Minimum Wages

@metr0n0me I seen people struggle. I seen people lose there house. Going through a recession is different from what I am talking about. Im talking about your typical person, in this day in age. Recessions are different. After the recession, I could truly tell which ones actually cared. The ones who actually cared were the ones who got back up and running by 2012. They were back on their feet and doing great. The ones who didn't try hard enough, didn't want to accept a job because "its didn't pay enough" or "the work was too hard" those are the ones who didn't survive and get back up by 2012.

 

2008 was less than 10 years ago, what do you mean by "in this day and* age?"

You clearly just don't want to acknowlege the fact that YOU CANNOT LIVE OFF $10 AN HOUR.

And you clearly also don't want to acknowlege the fact that MOST POOR PEOPLE ARE NOT LAZY F*CKS WHO ABUSE WELFARE!!!
(by the way my friend's sister who works in a grocery store is texting me the purchases/cars/clothes/phones of whoever uses EBT cards, and it kind of proves my point)--here's what we have so far:

Customer 1: old iPhone (looked like a 3GS), no expensive clothes, buying simple food, 4th generation (87-92) Mazda 626

Customer 2: old Android phone, no expensive clothes, also buying simple food, didn't see car

Customer 3: didn't see phone, no expensive clothes (except a silver necklace?) buying simple food, didn't see car

Business is slow today and not too many people have used EBT yet.

 

10 years ago in politics, is a fairly long time.

I have acknowledged that life would be tough but no one promised you an easy life. It is possible though.

lol calm down.

oooooo 3 people out of all of America.

 

ya she says that by the end of their shift there's usually around 25 people in a given day who use ebt so we'll see then i guess

 

In his defense he rarely sees poor people so he wouldn't know, and when he sees a homeless person he tells them to stop begging.

 

Even 25 people. Look how many people are in America. Using EBT. The people that live down the road from me use EBT, they check out separately. She uses EBT for her delicious food plans and then he checks out behind her with the beer, cigarettes and candy. People abuse the system! They just aren't getting caught and the government is too stupid to get it.

False, I said 1 time that i asked a homeless man to stop begging. I also believe I said homeless people shouldn't be begging near schools, work places (office buildings) and hospitals.!!

 

oooooooooh 2 people in all of America!!

 

You can't buy beer and cigarettes on EBT

Whoops forgot source
Eligible Food Items | Food and Nutrition Service

 

no what people do is buy food with ebt and then buy beer/cigs with their own cash

also at least in Oregon at least there's a program called SNAP, which is food assistance. You can't buy beer/cigs with that, but there's also TANF, which helps families with children buy clothes/school supplies/etc. You can buy non-food items (clothes, school supplies, etc. but also alcohol and cigs) with that.

 

Ahh I see. Also I believe SNAP gives EBT cards.

 

SNAP = EBT

--- Double Post Merged, May 4, 2017, Original Post Date: May 4, 2017 ---

TANF is also EBT

You use EBT cards for both, it's just if you're enrolled in SNAP annd try to buy beer your purchase will not go through but if you're enrolled in TANF and try to buy beer with the EBT card your purchase goes through

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we shouldn’t energize social mobility; we absolutely must. It’s just that there are far better alternatives than increasing the minimum wage. Here are a few. First, we need to ensure that greater in-house training/promotion opportunities are offered to those who work in low wage positions. We also need greater funding for government sponsored skills programs — especially those that operate at irregular hours (so that service industry workers can attend outside of their work schedule). Most importantly, we need an education system suited to the 21st century — no longer can good schools be the preserve of mostly wealthy counties. Conservatives also need to get back into American inner cities. Subsuming all of this; as a country, we need to get over the idea that massive welfare programs help those trapped in poverty. In actuality, they restrain economic mobility and penalize personal responsibility.

This is a small paragraph I copied from a Huffington post article by Tom Rogan. I didn't post the link because it goes into a bit of "bashing on Trump" so I mean, duh why would I post it. However, this might help see why we should not raise minimum wage. Let me add the great education secretary Betsy DeVos is going to allow even the poorest of poor children to go to the best schools.

 

Why We Shouldn't Raise the Minimum Wage | HuffPost
Don't worry guys here is the link.

 

Thank you, lol I was not trying to "hide the article" from anyone, thats why I left the name and article I got it from. I just didn't want to post it myself. Let me say, I want to help less fortunate people to my best ability but we have to understand that raising the minimum wage and giving a free handout doesn't make America better or the people living in it.

 

The education link is really good and highlights a lot of the things that are wrong with the American education system.

There's a massive amount of waste in American public education. I know again this is anecdotal, but I think it's a story worth telling.

For some context, I live in one of the better school districts in my state. One of the local high schools especially is very good and it's one of the best in the state, as its students almost exclusively hail from very educated backgrounds--the suburb it's in is home to a ton of people in the technology industry, and as a result is very very well-funded.

So I was waiting in line to pay a ticket at the DMV, and I was making small-talk with this guy. How's the weather, what do you do, etc.--the usual. Offhand, he mentioned something about having to photocopy textbooks. I asked him why exactly you'd need to photocopy textbooks, and he replied: "There's not enough money to buy textbooks, so we photocopy them."

I pointed out that photocopying 400-page textbooks in color isn't cheap, especially since the students can't reuse the photocopies year-to-year (they reuse the textbooks after the year's done), and the teacher kind of looked sheepish and said something like "Yeah, I thought you might mention that. The copier budget and the textbook budget are two separate funds, and we can't transfer money between them. The textbook budget is out of money, so we have to photocopy the textbooks now." He went on to say that this was costing the school district thousands of dollars.

He also mentioned that the school had a use-it-or-lose-it budget. Essentially, this means that the school has a certain amount of funding, and if you don't use all the funding by the end of the school year, you lose the money. Additionally, if you don't use all the money, you'll get less funding in the future as clearly the school can survive with less funding. As the suburb the school serves is rapidly growing, the school doesn't want to face the possibility of receiving less funding in the future, so it's forced to spend all of its money into frivolous wasteful expenditures. Already, there is (he showed me pictures) a closet full of 3-year old iMacs, hundreds of new desks scattered around the school, etc. Yet because the funding is so inflexible, it can't be redistributed into things like buying textbooks, or buying a new piano for the choir department (the old piano was under a leaky roof and got destroyed).

Yet, budget cuts are leading to teacher layoffs, and classes of 60-70 people--I heard from some of my friends who attend this school that some Spanish classes have 75 people in them, crammed into a classroom designed to accommodate 30. Obviously, this kind of environment makes it impossible for the teacher to control the students, and is not conducive to learning.

And remember, this is arguably the best public school in the state. I hate to think of what goes on in other schools.

With the amount of money America spends per capita educating students, it's completely unreasonable that the education system is in as bad shape as it is.

--- Double Post Merged, May 4, 2017, Original Post Date: May 4, 2017 ---

@Blue_marlin98

So as I promised before, one of my good friend's sisters is a cashier at a grocery store in a low-income section of town. Here's what she saw.

84 customers served

31 EBT users

"simple food" is defined as anything except: seafood (shrimp, lobster, etc.), expensive meat (steak, ribs, lamb, veal, etc.), alcohol, or cigarettes

Customer 1: old iPhone (looked like a 3GS), no expensive clothes, buying simple food, 4th generation (87-92) Mazda 626

Customer 2: old Android phone, no expensive clothes, also buying simple food, didn't see car

Customer 3: didn't see phone, no expensive clothes (except a silver necklace?) buying simple food, didn't see car

Customer 4: iPhone 5S, slightly newer clothes, no jewelry, bought simple food but a pack of cigarettes (used SNAP to pay for food, cash to pay for cigarettes), 9th generation (2000-2007) Corolla

Customer 5: didn't see phone, no expensive clothes, bought simple food plus a birthday cake, didn't see car

Customer 6: didn't see phone, no expensive clothes, bought simple food, didn't see car

Customer 7: old Nokia brickphone, no expensive clothes, simple food, looked to be walking towards the bus stop

Customer 8: didn't see phone, no expensive clothes, bought simple food plus a small bag of frozen shrimp, didn't see car

Customer 9: didn't see phone, no expensive clothes, bought simple food (plus six-pack), didn't see car

Customer 10: didn't see phone, no expensive clothes, bought simple food, didn't see car

Customer 11: didn't see phone, no expensive clothes, bought simple food (T-bone steak was mislabeled by the store as stew meat, so they paid the price for stew meat even though it was premium steak—I'm kind of jealous of that guy), 2000-2005 Dodge Neon

Customer 11: old brickphone, no expensive clothes, bought simple food (paid cash for a 6-pack of beer, though), walked towards the bus stop

Customer 12: didn't see phone, newer but still cheap-ish clothes, simple food (plus another small bag of frozen shrimp—frozen shrimp was on sale)

Customer 13: iPhone 5S, newer but still cheap-ish clothes, simple food, walked towards bus stop

Customer 14: Newer Android phone (Galaxy S5?), no expensive clothes, simple food (friend's sister usually didn't really mention soda but noticed this guy bought 2 12-packs of Sprite which was on sale)

Customers 15-21: manager saw her texting me under the counter and told her to put her phone away, but she mentioned that she didn't see anything too out of the ordinary or worth mentioning.

Customer 22: old brickphone, designer suit (suspected he worked as a salesman or something), simple food, 2007-ish Dodge Challenger

Customer 23: iPhone 3GS, no expensive clothes, bought simple food, didn't see car

Customer 24: didn't see phone, no expensive clothes, bought steak and a pie (friend's sister and customer made small talk, and he mentioned it was his anniversary)

Customer 25: iPhone 6, authentic-looking NBA jersey (they go for around $70 or so), pair of Jordans, gold chain, bought his food with EBT and paid for 6-pack with cash. 4th generation (1999-2004) Mustang

Customer 26: didn't see phone, new clothes, simple food, didn't see car

Customer 27: didn't see phone, new-ish clothes, simple food, walked towards bus stop

Customer 28: older Samsung (Galaxy S4?) phone, newer moderately priced clothes, simple food, generation 2 (1991-1996) Ford Escort

Customer 29: didn't see phone, what looked like a Chinese-made NBA jersey (you could get these for $10 or $15 on Aliexpress.com), simple food, walked towards bus stop

Customer 30: iPhone 6, designer-ish clothes (friend's sister is not very good with fashion), simple food, walked towards bus stop

Customer 31: didn't see phone, no expensive clothes, paid for cigarettes with cash and food with EBT, didn't quite see car but it looked old.

 

Detailed. I would like to add that people can have a nice phone and low-income if a life changing event occurred. Fiscal security is fairly low to be honest.

 

I agree completely. My school needed some textbooks as well. The Economics teachers requested a small paperback book, very small and cheap to get. They looked like flyers. The school district sent the school $5,000. They went to purchase the books and a few computers (just cheap desk tops to replace some in the accounting classroom). Everything was great until the district said "Oh wait you can't buy the paper back books (to help Economics students learn better) or buy computers. The school asks what they can buy (anything is better than nothing right?.... The district replied "That money is for paint"..... so now we have no text books and no new computers but we have beautifully painted offices and classrooms....!!!!!

Thank you for the customers. Im glad to see more of them didn't "abuse the system" but a small handful did. Now compare it to all of America.

 

Gotta love taxes!

Stretching it out doesn't make profits appear out of nowhere...

Ok, then you have $733/month for food and stuff, and that's paying the SoCal price for things.

What about the people already working there?

 

Democrat (Liberal) answer to everything: Raise taxes!
Raise taxes on the working class to give to the lazy people!

 

You can, technically. It just really sucks. But who says you should be able to?

Umm... This is probably the group that would receive the most tax benefits by total value...