Income Disparity

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?

Okay, so you’re on to me, tent. Again, I am trying to make the point that there isn’t just one cause of poverty in america and so there is not just one cure. Raising minimum wage to $15.00 won’t cure poverty, but it will help. Some large companies, such as Target, see the handwriting on the wall. Fast food chains can surely afford it. It can happen.

But here’s a story. Friend of mine lost his factory job. Place closed down. He took a job as less pay, also in a factory. His salary is subsidized, so for now, he’s making what he used to make. I’m not sure where the money comes from - the state or a manufacturer trust fund. It doesn’t matter, because either way, the general public is paying the freight, either in taxes or in higher prices. He was also eligible for job retraining. He chose not to. Felt he was too old to begin again.

That’s okay - he’s a big boy. Soon enough, the subsidy runs out. do we bemoan his reduced salary? Do we say that there should be no subsidy unless he retrains, so we are not in the same situation when the factory he now works in shuts down?

As a society, we have to make up our minds. Do we subsidize with no strings attached (this is common in my state)? Do we require that you have to be more than a victimized laid-off worker to get the subsidy? Do we skip the subsidy and just offer the training?

The thing is, his salary now contributes to “poverty” stats. Why should we worry? He chose not to try for a better paying job. So he makes about 11 bucks an hour, now. His wife makes 40k. They own a home and they’re not in danger of losing it. I think they own it outright.

Stats are stats, but there are stories behind the stats. There are tons of anti-poverty programs. There are countless combinations of family size, social resources, incomes, assets, costs of living. One percent, 20 percent, eighty percent.

Everyone hates the 1% except for their favorite athlete, entertainer or doctor. And Warren Buffet.

How much should CEO’s be allowed to make?

Warren Buffet is a criminal who owns a chunk of the world yet lives like a pauper. He hoards wealth.

$12, 332. :evilfun: Why are you worried about those CEOs who swim in money and not those poor single mothers and what they are allowed to make? Pay your employees well, provide safe products and work environments and I have no problem with them earning big money, but don’t shortchange the backbone of your company…your employees, your consumers, or the Earth’s environment.

Well, you mention pay cuts for greedy CEO’s. I understood you to mean that their high salaries could be diverted to impoverished employees. So the swat teams will be enforcing something. Like lower CEO salaries?

Look, if you don’t mean any of this literally, just say so.

No, I mean it all, companies need to pay an honest days wage for an honest days work, but the little people should not always be the ones to do without.

The labor department wage enforcement officers could also do impromptu safety inspections.

Oh. So CEO pay is okay the way it is. So, what if forcing higher wages makes a company go bankrupt? Again, a higher minimum wage probably won’t do this. But $40,000 for the guy who empties the wastebasket might. Because those with higher skill levels will want more than $40,000. How much should someone with greater skills than the janitor make? $41,000? $45,000? And if the goods made by the company become uncompetitive with China or Mexico, we erect trade tariffs? And when prices go up, do we then have to pay the janitor and everyone else even more?

Wealth is created by achieving greater productivity. That means job-erasing technology. So would it be better to train workers to be more productive? Even though that is, by definition, job-eliminating? When shoemakers got metal tools, shoes got better, easier to make - and thusly labor was eliminated.

The key to wealth is technology and automation. So that factory workers are really computer operators. Paying more for hand-made items won’t get anyone rich.

Higher quality products will always be handmade which is not rocket science. Technology increases productivity, but at the cost of quality and jobs for those who instilled quality.

You want to clean your own shit smeared work toilets, it’s the same guy?

The problem both of us has faced since the beginning of this thread is trying to get people to see that there HAS to be alternative ways of looking at the issues because of the complexity. But Nooooo. We want simple answers! (something that looks good on a bumper sticker) I don’t know what more to do with this. It’s probably the wrong venue for any serious discussion.

But that said: Your friend is taking a risk and that is his choice. If he ends up living in poverty he risked that choice. Society owes nothing to those who refuse helping themselves. Wait! I know! Blame it on someone else! Yeah, that’s the ticket. After all, it couldn’t possibly be my fault. I’m the victim here. I’m poor because I’m oppressed by those others. (sniff)

It would be interesting to know what sort of re-training is being offered to displaced coal miners and how many are taking advantage of any such programs. I’m guessing damn few. People seem to resist change - even for their own betterment.

The fast food industry won’t contribute higher wages to anyone. They’ll simply continue with automation. Want to place an order? Talk to my computerized order system. And have a nice day…

Higher quality products are not always handmade. Not even close. Many high quality items are impossible to make by hand. Computer chips are not handmade.

I thought we were at $40,000 as a living wage in a factory. Does everyone make $40,000? That’s a sort of communist vision. But I’m really just wondering how your far-left vision works in practice.

The naive know not whether they are the naive, but know for certain of the guilt of others.

tent - the thing about my friend is that while he’s looking for a higher paying job, I would never call his circumstances those of poverty. He and his wife just don’t fit the stats. They were immigrants. I know a lot about this immigrant group. Generally, they just don’t borrow money. They scrape and save and pay cash. They are not typical americans - from a “financial practices” point of view, they are better than typical americans. They have a nice house in the suburbs. Their kids went to school.

And yeah, I think society owes them nothing. They feel the same way. Even though he makes, ultimately, about $22,000 per year, maybe a little more.

What they have, which so many truly poor people don’t, is social resources. A person making $22,000 with few social resources can be poor while someone with the same income but rich social resources can be just fine.