New Rule:Follow

At the refuge, it was 40% unemployed, 20% olde/sick, 15% students and 25% working people or something like that. The students and the ones working were pretty much worst off.

At the homeless shelter where I lived, most were doing nothing, one had a lot of money, and two (including me) were students. And we had two bums living there.

I see it the other way around. Bringing government contract work and CEO pay into a discussion about welfare is a distraction from the issue. As though because the government spends tax dollars on one thing, it's ok to spend it on anything else no matter how wasteful it may be.

But if we're going to compare them, how about looking at the fact that by and large the highest paid CEOs work for companies which provide massive amounts of goods and services as well as technological advances which improve all of our lives? They hire people to do real work that results in real productivity (as opposed to the "dig a hole and fill it up" variety). Only a small percentage of large corporations benefit from government contracts, and the waste aspect is a function of government, not the companies themselves (which should be a hint as to which way we should view this issue). We spend taxpayer dollars to subsidize the production of some good or service that presumably has some value to us all.


What exactly are we subsidizing with welfare? Poor people? Single mothers? The next generation of criminals? Are we better or worse off as a whole having a very small percentage of struggling poor, or making their lives a little more comfortable while significantly increasing their numbers and likelihood their children will be less productive? Do we allow a little pain but retain the promise that success will free them from it? Or create a trap, with less pain, but even less opportunity?

That's offensive to salaried workers.

I'm a salaried worker, and I do more physical labor than anyone who works in a store or restaurant.

Just because I'm paid on a contract rather than per hour doesn't mean my "work" is any less "work".

It depends on where you are. Here in Boston, you can't rent a toilet for less than 700 a month. Studios go for a minimum of 800 or 900. You'd have to go pretty far away to find 200 a month for anything--even to rent a room. Then there is first, last month and deposit. It's tough for people, esp. if they make very little and have kids, to afford rent.

Not to mention utilities and gas / bus fare. even a $550/month budget AFTER rent won't stretch very far today. You'd be lucky if you could afford anything other than ramen noodles 1 day out of the week. It may be possible to sustain oneself on that much money, but it's certainly not a condition that breeds success under any circumstances, and I'd venture to say is often the source of depression and related mental illness cases reported at the poverty level. Make no bones about it, I'd not wish such a scenario on anybody.

Edited, Jan 19th 2009 6:51pm by BrownDuck

I think it's already $7.40 here in Michigan, so that won't affect us. Though when wage went from 5.15 or what ever it was before the increase to 7.40... we didn't get any increase in our wages/salaries since ours were already above min wage. Our hourly workers were kinda pissed about that, for a little while.

Except you said this was the amount "lost" in Iraq (not total spent) for just the last 12 months. And you said for each man, woman, and child, not each family.

But let's look at total cost. Right now the total cost of all expenses related to Afghanistan and Iraq (and everything else "war on terror" related in any way at all) from FY2001 to FY2009 is 864 Billion dollars. If we take "households" (112 million), that's a whopping $7,714 each. If we use "all family households" (about 75 million), that rises to $11,520 each. source

Neither is anywhere near your "conservative" 50k number. I'm just suggesting that if you have a point to make, inventing numbers might not be the best way to do it...



A salary is a wage paid on a regular basis. Given that we were talking about a rate per hour, can we agree within this context that we're not talking about only people paid per year? According to the Bureau of Labor the current adjusted average weekly wage sits at $611. For a 40 hour week, that's $15 bucks an hour. So you're only off by a factor of two on this one.

Um... That's also non-supervisory workers. So we're not really averaging in all wages, just the ones at the lower end of the spectrum. Still. It's not nearly as low as you claimed. And while I'm sure some people work more than 40 hours a week, some are going to work part time as well. I'm not going to look up the average work week in hours at this point, but feel free to do so yourself if you want.



I pay something like $150 every 6 months for car insurance and I likely own a more expensive car than the average person living on $7/hour. But let's ignore that for the moment. $400/month is plenty to live off of. More than enough for one person.



Absolutely. What on earth are you spending your money on that you can't live on that? Figure $100/month for food (you could spend less but I'll be generous). Another $100/month for gas if you drive a whole lot (or you could do without the car entirely and save quite a bit). I'm not sure if that $550 apartment includes utilities or not, but that might run you another hundred. The remainder is money you can spend on whatever you want. That's not a lot, but it's plenty if you're frugal.

What part of making at/near minimum wage makes you think you should be able to afford the best things in life?



Exactly how many people at the homeless shelter actually work full time? Doing what exactly? Most of the people at a homeless shelter don't work. The few who do likely don't work full time. Those few who do work hard tend to leave the homeless shelter relatively quickly. Of course, those that stay will insist that it's just too hard for them to find a job, rents are too high, etc. There are a million excuses for not doing what you need to do to support yourself.

I personally know people who have lost everything, ended up in a shelter, did the job placement program thingie, got a job an apartment, etc... all within just a few months. It's not going to be handed to you, but it's far from impossible. The problem is that most people in that situation wont put in the effort. It's far easier to stay in the shelter and tell everyone how impossible it is to get out than to do something about it.

Edited, Jan 19th 2009 5:16pm by gbaji

It is doable. Not easily doable, but doable.

Just in case my last post wasn't clear on this:



I said "salary" not "salaried workers". Average salary is synonymous with average wage. A salary is what you get paid. It has nothing to do with whether one is compensated based on hours clocked, or whether one receives benefits, etc...



Sigh. Basic math and common sense please? No. That's not the "average". You saying it doesn't make it so.

I don't want anecdotal evidence. I want to see a budget.

Jesus, G. I just had to demote you from raving fascist pig to lying *********

Not that that's a huge fall, there, mind you.

1) Most estimates put the cost of the "war" at well over 2 trillion $US, so try again, sport. And for the record I went to multilple websites from a variety of sources and more than 50% said @ 2 trillion. Just to be clear.

2) Yer linky says $15/hr. Is that the national average? Beacuse I said WHERE I LIVE the average is $7. LERN2REED.

In South Dakota the insurance companies are free to jack up your rate based on, among other things, your credit rating. Poor/no credit = high insurance premiums. $50-$60 a month for liability is common. This is with a clean driving record, mind you.


$100 month for food will get you a starvation diet and little else.

I did not even include gassing the car (not a luxury, a need. There is no public tranport worth talking about here and everything is miles from everything else.)

It seems, based on your posts here, that you think hard working people also dont need a phone or new clothes or medicine when they are ill or a doctor or...well..anything.

You really are a poor excuse for a human being. Please, please, please if you are a Christian DONT TELL ANYONE, because you'll make the real ones look bad.

Sigh. I'm not at the damn store, but here's some quick approximations:

Big bag of frozen chicken breast patties: Something like 15 for 10 bucks (I might be over on this cost actually, I think they're more like 5 bucks for 12 or something).

Big bag of white rice: 4 bucks

Big container of teriyaki sauce: 6 bucks (minimal amount for other spices you'll add in).

2 pounds of frozen ground beef: 10 bucks

jumbo jar of prego sauce (or two mediums): 8 bucks

1 big thing of spagheti noodles: 5 bucks

2 big bag-o-salads: 7 bucks

1 large container of dressing: 6 bucks

2 econo bags of rolls: 6 bucks

1 large container of spread/butter: 3 bucks


That's about 70 bucks so far, and that will cover a full month of dinners, half teriyaki chicken, the other half spaghetti. Each meal comes complete with a side salad and dinner roll.

Add in a bunch of bananas each week to eat something going out the door, and that's about another 20 bucks or so. Cheap sandwich makings (basic bologna, mayo and bread might run another 10 or 20 bucks a month. If breakfast is a couple pieces of toast say, or you skip lunch (which I typically do since the dinner is quite large), you're probably under a hundred a month. Obviously, how expensive the side stuff you buy can affect this. I went pretty middle of the road. You could get generic sauces (or make them from scratch) and save probably another 10 or 15 bucks a month.