Income Disparity

My reading comprehension could improve. Write what a decent income is, ballpark figures, once more in a blue font color.

Ever heard of practicality? Why don’t you define the necessities in terms of practical living conditions.

A budget would be very helpful too, make it as loosey goosey, as ideal as you’d like to include the huge differences for each and every single individual.

I don’t think this is a useful argument/exercise, for the reasons tent amd others have already stated. What counts as “practical living conditions” in your mind? I make considerably less than $20.84/hr and am perfectly comfortable. If I made more money, which i have in the past,
I would find “necessary” ways to spend it, and so my idea of practical living conditions would change.

Blurry wrote

When you have to put quotes around “necessary”, it does not equate with practical. I’m simply asking for straight answers from folks who I’ve been told are liberal elitists, answers that can be circumscribed rationally to alleviate some of the hardships of a majority of overworked, underpaid USA citizens. Why is that so hard to fathom folks?

How’s about you describe your income, budget and why you feel comfortable? What type of financial safety net do you have?

Nice try, but I’m not about to be boxed in with some simplistic numbers game. But at the risk of repeating myself for the umteenth time, there simply is no way to determine some blanket definition of necessity. THAT is why so many help programs fail. To the extent that they try to please everybody they please no one.

Another example of why blanket definitions don’t work: You are a single mother with 2 children. Daycare for those children is a necessity that enables you to hold down a job. Your sister (or brother) is single and has no children. Daycare isn’t even in their basket of necessities. Your cousin is also a single mom with 2 children but she is lucky. Grandma will babysit her children so she can work a job. HOWEVER… She lives 30 miles from a job so her necessity is having reliable transportation. Three different situations each with different needs called necessity.

This is why I reject simplistic answers. The problems aren’t solved by some unidimensional solution. It just ain’t that easy.

Yes. More money for the labors performed. Wouldn’t it be great? I see where Target plans on paying 15.00/hr by 2020. It isn’t enough, but a step in the right direction. But by 2020, inflation will eat up any gains and we’ll be back to existence wages again. If you add my thread on AI and robotics can you see where we are headed?

If there is any blanket solution it will be when we collectively, ALL of us, decide to stop being profligate consumers. Then, and only then, we might begin finding realistic solutions to the issues facing the people who work their asses off just trying to survive and those solutions will address a hell of a lot more than just dollars.

I’m sorry that I can’t give you what you want, but it is because the simple answer just isn’t there.

Or perhaps it’s because I’m a victim of old age cynicism. :frowning:

I do not feel comfortable divulging personal financial information to complete strangers, but I’ll try to answer in loose terms. My income is sufficient to cover the gas I need, food, rent (which includes utilities), and a few creature comforts. Additionally, I home and feed a small, beautiful cat, and so have the additional costs of food, hairball prevention treats, and litter for the cat box. If I lived in another place, the money I make might not be sufficient, as cost of living differs greatly from place to place around the country, but as is, I do just fine. I have some savings set aside for my future, and I also have that money making more money for me while it sits there waiting for me to be old and grey.

Putting quotes around the word necessity does not mean those necessities wouldn’t be practical. Practicality is a pretty subjective term in this context, which is the point that has been explained to you multiple times, in one way or another.

Screw them all and their earnings of $8 an hour…not my problems. They’ll just have to invest in the stock market with their savings like Mr. Reasonable said, no electricity and rice eats only.

Wendy, I applaud your concerns and desire to find solutions. Don’t give up but maybe narrow your focus a little. Remember? I’m the one who said keep it local, small scale and doable.

Okay, so why do people have children that they cannot support?

#-o #-o #-o You had to go there didn’t you? I did my best to avoid that issue but no, YOU hadda drag it out. #-o #-o #-o

OK

  1. Prolly 90% of all live births are OOPS! Anyone who says different is lieing.

  2. The ultra right conservatives are against any kind of birth control. “Keep 'em barefoot, pregnant, and in the bedroom or kitchen.”

  3. Various religious groups discourage the use of condoms, and suggest the failed rhythm method to control population.

  4. In certain states, the designed lack of facilities to correct unplanned pregnancies contributes to unwanted live births.

  5. Supporting a child is an afterthought in the heat of the moment, assuming any afterthought.

There are dozens of other reasons but these are the obvious. You do realize that each of these plus others deserve their own thread with numerous pages of back and forth and a year from now… #-o

I should add health and car insurance, I pay for both of those as well.

Wendy - one of the points I am trying to make is that individual median income doesn’t define people as poor. Median household income is a better measure. Single income families is a problem. There are causes unique to those families and solutions unique to those families. It’s a point about using the stats most supportive to your point. There are solutions other than simply waving a wand and granting everyone a $50,000 income, because there is a price to pay for everything. And this is a conservative position, by the way.

What’s not so conservative is universal, taxpayer supported health care, which doesn’t add to anyone’s income but which takes away an expense. Both sides of the lever matter.

Okay, but it’s worth pointing out that single mom families represent a lot of poverty. Are we doing everything we can to force dads to pay the freight? Are we making it too easy for irresponsible people to have kids? Should people have the right to bear four kids that they cannot support? Or to father them? If they do and should have that right, do we then complain that we have so much poverty or do we just accept it as a result of all those rights?

Why would single income families get preferential income treatment to a single individual? Sure, you can throw programs for childcare and food stamps at such situations, but why would they earn a greater income for the same work being performed?

Wendy, if you’re question is directed at me, you should know that I don’t understand that question. Can you rephrase? Is it a rhetorical question?

This thread is about income disparity, right? That’s what I am talking about, a person does labor and they are paid such and such for their labor. My concern is not to go delving into every aspect of their personal choices, I just want a working individual to earn a fair wage and whether she or he has kids is another issue. No decent income equals poverty. Kids just make the hole of poverty ever so much deeper.

wendy, surely you must realize that it is much more difficult for many single moms to earn a decent income than for, say, a married couple with kids.

Are you saying that whatever job one has - picking cotton or working at the laundromat or whatever, they should be able to make 50 grand a year? How would that be accomplished?

The answer to each of your questions is no, but you already knew that. The only solution I can see that actually might work amounts to societal revolution. It would entail personal responsibility at every level, and that isn’t a likely scenario. Hold fathers fiscally responsible. Literally, a license to have children. Proof from both parents of the ability to support and raise each child. They have no procreation rights not granted by society. Government must provide the assets and oversight capabilities to enforce all of this.

Do we just accept the poverty as a result ? Well, we have so far and it hasn’t worked very well.

But it isn’t hard to see the shitstorm such measures would create. The only other possible solution would be compulsory reversible sterilization at, say, 10 yrs of age. This could be reversed when a couple was able to prove their ability to support and raise a child to adulthood. Either solution has about a 1% chance of ever being put in place.

Can you hear the screaming at your place? It’s so loud here I’m getting a headache.

I never said $50,000, but would shoot for $40,000 hoping to end up with $30,000. This wage hike would be accomplished by way of less greed which would equal less profits for company owners, pay cuts for CEO’s, upper management, and middle management, and less influence for majority shareholders in companies gone public, simple 1, 2, 3. This would not happen due to acquiescence of the horribly greedy parties at the top who have already been mentioned, but would be doable with labor dept. wage enforcement swat teams. Employees who ratted out their employers greed would be monetarily compensated by company profits which they were denied through their work environment. Trust me, it’d be easy breezy. Repeat offending companies could be seized by the government like they can seize whatever they already want to, just in this case companies would be seized and auctioned off without missing a beat for a good reason. :mrgreen:

Companies that only profit themselves more than the people of the country can be replaced, which would also hold them to higher public safety standards, but that’s another thread.

No, make higher education and job placement help available for all participants free of charge which would solve the problem of them finding work and earning a decent salary and would also automatically qualify them for free family co-parent planning, parenting assistance, and medical maternity costs once they work for 5 years.

Isn’t it about helping people onto a track that enriches their lives and the lives of their offspring?