they did in NC, magically within a few months they find jobs. I know many people on unemployment and government assistance. As long as they're pulling in their unemployment, they are required to write down in a log where they applied to TWO businesses in a week period. Many times the people I know don't apply at all and just write some BS on the paper and almost every time the only applications they put in (if they put in any at all) were the two that they wrote down on their paperwork.

To be blunt, I don't believe you when you say they're putting in "thousands of applications" and not getting results. I say we make them show that. They shouldn't be required to show proof of 2 a week but of 5 or 10 applications a day. These need to be periodically and randomly checked to verify they're not just fraudulent. If they are fraudulent, you will be removed from any sort of welfare. To receive welfare you should have to take random drug tests. Whether that welfare is unemployment, food stamps, Section 8 housing, utility assistance, etc etc you should be required to take random drug tests.

You claim they're doing all this work and getting no results. I call BS. If they're putting in all this work that you're claiming they're putting in, there shouldn't be any problem with documenting it should there? I mean hell if they're putting in thousands and thousands of applications 5 or 10 a day for 5 days a week shouldn't be a problem. Right?

 

If I compare my life today, or my kids life today, there is basically zero comparison to my life in the 50's or 60's. I read books from the library, I shopped for a few clothes once each year, 99% of our meals were prepared at home, there was no cable/satellite TV, no Internet, no cell phones, no debt except for the home mortgage, we had one car which lasted for 7-8 years, there were no $150 shoes or $200 denim pants, no fancy jewelry, we drove to our destination for our 2-3 week vacation, no video games, and guess what...we were happy! Further, how much income is spent today on tobacco, alcohol, drugs, and casino gambling? Today...we feel entitled to have all the crap the economy and technology can provide no matter the costs! My current monthly satellite TV costs more than my house payment in 1970! All of today's crap ads up to big bucks and IMO many people crying the money blues are spoiled and self-serving. Is it bad to have all this crap at our disposal...of course not...but it's BS for people to purchase this crap when their incomes cannot support it. If I was forced to change my life in order to be fiscally responsible, sure I would hate the transition, but what choice do I have other than complaining and doing nothing? Yes I would greatly downsize, and relocate if necessary, whatever it takes, but I will never allow myself to become the victim of my own doing...

 

I believe in some cases they do provide assistance for child care. The problem today is often that the wages are so low that even with that assistance the parent can't get by. Not helping the problem is that the Tea Party Republicans are dead set on cutting of low income families from government assistance.

For some reason the Republicans believe that a person can just magically "make more money" but with about 18 million unemployed low income families are falling further and further behind financially today. Even middle income families have been driven down to lower income brackets in recent years.

 

I can't speak for every case but every single woman with children I've known were married when they had children and then either the father turned out to be a deadbeat dad after the divorce or the child support was so minimal that it didn't even cover the costs of the child or children. I've only know one single parent woman where her ex-husband actually provided enough financial support to cover the costs of just raising the child (not the ex-wife that did work fulltime).

 

Well we all have to pay for our own decisions.

Whose fault was it that the women you know married losers who refuse to pay for their children? It sure as hell isn't mine or anybody else's.

So again, why should I or anybody else have to pay for the (*)(*)(*)(*)-poor decision making of others.

There's an old saying, poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

 

There is a price to be paid for failure, but it should not be borne by taxpayers and consumers.

 

That is an interesting solution, but overall, I don't think the average walmart customer, as you gave an example of, gives two (*)(*)(*)(*)s about the employees, only the money they save. I think it's a bit like the nutrition facts on food. People want to know, but in the end, they're going to do what they want. However, I"m for making it known how much tax subsidies are indirectly profiting a company. Very interesting solution, but I don't think would make a big difference overall. Very good thinking outside the box, though. Please, continue thinking. Need more peeps like yourself.

 

People who need child care but cannot afford commercial child care must turn to family and friends for help. People are not entitled to have kids and are not entitled to have government take care of their kids. Whatever happened to personal responsibility??

 

You do have to provide care for a child when you are working, and that costs big money. In fact at that time it was her second highest cost, the highest being rent of $400 a month. And no, there were no family members able to watch her daughter since they all worked full time as well. Try to get child care in the evenings.

 

It was the men's fault as they misrepresented themselves as being responsible individuals when, in fact, they were not.

We're paying for the poor decisions made by our government that we elected and not for the poor decisions by a person. No person I'm aware of voluntarily chooses to work for an employer that doesn't provide enough in compensation for them to live on. They are actually forced to accept employment under many of our welfare laws even when that employment doesn't provide them with enough compensation to survive on.

We also have tax laws at the state and federal level of government that impose the highest tax burden relative to income on the lowest income households in America that creates poverty. I've addressed federal taxation with a proposal that would dramatically reduce poverty in the United States over time. I actually requires a person to read the thread though as there was at least one "amendment" made to it where a corporation could deduct dividend payments to avoid double taxation on the same income.

http://www.politicalforum.com/polit...eliminating-crony-capitalism-taxation-us.html

To eliminate the unfair tax burden on low income households at the state level I would propose that all states obtain tax revenues using a "consumption tax with prebates" similiar to the proposal by FairTax.org for the federal government (that would be unconstitutional at the federal level currently).

Basically I've identified two problems. One is that people are coerced into accepting employment that doesn't provide adequate compensation due to uneven market pressure and laws with the second being that our unfair state/federal tax laws impose the highest tax burden relative to income on the lowest income households and the lowest tax burden relative to income on the highest income households in America.

I'm willing to address both issues equally while "Republicans" hide their head in the sand and don't want to address poverty in America at all.