Report: Level of poverty growing

[boedicca]

Oh yeah? How's that working so far? We have literally no safety net for the working poor. If you are an able male who loses his job, runs out of unemployment and becomes homeless, can you get on welfare? The answer is no. Also, I believe the time limit for being on welfare is 5 years (varies by state but that is the limit). It's not like you can LIVE on welfare indefinitely. The only people who are allowed on welfare are mothers with children. Jobs are disappearing. There are not enough jobs for everyone to "take care of themselves" and many of the jobs that are available do not pay anything near a living wage. What, exactly, do you expect these people to do?

Why do you cons want this country to turn into a bonafide third world nation? I just don't understand it.

No safety net for the working poor? If "we cons" had our way, the economy would be much more vibrant, with the resulting economic growth creating jobs. When employment is high, the competition for workers increases the income of the working poor. If you think the working poor are poor because of free market forces, think again.

The last question is a "when did you quit beating your wife" bit of disingenuous rhetoric, and not worthy of a serious response.

 

[Mr Natural]

For those who care about truth/reality. the number of poor has been increasing for at least a decade.

So has the artificial "poverty line".

It's rather telling that the Poor in America are often overweight, have big screen TVs, refrigerators, indoor plumbing...while the poor in less capitalist countries live in straw or cardboard huts, eat sporadically at best, and/or are starving to death.

Case in point: North Korea. The serfs are so malnourished that the average height has decreased under communist rule.

Proof positive that the "War on Poverty" has been a success.

 

[boedicca]

Your definition of success is somewhat lacking.

Just sayin'.

 

[Cuyo]

I appreciate your intelligent response, although I don't agree with it.
I'm thinking how to phrase this to make it rather gentle.
People who own businesses and own apartment buildings are people too. Just because they own a business doesn't mean that they are making a living or have a lot of money.
Most small businesses fail.
What is the survival rate for new firms?
Seven out of ten new employer firms last at least two years, and about half survive five years. More specifically, according to new Census data, 69 percent of new employer establishments born to new firms in 2000 survived at least two years, and 51 percent survived five or more years. Firms born in 1990 had very similar survival rates. With most firms starting small, 99.8 percent of the new employer establishments were started by small firms. Survival rates were similar across states and major industries. [/I]
People who own apartment buildings can get foreclosed on too.
The difference is if you lose your job, you lost a job, when a business fails, a business owner is losing a big investment and often can now be in large debt as a result.
Yes, if you own a business, and let's say an employee sells a vase that cost $5, the employee doesn't get that $5. Why? Because you also have to pay from that $5 the employee's wages, rent, utilities, taxes, and who knows what else. You also have taken a great deal of risk maintaining a small business.
Your landlord can charge you $600, and yes the landlord does make a profit. What happens though if the apartment has a number of vacancies. The landlord can soon go into foreclosure and lose the building.
These people are human too. Many of them can have a lot of financial trouble as well. They just probably have more zeros attached.

I don't understand why you feel that if I succeed someone failed.

I was a salesperson doing door to door sales on commission only.

I created my own business doing the same thing, selling the same product.

I now employ a bunch of salespeople. Some of them I pay $2,000/week.

Who failed because I succeeded?

I am providing livelihoods to people who may not have jobs. I provide a product to my customers, and I pay a lot of taxes. How exactly is that bad?

I was struggelling for over 10 years. As I said I was nervous buying lettuce in the grocery store. For a time, my wife and I lived in my brother in law's basement. We paid him rent for it.

Yeah, it is tough out there, but it's not impossible. The defeatist attitude bothers me. If that's what people believe that's what will happen.

I agree with you regarding credit cards. IMO it's legalized loan sharking without the actual leg breaking.

I want to stress again that I have the greatest sympathy for those who can't work like the elderly, and those who are truely seeking work, and aren't too proud to take a job that they feel isn't at their level.

I have disgust for those who would rather live off the system than work hard, and I have encoutered a lot of them.

This is America. Anything is possible.

Just as a side note. I mentioned that I used to get nervous buying lettuce in the grocery store I know feel wonderful that I buy my wife flowers once a week

I get everything you're saying. You take it too personally, and what I mean by that is, you think I'm talking about you personally. I'm not. You and me and everyone else on here are small potatoes, not even a blip on the radar. The people I'm talking about certainly do not spend any of their free time on USMB.

However in your situation, whose going down because you're going up? Well I don't know what you're selling, but anyone else who's selling it is going down. If you're still marketing door-to-door, the local stores that sell it are losing revenue. If it's non-commodity, you're taking a portion of your customer's disposable income that would have been spent elsewhere. And that's fine, that's competition, that's capitalism. It's a game I play too.

The people I'm talking about are big box retailers... Bankers... importers... huge, mutli-national firms that stifle competition... Pharmaceutical companies... Insurance (that's a big one.)

For example, let's take... Oh I dunno... Wal-Mart.

The Waltons are worth about US$90Billion, but they didn't produce a single thing, ever. How did they get this money? The answer is, exploitation on all fronts, plain and simple. They exploit a flooded labor pool by paying employees as little as possible (Less than $20k on average). They do business with 3rd world nations who exploit workers even worse; And with their massive buying power, they have an unmatched ability to "Beat them up" on price even more, leading to further exploitation. Nothing they sell there is made in the USA, even though that was a big part of their image in the early days. The local competitors go out of business because they can't compete with the buying power they have, which makes unemployment even worse. In a single breath, they exploit the daylights out of a situation they helped to create. Where does all this money go? Up to the Waltons. Just what the hell do you do with another $500 million when you're already worth $90 billion?

Banks are just as bad. Competition has been shaken down for decades through mergers, acquisitions, and simple market manipulation. It'd be enough to make Rockefeller blush. They used to make their money through lending, you know our fractional reserve system. But the problem is that nowadays the average person is broke, so they found new creative ways to make money off broke people. Fees, rather than interest income, have become the new cash cow for banks; Low balance fees, overdraft fees, late payment fees, whatever they can think of to monetarily punish you for not having money. I did $4k in fees one year, 04 I think when I was just starting out. That was a LOT of money to me back then, a lot. It's still a lot of money to me now, but back then, my bank almost put me out of business! And of course the amazing interest rate that doubles when you pay late as we discussed earlier; You're broke, no problem, just give us some more money!

Now myself, I climbed out of it. But I had every advantage in the world too; Young, intelligent, white, good looking, personable, born male. I also had my mom co-sign my first business loan when I was the ripe old age of 20. What if mom's credit sucked too, or she had no credit?

I guess my point is, yes it's feasible to climb out of a hole, but with every advantage in the world (except actual money to start with), it took me 7 years and everything I've got to do it. What if I was born not so intelligent? Or black? Or not good looking or personable (Let's face it, these things affect your ability to sell, whether they should or not)? In the current system, I wouldn't stand a chance! In the 50's I could just get a factory job. My grandfather raised 3 kids as an ex-Army guy who worked in a 8 man tool and die factory until he retired in his 60's, raised 3 kids and his wife never had to work. Think that kind of story exists these days?

 

[CMike]

That's another thing that kind of bothered me during door to door sales.

For some reason many of these "poor" people could afford big plasma TVs with game consoles. How is that possible?

My biggest sympathy is for the elderly and handicapped.

 

[CMike]

i was poor and unemployed once....didn't take and govt handouts.......got a job worked my up and own my own company now......

Good for you

 

[LibocalypseNow]

Socialism only begets more Socialism. Just a vicious circle in the end.

 

[uscitizen]

That's another thing that kind of bothered me during door to door sales.

For some reason many of these "poor" people could afford big plasma TVs with game consoles. How is that possible?

My biggest sympathy is for the elderly and handicapped.

Good. I am elderly and handicapped.

 

[Titanic Sailor]

Let's see, trickle down economics failed, and yet the poor keep increasing, the poor under Obama are still poor, and millions of jobs are gone to educated masses in foreign nations. And Democrats make up the bulk of all government except the military throughout our nation since WWII and beyond, and we can not blame Democrats for the current situation.

Right?

 

[uscitizen]

Let's see, trickle down economics failed, and yet the poor keep increasing, the poor under Obama are still poor, and millions of jobs are gone to educated masses in foreign nations. And Democrats make up the bulk of all government except the military throughout our nation since WWII and beyond, and we can not blame Democrats for the current situation.

Right?

As those on the right are so fond of pointing out. Obama has not been in govt long enough to be very responsible for the current situation.
However those of bothBOTH parties in congress that have been in at least a couple of terms bear most of the blame.

Trickle down economics was founded by Reagan as I recall.
Which was relabeled Voodoo Economics?
Which we went back to.

 

[Titanic Sailor]

He's been in long enough to pass a fraudulent Porkulus bill, and propose a multi trillion dollar ripoff called Health care "reform", continue TARP, maintain Iraq, and ramp up Afghanistan/Vietnam to fight a drug war, and watch our people suffer with zero movement towards reversing the trend.

No? You have to stop defending this hoodlum US, it's time to face the facts. This guy Obama is a bad man.

 

[Titanic Sailor]

He's protecting fat bloated government at all costs, maintaining the status quo on all areas that need massive reform (a word liberals use like it means reform somehow), and he has sold out much needed health care reform to the drug and insurance industries. I was a Republican, now an independent, and I think I am a better Democrat than the Obammunists out here today.

I care about the plight of our nation, the plight of our people and their jobs, and the brutal hole we are shoving our children down before they face the world.

We need massive reform at all levels of our society, and especially on the liberal Democrat controlled aspects of our society. Government salaries need to be massively downsized, colleges and universities need salaries massively downsized and tax breaks removed, so called non-profit organizations need massive taxation applied to that scam, and everyone in this nation pays into Social Security even government workers who don't now. Unfunded pensions outlawed, the list goes on and on and on.

Try actually cutting health care costs, and then maybe folks will listen to your man Obama. Few oppose health care for those that need it/want it, and few oppose the denial of services for those with pre-existing conditions. Those two issues should have been off the table a century ago, and the main artillery Obama using to force this debt on our children, and the passing of further massive corruption outside those two points. Work on those two issues, and get busy.

 

[Titanic Sailor]

I have three neighbors losing their homes to unemployment, another family seeing a 25% reduction in pay, plus pension contribution stopped by the company, and we are not seeing any cut backs on the federal, state, or local level. Just increases, imagine that. For those that voted for Obama, you voted for an uncaring sham..........

 

[Titanic Sailor]

Oh, and my job is going to India, so I guess I'm next in the neighborhood.

 

[boedicca]

I have three neighbors losing their homes to unemployment, another family seeing a 25% reduction in pay, plus pension contribution stopped by the company, and we are not seeing any cut backs on the federal, state, or local level. Just increases, imagine that. For those that voted for Obama, you voted for an uncaring sham..........

All while government employment is increasing, with raises in pay and benefits.

 

[Titanic Sailor]

I just watched Obama lie on the television about feeding the health insurance industry. That's why his rip off bill feeds 70 billion to them according to Democrat Kucinich, many run by Democrats. Kennedy's replacement was a lobbyist for the industry. The head of Tufts is a Democrat. I'd like some research on the rest of the industry as well, Democrats heavily tied to the insurance industry here, imagine elsewhere as well.

The media is not doing it's job, they could post him up on this lie easily.

 

[LibocalypseNow]

Socialism never = Prosperity. It never has and never will.

 

[Titanic Sailor]

I don't see it as a socialism at this point, I really see it as massively greedy government who are fighting to maintain the status quo at the expense of the people. I see very little going to the people, or any legislation that will slow down/control the processes harming our nation. Basically, "the people be damned" appears to this administration's agenda.

It did not start with this administration, but the effects are clearly here now. And not one damn thing has changed except the level of massive government corruption.

 

[MaggieMae]

That's an excellent question.

I don't know.

How do you weed out those who are too lazy to work from those who cant' find a job or are unable to work?

There needs to be an entirely different thread debate about that. I too think there are far too many slackers who know how to game the system and because there are not enough rules in place, and enough people to police those rules, it is allowed to happen. What we SHOULD be discussing elsewhere is how to fix that. But you cannot "fix" abject need, which in today's bad economy for many thousands of people means IMMEDIATE need, not some far off solution based on pure ideological solutions.

 

[MaggieMae]

when i worked in sf for a construction company we used to offer the "bums" jobs....sweeping up at the job site etc........they didn't want to work....

We need to make a distinction between temporary problems and the truly uncapable (i.e., a severely disabled person) and those who have gotten too comfortable being on the public dole.

The tax burden on a median family as a percent of income has DOUBLED in the past 50 years. People used to Save For A Rainy Day (many of us still do). What should be the first and preferable alternative is to have a system which encourages such savings so that we can afford as a society some type of safety net for the much smaller truly unfortunate.

The federal tax burden has not DOUBLED. In fact, depending on the state of the union, the tax rates have been all over the place.

History

If you're talking about all taxes, then you would probably be correct. However, incomes have also risen over the past 50 years, so it isn't as though households are operating at a negative solely due to taxes.