SS and Medicare depleted sooner than expected

[editec]

-the additional war on programs added after 1969 may not have been focused on the 'poor parents', but focused on the 'poor children'...like providing health care for the children in povety... which would benefit them, would not necessarily bring their parents out of poverty...

Yup.

We have basically accepted the fact that some people are no longer viable workers capable of making enough money to keep up with the economy.

So now we're simply hoping to mitigate the most pernicious effects of poverty on the children.

It helps, I suppose, but I don't think we're going after this problem in the right way.

People need to work even if their ability to contibute cannot produce enough profits to pay them a living wage.

Having at least one breadwinner in the family will do more to offset the mindset of entrenched poverty than all the daycare and free cheese and milk in the world.

But of course, those kids ALSO have to see that when their parents work, they make enough money to make working worth while.

And since they cannot make enough money to really make working a worthwhile endeavor, kids end up looking to drug dealing and crime as a potential career.

We reaping what we've sown because we've abandoned an entire classes of people, folks.

Their kids are NOT going away.

They're here and the are going to try to grab whatever they can even if it means they've got to break the law to do it.

Sooner rather than later we have got to learn the lesson that paying people a living wage, even if they economy says that work isn't worht a living wage is STILL CHEAPER overall for our society than putting people in prison.

 

[Care4all]

Oh, come on you two....!

I haven't had time to read the whole thread, but from what I can see from the last few posts, you BOTH have valid points to be made, and for goodness sakes you can still acknowledge that the other one was right, or at least right in pointing out figures that help your own case, in my opinion!

From what I gathered, Irie correctly stated that the poverty rate had gone down 30% since 1965, when the many great society/war on poverty benefits started to come in to fruition.

You stated that figures also show that we have been fairly consistent with our poverty rates since 1969...correctly noting that additional war on poverty measures had come in to affect after 1969...yet poverty levels didn't seem to be affected by these new programs.

Both can be correct in "the numbers" and in the presumptions made can't they be?

I can see the logic in thinking there was a MAJOR impact in the reduction in poverty rates after 1965 because of the new social programs that were put in to effect...

And I can see how the presumption could be made that perhaps not all social programs to help the poor, help the poor, because the poverty rate hasn't gone down... even with new, additional programs.

However, there are many things that could affect the latter presumption that probably should be taken in to consideration imho, such as...

-the additional war on programs added after 1969 may not have been focused on the 'poor parents', but focused on the 'poor children'...like providing health care for the children in povety... which would benefit them, would not necessarily bring their parents out of poverty...

-the initial programs to help those in poverty, get out of poverty that caused the 30% reduction in poverty levels has consistently worked over the next few decades...taking in to consideration that we had gone through a draft and a war in vietnam and recessions and inflation so high you would choke hearing the numbers and an oil embargo and another recession...and another recession with a stock market crash and a Savings and Loan scandal and housing bubble burst... in the late 80's too...

yet through these crisis, our poverty rate was fairly stable...so logic could say to me, the programs in place worked well, otherwise big fluctuations in poverty levels would have occurred in much greater numbers than they did...no?

care

There is one problem with your conclusion, look at this chart, the poverty rate was on a steep decline between 1959-1969. Why the decline before the war on poverty if it was these great(costly) programs? I mean the poverty rate in 1950 was 27% in 1964 in was about 17 or 18%. How did we ever reduce these poverty rates by about 10% points without government intervention?


View attachment 7380

One thought that comes to mind, is Social Security finally started to "pay out"....though put in to place by roosevelt, it was a while before the first check was given to seniors to help them...this could have been what helped reduce poverty figures?

 

[jreeves]

Oh, come on you two....!

I haven't had time to read the whole thread, but from what I can see from the last few posts, you BOTH have valid points to be made, and for goodness sakes you can still acknowledge that the other one was right, or at least right in pointing out figures that help your own case, in my opinion!

From what I gathered, Irie correctly stated that the poverty rate had gone down 30% since 1965, when the many great society/war on poverty benefits started to come in to fruition.

You stated that figures also show that we have been fairly consistent with our poverty rates since 1969...correctly noting that additional war on poverty measures had come in to affect after 1969...yet poverty levels didn't seem to be affected by these new programs.

Both can be correct in "the numbers" and in the presumptions made can't they be?

I can see the logic in thinking there was a MAJOR impact in the reduction in poverty rates after 1965 because of the new social programs that were put in to effect...

And I can see how the presumption could be made that perhaps not all social programs to help the poor, help the poor, because the poverty rate hasn't gone down... even with new, additional programs.

However, there are many things that could affect the latter presumption that probably should be taken in to consideration imho, such as...

-the additional war on programs added after 1969 may not have been focused on the 'poor parents', but focused on the 'poor children'...like providing health care for the children in povety... which would benefit them, would not necessarily bring their parents out of poverty...

-the initial programs to help those in poverty, get out of poverty that caused the 30% reduction in poverty levels has consistently worked over the next few decades...taking in to consideration that we had gone through a draft and a war in vietnam and recessions and inflation so high you would choke hearing the numbers and an oil embargo and another recession...and another recession with a stock market crash and a Savings and Loan scandal and housing bubble burst... in the late 80's too...

yet through these crisis, our poverty rate was fairly stable...so logic could say to me, the programs in place worked well, otherwise big fluctuations in poverty levels would have occurred in much greater numbers than they did...no?

care

There is one problem with your conclusion, look at this chart, the poverty rate was on a steep decline between 1959-1969. Why the decline before the war on poverty if it was these great(costly) programs? I mean the poverty rate in 1950 was 27% in 1964 in was about 17 or 18%. How did we ever reduce these poverty rates by about 10% points without government intervention?


View attachment 7380

One thought that comes to mind, is Social Security finally started to "pay out"....though put in to place by roosevelt, it was a while before the first check was given to seniors to help them...this could have been what helped reduce poverty figures?

So it took 15 years to see benefits from Social Security? Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935. Actually 1940 was the year of the first SS payments.

 

[jreeves]

There is one problem with your conclusion, look at this chart, the poverty rate was on a steep decline between 1959-1969. Why the decline before the war on poverty if it was these great(costly) programs? I mean the poverty rate in 1950 was 27% in 1964 in was about 17 or 18%. How did we ever reduce these poverty rates by about 10% points without government intervention?


View attachment 7380

One thought that comes to mind, is Social Security finally started to "pay out"....though put in to place by roosevelt, it was a while before the first check was given to seniors to help them...this could have been what helped reduce poverty figures?

So it took 15 years to see benefits from Social Security? Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935. Actually 1940 was the year of the first SS payments.

More likely this was the cause for the drop in the poverty rate through the 50's into the 60's.
Economic Status of the United States in 1950
To understand the economic boom of the 1950s it is necessary to appreciate the positive impacts that were borne out of World War II. The foundation for the economic expansion and growth experienced in 1950 and several years after that were laid during World War II.

To fund and support the country’s war time efforts, it had to recruit millions of American soldiers to be sent to the war front as well as to be stationed at home. Factories had to be built to produce war materiel – guns and ammunitions, military transport, tanks, fighter planes and bombers, etc. To man the factories women and older people had to be recruited as most of the able-bodied men were at war. WWII created jobs and gave life to many industries and energized a nation. Among the industries that prospered during and immediately after the war were the newspaper industry, the agriculture industry and even Hollywood. Industries that produced transport and plant machineries also prospered. Throughout the War, women, for the first time, were given the opportunity to work outside their homes and participate in nation building. The participation of the women in the labor force started to increase during this time.

The War also provided opportunities that would later be manifested in the 1950s. Take for example many of America’s products went overseas – introducing themselves to new markets.