Is Poverty Even Breakable In The US?

[SimpleDon]

Whatever happened to Voc Tech in high school? I remember my high school had an entire wing dedicated to it. Checking the school website, there is a heading for it with no content.
I think a blue-collar education is as close as we can get to quelling as much poverty as possible. I mean if you’re not willing to accept free training for a vocation, you need a compelling reason to be on the dole.

We can do better than that. The middle class is the most stable, law-abiding, and education appreciating part of the population. Pay the poor more for the work they already do. Put the poor into the middle class.

Follow up by evening out the financial support for schools, the amount of funding going to education in the whole nation is probably about right, but the distribution of the funds is uneven. Consider if we really believed that the solution to poverty was education we would put more money into the schools that taught the children of the poor, the exact opposite of what we do.

 

[SimpleDon]

It's not just the 'poor' who struggle, also workers that do essential work within the economy but are poorly paid for their time and effort.

<< bingo >>​

I think that the main argument against paying the poor more for the work they already do comes from the fantasy economics believers, as in a self-regulating free market, free trade, deregulation, etc. that have time and again proven to be either unobtainable or destructive in their own right. These people invariably think that the labor market is a nearly perfect market that pays workers what they are worth in spite of all available evidence that people are paid what they can negotiate. And that for more than fifty years we have been reducing workers' abilities to negotiate.

 

[Trausti]

You can't hope to solve a problem if you don't first acknowledge it. It doesn't mean denigration. But it does mean the 50 plus year of liberal spending and social engineering should probably stop. If such policies were helpful, then the issue would have gone away a long time ago.

I fully agree. The War on Poverty of the 1960s only solved one-half of the problem. It obviously didn't work. Why settle for half measure? This is why we slowly got rid of it.

But you are demonizing the poor for having a congenital defect, do you honestly believe that what you are doing will eliminate poverty? I think not.

It probably is because it somehow absolves you in your mind from supporting the obvious solution embraced by most other highly developed countries, pay the poor more for the work that they already do.

Who pays the poor more to work? Who? You? It might be a better perspective to encourage manufacturers to reshore and have government exclusively buy US made products. But that’s an America first position, so it’s bad.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It's not just the 'poor' who struggle, also workers that do essential work within the economy but are poorly paid for their time and effort.

<< bingo >>​

I think that the main argument against paying the poor more for the work they already do comes from the fantasy economics believers, as in a self-regulating free market, free trade, deregulation, etc. that have time and again proven to be either unobtainable or destructive in their own right. These people invariably think that the labor market is a nearly perfect market that pays workers what they are worth in spite of all available evidence that people are paid what they can negotiate. And that for more than fifty years we have been reducing workers' abilities to negotiate.

The US intentionally transitioned to a service based economy. This means that services matter as they are a larger portion of our economy. The idea that "burger flippers labor" isn't worth a viable wage seems a peculiar claim as there certainly is a demand for burgers in the United States, so Americans demand burgers be flipped.

In the 19th century, hard labor was considered not worthy of a viable wage either. That isn't viewed as acceptable anymore for white people. Hispanics working in farms...

So America needs to come to grips with reality. If we got rid of the factory production, then service jobs need to provide these sorts of wages... or we have a permanent underclass that we whine about regarding violence, crime, drugs, poverty that comes from such a thing.

Of course, this doesn't fix housing, schools, etc... in impoverished areas lacking grocery stores, banks, and other things that us other people take for granted.

 

[Trausti]

Whatever happened to Voc Tech in high school? I remember my high school had an entire wing dedicated to it. Checking the school website, there is a heading for it with no content.
I think a blue-collar education is as close as we can get to quelling as much poverty as possible. I mean if you’re not willing to accept free training for a vocation, you need a compelling reason to be on the dole.

We can do better than that. The middle class is the most stable, law-abiding, and education appreciating part of the population. Pay the poor more for the work they already do. Put the poor into the middle class.

Follow up by evening out the financial support for schools, the amount of funding going to education in the whole nation is probably about right, but the distribution of the funds is uneven. Consider if we really believed that the solution to poverty was education we would put more money into the schools that taught the children of the poor, the exact opposite of what we do.

New York spends $36k per student. Utah spends $7k per student. Utah has a higher high school graduation rate.

 

[laughing dog]

Whatever happened to Voc Tech in high school? I remember my high school had an entire wing dedicated to it. Checking the school website, there is a heading for it with no content.
I think a blue-collar education is as close as we can get to quelling as much poverty as possible. I mean if you’re not willing to accept free training for a vocation, you need a compelling reason to be on the dole.

We can do better than that. The middle class is the most stable, law-abiding, and education appreciating part of the population. Pay the poor more for the work they already do. Put the poor into the middle class.

Follow up by evening out the financial support for schools, the amount of funding going to education in the whole nation is probably about right, but the distribution of the funds is uneven. Consider if we really believed that the solution to poverty was education we would put more money into the schools that taught the children of the poor, the exact opposite of what we do.

New York spends $36k per student. Utah spends $7k per student. Utah has a higher high school graduation rate.

Do you have an actual point? Those numbers have virtually no meaning.

First, they are incorrect. This site (https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics) has the State of New Work spending $24K per student and Utah spending $7.6K per student.

Second, they do not account for differences in the cost of living. According to this site (https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/cost-of-living-index-by-state), the cost of living in the State of New York is 40% higher than Utah. So adjusting the spending per pupil for the cost of living yields that NY state spending per pupil is $17.1K per student compared to Utah's spending per student.

Third, they do not measure what is learned or for the difficulty of graduating from high school.

 

[Trausti]

New York spends $36k per student. Utah spends $7k per student. Utah has a higher high school graduation rate.

Do you have an actual point? Those numbers have virtually no meaning.

First, they are incorrect. This site (https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics) has the State of New Work spending $24K per student and Utah spending $7.6K per student.

Second, they do not account for differences in the cost of living. According to this site (https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/cost-of-living-index-by-state), the cost of living in the State of New York is 40% higher than Utah. So adjusting the spending per pupil for the cost of living yields that NY state spending per pupil is $17.1K per student compared to Utah's spending per student.

Third, they do not measure what is learned or for the difficulty of graduating from high school.

Watch out, lg. Someone might think you’re saying throwing more money at a problem doesn’t solve the problem.

 

[Toni]

New York spends $36k per student. Utah spends $7k per student. Utah has a higher high school graduation rate.

Do you have an actual point? Those numbers have virtually no meaning.

First, they are incorrect. This site (https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics) has the State of New Work spending $24K per student and Utah spending $7.6K per student.

Second, they do not account for differences in the cost of living. According to this site (https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/cost-of-living-index-by-state), the cost of living in the State of New York is 40% higher than Utah. So adjusting the spending per pupil for the cost of living yields that NY state spending per pupil is $17.1K per student compared to Utah's spending per student.

Third, they do not measure what is learned or for the difficulty of graduating from high school.

Watch out, lg. Someone might think you’re saying throwing more money at a problem doesn’t solve the problem.

Only if you aren't paying attention or don't think too hard.

 

[Trausti]

Watch out, lg. Someone might think you’re saying throwing more money at a problem doesn’t solve the problem.

Only if you aren't paying attention or don't think too hard.

1980s. Missouri v. Jenkins. Federal court ordered billions to improve Kansas City schools. Result? Well, what do ya think?

 

[rousseau]

It's not just the 'poor' who struggle, also workers that do essential work within the economy but are poorly paid for their time and effort.

<< bingo >>​

I think that the main argument against paying the poor more for the work they already do comes from the fantasy economics believers, as in a self-regulating free market, free trade, deregulation, etc. that have time and again proven to be either unobtainable or destructive in their own right. These people invariably think that the labor market is a nearly perfect market that pays workers what they are worth in spite of all available evidence that people are paid what they can negotiate. And that for more than fifty years we have been reducing workers' abilities to negotiate.

The US intentionally transitioned to a service based economy. This means that services matter as they are a larger portion of our economy. The idea that "burger flippers labor" isn't worth a viable wage seems a peculiar claim as there certainly is a demand for burgers in the United States, so Americans demand burgers be flipped.

In the 19th century, hard labor was considered not worthy of a viable wage either. That isn't viewed as acceptable anymore for white people. Hispanics working in farms...

So America needs to come to grips with reality. If we got rid of the factory production, then service jobs need to provide these sorts of wages... or we have a permanent underclass that we whine about regarding violence, crime, drugs, poverty that comes from such a thing.

Of course, this doesn't fix housing, schools, etc... in impoverished areas lacking grocery stores, banks, and other things that us other people take for granted.

IMO, the basic problem you're looking at is that the poor have no political muscle, and that the overarching culture in the U.S. doesn't want an economy that supports it's poor. Canada is functionally the same country but with fewer Conservatives, and greater social support just happens. In the Western world the U.S. is actually quite unique that way.

So how do you have a political revolution when the majority doesn't want a political revolution?

 

[TV and credit cards]

Whatever happened to Voc Tech in high school? I remember my high school had an entire wing dedicated to it. Checking the school website, there is a heading for it with no content.
I think a blue collar education is as close as we can get to quelling as much poverty as possible. I mean if you’re not willing to accept free training for a vocation, you need a compelling reason to be on the dole.

Over the past number of years, we've been renovating our old house which had not seen any major updates in...40+ years. Bunches of the work involved going down to studs and in the end, the entire house was rewired, plumbing was updated, so it wasn't simply aesthetics that was done. In talking with our general contractor and every plumber, carpenter, cabinetmaker, electrician and tile guy, they all said the same thing: They were struggling to keep up with demand for their services. Most of them are in their 50's or older and even then, owner of the electrician's company, the plumber's company are our age---looking to retire. A couple have in fact just retired. They are struggling mightily to find skilled tradespeople to replace themselves and their workers. Wages are good-about $50/hr where I live for most of the trades. More for some.

There is a tremendous need for skilled workers in all trades: HVAC, carpentry, masonry, electricians, plumbers, tile setters, general contractors, everything you can name. I live in a small town. It's worse in the bigger cities.

However, for many of these jobs, it is rare that anyone can work past their early 60's, if that long because of the physical demands of the job.

One thing that has really hurt us is the decline of unions. Another is the growth of billionaires. I think there is a connection there. To me, it is obvious that some companies: Amazon, Walmart, Microsoft, Apple, (the first giants that leap to my mind) need to be broken up. And much more heavily taxed. And compelled to pay their workers a living wage as part of the cost of doing business. Because let me tell you, living in a working class town, it is easy to see just how much my tax dollars support these billionaires and their quest for more money by supplementing the living expenses of their underpaid workers.

I know. In my last job I hired local tradesmen. I did this quite often. It was a much more difficult task than I had anticipated. There's shortages of workers. Hiring workers of questionable qualifications, and I just often found myself on the begging end of these transactions. I was suppose to be getting quotes from three contractors for any particular job. That didn't happen too often. In some trades, I took what I could get.

You watch. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts. If Biden were to get funding to provide voc tech training, once we start getting a good pool of qualified tradesmen, the big money will swoop in and put all the small shops out of business.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Traffic Control is like that, though completely unskilled, with even lesser unskilled workers. Area Wide Protective bought everyone in most of Ohio and probably the entire Northeast US. They pretty much grew into a conglomerate along my career. And now... getting traffic control is near impossible. New companies had to spring up, but still getting traffic control is hard because of all the consolidation... and apparently people can't pass drug tests.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You don't solve poverty by providing better houses and the like. You solve poverty by providing education. Unfortunately, education is like water--you can lead the horse to it, you can't make it drink. Fundamentally, this is a cultural problem, not an economic problem. I do not know how to fix it, though.

and herein lies one of the interesting issues when it comes to addressing poverty: it's true, you DON'T solve it that way, but you CAN.
not doing so is purely by choice, not for any logistical reason.

No--you can't. Throwing money at poverty has been tried, it doesn't work.

You don't solve poverty by providing better houses and the like. You solve poverty by providing education. Unfortunately, education is like water--you can lead the horse to it, you can't make it drink. Fundamentally, this is a cultural problem, not an economic problem. I do not know how to fix it, though.

I don't think that's entirely true. I'm sure you're thinking of better housing as many steps beyond inadequate heating and plumbing and lack of safe drinking water, lead paint, infestation with cockroaches and rats and other horrors because those things do have an immediate affect on health and well being with children bearing the biggest burden. That affects ability to benefit to the fullest from educational and employment and training opportunities.

Improve the housing, you drive up the cost, now you have more homeless because there's nothing they can afford.

And...better housing often is found in 'better neighborhoods' that are safer, nearer to things like grocery stores, parks, good quality schools and day care. All of those things have a positive affect on school attendance, school achievement, health and well being.

It is extremely stressful to live in an unsafe home or an unsafe neighborhood. Poverty is extremely stressful and that stress contributes substantially to lower health and lower achievement in school, job training, employment, etc.

Which doesn't mean throwing money at it works.

We need to do much, much, much more to have mixed housing so that lower income people have some of the same opportunities for school, decent access to good grocery stores, clinics, child care without the stigma because rich(er) people use the same stores, the same schools, etc. Universal day care would really help. It won't stop some families from needing or preferring nannies or au pairs but it will make it normal to drop our child off for day care so that you can go to school or work yourself and if middle class parents are using the service, there is more pressure to ensure that it is decent quality. And the kids go to school as well prepared as their peers from more wealthy families.

Try to make mixed housing and you'll just trigger flight by those who are able to. Parents will quite rightly realize the schools are going to go in the shitter. Besides, putting poor students in good schools provides virtually zero benefit to them, all you do is hurt the good students. Trying to equalize like this actually always ends up being nothing but hammering down those who stand up.

Of course, universal health care, better public transportation, a living wage, affordable education from birth through out life--those thing would really help.

Except for the little detail of how much it will cost. The left never pays any attention to that and thinks pipe dreams can actually work.

You don't solve poverty by providing better houses and the like. You solve poverty by providing education. Unfortunately, education is like water--you can lead the horse to it, you can't make it drink. Fundamentally, this is a cultural problem, not an economic problem.

If you are talking about college education, that is nonsense. You do realize that most US citizens do not have a college degree. The distribution of income was less unequal from 1945 to about 1980 even though a vast majority of workers did not a college degree.

And, if you think about it, if everyone had a college degree, there could be no college premium.

As Toni pointed out, the aging of the labor force is disproportionately affecting the skilled trades. And, as Michael Sandel points out in his new book "The Tyranny of Merit", discrimination/snobbery based on educational credentials is the only prejudice that is acceptable.

I wasn't thinking about college education--an awful lot of people in poverty do not even have a meaningful high school education. I do agree there should be more vocational education.

You don't solve poverty by providing better houses and the like. You solve poverty by providing education. Unfortunately, education is like water--you can lead the horse to it, you can't make it drink. Fundamentally, this is a cultural problem, not an economic problem. I do not know how to fix it, though.

One side of some mouths say we need more education, the other side of the exact same mouths whine about unqualified blacks and hispanics taking Asian and White seats in college classrooms.

Nothing incompatible. You're focusing on race, I'm focusing on unqualified. You don't solve the problem of inferior education by simply decreeing that they did learn.

Education is important but it is just one facet. Hungry kids don’t learn well. Hungry kids living in an unsupervised her cause Mon is working three jobs to not be able to pay for food without government support learn even less well. Hungry kids with little supervision having their brains poisoned by the lead in the dust they are breathing every spring and summer learn even more poorly.

And you assume this is the cause. Hint: Most people in poverty work well under 40 hr/wk. That hungry kid is more likely parent(s) who care more about smoking/alcohol/drugs than their kids.

Cultural your ass! White America enslaved them. Then when they were free, white America rioted and murdered them / destroyed their businesses. White America plotted to keep then out of good neighborhoods for decades longer. And in the 50s when it was seen something needed to be done, nothing was done. And then white America put a lot of blacks in jail for drugs. Cultural?! The African American condition in America is caused by White immorality, neglect, hatred, and conspiracy over a period of a few centuries. Blacks haven’t gotten out of the poverty in just 30 years of less unequal playing field? And you want to say it is cultural? At the height of your pedestal, you must be able to touch the moon.

Well maybe she shouldn’t have had three children.

Except for the little detail that if it really is racism why do immigrant blacks fare so much better? If it's legacy effects that is a cultural issue, not a discrimination issue.

You can't hope to solve a problem if you don't first acknowledge it. It doesn't mean denigration. But it does mean the 50 plus year of liberal spending and social engineering should probably stop. If such policies were helpful, then the issue would have gone away a long time ago.

I fully agree. The War on Poverty of the 1960s only solved one-half of the problem. It obviously didn't work. Why settle for half measure? This is why we slowly got rid of it.

It didn't solve even half the problem. The big benefit from the 1960s was the civil rights movement.

But you are demonizing the poor for having a congenital defect, do you honestly believe that what you are doing will eliminate poverty? I think not.

It probably is because it somehow absolves you in your mind from supporting the obvious solution embraced by most other highly developed countries, pay the poor more for the work that they already do.

It's not congenital--culture is not passed genetically.

It's not just the 'poor' who struggle, also workers that do essential work within the economy but are poorly paid for their time and effort.

<< bingo >>​

I think that the main argument against paying the poor more for the work they already do comes from the fantasy economics believers, as in a self-regulating free market, free trade, deregulation, etc. that have time and again proven to be either unobtainable or destructive in their own right. These people invariably think that the labor market is a nearly perfect market that pays workers what they are worth in spite of all available evidence that people are paid what they can negotiate. And that for more than fifty years we have been reducing workers' abilities to negotiate.

No. For 50 years we have been reducing worker's ability to engage in extortion. The labor market does do a pretty good job of scaling income to value.

There are some changes that are needed, but unions aren't the answer. How about:

1) Mandated benefits have set up a situation where there is a considerable advantage to the employer to keep worker hours low. This is the exact opposite of how the incentives should work. Things should be arranged so there is a substantial disadvantage to the employer in hiring part time workers except in cases where the position only has part time demand (Say, a business-district place only open for lunch. There won't be 40 hours of work in a week, such an employer isn't penalized) and jobs employing students (who quite obviously probably do not want full time employment.)

2) Labor law violations carry a penalty of say 5x the amount involved and with good documentation the recovery period is substantial. (And, side note--one-party recording should be the law of the land. You're free to secretly record all your interactions with your employer.) When you move on to another job you can go to the DOL with your records and recover all those hours you were made to work off the clock etc. I would expect to see phone apps developed for helping employees monitor actual hours worked. (An app that geofences to record when you're at your workplace would be a big help.)

3) If an employer folds up shop rather than pay what they owe the owners are forbidden from having employees until the judgment is satisfied. You can't simply go bankrupt and open a new business tomorrow.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You don't solve poverty by providing better houses and the like. You solve poverty by providing education. Unfortunately, education is like water--you can lead the horse to it, you can't make it drink. Fundamentally, this is a cultural problem, not an economic problem. I do not know how to fix it, though.

One side of some mouths say we need more education, the other side of the exact same mouths whine about unqualified blacks and hispanics taking Asian and White seats in college classrooms.

Nothing incompatible. You're focusing on race, I'm focusing on unqualified. You don't solve the problem of inferior education by simply decreeing that they did learn.

I'm not focusing on race, I'm focusing on your statements regarding certain students unfairly getting seats in college classrooms because they didn't score as well as white or Asian students. You never actually speak to whether those students graduate. So it isn't compatible at all. It is a paradox.

Education is important but it is just one facet. Hungry kids don’t learn well. Hungry kids living in an unsupervised her cause Mon is working three jobs to not be able to pay for food without government support learn even less well. Hungry kids with little supervision having their brains poisoned by the lead in the dust they are breathing every spring and summer learn even more poorly.

And you assume this is the cause.

I assume it can be a cause. I didn't post a doctoral thesis on children in schools and the difficulties they face.

Hint: Most people in poverty work well under 40 hr/wk.

Yes, and might work two or three jobs to not get there too.

That hungry kid is more likely parent(s) who care more about smoking/alcohol/drugs than their kids.

The child is still hungry and being hungry and poisoned with lead does not magically go away when you say 'well... their parents are clearly degenerates'.

Cultural your ass! White America enslaved them. Then when they were free, white America rioted and murdered them / destroyed their businesses. White America plotted to keep then out of good neighborhoods for decades longer. And in the 50s when it was seen something needed to be done, nothing was done. And then white America put a lot of blacks in jail for drugs. Cultural?! The African American condition in America is caused by White immorality, neglect, hatred, and conspiracy over a period of a few centuries. Blacks haven’t gotten out of the poverty in just 30 years of less unequal playing field? And you want to say it is cultural? At the height of your pedestal, you must be able to touch the moon.

Well maybe she shouldn’t have had three children.

Except for the little detail that if it really is racism why do immigrant blacks fare so much better? If it's legacy effects that is a cultural issue, not a discrimination issue.

That would be evidence that it was the centuries of racism (not bigotry, but racism) etched in American politics and economics until roughly the 1970s.

 

[Toni]

No--you can't. Throwing money at poverty has been tried, it doesn't work.

You don't solve poverty by providing better houses and the like. You solve poverty by providing education. Unfortunately, education is like water--you can lead the horse to it, you can't make it drink. Fundamentally, this is a cultural problem, not an economic problem. I do not know how to fix it, though.

I don't think that's entirely true. I'm sure you're thinking of better housing as many steps beyond inadequate heating and plumbing and lack of safe drinking water, lead paint, infestation with cockroaches and rats and other horrors because those things do have an immediate affect on health and well being with children bearing the biggest burden. That affects ability to benefit to the fullest from educational and employment and training opportunities.

Improve the housing, you drive up the cost, now you have more homeless because there's nothing they can afford.

And...better housing often is found in 'better neighborhoods' that are safer, nearer to things like grocery stores, parks, good quality schools and day care. All of those things have a positive affect on school attendance, school achievement, health and well being.

It is extremely stressful to live in an unsafe home or an unsafe neighborhood. Poverty is extremely stressful and that stress contributes substantially to lower health and lower achievement in school, job training, employment, etc.

Which doesn't mean throwing money at it works.

We need to do much, much, much more to have mixed housing so that lower income people have some of the same opportunities for school, decent access to good grocery stores, clinics, child care without the stigma because rich(er) people use the same stores, the same schools, etc. Universal day care would really help. It won't stop some families from needing or preferring nannies or au pairs but it will make it normal to drop our child off for day care so that you can go to school or work yourself and if middle class parents are using the service, there is more pressure to ensure that it is decent quality. And the kids go to school as well prepared as their peers from more wealthy families.

Try to make mixed housing and you'll just trigger flight by those who are able to. Parents will quite rightly realize the schools are going to go in the shitter. Besides, putting poor students in good schools provides virtually zero benefit to them, all you do is hurt the good students. Trying to equalize like this actually always ends up being nothing but hammering down those who stand up.

Of course, universal health care, better public transportation, a living wage, affordable education from birth through out life--those thing would really help.

Except for the little detail of how much it will cost. The left never pays any attention to that and thinks pipe dreams can actually work.

You don't solve poverty by providing better houses and the like. You solve poverty by providing education. Unfortunately, education is like water--you can lead the horse to it, you can't make it drink. Fundamentally, this is a cultural problem, not an economic problem.

If you are talking about college education, that is nonsense. You do realize that most US citizens do not have a college degree. The distribution of income was less unequal from 1945 to about 1980 even though a vast majority of workers did not a college degree.

And, if you think about it, if everyone had a college degree, there could be no college premium.

As Toni pointed out, the aging of the labor force is disproportionately affecting the skilled trades. And, as Michael Sandel points out in his new book "The Tyranny of Merit", discrimination/snobbery based on educational credentials is the only prejudice that is acceptable.

I wasn't thinking about college education--an awful lot of people in poverty do not even have a meaningful high school education. I do agree there should be more vocational education.

You don't solve poverty by providing better houses and the like. You solve poverty by providing education. Unfortunately, education is like water--you can lead the horse to it, you can't make it drink. Fundamentally, this is a cultural problem, not an economic problem. I do not know how to fix it, though.

One side of some mouths say we need more education, the other side of the exact same mouths whine about unqualified blacks and hispanics taking Asian and White seats in college classrooms.

Nothing incompatible. You're focusing on race, I'm focusing on unqualified. You don't solve the problem of inferior education by simply decreeing that they did learn.

Education is important but it is just one facet. Hungry kids don’t learn well. Hungry kids living in an unsupervised her cause Mon is working three jobs to not be able to pay for food without government support learn even less well. Hungry kids with little supervision having their brains poisoned by the lead in the dust they are breathing every spring and summer learn even more poorly.

And you assume this is the cause. Hint: Most people in poverty work well under 40 hr/wk. That hungry kid is more likely parent(s) who care more about smoking/alcohol/drugs than their kids.

Cultural your ass! White America enslaved them. Then when they were free, white America rioted and murdered them / destroyed their businesses. White America plotted to keep then out of good neighborhoods for decades longer. And in the 50s when it was seen something needed to be done, nothing was done. And then white America put a lot of blacks in jail for drugs. Cultural?! The African American condition in America is caused by White immorality, neglect, hatred, and conspiracy over a period of a few centuries. Blacks haven’t gotten out of the poverty in just 30 years of less unequal playing field? And you want to say it is cultural? At the height of your pedestal, you must be able to touch the moon.

Well maybe she shouldn’t have had three children.

Except for the little detail that if it really is racism why do immigrant blacks fare so much better? If it's legacy effects that is a cultural issue, not a discrimination issue.

You can't hope to solve a problem if you don't first acknowledge it. It doesn't mean denigration. But it does mean the 50 plus year of liberal spending and social engineering should probably stop. If such policies were helpful, then the issue would have gone away a long time ago.

I fully agree. The War on Poverty of the 1960s only solved one-half of the problem. It obviously didn't work. Why settle for half measure? This is why we slowly got rid of it.

It didn't solve even half the problem. The big benefit from the 1960s was the civil rights movement.

But you are demonizing the poor for having a congenital defect, do you honestly believe that what you are doing will eliminate poverty? I think not.

It probably is because it somehow absolves you in your mind from supporting the obvious solution embraced by most other highly developed countries, pay the poor more for the work that they already do.

It's not congenital--culture is not passed genetically.

It's not just the 'poor' who struggle, also workers that do essential work within the economy but are poorly paid for their time and effort.

<< bingo >>​

I think that the main argument against paying the poor more for the work they already do comes from the fantasy economics believers, as in a self-regulating free market, free trade, deregulation, etc. that have time and again proven to be either unobtainable or destructive in their own right. These people invariably think that the labor market is a nearly perfect market that pays workers what they are worth in spite of all available evidence that people are paid what they can negotiate. And that for more than fifty years we have been reducing workers' abilities to negotiate.

No. For 50 years we have been reducing worker's ability to engage in extortion. The labor market does do a pretty good job of scaling income to value.

Bullshit. Not where I live, which is a small town (25K pop) that is geographically distant from the next larger towns/cities by 30 miles and 50 miles. Wages are LOW. When one of my kids finally hit $18/hr, we joked that he was (Our City Name) rich. Typically, raises are $0.05/year. Companies get by with it because all of the employers work together to ensure low wages and poor or zero benefits. If employees make a stink, owners simply close down and move out of town or sell out to overseas owners who are more than happy to exploit American workers as Americans have been exploiting workers in developing countries for decades.

Because this is a small enough town, I happen to know some of the owners of these 'community minded' businesses who will cut a $500 check to help needy families trying to get school kids needed supplies (the same amount little old retired me donates) but will not pay their workers a decent wage or decent benefits. They live in very nice homes, not McMansions, have multiple vacations homes, vacation in Europe or wherever the best ski slopes in the US are and send their kids to whichever school their kid wants to attend. And undercut public education in every way possible.

1) Mandated benefits have set up a situation where there is a considerable advantage to the employer to keep worker hours low. This is the exact opposite of how the incentives should work. Things should be arranged so there is a substantial disadvantage to the employer in hiring part time workers except in cases where the position only has part time demand (Say, a business-district place only open for lunch. There won't be 40 hours of work in a week, such an employer isn't penalized) and jobs employing students (who quite obviously probably do not want full time employment.)

More bullshit. Employers have kept wages low and benefits increasingly terrible because they can without unions in place. It is for the stock holder's benefits, not the employees. And not the public's. We get to pay more in taxes to cover Medicaid, subsidized insurance, special education, subsidized housing, subsidized child care, etc., the providers of which are paid poorly by the state and we get to blame the poor for needing these services.

We need to be honest and straight forward and just enact single payer health care (including mental health care and addiction services) for all, paid for by taxes, largely corporate taxes. Same thing with child care, Do what can be done to ensure access to decent housing for ALL, not elite neighborhoods where people can be free from the offending sight of what withholding a living wage does to workers.

3) If an employer folds up shop rather than pay what they owe the owners are forbidden from having employees until the judgment is satisfied. You can't simply go bankrupt and open a new business tomorrow.

What they really do is sell of the company's assets or sell the company to a foreign investor who is happy to exploit gullible stuck Americans.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Nothing incompatible. You're focusing on race, I'm focusing on unqualified. You don't solve the problem of inferior education by simply decreeing that they did learn.

I'm not focusing on race, I'm focusing on your statements regarding certain students unfairly getting seats in college classrooms because they didn't score as well as white or Asian students. You never actually speak to whether those students graduate. So it isn't compatible at all. It is a paradox.

Fewer graduate. Removing such "benefits" actually increases the number of blacks & hispanics that get degrees.

Education is important but it is just one facet. Hungry kids don’t learn well. Hungry kids living in an unsupervised her cause Mon is working three jobs to not be able to pay for food without government support learn even less well. Hungry kids with little supervision having their brains poisoned by the lead in the dust they are breathing every spring and summer learn even more poorly.

And you assume this is the cause.

I assume it can be a cause. I didn't post a doctoral thesis on children in schools and the difficulties they face.

Most places don't have lead paint issues anymore.

That hungry kid is more likely parent(s) who care more about smoking/alcohol/drugs than their kids.

The child is still hungry and being hungry and poisoned with lead does not magically go away when you say 'well... their parents are clearly degenerates'.

The point is that you don't solve parents putting their wants above their kids' needs by adding money.

Cultural your ass! White America enslaved them. Then when they were free, white America rioted and murdered them / destroyed their businesses. White America plotted to keep then out of good neighborhoods for decades longer. And in the 50s when it was seen something needed to be done, nothing was done. And then white America put a lot of blacks in jail for drugs. Cultural?! The African American condition in America is caused by White immorality, neglect, hatred, and conspiracy over a period of a few centuries. Blacks haven’t gotten out of the poverty in just 30 years of less unequal playing field? And you want to say it is cultural? At the height of your pedestal, you must be able to touch the moon.

Well maybe she shouldn’t have had three children.

Except for the little detail that if it really is racism why do immigrant blacks fare so much better? If it's legacy effects that is a cultural issue, not a discrimination issue.

That would be evidence that it was the centuries of racism (not bigotry, but racism) etched in American politics and economics until roughly the 1970s.

But how is it etched? That's culture which is what I've been saying all along. Until you understand this you can't hope to solve it! Antidiscrimination efforts don't have access to a time machine, we can't go fix what happened before. We need to help people now--and pretending they have qualifications they don't just makes it worse, it doesn't help.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Bullshit. Not where I live, which is a small town (25K pop) that is geographically distant from the next larger towns/cities by 30 miles and 50 miles. Wages are LOW. When one of my kids finally hit $18/hr, we joked that he was (Our City Name) rich. Typically, raises are $0.05/year. Companies get by with it because all of the employers work together to ensure low wages and poor or zero benefits. If employees make a stink, owners simply close down and move out of town or sell out to overseas owners who are more than happy to exploit American workers as Americans have been exploiting workers in developing countries for decades.

Because this is a small enough town, I happen to know some of the owners of these 'community minded' businesses who will cut a $500 check to help needy families trying to get school kids needed supplies (the same amount little old retired me donates) but will not pay their workers a decent wage or decent benefits. They live in very nice homes, not McMansions, have multiple vacations homes, vacation in Europe or wherever the best ski slopes in the US are and send their kids to whichever school their kid wants to attend. And undercut public education in every way possible.

If wages truly were being suppressed someone would come along and put a business there to take advantage of the wage disparity.

1) Mandated benefits have set up a situation where there is a considerable advantage to the employer to keep worker hours low. This is the exact opposite of how the incentives should work. Things should be arranged so there is a substantial disadvantage to the employer in hiring part time workers except in cases where the position only has part time demand (Say, a business-district place only open for lunch. There won't be 40 hours of work in a week, such an employer isn't penalized) and jobs employing students (who quite obviously probably do not want full time employment.)

More bullshit. Employers have kept wages low and benefits increasingly terrible because they can without unions in place. It is for the stock holder's benefits, not the employees. And not the public's. We get to pay more in taxes to cover Medicaid, subsidized insurance, special education, subsidized housing, subsidized child care, etc., the providers of which are paid poorly by the state and we get to blame the poor for needing these services.

We need to be honest and straight forward and just enact single payer health care (including mental health care and addiction services) for all, paid for by taxes, largely corporate taxes. Same thing with child care, Do what can be done to ensure access to decent housing for ALL, not elite neighborhoods where people can be free from the offending sight of what withholding a living wage does to workers.

Nothing in your reply addresses my point. You're arguing for benefits--and I'm pointing out the current system means more benefits = more workers with not enough hours. You're trying to fight a fire with gasoline.

3) If an employer folds up shop rather than pay what they owe the owners are forbidden from having employees until the judgment is satisfied. You can't simply go bankrupt and open a new business tomorrow.

What they really do is sell of the company's assets or sell the company to a foreign investor who is happy to exploit gullible stuck Americans.

Once again, you are completely not addressing the point.

Two misses and you didn't swing at one--I guess you're out.

 

[Toni]

If wages truly were being suppressed someone would come along and put a business there to take advantage of the wage disparity.

It's a relatively small place: 25K population. When businesses come to town, indeed they do take advantage of the suppressed wages.

Of course conservatives argue that wages aren't being suppressed, that's the market rate since people will work at those jobs. But people work at those jobs because that's what they can get. In essence, employers form a block, a kind of monopoly, which they use to control the wages that the workers are allowed to earn, the benefits they will be offered (piss poor is a compliment).

Nothing in your reply addresses my point. You're arguing for benefits--and I'm pointing out the current system means more benefits = more workers with not enough hours. You're trying to fight a fire with gasoline.

No, you're just sticking with your point: Employers in closed markets such as my town (geographically isolated from larger municipalities by distances of 30 miles in one direction and 50 in another direction) have determined what they are willing to offer in compensation. It amounts to poverty wages without providing decent benefits--which increases the stress on workers, driving up the chances that they will experience health issues, including substance abuse (huge problem EVERYWHERE, including small towns), necessitates that the state subsidize these employees health care needs, provide subsidies for housing and food stamps, increases the burden on local schools because children tend to fare less well with parents who are stressed out at trying to keep their heads above water. And of course, wages are too low to be able to do any meaningful investment or savings for retirement. Hell, people struggle to pay rent month to month. This is not so that the employers can make a better product or provide a better service. Nope. It's so their stockholders can make a better profit. Shit, the (recently retired) CFO of one such corporation received annual bonuses that exceeded what is in my husbands' and mine retirement accounts. Heck of a nice guy-- I actually like him. But ffs, he earns that money by pleasing the board by suppressing compensation for the workers. Who need government subsidies to feed and house their families and who require increased social services because they don't earn enough money to be able to save a little and provide decently for their kids.

 

[DBT]

Fewer graduate. Removing such "benefits" actually increases the number of blacks & hispanics that get degrees.

Let's say that everyone of working age is able to get a degree. Does that mean that everyone who can work is able to become doctors, lawyers, executives and CEO's? That with degrees, everyone can get into a profession and command high salaries?

 

[Elixir]

Fewer graduate. Removing such "benefits" actually increases the number of blacks & hispanics that get degrees.

Let's say that everyone of working age is able to get a degree. Does that mean that everyone who can work is able to become doctors, lawyers, executives and CEO's? That with degrees, everyone can get into a profession and command high salaries?

No, but if you're greedy, dishonest and lucky enough you can be a "billionaire" like Trump.