Why Work for $7.25 When Welfare Pays $15.00 in 12 States and $8.00 in 33 States? Is a Low Minimum Wage the Problem? Michael Tanner at the Cato Institute notes Welfare Pays Better than Work in 33 states. People Aren't That Stupid While it's beneficial to have a job, assuming there is hope of advancement, for those with no special skills there is little to no hope of advancement. Moreover, wages are taxed, welfare benefits are not. And what about day-care costs for single mothers? What about transportation costs? What about the value of extra leisure time? Add it all up and it makes perfect sense for many to remain on welfare for as long as they can. Minimum Wage Fallacy Given welfare benefits exceed minimum wage, it should not be surprising to find socialists arguing for higher minimum wages. And they are. In Seattle, a Campaign Seeks to Push Minimum Wage to $15. How successful would that be? Not very. The higher the minimum wage, the more incentive businesses have to get rid of employees and use hardware and software robots. And with the Fed suppressing interest rates, companies can borrow with miniscule interest rates and do just that. Should minimum wages rise, the recipient workers would benefit, but at the expense of millions of others who would lose a job or not get one. Then when prices rose in response, the socialists would ask for increased welfare benefits to keep up with the rising cost of living! More Minimum Wage Nonsense The socialists are out in force. Heidi Moore on the Guardian writes How low can you get: the minimum wage scam. No Heidi, the sad state of affairs is that socialist fools have no idea what is going on. As Michael Tanner at the Cato Institute points out, it does not pay to work. So people don't. Don't blame low wages, blame high prices. The Fed, the ECB, the Bank of England, and the central bank in China are all printing money hand over fist hoping to spur job growth. Instead, they fueled another stock market bubble, a bond market bubble, and revived the property bubble. Congress enacted hundreds of affordable housing programs. The one and only thing those programs did was create a housing bubble. When prices crashed, government and the Fed stepped in with attempts to reblow the housing bubble (proving of course no one really wanted affordable housing in the first place). Rather, the Fed wanted a stock-market party and Congress wanted a vote-buying party). Is Low Minimum Wage the Problem? Perceived low wages are a symptom of the problem, not the problem. The problem is socialist fools, progressives, and war mongers sloshing other peoples' money around. For that, place the blame where it precisely belongs: on central bankers, on fractional reserve lending, and on government bureaucrats who interfere in the free market. We do not need higher wages, we need lower prices. With productivity advancements we would have just that, absent of course the socialist fools, the progressives, the war mongers, and the central bankers.
As my Grandfather would say.... "Welfare should be 3-squares and a cot.... if you want better than that in your life, GET A FARKIN' JOB! It's BULLSHIT that the parasites get more on welfare than they'd get from working for a living. Used to be... America was "the land of opportunity". Now, it's the land of RIDICULOUS (and eventually DESTRUCTIVE) ENTITLEMENT! Do our greedy politicos know NOTHING of world financial history??
I am sympathetic to the plight of the unemployed. I truly am as I was one of those that got kicked to the curb during the government facilitated, corporate inspired financial disaster of the period you're referring to. We all remember my ranting and raving during that period, but here's the thing. At some point you have to bite the bullet and take what you can get. I now work, if you can call it that, for about 60% of what I was making in 2008. It is a lesser position and I'll never obtain what I had. I'm just too old to be considered. Another year or two and I done with this work a day bullshit anyway. The problem is that far too many people have decided that a career in the unemployment/food stamp line is better than taking a pay cut and starting over. The bigger problem is we now have a government which champions that choice. And in all honesty we still have a corporate structure which couldn't give a flyin' fuck about the working man. Add it all up and it spells hard times for millions of people, but being Uncle Sugars bitch just ain't the right choice in the long run. And what this has to do with this thread I have no idea.
I'm not trying to explain any sudden lazy-bum quitting that occurred anywhere. I'm showing why unemployment is more profitable than employment, and how that is a serious problem.
>>The socialists are out in force. Heidi Moore on the Guardian writes How low can you get: the minimum wage scam. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wonder why benefit spending is rising? Simple: corporations get away with crappy wages, so government has to make up the rest. The grim irony of minimum-wage America is that many who work in the fast-food industry need food stamps to get by. You'd think the exceptionally low minimum-wage â $7.25 an hour â would be the shame of a country like the United States that prides itself on its economic leadership. Half of minimum-wage jobs are held by adults over 25 years old, and asking adults to live on $7.25, or $14,500 a year, doesn't leave them with enough to rent an apartment, commute to work, raise a child and participate in society in any meaningful way. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope she isn't pushing the UK as a model. Welfare for generations, hopelessness coupled with a senses of entitlement, social dysfunction, etc all are the products of its welfare system. Anyone who has spen any time in the UK outside the rich areas of London and the southeast knows what I'm talking aobut. Her stats hide more than they reveal. The left always moans about how can an adult live on the minimum wage, how can you support a family,etc? The answer is that most minimum wage jobs are held by young people who live at home or in group houses/apartments. The fact that half are over 25, if that is even true, is more a reflection of the Obama economy with a significant percentage of millenials un- or under-employed and living with their parents. She ignores the EIC, or earned income tax credit program, which provides cash payments to low esarners. She also ignores the fact that these minimum wage workers will not always be minimum wage workers. Plenty of McDonald's managers started out behind the counter or sweeping floors. No one complains about the children of rich liberals taking unpaid internships. They do it for the long term benefits. The same thing applies here. It's all way too complicated for liberals however. Like Obama, they prefer simplistic slogans and divisive rhetoric to real life approaches.