Yuppie Welfare

I know you are probably being glib, but equating college grads with student loans to yuppies is pretty far off.

Idea! Sponsor some to Norris square ... ;)

I'd like some yuppie welfare.

The give degrees in "Legal"?

Or lets say you are 99% of the college grads in this country who have some level of college debt and didn't go to anything resembling Wharton and who majored in things that are not "Early Colonial Hispanic History". Most jobs that pay any kind of adequate wage and benefits require a college degree, which the majority of people need to take out loans to afford.

But keep up the one-liners.

291$/month isnt going to put much of a dent in your wharton payments. most likely you would still be better off living in a higher wage area.

It's hardly welfare

Okay, I've been to the US side of Niagara Falls many a time growing up about an hour and a half away. 20 people ain't going to do anything to change the depressing dynamics of that city--if it's still a city. With that many applicants, I wonder if they shouldn't cut the aid in 1/3 and get 3 times the amount of people...which still will do nothing but at least it will keep Ann Taylor open.

sure it is, its something that is unearned but makes peoples lives better.

It's only welfare when it goes to somebody else.

Except when it goes to banks, then it is "restoring confidence in our economy"

It's more like a tax break and incentive to bring college graduates into the area. Welfare is paying people not to work

If that's how you define welfare, do you find unemployment compensation or SSD any different?

Yes

Please elaborate.

Welfare isn't paying people not to work, its paying people who can't find work (for a variety of reasons). You have the causation backwards.

Think again. Go into the hood and see how many people are trying to look for work

People who are on unemployment and social security actually paid into it. Disabled people can't work

Most of the people on welfare are bottom feeders. they could care less about working. Free food, free housing , free booze , free public transportation. What more can you ask for? Thats why everyone wants to come to America. LAND OF THE FREE.

"Just looking for a check" " Obamaa Bucks"

Come on Kotter dont you remember the lecture we got on black white relations?:

Evil white America has never done anything that might help the victim-class in this country

did i ever mention on here about the 5th grader whose mother is trying to get him SSD? Because he has ADHD. 5th grade. oh and pushed to have her daughter put in special education class. i wonder why......

What's your point?

well don't you have extensive first hand knowledge of the economic situations of people in 'the hood'

Where are the 40,000 jobs that will employ the people of the hood?

Zaw, Kotter, Jayallday? Or are you saying that all those people refused to work and THEN the jobs moved to China. (all so the stock holders could make $.02 x 100,000)

And should we just let them starve to death or go into robbing people full time? Which one?

Something tells me you think you know why. You're just to afraid to say it.

Throw them all in jail?

That's how Christmas lights are made in China. With prison labor. Is that what we should do?

Na, then we'd just have to pay for them all over again. And listen to Kotter complain that they are living a cushy life behind bars.

Best to just move to a fortified community and hope the barbarians eat each other instead of trying to scale our walls. Of course, anyone in our compound who loses their job will be immediately tossed over wall along with their family.

What you have to understand is that if you have an economy where businesses can hire and fire at will, if they can move their factories where ever they want when ever they want, if you want a workforce that can read and write, if you want the people in your country to be able to speak their minds (not a dictatorship) someone is going to have to pay for it.

If you don't pay for it you'll get crime, riots and revolution. Look at history. Look at the rest of the world.

I'll bet you $10 you can't find:
really mobile workforce with no organized labor
democracy
educated people
no revolution
no welfare

Like anything else, if you want x y and z someone is going to have to pay for it.

These tea party people want all that for free. Then they whine, complain and blame the black people when they don't get it.

Theres work if you look..might have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet..Nah let the Govt take care of us. Of by the way Frank never did i say anything about Black people. you said it . could it be true?

There are definitely a lot of people who are suckling at the teat of the system. There are definitely a lot of people who are just hitting a rough patch and need a hand up. Can't we just focus our efforts on finding a way to eliminate the one type to the extent possible while helping the other type to a reasonable degree? Just admit that there is some truth to both sides of the argument and you might actually come to some sort of reasonable compromise, or you could just fling poo at each other like a bunch of chimps.

"suckling at the teat of the system" is still a poverty-stricken lifestyle. I'm not worried about masses of people choosing that over a materially better lifestyle through getting a job. I am worried about the situation where getting a job means no better a lifestyle and if that is the case then the problem is in the job market, not the safety net.

here, have some numbers:

http://prospect.org/article/state-poverty-america

You don't "pay into" unemployment and social security. There's no bucket in DC where your dollars are kept waiting for you to hit hard times or get old. You pay unemployment taxes and social security taxes now to cover the people who need unemployment and social security now. When you lose your job or get old, those same benefits will be available to you, paid by the taxpayers at that time.

That's how the system is structured to work. We can discuss if that's the best way to provide benefits, or if that system is even sustainable given our aging population, but neither are some special breed of benefit that you "earn" by paying into a fund that is waiting for you down the road.

Not necessarily. I knew a single mother in NJ who told me that it didn't make much sense for her to work at all. She was in AmeriCorps and was getting the whole run of benefits from the state and fed. She also only had a HS Diploma and not a ton of skills to speak of. She told me that she had added it up and getting a job would have actually resulted in a net of only a few dollars a month, but a loss of around 20 hours a week of time spent with her kid. In the short-term, it made no sense to get a full time job, but in the long term there's no chance for advancement in that kind of a situation, which she knew. These are the kinds of decisions that our benefits system and economy forces, and it kind of sucks. People like you are correct that we shouldn't just yank the rug out from under her, but people who disagree with you are right in that she needs to take a longer-term view and make a sacrifice now for a better future for her and her family.

So you're saying there are 2 jobs for everyone that's looking for work?! What planet are you on?

Find out how many people need jobs.
Find out how many available jobs there are.

There will never be as many jobs as there are people looking for them. That's a fact. Otherwise labor prices would go up. Better to move the jobs overseas.

What you don't understand is a good business environment requires unemployment.
It requires a mobile workforce and not all that generations living in the same place crap.
Why would you want to pay a guy enough to feed and house all those people? Hire him AND his wife for less.

In this economy it's a myth that if everyone works hard there will be no poverty.

A good business environment with a good living environment costs money. You can't have both for free.

Some one has to work cheaply enough for me to enjoy the dollar menu.

Stop ... making ... sense.

oh cool, so she had a job at the time.

I, for one, long for an economic system that forces mothers to spend less time raising their children.

oddly enough, getting a second job most likely wouldn't have helped her long-term view (but would greatly diminish her child's long-term view). But what would make a difference is.... training! another worthwhile class of government programs that "people who disagree with me" don't believe is worth spending "their tax dollars" on.

Yes, kind of. A job that wouldn't have existed had the government not been paying the full freight for it. And that didn't really have much in the way of responsibilities. She primarily stuffed envelopes.

Sarcasm, despite what I can tell from your track record on this board, is not a substitute for a rational argument. If you are a single-parent you will either be in poverty (with or without government assistance), or you will need to put yourself into a better position so that you can not be in poverty. I'm sure the system you long for, the one where single mothers can be paid a middle-class wage to spend most of their time raising their children, is something that you can provide us with a lot more detail on in your next post.

I wasn't talking about a second job. I was talking about a full-time first job. The kind where the employer and employee enter into a mutually-beneficial relationship over a long period of time. The kind of job where your employers train you and where you seek knowledge on your own. Where you do a job for a few years, learn how to do it well, and get promoted or move on to bigger and better things. You know, what they call an "entry-level" job. They do still exist, you know.

In the workforce a government training program is nice, but the problem is that the government has, at best, a spotty record of targeting their investments in this area. Often the programs train for outdated skill-sets and jobs that won't be coming into existence. Experience and drive is necessary and can only come from the private sector. The argument, which has merit, is that the taxes taken from firms and individuals to use on government-organized and -funded training would actually have a greater positive impact if it was invested back into the private firms by the firms and their owners instead.

so you were working with her?

What is wrong with the current system where the unlucky children don't have the double whammy of a poverty-stricken childhood AND a mother who isn't around to raise them like she would prefer because she has to work multiple jobs to maintain a lifestyle near the poverty line?

We already established that she in the AmeriCorps program.

hahahahahahahaha. the 1950s are calling, they would like their job market back.

your middle class existence is showing.

If this actually happened that might be an argument with merit. the private sector does effectively no training anymore. they'd rather the individual take on debt to finance their own training and then complain about the lack of skilled workers when the 'free market' doesn't work as efficiently as they pretend it does.

I have a job like this. They still exist.

Yes, at the time I was. She essentially took up a job that would have been done by a volunteer (Americorps sends a lot of people through non-profits).

And your proposal is what, exactly? We're talking about motivations and opportunities here, not maintaining a poverty-level existence. Right now there is no "good" path from Point A to Point B because the benefits system makes you give up far too much in order to get yourself in a position to start reaching for Point B. You can say as much as you want that the economy isn't providing enough jobs in that pay range, but that's because jobs in that pay range don't have enough of a value-add to be worth more. When I spoke to this woman, she was getting around $27k in benefits combined. There's not going to be a $40k a year job waiting for her anywhere. There might be a $30k job somewhere. It used to be you ate dirt for 2-3 years in that $30k job and then got the $40k one. Now, you can't take the new job because it'll only net you a few dollars a week in exchange for 20 hours of extra work. Only a fool would take that trade.

Does this quote reflect the type of person you'd imagined you would be when you were a child? If not, please be reasonable.

You're saying that there's no such thing as "on-the-job" training? You seriously go into work every day knowing exactly how to do every single thing that you need to? That sounds kind of sad. I've learned new skills at every single job I have ever had in my life. I'm constantly learning new things in order to do my job better, take on new responsibilities, and set myself up for the next step in my career. This does not need to happen in a structured program, but it does come from taking on new tasks and being trusted enough by your employer to do new things. Entry-level jobs exist and employers tend to provide help to new employees to get them the skills they need to succeed through training, mentoring, or direction.

Actually, more like what it took to get to that middle class existence. Don't make assumptions.

Which free market are we talking about? Our schools or our institutions of higher learning? Do you really want to make an assertion that we have anything even resembling a free market in those areas?

Me too. Plus, my first job out of college gave me a lot of training - of course it was the mid 90s and the job market was so good that anyone with even a basic skill set was getting a big paycheck.

Yes actually I do after working there for the last 15 years. The mentality is why work when I don't have to? If everybody had that mentality then society would fail and that's the problem

I never said there was a "bucket" just that they pay into the system

That doesn't mean you have to give up on reforming a culture of laziness

Neither. You are just being silly. How about community service to at least make them earn welfare money? Make them clean up litter and vacant lots

I agree with just about everything you have said on this thread. Great stuff. Here comes the but....

But the problem is that as soon anyone mentions that people are sucking on the teat of the system or that the system is flawed they are accused of being heartless or racist or both. Most people that complain about all the abuse of the system do not want to pull the rug out from anyone. The people on liberal side of the argument always seem to want to make this an absolute argument, all or nothing. Most conservative type people want to give a hand up instead of constant, generational handouts. The people on my side of the arguement are concerned that when you give something to someone you cant take it away and they always want more. Somehow we need to start pulling back or doing things in a different way. The compromise always seems to only go one way.

see

That's not being silly. It's a real question that does not go away.

I'm all for community service jobs for people with no work. They did some great stuff with the WPA. Hoover Dam, all those national parks buildings. great though it is a government jobs program which you guys don't like.

-------------------

Anyway, yes there is laziness. and yes there are not enough jobs. From what I've read if a community sees they are unlikely to get a job people give up and go on govt. assistance. That's lame but also they are right. THey are unlikely to get a job. The same thing happens with income inequality. If it looks like the system is rigged for rich people the rest of us don't try as hard. Lame but it's part of human nature.

People need jobs. What I would do is have a 2 -year national service where all the 18 year olds are put to work doing something somewhere away from home. For that they could go to a trade school or college for two years.

Wow, never expected to say this but I agree with you on this point, despite being a liberal. I have never understood how some people can spend their whole life not working. I do understand that there is a big problem with the whole system. Goverment assistance of any kind should not be a lifelong thing for most people. It should be there for when it is needed. And it should be treated like a paycheck, not a handout, so people should have to do work for it. If that means doing dirty jobs, so be it. I grew up with the idea that all work is honest work. It may not be what you want to do but sometimes you have to do whatever you can to take care of yourself and your family. When my son was a baby, I needed help. If they had given me the option of working for the money, as long as my son was being taken care of, I would have jumped at the chance.Let me make this clear, I am talking about legal work. I know some dealers use this as a reason to deal. I also don't think that public housing should be a lifelong thing. Which means that something needs to done to create more affordable housing.

I don't believe that fixing any of this will be fast or easy. My belief is that we need to start with jobs. The jobs that people who are now on welfare would have had in the past are gone. We need to find a way to replace them at a living wage. remember the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Even if a person can find a job for $10.00 an hour and can get 40 hours, what are they taking home after taxes?

I dont know what the answer is either but to keep on throwing more and more good money after bad doesnt work anymore.
We already tried the afforable housing thing starting with the Community Reinvestment Act. And thats a good part of the reason where we have been economically the last 3 years.

Are you really saying that the Community Reinvestment Act is the reason the real estate market tanked and took the rest of the country with it? If that is what you are saying then you have no bloody idea what you are talking about and you have just moved to my Oh God Can I Block This Troll List. If that isn't what you meant, please explain futher.

Here's what you need to know about the community lreinvestment act. Only 15 percent of sub prime mortgages were subject to those regulations. The rest 85 percent, had nothing to do with that. It is just a handy excuse. The weird thing is you tell people that and they still pull the same canard out of their hat the next time. It's like they willfully ignore the facts just to keep an opinion.

The reason we had the bubble is because banks were able to bundle and sell their mortgages. No incentive to make an honest loan. They got the initiation fees from the loan but no longer had to back the mortgages with their own money. Of course they were going to write bad mortgages.

The reason they were able to bundle and sell off bad mortgages was because of rule changes. Specifically the graham leech act. Passes first in the house with a republican majority. If you listen to the republicans they are still fighting banking regulation except now they call it fighting for freedom.

Again with the "No Shades of Grey" stuff. There is no "The Reason" for the real estate bubble and crash. Banks, Investors, Politicians, Buyers, Sellers, Agents, The Government, Community groups, and the General Public all had an important role to play. Trying to narrow it down to a single cause gets you nowhere.

I'm sure it had nothing to do with people taking mortgages they couldn't afford

I agree 100%. Just about everyone was to blame for what happened. I didn’t mean to lay everything at the feet of CRA, it did have a role to play but my bigger point was that affordable housing efforts were a major contributor. I said “ good part of the reason.”
As was greed from everyone involved.

[quote=ZawI agree 100%. Just about everyone was to blame for what happened. I didn’t mean to lay everything at the feet of CRA, it did have a role to play but my bigger point was that affordable housing efforts were a major contributor. I said “ good part of the reason.”
As was greed from everyone involved.