Portrait of a 47% moocher

[ksen]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2014/12/14/the-devalued-american-worker/

Green’s state job pays about $12 an hour. His sports jobs pay about $9 an hour, which is decent money for anyone who works at a minor-league or college stadium. Green’s wife works full time as a social worker for a small salary. Between them, they clock between 110 and 120 hours a week on average. All those hours allow them to earn what a typical American family earned 25 years ago, after adjusting for inflation.

The average two-parent American family earned 23 percent more in 2009 than it did in 1973, after adjusting for inflation. That’s because people in those families are working more hours — 26 percent more than in 1973 on average. Take away the extra time on the job and wages haven’t gone up at all for the median family in more than 40 years, even though workers have grown more productive.

There's more wealth and income being generated then ever before but the majority of worker's are working much more just trying to tread water and remain where worker's were 30+ years ago.

 

[untermensche]

Back in the 1950's and 60's most married women did not work.

Families were supported by one worker working 40 hours a week.

Practically no businesses were open on Sundays.

This is when the rich paid much more taxes. They paid more income taxes and they paid more capital gains taxes.

Ronald Reagan comes in and starts to massively reduce the taxes on the rich.

It has been down hill for most ever since.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Back in the 1950's and 60's most married women did not work.

Families were supported by one worker working 40 hours a week.

Practically no businesses were open on Sundays.

This is when the rich paid much more taxes. They paid more income taxes and they paid more capital gains taxes.

Ronald Reagan comes in and starts to massively reduce the taxes on the rich.

It has been down hill for most ever since.

So are you the one who is going to tell women that their rightful place is back in the kitchen and pregnant and if the marriage is horrible, don't get divorced?

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Naw, we already have many people willing to tell them that.

 

[untermensche]

Back in the 1950's and 60's most married women did not work.

Families were supported by one worker working 40 hours a week.

Practically no businesses were open on Sundays.

This is when the rich paid much more taxes. They paid more income taxes and they paid more capital gains taxes.

Ronald Reagan comes in and starts to massively reduce the taxes on the rich.

It has been down hill for most ever since.

So are you the one who is going to tell women that their rightful place is back in the kitchen and pregnant and if the marriage is horrible, don't get divorced?

Absurd.

My point is, even with two people working more than full time, families are worse off then they were not too long ago with only one person working.

Families should be doing so much better.

The only thing that has increased is debt.

 

[coloradoatheist]

So are you the one who is going to tell women that their rightful place is back in the kitchen and pregnant and if the marriage is horrible, don't get divorced?

Absurd.

My point is, even with two people working more than full time, families are worse off then they were not too long ago with only one person working.

Families should be doing so much better.

The only thing that has increased is debt.

Except women entering the workforce has had much of a bigger impact than the tax rates you complain about. Also single women are a larger proportion of the family structure today and that family structure is poorer. Tightening up divorce standards would help poverty but we consider the freedom to divorce more important.

 

[arkirk]

Back in the 1950's and 60's most married women did not work.

Families were supported by one worker working 40 hours a week.

Practically no businesses were open on Sundays.

This is when the rich paid much more taxes. They paid more income taxes and they paid more capital gains taxes.

Ronald Reagan comes in and starts to massively reduce the taxes on the rich.

It has been down hill for most ever since.

So are you the one who is going to tell women that their rightful place is back in the kitchen and pregnant and if the marriage is horrible, don't get divorced?

Untermensche left out a word he should not have. Married women didn't HAVE TO WORK. That has nothing to do with other social problems our society has lived with far longer than our current economic situation. Any way you slice it, the working people of this country has received a royal screwing under Reaganomics.

 

[ksen]

Guys, ignore coloradoatheist's dumb derail attempt.

 

[coloradoatheist]

So are you the one who is going to tell women that their rightful place is back in the kitchen and pregnant and if the marriage is horrible, don't get divorced?

Untermensche left out a word he should not have. Married women didn't HAVE TO WORK. That has nothing to do with other social problems our society has lived with far longer than our current economic situation. Any way you slice it, the working people of this country has received a royal screwing under Reaganomics.

From their choice, or society's choice for them? They had limited career choices and were never considered equal to men, to where we are now where any career choice is open to them and we are making strides to making them equal. We've changed our lifestyle for the impact of having a two working household family.

 

[SimpleDon]

Back in the 1950's and 60's most married women did not work.

Families were supported by one worker working 40 hours a week.

Practically no businesses were open on Sundays.

This is when the rich paid much more taxes. They paid more income taxes and they paid more capital gains taxes.

Ronald Reagan comes in and starts to massively reduce the taxes on the rich.

It has been down hill for most ever since.

So are you the one who is going to tell women that their rightful place is back in the kitchen and pregnant and if the marriage is horrible, don't get divorced?

No, we are trying to get to the point that families don't have to have both parents working to earn enough to get by, as it was in the 1950's. We are trying to balance working with the rest of life such as raising a family. We are trying to give people the option of saying home to raise young children for example.

The critical word is option.

 

[coloradoatheist]

So are you the one who is going to tell women that their rightful place is back in the kitchen and pregnant and if the marriage is horrible, don't get divorced?

No, we are trying to get to the point that families don't have to have both parents working to earn enough to get by, as it was in the 1950's. We are trying to balance working with the rest of life such as raising a family. We are trying to give people the option of saying home to raise young children for example.

The critical word is option.

Yes, but people want to complain about it was a few tax cuts that have made all the difference since then when it has be this shift along with other major shifts that have had much deeper impact in the economy than the capital gains tax rates.

 

[Toni]

So are you the one who is going to tell women that their rightful place is back in the kitchen and pregnant and if the marriage is horrible, don't get divorced?

Untermensche left out a word he should not have. Married women didn't HAVE TO WORK. That has nothing to do with other social problems our society has lived with far longer than our current economic situation. Any way you slice it, the working people of this country has received a royal screwing under Reaganomics.

Most married women worked then and work now and always have. Also unmarried women. But since we are saying 'work' when we mean holding a job which paid wages and not the cleaning, cooking, child minding, book keeping, washing/ironing, clothes making and mending, gardening and preserving of food and so on that made up the life of most women, I'll add this:

It all depended on how good a job the husband had. Most women did something to supplement the family income, even if it was seasonal or selling tupperware or Avon. Or they worked at the school office or cafeteria--something small, on the side, that could be accomplished while the kids were in school. This would be the middle class women, not the wealthy ones. Working class women always held paying jobs, as long as they could get them.

Keep in mind that there were very few options for daycare available and very few options for paid work. Women were paid less, up front with no apologies, for the same work or were shuffled into positions which were given different titles but not different job duties in order to pay them less. Because a woman didn't need as much money as a man did. Or so I was told. More than once. By my employer.

 

[arkirk]

Guys, ignore coloradoatheist's dumb derail attempt.

There is something about coloradoatheist's attempt that is an attack on the OP but still needs to be addressed. Industrialization has created a great devaluation of domestic work. This work, while not paid, is necessary for a decent home life. By pressing women into employment just to get by, that work goes wanting and that gives us latchkey kids and very much contributes to the discontent of overwork. Low wages and lack of quality time in the home gives us McDonalds meals, all kinds of gas being burnt to go to those low pay jobs, and ultimately a "family" of strangers. All of this costs extra and when the family gets estranged past a certain point, then there is divorce also. In a way, his argument is against his idea of a suitable lifestyle for working people...the creation of wall street geniuses.

Our lives become cyclical between a whole plethora of less than optimal human conditions...and everybody who works for a living grabs a bite to eat. This is not a minor factor in the health profile of working peoples' families.

 

[Togo]

But surely the chauffeur can pick up a lot of the slack there?

 

[EricK]

So are you the one who is going to tell women that their rightful place is back in the kitchen and pregnant and if the marriage is horrible, don't get divorced?

Absurd.

My point is, even with two people working more than full time, families are worse off then they were not too long ago with only one person working.

Families should be doing so much better.

The only thing that has increased is debt.

Although presumably if approximately half the workforce voluntarily withdrew from paid employment positions the wages of the rest would approximately double - and once more one person working in paid employment could support a family where it now needs two.

 

[Valjean]

I grew up middle class. My mother never 'worked' till we kids were pretty much grown, and then it was not out of necessity.

People don't remember how it used to be.
In the post war years jobs were fairly plentiful, and most people with a high school education could buy a house, raise a family, take an annual vacation and put the kids through school on a single, 40h/week job.
Today you generally need college and two incomes, or >40h/week to pull this off, and you can't even get into college without taking out a loan.

 

[coloradoatheist]

I grew up middle class. My mother never 'worked' till we kids were pretty much grown, and then it was not out of necessity.

People don't remember how it used to be.
In the post war years jobs were fairly plentiful, and most people with a high school education could buy a house, raise a family, take an annual vacation and put the kids through school on a single, 40h/week job.
Today you generally need college and two incomes, or >40h/week to pull this off, and you can't even get into college without taking out a loan.

So at this time everything was just peaches and cream? Everybody was happy and didn't want change? The women were happy to be house bound and be relegated to the jobs of the time?

 

[TV and credit cards]

I grew up middle class. My mother never 'worked' till we kids were pretty much grown, and then it was not out of necessity.

People don't remember how it used to be.
In the post war years jobs were fairly plentiful, and most people with a high school education could buy a house, raise a family, take an annual vacation and put the kids through school on a single, 40h/week job.
Today you generally need college and two incomes, or >40h/week to pull this off, and you can't even get into college without taking out a loan.

So at this time everything was just peaches and cream? Everybody was happy and didn't want change? The women were happy to be house bound and be relegated to the jobs of the time?

Yep. Until the media convinced mom raising children and making a home was somehow demeaning. Raising children successfully is one of the most important jobs there is.



I remember how it used to be. Mom started working when the kids were old enough and the eldest kid was responsible enough. Family vacations. Dad always had the weekend off. Picnics. Going out to eat was a special occasion not a necessity. No need for overtime. Everytthing worked until it didn't.

 

[coloradoatheist]

So at this time everything was just peaches and cream? Everybody was happy and didn't want change? The women were happy to be house bound and be relegated to the jobs of the time?

Yep. Until the media convinced mom raising children and making a home was somehow demeaning. Raising children successfully is one of the most important jobs there is.



I remember how it used to be. Mom started working when the kids were old enough and the eldest kid was responsible enough. Family vacations. Dad always had the weekend off. Picnics. Going out to eat was a special occasion not a necessity. No need for overtime. Everytthing worked until it didn't.

So we need to tell women that they should get back in the kitchen and enjoy raising their kids?

 

[EricK]

I grew up middle class. My mother never 'worked' till we kids were pretty much grown, and then it was not out of necessity.

People don't remember how it used to be.
In the post war years jobs were fairly plentiful, and most people with a high school education could buy a house, raise a family, take an annual vacation and put the kids through school on a single, 40h/week job.
Today you generally need college and two incomes, or >40h/week to pull this off, and you can't even get into college without taking out a loan.

I wonder how the 'number of jobs' to 'number of adults' ratio compares then and now.