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Food Stamps Restriction
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Chef_Barbell wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
Like if that's the only job available at the time?
I fully support training programs for people to get out of jobs that pay so little.
I still don't understand why these jobs just can't offer a living wage in the first place.
They do provide a living wage... that's what subsist means.4 -
janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.10 -
stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.
So everyone upskills and gets a better paid job. Students only fill out of school hours positions. Who fills the rest of the roles? And why is okay for them to only subsist.2 -
singingflutelady wrote: »I like the idea of ruling out complete crap from being purchased. It is not a right to buy junk food, it is a choice, and a luxury one at that, since soda and energy drinks have zero nutrition. The SNAP program was designed to help people in need eat healthier and to assist in food cost. If you don't want to be regulated, stay off goverment assistance programs. I was able to buy plenty of healthy foods the 9 months I was on SNAP.
Also when my electrolytes are low my surgeon actually told me to drink coke zero because of the phosphoric acid instead of drinking the gross desolved tablets.
Again talking about a .00001% of the population problem.3 -
Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.
This sounds remarkably similar to finding time to work out. Do you have statistics to support your point? What percentage of people on assistance are working and how many hours do they work?
Whatever the percentage is you're clearly not in it because you are so out of touch from impoverishment it's ridiculous.5 -
janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
I agree. The job that always gets pulled into this discussion is fast-food workers, how it's always been traditionally a job for kids. Fast food restaurants are open during the week, how are teenagers supposed to be serving me my lunch during the school day? The business says they can't afford to pay more than minimum wage, society says those are meant to be minimum wage jobs that don't support someone full time, so who exactly are all those day jobs for? And why are all these huge service industries built on a business model that depends on teenage labor to stay afloat?
Retirees, as one example. supplementing a pension. College students, other people in transition.
That was my experience 20 years ago.
The other part of my experience 20 years ago, was being on the receiving end of a great deal of resentment. I was just out of HS, and waiting for my ship date to enlist. As a consequence I had no restriction on what shifts I could accept. There were a couple of folks in their mid 20s who had limited motivation and were angry when shifts that they had assumed to be theirs by right were given to me. They were spiteful when I was offered a promotion, and baffled when I turned it down... it would have been more money than I would earn for nearly 10 years thereafter(Salary position at the equivalent of $20 hourly)... but I had gotten what I needed... and had no desire to spend the rest of my life smelling like beef lard.... it gets in your pores, it gets in your hair, and it doesn't wash out. 2 days off and 3 showers later and your sweat still smells like hamburger and fry grease.2 -
stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.
Really? Not every area of the world has an abundance of good jobs. I live in such an area. I have 2 university degrees magna cum laude and before I was sick I was laid off and the only job I could find was at Wal-Mart. I am an elementary teacher by training but there are over 800 people on the substitute list and the average time on the list is 8+ years. Many of these people also work min wage jobs. The biggest employers in my area are call centers, fast food and retail. A lot of these workers do have university and college education and going back to school, except for medical and trades, won't help anyone get better jobs.4 -
VintageFeline wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.
So everyone upskills and gets a better paid job. Students only fill out of school hours positions. Who fills the rest of the roles? And why is okay for them to only subsist.
Sounds like a great plan. And a great motivator.
As far as the rest of the roles. IF they legitimately can't fill the role, then they offer more money(for that role and time position) or they reduce services. Or partner with a local jr college to attract more night students.
It's possible to work a physically demanding job and perform mentally demanding tasks.4 -
I like the idea of ruling out complete crap from being purchased. It is not a right to buy junk food, it is a choice, and a luxury one at that, since soda and energy drinks have zero nutrition. The SNAP program was designed to help people in need eat healthier and to assist in food cost. If you don't want to be regulated, stay off goverment assistance programs. I was able to buy plenty of healthy foods the 9 months I was on SNAP.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. 1. Soda...specifically Sprite....has saved my life on many occasions when my glucose level plummeted...I'd call that nutritious for the given situation 2. The program was NOT designed to help people in need eat healthier. It WAS designed, however, to help people "in need"...however you define that....gain assistance in food cost. The individuals who make the rules decided that a vast major of users of this program need to be educated on nutrition and thus came all the stipulations. A recent example...used to be able to get 2%,1% and skim milk. Now only 1% and skim is allowed.
Now the bolded comment you made above....RUDE RUDE RUDE and again RUDE! Your assumption is that everyone on the program wants to be on the program---classified ignorance. Oh, and kudos for your 9 month healthy shopping spree but for many people this assistance program is for a lifetime.10 -
singingflutelady wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.
Really? Not every area of the world has an abundance of good jobs. I live in such an area. I have 2 university degrees magna cum laude and before I was sick I was laid off and the only job I could find was at Wal-Mart. I am an elementary teacher by training but there are over 800 people on the substitute list and the average time on the list is 8+ years. Many of these people also work min wage jobs. The biggest employers in my area are call centers, fast food and retail. A lot of these workers do have university and college education and going back to school, except for medical and trades, won't help anyone get better jobs.
And yet engineering/hard science/industry jobs have a waiver for H1B because they can't fill them with qualified Americans. Perhaps your career counselor lied to you, perhaps you didn't have one, perhaps you didn't listen. Regardless the reason, you fit into the description above. If you were deceived, you have my sympathy, but the description still fits.
A quick google showed that the replacement rate for teachers is ~55K per year. And yet over 200K university students graduated from teaching programs.
That's 4 times the needed number. Taking into account attrition any graduation number higher than 120% of the replacement rate is going to lead to the exact situation you have.
And it's going to continue getting worse, because those numbers have been stable for a LONG time.8 -
singingflutelady wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.
Really? Not every area of the world has an abundance of good jobs. I live in such an area. I have 2 university degrees magna cum laude and before I was sick I was laid off and the only job I could find was at Wal-Mart. I am an elementary teacher by training but there are over 800 people on the substitute list and the average time on the list is 8+ years. Many of these people also work min wage jobs. The biggest employers in my area are call centers, fast food and retail. A lot of these workers do have university and college education and going back to school, except for medical and trades, won't help anyone get better jobs.
^^^This is so very very true4 -
Chef_Barbell wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
Like if that's the only job available at the time?
I fully support training programs for people to get out of jobs that pay so little.
I still don't understand why these jobs just can't offer a living wage in the first place.
Then start a business and offer your unskilled labor a "living wage".4 -
SmithsonianEmpress wrote: »I like the idea of ruling out complete crap from being purchased. It is not a right to buy junk food, it is a choice, and a luxury one at that, since soda and energy drinks have zero nutrition. The SNAP program was designed to help people in need eat healthier and to assist in food cost. If you don't want to be regulated, stay off goverment assistance programs. I was able to buy plenty of healthy foods the 9 months I was on SNAP.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. 1. Soda...specifically Sprite....has saved my life on many occasions when my glucose level plummeted...I'd call that nutritious for the given situation 2. The program was NOT designed to help people in need eat healthier. It WAS designed, however, to help people "in need"...however you define that....gain assistance in food cost. The individuals who make the rules decided that a vast major of users of this program need to be educated on nutrition and thus came all the stipulations. A recent example...used to be able to get 2%,1% and skim milk. Now only 1% and skim is allowed.
Now the bolded comment you made above....RUDE RUDE RUDE and again RUDE! Your assumption is that everyone on the program wants to be on the program---classified ignorance. Oh, and kudos for your 9 month healthy shopping spree but for many people this assistance program is for a lifetime.
IF your "temporary need" is "for a lifetime"... it's not the program that has failed. it's you.10 -
stanmann571 wrote: »singingflutelady wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.
Really? Not every area of the world has an abundance of good jobs. I live in such an area. I have 2 university degrees magna cum laude and before I was sick I was laid off and the only job I could find was at Wal-Mart. I am an elementary teacher by training but there are over 800 people on the substitute list and the average time on the list is 8+ years. Many of these people also work min wage jobs. The biggest employers in my area are call centers, fast food and retail. A lot of these workers do have university and college education and going back to school, except for medical and trades, won't help anyone get better jobs.
And yet engineering/hard science/industry jobs have a waiver for H1B because they can't fill them with qualified Americans. Perhaps your career counselor lied to you, perhaps you didn't have one, perhaps you didn't listen. Regardless the reason, you fit into the description above. If you were deceived, you have my sympathy, but the description still fits.
Except there are very few engineering/hard science/industry jobs in my area either. Just as many people with science degrees working min wage as those of us with non science degrees. It's just the way it is here but I'm glad to hear that everything other than science/engineering is a "poor lifestyle choice". I actually wasn't on social assistance when I was working and able to make due with my income. I'm only on disability because of an incurable disease that wasn't caused by poor lifestyle choices.8 -
stanmann571 wrote: »singingflutelady wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.
Really? Not every area of the world has an abundance of good jobs. I live in such an area. I have 2 university degrees magna cum laude and before I was sick I was laid off and the only job I could find was at Wal-Mart. I am an elementary teacher by training but there are over 800 people on the substitute list and the average time on the list is 8+ years. Many of these people also work min wage jobs. The biggest employers in my area are call centers, fast food and retail. A lot of these workers do have university and college education and going back to school, except for medical and trades, won't help anyone get better jobs.
And yet engineering/hard science/industry jobs have a waiver for H1B because they can't fill them with qualified Americans. Perhaps your career counselor lied to you, perhaps you didn't have one, perhaps you didn't listen. Regardless the reason, you fit into the description above. If you were deceived, you have my sympathy, but the description still fits.
A quick google showed that the replacement rate for teachers is ~55K per year. And yet over 200K university students graduated from teaching programs.
That's 4 times the needed number. Taking into account attrition any graduation number higher than 120% of the replacement rate is going to lead to the exact situation you have.
And it's going to continue getting worse, because those numbers have been stable for a LONG time.
Ok you edited this since I answered. Actually they did lie. They told us that there was going to be a huge number retiring but what they didn't say was that these positions will mostly be eliminated or combined.5 -
I like the idea of ruling out complete crap from being purchased. It is not a right to buy junk food, it is a choice, and a luxury one at that, since soda and energy drinks have zero nutrition. The SNAP program was designed to help people in need eat healthier and to assist in food cost. If you don't want to be regulated, stay off goverment assistance programs. I was able to buy plenty of healthy foods the 9 months I was on SNAP.
You realize that if we go to a gov't regulates what you can buy model it would likely regulate some of the "healthy" foods people see as more indulgent too, right? And who decides what's healthy? For example, WIC seems pretty restricted in meat options, only canned fish if I am reading it right. The gov't micromanaging what can be purchased seems like a bad idea to me (even though I don't care about the soda thing). Yes, people SHOULD buy nutrient-dense foods for the most part, but I think that's a matter for personal responsibility.5 -
singingflutelady wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »singingflutelady wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.
Really? Not every area of the world has an abundance of good jobs. I live in such an area. I have 2 university degrees magna cum laude and before I was sick I was laid off and the only job I could find was at Wal-Mart. I am an elementary teacher by training but there are over 800 people on the substitute list and the average time on the list is 8+ years. Many of these people also work min wage jobs. The biggest employers in my area are call centers, fast food and retail. A lot of these workers do have university and college education and going back to school, except for medical and trades, won't help anyone get better jobs.
And yet engineering/hard science/industry jobs have a waiver for H1B because they can't fill them with qualified Americans. Perhaps your career counselor lied to you, perhaps you didn't have one, perhaps you didn't listen. Regardless the reason, you fit into the description above. If you were deceived, you have my sympathy, but the description still fits.
A quick google showed that the replacement rate for teachers is ~55K per year. And yet over 200K university students graduated from teaching programs.
That's 4 times the needed number. Taking into account attrition any graduation number higher than 120% of the replacement rate is going to lead to the exact situation you have.
And it's going to continue getting worse, because those numbers have been stable for a LONG time.
Ok you edited this since I answered. Actually they did lie. They told us that there was going to be a huge number retiring but what they didn't say was that these positions will mostly be eliminated or combined.
I was sincere when I offered my sympathy. I know that it's almost as worthless as my scorn, but it's much less common.
I've been truly blessed these past 20 years, and I'm doing research regarding teaching opportunities, because I know that Secondary Math/Science teaching positions in some of the harder/darker inner cities are very hard to fill, and that my background will allow me to perform adequately in that environment. That and my pension will permit me to subsist on the lower salaries many of these at risk high demand schools can afford to offer.5 -
VintageFeline wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.
So everyone upskills and gets a better paid job. Students only fill out of school hours positions. Who fills the rest of the roles? And why is okay for them to only subsist.
Arguably if it's harder to find people to do minimum wage retail jobs the salaries increase (and we probably get faster movement to automation).
In reality, this sounds all nice, but I think the idea that a MUCH higher percentage of the population can get skilled jobs is likely not true for a variety of reasons. Could the percentage improve? Yes, I think so, in the US anyway, as I think we do a terrible job in that area (both in encouraging the existence of skilled jobs and in encouraging/getting people to train for them, in that the number of US residents training for trades (which can be great jobs) and of course in STEM is awful).0 -
stanmann571 wrote: »singingflutelady wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »singingflutelady wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.
Really? Not every area of the world has an abundance of good jobs. I live in such an area. I have 2 university degrees magna cum laude and before I was sick I was laid off and the only job I could find was at Wal-Mart. I am an elementary teacher by training but there are over 800 people on the substitute list and the average time on the list is 8+ years. Many of these people also work min wage jobs. The biggest employers in my area are call centers, fast food and retail. A lot of these workers do have university and college education and going back to school, except for medical and trades, won't help anyone get better jobs.
And yet engineering/hard science/industry jobs have a waiver for H1B because they can't fill them with qualified Americans. Perhaps your career counselor lied to you, perhaps you didn't have one, perhaps you didn't listen. Regardless the reason, you fit into the description above. If you were deceived, you have my sympathy, but the description still fits.
A quick google showed that the replacement rate for teachers is ~55K per year. And yet over 200K university students graduated from teaching programs.
That's 4 times the needed number. Taking into account attrition any graduation number higher than 120% of the replacement rate is going to lead to the exact situation you have.
And it's going to continue getting worse, because those numbers have been stable for a LONG time.
Ok you edited this since I answered. Actually they did lie. They told us that there was going to be a huge number retiring but what they didn't say was that these positions will mostly be eliminated or combined.
I was sincere when I offered my sympathy. I know that it's almost as worthless as my scorn, but it's much less common.
I've been truly blessed these past 20 years, and I'm doing research regarding teaching opportunities, because I know that Secondary Math/Science teaching positions in some of the harder/darker inner cities are very hard to fill, and that my background will allow me to perform adequately in that environment. That and my pension will permit me to subsist on the lower salaries many of these at risk high demand schools can afford to offer.
Thanks for your military service and the willingness to take on teaching in those situations as a second career.4 -
stanmann571 wrote: »singingflutelady wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »singingflutelady wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »Realizing that this may derail the thread, but I think this is a great conversation.
As part of any temporary benefits application process what would be your opinion on mandatory education of the following (as applicable):
Nutrition/Weight Management
Cooking
Budgeting
Home Economics
Thinking back to my military service, where if one applied for financial assistance they had to first attend a basic finance course and have their budgets reviewed by a counselor. This was a very effective program with an extremely low rate of repeat applications.
Where does one find time for mandatory classes? Usually someone on assistance is already working a huge amount of hours a week and still can't get by. Then the time it takes to put food on the table, spend time with family, etc etc.Alatariel75 wrote: »JeromeBarry1 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Bring back the poor house! The state should have full control over those pesky people daring to live in poverty and need state assistance.
I really despair of our attitude to those at the bottom of the pile.
I have a large number of First Cousins. One of them, who was one year older than I, was added to the welfare rolls at age 12 when her father died and she received U.S. Social Security benefits for being an orphan. Those expired when she turned 18, but college was free to her because of her orphan status. Preparing for that, she started producing children at age 16 so that she had government benefits for unmarried mothers and their children to replace her government benefits to orphans when she turned 18. At 19 she agreed to marry a man who was quite unable to produce an earned income and she kept receiving generous government assistance for her needy children, her low-income household, and oh-by-the-way her medical care was free, too. It was to her benefit that her older brother was a prosperous schmuck who provided her rent and grocery money unknown to the government. That's the cousin. I have a sister whose decidedly different course of life has been showered with great wealth. One day my sister was speaking with my cousin and asked her directly, "Why don't you get a job?" My cousin replied, "I make more money on welfare than I could at minimum wage."
It is that one person's story, my cousin, that more influences all my thoughts on government assistance to the needy than any other. She died of cancer 14 years ago because the free government medical care was a bit less than timely at delivering care.
We, as a society, don't need to be cruel as you parody, but we don't need to be schmucks, either.
I know this wasn't your point, but it does make me wonder at a society that pays so little in minimum wage that people in some circumstances are better off receiving aid instead of working . . . .
There was a documentary a couple of years ago, and I can't remember what it's called, but one of the people who was in it was a young single mother. Over the course of the documentary, all she wanted to do was find a job and get off of 'welfare'. She did end up finding a full time job, but realized that it put her over the cap pf being able to qualify for assistance but below what she actually needed to feed her kids. Obviously it's slanted (because it's a documentary), but I wonder how many people we have in the US in similar situations?
This causes me to ask the next level of "Why?"
Wage is based on market forces, primarily skill set, so why do we have a population lacking the skills to earn a minimum livable wage?
But the problem here is - those minimum, unlivable wage jobs will continue to exist, and need to be filled, even if the people currently in them manage to skill themselves out of them. So there will always be that group of people in those jobs (some with the skills to not be in them but without the available positions) who are stuck in this cycle.
Most of these jobs are temporary and transitional and intended for kids young adults entering the workplace. The intent is to gain additional skills, training and experience to work towards positions with greater responsibility and increased pay.
BLS stats:
https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm
Seems very similar to dieting in a yo-yo cycle. Change will not come without changing behavior.
And? They aren't anymore and people have to do them.
There are ~330 M people living in the US, with ~255 M in the workforce. Only 700 k are at the minimum wage per BLS report cited.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
These jobs certainly are temporary and transitional. The root cause is lack of job skills. Without addressing the root cause you are only addressing a symptom and dooming a population to a life of poverty.
And how do you suggest the root is addressed?
It has to be multifaceted - supplementation via SNAP, WIC is a correction, but not a corrective action.
For skills the entire college loan system needs to be overhauled and we need to stop subsidizing training to fields with no hope of employment. There are tremendous opportunities in the trades which are all on the verge of collapsing over the next two decades due to the baby boomer retirement. Per BLS we are going to lose ~65% of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, welders, etc. in the next decade. Public education either needs to re-incorporate tradeskills into the curriculum, or a private option needs to be created and incorporated into state curriculum. Forward thinking states are already doing this.
Government and industry need to look to long term solutions as opposed to the horrible shortsightedness we're grown accustomed to. It is in the best interests of everyone.
That all sounds good in a perfect world.
Personal responsibility > government intervention
Every time.
How does personal responsibility come into play for this?
Are we talking about people who lost their jobs and need temporary help or are we talking about chronic unemployment or underemployment?
Is this just a pull themselves up by their bootstraps and just make it happen?
Primarily we're talking about chronic unemployment/underemployment and so called adults complaining that they can't provide for a family on a job/wage that's intended for a single/dependent HS/College student to subsist on.
I don't think businesses intend certain jobs for students only (many of them have shifts or hour expectations that aren't easily compatible with being in school), it's just that they know they can pay that little.
It's hard to support a business plan that has you paying much more for the same type of labor than other businesses around you, so as a result we've got all these service economy jobs that -- whether it is intended or not -- non-student adults are trying to survive on.
That's a consequence of poor lifestyle decisions. To exacerbate that by starting a family is an additional poor decision.
Really? Not every area of the world has an abundance of good jobs. I live in such an area. I have 2 university degrees magna cum laude and before I was sick I was laid off and the only job I could find was at Wal-Mart. I am an elementary teacher by training but there are over 800 people on the substitute list and the average time on the list is 8+ years. Many of these people also work min wage jobs. The biggest employers in my area are call centers, fast food and retail. A lot of these workers do have university and college education and going back to school, except for medical and trades, won't help anyone get better jobs.
And yet engineering/hard science/industry jobs have a waiver for H1B because they can't fill them with qualified Americans. Perhaps your career counselor lied to you, perhaps you didn't have one, perhaps you didn't listen. Regardless the reason, you fit into the description above. If you were deceived, you have my sympathy, but the description still fits.
A quick google showed that the replacement rate for teachers is ~55K per year. And yet over 200K university students graduated from teaching programs.
That's 4 times the needed number. Taking into account attrition any graduation number higher than 120% of the replacement rate is going to lead to the exact situation you have.
And it's going to continue getting worse, because those numbers have been stable for a LONG time.
Ok you edited this since I answered. Actually they did lie. They told us that there was going to be a huge number retiring but what they didn't say was that these positions will mostly be eliminated or combined.
I was sincere when I offered my sympathy. I know that it's almost as worthless as my scorn, but it's much less common.
I've been truly blessed these past 20 years, and I'm doing research regarding teaching opportunities, because I know that Secondary Math/Science teaching positions in some of the harder/darker inner cities are very hard to fill, and that my background will allow me to perform adequately in that environment. That and my pension will permit me to subsist on the lower salaries many of these at risk high demand schools can afford to offer.
I worked in a similar environment. I had a half time (but paid as sub) teaching job in a First Nation school for 6.5 years and it was tough but rewarding. I was laid off but the school board here doesn't recognise non school board experience so I was put in bottom of list below the new graduates. I do have a specialty that gives me some advantage as there are less of us (elementary music) but since it's the arts they are heavily cutting back on it in schools. I'm in Canada so the education system is a bit different (in order to teach you have to have both an undergraduate degree and a bachelor of education).3
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