meet Terrence Wise, a 36 year old, 2nd-generation fast-food worker

One of my roommates went to college on scholarship but partied too hard and his grades dropped so his schollies dried up and he had to drop out. He works as a server at a greek restaurant run by a couple contestants from Top Chef. My other two roommates and I work in architecture/engineering firms and went to college for 4/5 years, and yet my server roommate is able to afford to pay more rent and live in the master bedroom. He doesn't have a degree and didn't grow up with any special advantages or abilities besides taking an interest in food and being personable and working hard at servicing people.

Unless the person isn't mentally capable, anybody working at McDonald's *****ing about getting paid minimum wage could have done the same exact thing as my roommate. Sure that type of job might not pay as much in other parts of the country as it does in DC, but that's balanced out by a much much lower cost of living in other areas. The rent I pay for just one room is equal to what my friend near Richmond pays for a mortgage for a 3 BR house...

An elevated minimum wage in cities like San Fran/NYC makes sense to me, but if you were to raise the national minimum wage to $15 I think the results would be counterproductive. While there's not a 1:1 correlation, all wages are derived from perceived value and supply and demand. There is an almost endless supply of unskilled labor or people who can work fast food jobs, and the demand/value for any job that's in a less desirable locale (with a lower cost of living) is by and large going to be much lower. Thus, it wouldn't make sense to assign the same wage to these jobs as it would jobs in places like San Fran where more people want to live and the cost of living is higher. Further, if somebody living in one of these areas knows they can make a pretty comfortable living straight out of high school, you've just DRASTICALLY lowered their incentive to better themselves and take a long term approach to career growth.

I don't like seeing anybody struggle; it would be great if everyone could live comfortably regardless of the situation they were born into, but life just doesn't work that way. Everyone should have the opportunity to put food on the table and have a place to live, but nobody OWES you the opportunity to live wherever you want and have as big of a family as you want without putting in the work to provide for such a life. I would love to live in the heart of DC or in NYC and work the job I do now, but I just wouldn't be able to afford it, so I live a little further out to account for that. Similarly, even though I have a steady job I wouldn't feel comfortable supporting a child right now, so therefore I don't get anyone pregnant. If I choose to live somewhere that's beyond my means, or unintentionally get somebody pregnant, it's MY responsibility to adapt to the situation I put myself in, not society's job to finance those poor decisions.

Sure, not everybody was born into circumstances that would afford them the same ability to make responsible life decisions; everyone makes mistakes and you don't want to see people get suffocated by a couple bad decisions. That's what things like welfare and other government programs should be there for; as a safety net. While invariably the money to support people in these circumstances has to come from somewhere, it makes more sense to draw from a government program intended as a fallback only for those who need it, rather than designing it into the wage structure nationwide.
 
japejapejape said:
 
yall are making it seem like he hasn't switched jobs in 20 years and instead settled for flipping burgers. 

yall are acting like he can't get financial aid and go to community college and get a better job. 

yall are acting like it's our fault he decided to have 3 children with a minimum wage job. 

yall are acting like its other peoples responsibility to help this man make more money

yall are acting like he didn't see the example of his mother working fast food that it wasn't the best career choice. 

i don't pity laziness. i worked my *** off to get where i am. 

20 years and not another job.  20 damn years.  you could be a waiter and make more than he does. 

i have plenty of friends with no education with better jobs than him. 
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Glad thats all you found worth commenting on. Again, if you dont him to be the poster child for this that fine. Forget about Terrence. Fact of the matter is the issues that come from being poor dig way deeper than this man deciding to stick with one minimum wage job for 20 years as opposed to hopping to 5 or 10 different ones. fact of that matter is being born into his situation whether he had 8 kids or no kids, whether he stayed at one place or jumped to multiple place statistically the odds overwhelmingly in the favor of him remaining poor.
RIP sleazyy said:
A lot of people were never taught the importance of planning, because their parents weren't and their parents werent.

It's why generational poverty is so prevalent. This dude obviously made some bad choices though
laugh.gif


But.. Not everybody has that get out and get it mentality because it's not what they know. It's not the norm to them. When you grow up struggling, it's what you know as normal.
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I feel the way we have been conditioned to treat the poor and poverty stricken as undeserving leeches or bums has a lot to do with some of these arguments. But that may be a different topic for a different thread.
 
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when it comes down to it theres always going to be an impasse when discussing topics like this. One side assumes that the poor, even though they come from having less, are just as aware of the routes to making it out of poverty as those that arent poor and are actively not choosing those routes because its easier to remain in their situation and take handouts. The other side believes the vast majority of the poor are mostly ignorant of the existence of those routes out of poverty entirely and that being generationally poor conditioned them to accept poverty and everything that comes with it, ie low paying jobs, government assistance, criminal behavior, and the devaluing of education by both the school systems in the area as well as those around them, as the norm.

To me, when you get number as large as 70% of people that are born poor stay poor, it seems more plausible to me that there is way more at play than just 70% of an entire socioeconomic class being lazy and making bad decisions. Personal accountability does play a roll to an extent but none of the choices that this guy can realistically make does anything to change his socioeconomic status when youre coming from within the context and environment. Youre expecting him to do something that very few people in his position are able to do.
 
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jdfrenchbread23 said:
when it comes down to it theres always going to be an impasse when discussing topics like this. One side assumes that the poor, even though they come from having less, are just as aware of the routes to making it out of poverty as those that arent poor and are actively not choosing those routes because its easier to remain in their situation and take handouts. The other side believes the vast majority of the poor are mostly ignorant of the existence of those routes out of poverty entirely and that being generationally poor conditioned them to accept poverty and everything that comes with it, ie low paying jobs, government assistance, criminal behavior, and the devaluing of education by both the school systems in the area as well as those around them, as the norm.

To me, when you get number as large as 70% of people that are born poor stay poor, it seems more plausible to me that there is way more at play than just 70% of an entire socioeconomic class being lazy and making bad decisions. Personal accountability does play a roll to an extent but none of the choices that this guy can realistically make does anything to change his socioeconomic status when youre coming from within the context and environment. Youre expecting him to do something that very few people in his position are able to do.
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This is all very true. I think it's easy for us to say somebody isn't driven or makes poor choices etc, but many people are just never in an environment to learn about how to make good choices or figure out how to improve their situation, much less have the drive to do so.

My sister did social work for a while and she had a lot of cases where people were just gaming the system (taking disability pay for supposed ADHD, etc) but a lot of her kids were good kids who had just been living off the government for so long that they didn't even conceive of the possibility of getting a job or being self-sufficient because it was all they knew and they had no life skills whatsoever. She told me about one girl who was 16 and had 2 young kids and had never even been to the store/didn't know how to buy diapers, and had never gone to a restaurant and ordered from a menu before :/ Without basic life skills/direction, lots of people like that are doomed to fail regardless of whether or not they're hard-working etc.

That being said, I don't think an artificially inflated national minimum wage is going to fix many of those issues; one only need look no further than many NBA and NFL athletes to see that having more money all of a sudden doesn't make a person better at managing it.
I think if more money was pumped into adult education courses and that aspect of government assistance, and it could reach enough people, it would be a lot more effective than a raised minimum wage in helping reduce that 70% of people that don't make it out of that socioeconomic class. If you look at the people who do break through that ceiling, overwhelmingly it's because they had the foresight/attitude/knowledge to know that something better was available to them and they fought to make it happen. That type of thinking doesn't come automatically with a higher paying job.
 
5am6oody72 said:
This is all very true. I think it's easy for us to say somebody isn't driven or makes poor choices etc, but many people are just never in an environment to learn about how to make good choices or figure out how to improve their situation, much less have the drive to do so.

My sister did social work for a while and she had a lot of cases where people were just gaming the system (taking disability pay for supposed ADHD, etc) but a lot of her kids were good kids who had just been living off the government for so long that they didn't even conceive of the possibility of getting a job or being self-sufficient because it was all they knew and they had no life skills whatsoever. She told me about one girl who was 16 and had 2 young kids and had never even been to the store/didn't know how to buy diapers, and had never gone to a restaurant and ordered from a menu before :/ Without basic life skills/direction, lots of people like that are doomed to fail regardless of whether or not they're hard-working etc.

That being said, I don't think an artificially inflated national minimum wage is going to fix many of those issues; one only need look no further than many NBA and NFL athletes to see that having more money all of a sudden doesn't make a person better at managing it.
I think if more money was pumped into adult education courses and that aspect of government assistance, and it could reach enough people, it would be a lot more effective than a raised minimum wage in helping reduce that 70% of people that don't make it out of that socioeconomic class. If you look at the people who do break through that ceiling, overwhelmingly it's because they had the foresight/attitude/knowledge to know that something better was available to them and they fought to make it happen. That type of thinking doesn't come automatically with a higher paying job.
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well im glad we're on the same page here as far as the mentality these people have.

"Without basic life skills/direction, lots of people like that are doomed to fail regardless of whether or not they're hard-working etc."

This is something that i feel like needs to be drilled home among other things. 

and as far as raising minimum wage, i dont that that is the magic solution to solving poverty. but i think its one of many steps that are needed to level the playing field. cause whether we raise minimum wage or not, inflation is still going to happen. things are still going to get more expensive which is going to make what little they make become smaller and smaller. 
 
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Obama is a damn joke when it comes to labor. How is he going to be pushing for all this? When the Democrats controlled Congress during his first two years in office the AFL-CIO wanted to get back all the things we lost with previous Republican presidents. He did NOTHING to help us. Didn't gain back what we lost. :smh:

Hillary is the same damn joke.

Bernie For President!
 
http://endoftheamericandream.com/ar...n-workers-make-less-than-30000-dollars-a-year

"-38 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000 last year.

-51 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.

-62 percent of all American workers made less than $40,000 last year.

-71 percent of all American workers made less than $50,000 last year."


y'all keep thinking minimum wage doesn't need to reflect a livable wage because it won't change anything though
 
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heLiumcLinton said:
y'all keep thinking minimum wage doesn't need to reflect a livable wage because it won't change anything though
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but minimum wage IS a livable wage including assistance programs

none of the stats posted factor that in

the figures for food, housing, and transportation are WAY off

once again, im talking single adults w/ no kids only



any family w/ kids making minimum wage? it better be something mentally or physically wrong with the parents for me to even look at wage solutions for them
 
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seasoned vet said:
but minimum wage IS a livable wage including assistance programs
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Who's paying for these assistance programs?


seasoned vet said:
any family w/ kids making minimum wage? it better be something mentally or physically wrong with the parents for me to even look at wage solutions for them
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The wage statistics showed that the majority of American workers make very little, though.
 
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A single person making 16K before taxes is living where? Eating what? Qualifying for?
 
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On Labor Day 2013, Welfare Pays More Than Minimum-Wage Work In 35 States


Avik Roy Forbes Staff

Charles Murray launched the welfare reform movement in 1984 with his landmark book, Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980. (Photo credit: Gage Skidmore)


Since 2009, the Fair Labor Standards Act has dictated that the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Some people think that’s too low; others think it’s too high. But it turns out that, in 35 states, it’s a better deal not to work—and instead, to take advantage of federal welfare programs—than to take a minimum-wage job. That’s the takeaway from a new study published by Michael Tanner and Charles Hughes of the Cato Institute.

“The current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work,” Tanner and Hughes write in their new paper. “Welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit,” which offers extra subsidies to low-income workers who take work. “In 13 states [welfare] pays more than $15 per hour.”

Losing ground in the war on poverty



The welfare system, at its best, is a system that gives people a way to live when they can’t find work for themselves, when they’re down on their luck. At its worst, the welfare system rewards people for not working, and incentivizes people to develop habits that make it harder for them to find work in the future, miring them in permanent poverty.




In 1984, a predecessor of mine at the Manhattan Institute, Charles Murray, published the definitive book on this subject, Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980. Murray found that despite the fact that we were spending trillions of dollars on anti-poverty programs, poverty was not improving; indeed, on many measures, it was getting worse.

Things had gotten so bad that a Democratic presidential candidate, Bill Clinton, campaigned in 1992 on a platform to “end welfare as we know it, to make welfare a second chance, not a way of life.” In 1996, Clinton signed into law a landmark welfare-reform bill called the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which, among other things, required recipients of cash welfare payments to seek work, or lose their benefits.

But though the 1996 reforms did shrink the cash welfare rolls, other programs have grown substantially in the last 17 years, so much so it appears that the significance of the 1996 reforms may have been overstated.



The welfare system has grown since 1996

In 1995, Cato published The Work vs. Welfare Trade-Off, which examined the value of welfare benefits in every state. They found that, in 40 states, welfare paid more than $8 an hour; in 17 states, welfare paid more than $10 an hour. Tanner, the principal author of that study, decided to reexamine the numbers in the context of 2013.

In Cato’s new 2013 study, welfare paid more than $10 an hour in 33 states; 17 paid less than $8 an hour. Comparing the two data sets and accounting for inflation, 18 states saw a decline in the total value of welfare benefits; 32 states and the District of Columbia saw increases.

Tanner and Hughes award the national welfare championship to Hawaii, which offers $60,590 in annual welfare benefits, once you account for the fact that welfare benefits are tax-free to the recipient, compared to work-related wages. That’s the equivalent of $29.13 an hour. Rounding out the top five were D.C. ($50,820 per year and $24.43 an hour), Massachusetts ($50,540 and $24.30), Connecticut ($44,370 and $21.33), and New York ($43,700 and $21.01).

States with the lowest welfare benefits were Idaho ($11,150 and $5.36), Mississippi ($11,830 and $5.69), Tennessee ($12.120 and $5.83), Arkansas ($12,230 and $5.88), and Texas ($12,550 and $6.03).

Vermont increased welfare payments by the largest amount

The biggest jump in welfare payments between 1995 and 2013 was enjoyed by Vermont, where annual pre-tax-equivalent benefits jumped from $31,580 to $42,350 in 2013 dollars: an increase of $10,770. Other big gainers were D.C. ($6,850), Hawaii ($5,589), New Hampshire ($5,299), and Oregon ($5,288).

The biggest decrease was in Alaska, where benefits dropped from $48,655 to $26,400, a difference of $22,255. The other major belt-tighteners were Virginia (-$20,035), Maine (-$18,718), Colorado (-$16,830), and Idaho (-$16,048).

Tanner and Hughes count 126 distinct federal means-tested anti-poverty programs in force today. For the purposes of their study, they looked specifically at: (1) Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the post-1996 cash welfare program; (2) the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps; (3) Medicaid; (4) housing assistance; (5) utilities assistance; (6) the Women, Infants, and Children program (WIC), and (7) the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP).

Not all of these benefits apply to every welfare beneficiary, and some are time-limited, like TANF. But it remains true that an alarming number of welfare beneficiaries do not have an economic incentive to find entry-level work.

Also striking about the Tanner and Hughes study is the degree to which this problem would be much worse without the Earned Income Tax Credit, which offers subsidies to working low-income individuals. In effect, the EITC serves as a negative income tax for those with little-to-no income tax liability. It ameliorates the disincentive that welfare recipients have to seek work.

The Swedish solution: Tax welfare benefits

A better way to address this problem would be to treat welfare benefits like taxable income. Even low-income workers with no income tax liability have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. But welfare benefits are entirely tax-free.

As Reihan Salam has noted, Sweden has a generous welfare state. But Sweden treats welfare benefits as taxable income. This gives even welfare beneficiaries an incentive to support efficient government, providing a welcome blur between “makers” and “takers.” In Sweden, according to Tino Sanandaji, “an astonishing 85 percent of working-age native Swedes work and pay taxes, far above the European average of 70 percent.”

You could even increase the scale of welfare benefits, in order to ensure that the taxable net income to welfare beneficiaries remained similar. Such a change would allow for more straightforward comparisons of income from work and income from welfare, and reduce the disincentive for work.

Obamacare is doing much to make it harder for Americans to find work, especially full-time work. At the same time, the aging of the Baby Boomers and the growth in welfare payments is making it easier for Americans to give up on looking for work. Absent reform, this won’t end well.

View media item 1759418

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapot...ays-more-than-minimum-wage-work-in-35-states/
 
"In 1984, a predecessor of mine at the Manhattan Institute, Charles Murray, published the definitive book on this subject, Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980. Murray found that despite the fact that we were spending trillions of dollars on anti-poverty programs, poverty was not improving; indeed, on many measures, it was getting worse."
 
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heLiumcLinton said:
A single person making 16K before taxes is living where? Eating what? Qualifying for?
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the figures posted earlier from that study done at MIT cited $23,000 to live, $20,000 after taxes in my area.

of that $20,000 required to live
$15,000 goes to Food, Housing, and Transportation

Housing for example was at $8,028 a year. thats over $660 a month.
whats not factored in is low income housing where people are paying less than $100 each month in rent.

theres a big difference in $1,200 a year in rent vs $8,000


transportation is another
who the **** is spending $4,600 a year riding the bus?
our maintaining a late model vehicle?

the food figure is off by close to 50%


if were going to look at the numbers you have to factor in everything

with all numbers factored you're looking at around $9,000 to live
 
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