Wages of Poverty vs. Wages of Employment

Wages of Poverty vs. Wages of Employment


As a young optimist I wanted to help and learn about the world. I began one of my endeavors by volunteering at a food shelter. Growing up in a middle-class family I was mystified as to why the welfare recipients at the shelter wore designer bags and had more expensive shoes on their feet than I did. My utterly confusion lead me to investigate the fundamentals of the government and their underlying motives amongst the different financial classes.

According to the Secretary Alexanders Chart, a single mom is better off earning 29,000 dollars in gross income with 57,327 dollars in net income and benefits than a single mom earning 69,000 dollars in gross income with a net income of 57,045 dollars. This statistic was correctly preferred off an article called “Poverty Pays Better Than Middle-Class Employment.”
humanevents . com 2012/11/28/poverty-pays-better-than-middle-class-employment/
In 2011 former Governor Mitt Romney predicted that “ we will have created a society that contains a sizable contingent of long-term jobless, dependent on the government benefits for survival.” This critics statement is valid considering the welfare programs that promote laziness, ideally these Americans can collect government benefits rather than finding a job.

People are solely mistaken of the slogan “All Men Are Created Equal.” In all actuality this country cannot be considered equal if the upper and middle-class are obligated to provide financial security for the poor. “All Men Are Created Equal” because everyone has the same opportunity for financial benefits. Are we even “The Land of The Free?” It’s time to free the struggling, hardworking middle-class individuals.

Is there an article or speech that you can provide on where Mitt Romney talks more about his prediction? The reason I ask is because there really is no evidence to back that quote up besides you writing it. I do like how you talk about the differences in net and gross pay of a single mom, but am confused if you were trying to compare a single mom to someone/something else or what exactly you are stating.

I'd like to reference that these same numbers were also taken from M.I.T surveys conducted through 2010-2013 during our economic lull. The point being made is it's becoming increasingly difficult to be a single parent and needing to work. The cost of childcare for one child (this includes food, care, general medical and others) exceeds $4500 a year. One an income where you have rent (Average rent in Albuquerque between $500-1000, house being $800-1200), you need more than a normal 9-5 Mcdonalds job. Ironically by the government standards, if you make anything below 35K a year, you are in the poverty line and qualify for food stamps/welfare/wic/all federal aid.

The issue is how buisnessess pay low wages for corporate benefit and profit and in turn force (example, Walmart with an average of $8-9 an hour) its employees to use these federal benefits. There are plenty of those who do actually abuse the system, and they know it. The numbers for those that do so is not as high as people thing, roughly 10% of those on welfare actually abuse it to the extent the internet shows. According to a survey performed by the national census bureu in 2014 (august 14), 34% of Americans are on some form of government aid. Translation: 109,631,000. The population for the U.S.A is 318,900,000 (approximately by close of 2014). Factor in the 10% and you have 10,963,100. Yes, this is a large number as well, being it is no small number by counting standards.

Our government and corporations need to provide for the families and true wealth of America; it's people. These sort of numbers are unacceptable and completely bonkers when you compared us to other first world countries.

The article where Mitt Romney states "we have all created a society that contains a sizable contingent of long-term jobless, dependent on the government benefits for survival" is called "Entitlement Society." He stated this to clearly identify that these welfare benefits are promoting laziness amongst Americans. According to 
www . newsmax . com and a Congressional Research Service Report "adults receiving food stamps doubled from 1.9 million in 2008 to 3.9 million in 2010. Obama has created a safety net for the people who are dependent on the government. He is gaining power and control by enforcing the dependency of Americans on welfare. If we continue to have an "Entitlement Society" than no one will want to work hard and create value for the world. We as individuals are destined to work hard for the things we love and want. Why would we continue to allow the government to take control of our destiny.

First, I would like to point out that each link that you have provided are from heavily conservative sources that are biased towards the idea that welfare is a bad thing. I think that your argument would be stronger if you could provide unbiased federal reports or links that can serve you better.

Second, you brought up the concept of equality and that all men are in fact, not created equal-- which I agree with, but in a much different sense. Welfare is vital to a society for the exact reason that people are not created equal.  I would like you to imagine a child, born with a disability that grows up in a poor and/or abusive home. Now imagine a healthy child, growing up in a well-off, loving family, who live in a good neighborhood. Now, are these children created equal? Absolutely not, rather the healthy child is born to privilege and advantage while the other simply isn’t.

The child who is born with disability into a poor home, must overcome much greater barriers that middle and upper class Americans do not. For instance, one barrier for those at a low-socioeconomic level, is health. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, “SES (socioeconomic status) is important to health not only for those in poverty, but at all levels of SES. On average the more advantaged individuals are the better their health is”.  In regards to education, low socioeconomic status is correlated to a strong burden and delayed academic progress. The American Psychological Association states, “Families from low-SES communities are less likely to have the financial resources or time availability to provide children with academic support… Parents from low-SES communities may be unable to afford resources such as books, computers, or tutors,” moreover, “Schools in low-SES communities suffer from high levels of unemployment, migration of the best qualified teachers and low educational achievements.” So, when we imagine the poorer child with disability we must imagine what it is like to grow up when the odds are stacked against them, when their family cannot provide for them, and their education and health are linked to the wealth that they are born into. Can you imagine the healthy child from the middle/upper class family facing the same odds? Most likely not, and it’s because their family was able to provide, send them to good schools, afford health care are much more. Now, imagine what it would be like for the poorer child if his family were on welfare.

Third, welfare is in fact a security net for those that are in need of financial aid. However the dependency rate of welfare rises and falls with economic cycles. Taking the “Great Recession” (which put 8.8 million out of jobs) into account, according to the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation: the Welfare Indicators and Risk Factors: Fourteenth Report to Congress (2015) states that, “With the onset of the Great Recession, which lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, the dependency rate increased to 5.3 percent in 2010. In 2012, the dependency rate was 5.1 percent.” Clearly, economic troubles leads to a greater need for welfare assistance which could lead to dependence (“the proportion of all individuals in families that receive more than half of their total family income in one year from TANF, SNAP, and/or SSI.”). You also state that that welfare programs promote laziness, and assume that welfare recipients collect monetary benefits from different welfare programs simultaneously (which would add up to a great deal of money). However, most families are not on all welfare programs like TANF, SNAP, LIHEAP, WIC, TEFAP, considering the fact that there are requirements and time restrictions to most of these programs.

You claim that a single mom is better off earning $29,000 than earning $69,000 and that receiving welfare promotes laziness instead of finding a job. I assume you say this because you also assume that a single mother would receive more money through welfare instead of working, thus receiving all benefits from each welfare program. However, many  welfare recipients do infact work while jobless families receive less of these benefits. In a 2011 report, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that “86 percent of low-income children receiving health coverage through Medicaid of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) were in working families”. There is  a small percentage of families that actually receive assistance through multiple programs, “Consider TANF… very few families receive TANF cash assistance and those that do often work or participate in employment programs and are subject to time limits on their receipt of assistance”.

The assumption that people receiving welfare, are constantly on it is also misleading. “The vast majority of families who leave the welfare system do so after a relatively short period of time--about half leave within a year; 70 percent within two years and 90 percent within five years. But many return almost as quickly as they left-- about 45 percent return within a year and 70 return by the end of five years,” (Pavetti, The Urban Institute). However, this does not mean that people are simply lazy or not hard working. Recall the poorer child if you will, many of the people that get off of welfare and return may have similar backgrounds: many are undereducated, grew up in low-SES, or even don’t have much work experience to stay in a competitive job market.

Another major factor is low wages. People of low-SES face more barriers, they may not be able to commute to their place of employment, or they may not even be hired due to their SES. For this reason they turn to minimum wage jobs. Many of these working families struggle because wages are so low and assistance is needed once again. Going back to your reference about single mothers, you claim that people are better of on welfare compared to working a minimum wage job, in some cases this is true. However, the majority of those that are working minimum wage jobs are in fact 1. single mothers and 2. teenagers (that are dependents and generally do not have to rely on their minimum wage job as a source of income to support themselves entirely). Many single mothers that are on welfare want to further their education and work, but in order to do so they must balance their minimum wage job with childcare. In fact raising the minimum wage, would help single mothers be able to work and provide for their children. According to the Department of Labor, “89 percent of those who would benefit from a federal minimum wage increase to $12 per hour are age 20 or older, and 56 percent are women” thus benefiting single mothers.

Realistically, welfare is not a choice and is necessary to the progression of our society. While there are abusers of the system, there are more that are in need. In my opinion, we live in the richest most powerful country on the planet, we can afford to help those that are not born to privilege. We must look at the facts before we go on to generalize the behaviors of a few as behaviors of the whole.