Is that why you are sticking around at a job that you don't seem to like very much (and pays horribly)? Because you like to help people?
Yes, in part. The job isn't exactly horrible, but it can be stressful and the lack of benefits (no sick/personal/vacation time or health benefits) and low pay is an issue. And after visiting nursing homes and reading (and talking with people who lived in them) about the old style institutions, I want to keep people out of them and in their homes/group homes as much as possible. Even the best of nursing homes are depressing places, and I know a lot about depression. I sort of "fell into" this line of work coming out of a depression of many years. Plus this line of work is GLBTQI friendly, I'm a member of the "T" (and "I" part). because they can't afford to be choosy. I also feel a kinship with disabled folks, though my "difference" is minor compared to their problems.
Here is a secret. There are other jobs that pay much better, and you could still help people. You could save lives as a doctor. You could help protect the rights of the oppressed as a lawyer. School teacher, scientist, engineer..... Getting the skill set to do one of these jobs will increase both your income and your ability to serve others.
Oh, I agree, but it's a little too late for me now, I'm 41. It'd be practically impossible to support myself, find the time to go and pay for advanced education. Depression (somewhat "T" related) is what knocked me out of college, I was a CS major which explains why I'm here on/. I'm an amateur geek.
I actually applied for police work when I was in my early 20's, you applied and if accepted they sent you off and paid for the training. I got as far as the in depth interview. The guy took one look at me and got a look of disgust on his face. I'm not exactly the big burly cop mustached sort of guy. He started talking about the physical requirements (at the time I was about 125lbs and 5' 5" tall) and tried to do some political questions. I figured he was thinking, "I aint hiring this little liberal faggot." I'm detectably different for those who are "aware", though the geek thing these days is a good disguise. No one suspects fat shlubby glasses wearing nerds with a Linux hats of being GLBTQI, even with the ponytail. (which I did NOT have when I applied to the police force).
I've thought about getting some RHEL certs, if I can ever find the money to pay for the training for them (Been using RH based Linuxes since 2002). I also thought about being an aesthetician/cosmetologist (Mad makeup skills) but that's even more expensive and time consuming believe it or not. I'm not smart enough for an MD or LLD.
You are not a victim. If you want something to change in your life, change it.
I am, slowly, but that.....is another story. Of which I've discussed too much on/. already. Well except for mentioning that I've had vi vs emacs discussions on transgender oriented IRC channels.
No it doesn't. We're talking social services here, NFP's, NGO's and NFP/NGO related agencies. Even the folks that have college degrees that work as staff at these places are seriously underpaid. Which is why they're full of do-gooder's with social consciences and GLBTQI folk like me who are do-gooders and know that since they can't afford to picky aren't going to fire us for being GLBTQI.
It's classic supply and demand. There's an abundance of workers willing to do the job that you do.
Actually,no. Agencies (like CIL's) have extreme trouble recruiting people, group homes (who often have multiple people doing what I do) are chronically understaffed because they can't keep people willing to work for the low pay (lower than mine I'm actually paid well compared to them), zero benefits and stressful conditions. The problem is the employers, many of them are NFP or have NFP origins and thusly are chronically underfunded and relied somewhat on the altruism of "caring folk" to do the jobs.
There's no abundance of workers at all. If people like me quit, I'd be practically impossible to replace, any type of client that I'd tend to work with would pretty much have to go to a nursing home. but I can't say "I'm irreplaceable, I want a 30% pay increase and health insurance." because I'd get told "no one pays PA's that much agencies simply don't have that kind of money. It's just not done, it's not a high skill job." Theyd say that even though they know how hard it is to find people to do it. The work simply isn't valued by society as a whole.
I recently played a bit of Fallout 1 for the first time and my first impression of it was: This game plays like a turn based isometric oblivion with guns in a postapocalyptic world.
So it makes perfect sense to me that Fallout 3 would use the Oblivion engine.
To do any kind of spell switching -- and you had to do that all the time, e.g., between attack spells, shielding yourself, and healing spells -- you had to switch to the menu, scroll through an ever growing list of spells (IIRC there was no way to delete old ones), "equip" the other spell, switch back, cast it, etc.
I take it you didn't play Oblivion with a dual analog controller where you could assign spells to the D-pad.
I think I'd agree with you more if I didn't think that the balance between employer and employee hadn't shifted majorly in favor of the employer in the last couple of decades. Nobody should have to work 2 or three jobs for any reason even getting themselves into debt. (you deprived 2 other people of a job because of your debt, just sayin) 1 job one person and that one job should pay a living wage and be respected. The guy that picks the cabbage or wipes the grandma's asses should be as respected as the guy who sits in front of a term and watches over the server (As if they get any respect either, from what I've heard.)
As to what to do with those that cannot make it on their own, let happen to them what will. There are charitable organisations that will take care of some, prisons to take care of those who turn to crime, and mother nature to take care of the rest.
We tried that already, it wasn't pretty and it wasn't humane. That's what the reformers and progressives of the late 19th and early 20th centuries tried to put an end to.
The problem is, even if you don't see it or get it directly, even people like you benefit greatly from government spending. And if the true cost of those benefits was added up you'd pay a lot more than you do. You don't like paying for welfare, I don't like helping you (in a general sense) pay for your house (via the mortgage interest deduction. I'd rather it was a direct cash credit.) The government created the middle class and suburbia as we know it at the end of WWII with massive government spending at the expense of the cities. In other words, folks like you are partly responsible for urban blight which leads to the poverty problem that you don't like paying for. What if Sears had stayed in the city rather than moving to Hoffman estates. There's still be warehousing jobs and forlklift jobs and various data jobs in the city. The sort of working class jobs the city needs, but now they're in the suburbs and the transportation system is designed to move people from the suburbs to the city, not the other way around.
I certainly agree that there are too many loopholes in the tax code. I would say that the most promising fix to this would be the fair tax.
It's not fair if it benefits libertarian cranks and crackpots who simply don't want to pay "any" taxes but will put up with a "fair tax" as long as they get more money to buy a more capable gaming box or big ass plasma. I haven't seen a fair tax proposal yet that doesn't actually hurt lower income people more than anyone else, mostly because although the income exemption is initially set high in the proposals, it gets set much lower in the finished proposal. Punish the poor! They're dependent and lazy!
Fresh produce doesn't exist in most poor neighborhoods, as the large supermarkets have fled, leaving only convenience stores in their wake. Your choices in many neighborhoods are cans or boxes or the local McDonald's. You can try to take the bus out to the suburbs or to the nicer inner city areas, but the suburbs aren't happy about that. The last suburb I lived in terminated their agreement with the city's bus system so that people from the inner city couldn't take the bus to shop in the suburb.
Ah, then you've seen in person what I've only heard about happening. I live in a mostly rural area.
Okay, suppose I and others like me quit. Are you going to wipe your grandmas ass? Are you going to tell your employer "yeah I have to take monday afternoon's off every week because I have to take my grandma to get her procrit shot." You'll run out of personal days and sick days right quick and if you kept it up you'd probably get fired.
If no one does the job because of the pay, then what happens. Maybe nursing home companies will bribe the government to let them import a bunch of desperately poor people from Mexico or Honduras, set them up in company housing and pay them even less. Maybe they'll build massive institutions with skeleton crews of staff that are essentially warehouses with horrid conditions like the ones that existed not so long ago.
By the by, I'm white and male bodied (but not male gendered, but that...is another story) I like helping people, but think "helping people jobs" ought to be more respected and rewarded by society.
There is an enormous difference between receiving a tax deduction and getting actual money from the government. The former just means you pay less, the latter means that money flows in the other direction.
Tax deductions are welfare for the upper and middle classes, they just aren't called that. It just means they don't send you a check directly. If they didn't exist the government would have more money yes? Money to build infrastructure? Money to upgrade the rail system so that people could drive less and use less fuel?
Sure, I think she was dumb for buying the juice but far be it from me to judge all poor people by her. I'm not even opposed to tax deductions for certain things as long as upper and middle class folk realize that they're just as dependent on them (and government) as poor people are.
If the woman has a job that does not pay a living wage then she should get another job.
An excellent idea, but shouldn't all jobs pay a living wage? And depending on location, living wage jobs can be hard to get.
If she doesn't have any skills then she should get some, there are free programs that will allow her to do so.
And what programs are those? Because of widened eligibility, middle class folks now can qualify for educational financial assistance, lowering assistance to lower income folks who have less options. For example, if getting a Corpfoo Enterprise Linux cert of some kind costs $5000 and the program only pays for $3000 that makes it harder for lower income folks to take advantage of the program. But middle class folks aren't as affected and can take advantage of it. Every year, there's fewer and fewer lower income people in higher education.
I really hate it that people not only don't take responsibility for their own actions but tell me I'm a dick for not wanting to take responsibility for them.
Maybe not a dick, but we're all in this together, and you personally may have benefited from government in ways you might not have noticed. For example government subsidizing suburban sprawl (intentional) and white flight (unintentional) at the expense of the urban centers.
I came from a lower middle class family and have had to work my way up from the bottom, nothing was handed to me.
Could you define lower middle class for me, because I've met far too many people who say they weren't affluent, but when you get to the details they were.
As far as I'm concerned, those who cannot make it (mostly) on their own do not deserve to make it.
Nobody truly makes it on their own anymore. But what do you propose we do with those you believe do not deserve to make it? Bring back indentured servitude or slavery?
I grew up in the 1970s in a family of 4 where our family income peaked at about $18K.
18K in the 1970's? That's quite a bit, a bit over double what my family made. You're basically proving what I said, people who are well off don't want to admit it.
People can climb out of poverty. It frustrates me when people believe that they are permanently poor simply because they are poor today.
I believe that it was more possible in the past, but that there's less class mobility today.
The answer to poverty is not throwing money at the poor. The answer lies in personal character and family structure. Money addresses neither.
Considering how little the government actually spends on non-elderly poor they haven't been exactly throwing money. Character doesn't buy food, character doesn't buy training or the ability to move to a new location.
Let me tell you a story. There once was a company called Motorola, they made televisions. Dont laugh they really did. Well Motorola's executives decided to get out of the Tv business because they decided they didn't want to try to compete with the Japanese. So they sold their TV operations to a company called Matsushita, also known as panasonic. Now that gave panasonic an "in" in the US market they didn't have and an american name, Quasar (at that time there was still a resistance to buying japanese major electronics). They had their own modern factories in Japan, all they wanted was the brand and some technology and Motorola knew it. Motorola didn't tell their employees that. So when the deal was made they said to their employees. "You can either stay with the new company (which they knew would shut down the factory) or you can try for a job at Bolingbrook. But we can't guarantee you a job....and you'll have to move there to apply, we don't want any long distance commuters,they're unreliable....and by the way, there's no financial assistance to find a place or moving expenses."
They fucked over their employees to help their short term bottom line. The long term economic viability and strength of motorola is LESS than it was then. You can't buy motorola TV's you can't buy motorola radios, about the only direct to consumer goods motorola makes are cell phones. Motorola could have been Sony, but they sold out their American workers.
Now what were those workers supposed to do, are you saying they didn't have character? Things happen to people that are beyond their control, market forces, economy have more effect on poverty than anything else.
So I don't care if it's a one-time splurge or a regular thing. Either way it says nothing good about her. From the poor people I know, a lot of why they remain poor is because they frequently make "one-time" splurges. Years later they still have no money, and they wonder why....Food stamps are paid for by tax money. That woman essentially spent fifteen dollars of my money on something I personally consider far too expensive to purchase even though I almost certainly make far more money than she does.
Most poor folks are working poor, so she's paying tax money too. I suspect you qualify for tax deductions she doesn't (mortgage interest perhaps) That costs the government money too, should she then get to tell you that you can't upgrade your video card?
Suppose she didn't spend that 15 dollars, that's not much, even if she was to save that much every week that wouldn't be enough to lift herself out of poverty. It couldn't get her a nice RHEL cert, or even a MCSE. It wouldn't be enough to bankroll a move to a place with better economic prospects.
A lot of folks say what you do, "It's because they make bad judgements that people are poor." Everybody makes bad judgements, but I think folks like you say that to absolve your self of any responsibility to help anyone other than yourself. If it's their fault then you don't have to care, and you can complain about your taxes. Maybe the real problem is that her job doesn't pay a living wage.
I haven't seen it myself, but I have heard of places with limited grocery store competition (often in poor neighborhoods) where the food prices (especially for fresh food/produce) are astronomical. And if one was to stick to the dollar menu or value meals it might actually seem to be cheaper (and feel more filling due to the fat content and more nutritious than ramen). It would be close, I think, especially if one wanted meat products at the grocery store.
I would wager that the bulk of engineers and many many tech geeks in general come from lower-middle class backgrounds
here is where we run into problems. Everybody thinks they're middle class. I remember watching some documentary where they asked people what class they belonged to. Practially every one said some kind of middle class. They they asked the actual income. It turned out that they had people under the poverty line and millionaires claiming to be middle class.
here in america, no one wants to admit they're affluent, and poor people don't want to admit that either since there's such a stigma (you've seen what some of the other commenters think about the poor) So I'd wager, that your geeky acquaintances are more affluent than you think they are, not rich, but affluent. You also have to keep in mind that middle class is affluent to those in the lower class.
No. The pay is so low because there's a greater supply of would-be PAs there there is a demand for them. Contrast with, say, an accountant: it's hard to become one, so the supply stays relatively low and they get more pay.
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Group homes for disabled folk are constantly understaffed because they can't hire people for the wages they pay, same goes for nursing homes. CIL's (Centers for indepentent living, agencies that advocate for disabled folks) are constantly trying to recruit PA's and match them to people who need them, and there aren't enough because it pays crap and the work is hard. Accountants sit in an air conditioned office all day hitting numbers on a keyboard and reading. Folks like me wipe your grannies or your relative with cerebral palsy's ass, lift them in and out of wheelchairs and keep them company so they don't get depressed. The job is a-fucking stressful, but it needs to be done.
Drop the wanna-be victim crap. You chose to work in a low-skill job and can't expect to get paid a lot for it. I won't bother replying to your failed logic tying lesbians to social work.
It's not low skill, I have to keep an eye out for all sorts of medical issues, know about medications and keep track of all sorts of information. I don't see why what I do should be valued less. We as a society should be judged on how we treat our weakest and vulnerable members. As for lesbians and social work, you don't know too many social service types do you. Go visit social service agencies, you'll see. I know one thing you won't see much of, straight men.
While you were comparing the price of orange pop to the orange juice did it occur to you that tap water would be even cheaper?
Yep, tap water is cheaper but you're forgetting Vitamin A and C. Cheap supplements would help, though I'm not for certain if the "food stamp" program covers them currently and getting vitamins through food is better than getting them through supplements. I don't get "food stamps (Link card here in Illinois) myself, just work with people who did. (Individual PA's and group home workers have to be familiar with this stuff).
I had no problem eating well when I was a poor college student.
There's a difference between truly poor and "I don't make much money myself but I can always hit up my parents for money or a new computer/car/stereo"
But potatoes, beans, and in-season vegetables are all cheaper than junk food.
What about everything else? Beans for breakfast? Milk? Bread? Meat products? Fish? Humans are omnivores you know.
Oh, and food stamps? I don't live in an area with a lot of food-stamp recipients. But the last time I saw someone use food stamps at my local grocery store, she was buying two large bottles of Odwalla juice, clocking in at something like $15 total for perhaps half a gallon of juice. Obviously she's having no trouble affording healthy food!
You're guilty of extrapolating from one incident and assuming much about her lifestyle. Could have been a one time splurge you know. Would you want to eat beans and rice for every meal every day?
What do you mean by "retroactive minimum wage?" It almost sounds like you're talking about hitting up every business for back wages to 1980, which makes no sense at all.
I mean making actually indexing the per hour dollar amount to that time period. (That's when the minimum wage really stopped keeping pace with inflation) I'm not talking about assessing back wages. Just bringing the dollar amount in line so that people earning the minimum wage today aren't getting paid effectively less than those earning the minimum wage in 1980, which is what is happening now.
Your girlfriend might still be getting paid horribly but she has more workplace protections than those at Publix do.
Think about your average tech geek, they're white or asian, they grew up on the suburbs. maybe their dad got them a shell account on their workplaces Unix box, maybe they got a neo geo when they were kids. Their high school had a math team and a library right out of Shermer High School, they had an IBM PC when the things were $2000+. They could afford to take SAT/ACT preperation courses, their school had classes to prepare them to take the AP tests AND they could afford to take AP tests, thus effectively paying LESS for an education than poorer folks who couldn't afford to take AP tests. By the time they hit college, they were effectively years ahead of the poorer kids. Then they got jobs, maybe for a tech/gaming magazine or working for some company. They make good money, they can afford tons of tech toys, they upgrade their gaming box every 6 months. And they don't realize how privileged they were/are.
Poor people are poor because they're stupid with their money. If or when the Democrats get control next week, we can see more money going down the poor people money pit: sales of consumer electronics, junk food, fast food, Walmart junk, etc... will all increase.
It's easy to be smart with money when you have a lot of it, you have more choices. Compare the price per ounce of orange soda vs orange juice sometime. Healthy food costs more than unhealthy food, that's why you see all those slender affluent women in the suburbs (plus they have the money and time to excercise) but when you head down to less affluent areas you see more overweight women. No money for healthy food, no money or time for regular pilates and yoga.
Did you know that the government requires "food stamp" (they're now debit cards though) recipients to take a class in how to spend their food dollars before they get their benefit? They say things like "buy healthy food, buy fresh fruits and vegetables, don't buy junk." but every recipient knows that if they followed that advice their benefit wouldn't last the month.
It's folks like you that cause politicians to talk about helping the forgotten middle class? How can the middle class be forgotten when everyone talks about them and wants to cater to them. It's the poor and lower class that are truly forgotten. When's the last time you ever heard a politician say, "hey let's index the minimum wage to inflation and the CPI and make it retroactive to 1980" or "Let's increase the "food stamp" benefit so that people can actually afford to follow the food buying advice we give them." or "Hey lets tighten up labor laws so we don't have grocery chains hiring teenagers because they can: pay them less, know they're less likely to unionize and are less likely to complain about sexual harassment or bad workplace conditions."
I'm always amazed at how little affluent people (especially on slashdot) know about how lower income people live. There are no food stamps anymore, they replaced them with debit style cards about a decade ago.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks.
Yes, in part. The job isn't exactly horrible, but it can be stressful and the lack of benefits (no sick/personal/vacation time or health benefits) and low pay is an issue. And after visiting nursing homes and reading (and talking with people who lived in them) about the old style institutions, I want to keep people out of them and in their homes/group homes as much as possible. Even the best of nursing homes are depressing places, and I know a lot about depression. I sort of "fell into" this line of work coming out of a depression of many years. Plus this line of work is GLBTQI friendly, I'm a member of the "T" (and "I" part). because they can't afford to be choosy. I also feel a kinship with disabled folks, though my "difference" is minor compared to their problems.
Oh, I agree, but it's a little too late for me now, I'm 41. It'd be practically impossible to support myself, find the time to go and pay for advanced education. Depression (somewhat "T" related) is what knocked me out of college, I was a CS major which explains why I'm here on /. I'm an amateur geek.
I actually applied for police work when I was in my early 20's, you applied and if accepted they sent you off and paid for the training. I got as far as the in depth interview. The guy took one look at me and got a look of disgust on his face. I'm not exactly the big burly cop mustached sort of guy. He started talking about the physical requirements (at the time I was about 125lbs and 5' 5" tall) and tried to do some political questions. I figured he was thinking, "I aint hiring this little liberal faggot." I'm detectably different for those who are "aware", though the geek thing these days is a good disguise. No one suspects fat shlubby glasses wearing nerds with a Linux hats of being GLBTQI, even with the ponytail. (which I did NOT have when I applied to the police force).
I've thought about getting some RHEL certs, if I can ever find the money to pay for the training for them (Been using RH based Linuxes since 2002). I also thought about being an aesthetician/cosmetologist (Mad makeup skills) but that's even more expensive and time consuming believe it or not. I'm not smart enough for an MD or LLD.
No it doesn't. We're talking social services here, NFP's, NGO's and NFP/NGO related agencies. Even the folks that have college degrees that work as staff at these places are seriously underpaid. Which is why they're full of do-gooder's with social consciences and GLBTQI folk like me who are do-gooders and know that since they can't afford to picky aren't going to fire us for being GLBTQI.
Actually,no. Agencies (like CIL's) have extreme trouble recruiting people, group homes (who often have multiple people doing what I do) are chronically understaffed because they can't keep people willing to work for the low pay (lower than mine I'm actually paid well compared to them), zero benefits and stressful conditions. The problem is the employers, many of them are NFP or have NFP origins and thusly are chronically underfunded and relied somewhat on the altruism of "caring folk" to do the jobs.
There's no abundance of workers at all. If people like me quit, I'd be practically impossible to replace, any type of client that I'd tend to work with would pretty much have to go to a nursing home. but I can't say "I'm irreplaceable, I want a 30% pay increase and health insurance." because I'd get told "no one pays PA's that much agencies simply don't have that kind of money. It's just not done, it's not a high skill job." Theyd say that even though they know how hard it is to find people to do it. The work simply isn't valued by society as a whole.
I recently played a bit of Fallout 1 for the first time and my first impression of it was: This game plays like a turn based isometric oblivion with guns in a postapocalyptic world.
So it makes perfect sense to me that Fallout 3 would use the Oblivion engine.
I take it you didn't play Oblivion with a dual analog controller where you could assign spells to the D-pad.
I have most of mine in a bookcase with a few kept near the PS3.
I liked how they made the empathic guy the buttkicker and how his power is derived from his empathy.
I think I'd agree with you more if I didn't think that the balance between employer and employee hadn't shifted majorly in favor of the employer in the last couple of decades. Nobody should have to work 2 or three jobs for any reason even getting themselves into debt. (you deprived 2 other people of a job because of your debt, just sayin) 1 job one person and that one job should pay a living wage and be respected. The guy that picks the cabbage or wipes the grandma's asses should be as respected as the guy who sits in front of a term and watches over the server (As if they get any respect either, from what I've heard.)
We tried that already, it wasn't pretty and it wasn't humane. That's what the reformers and progressives of the late 19th and early 20th centuries tried to put an end to.
The problem is, even if you don't see it or get it directly, even people like you benefit greatly from government spending. And if the true cost of those benefits was added up you'd pay a lot more than you do. You don't like paying for welfare, I don't like helping you (in a general sense) pay for your house (via the mortgage interest deduction. I'd rather it was a direct cash credit.) The government created the middle class and suburbia as we know it at the end of WWII with massive government spending at the expense of the cities. In other words, folks like you are partly responsible for urban blight which leads to the poverty problem that you don't like paying for. What if Sears had stayed in the city rather than moving to Hoffman estates. There's still be warehousing jobs and forlklift jobs and various data jobs in the city. The sort of working class jobs the city needs, but now they're in the suburbs and the transportation system is designed to move people from the suburbs to the city, not the other way around.
It's not fair if it benefits libertarian cranks and crackpots who simply don't want to pay "any" taxes but will put up with a "fair tax" as long as they get more money to buy a more capable gaming box or big ass plasma. I haven't seen a fair tax proposal yet that doesn't actually hurt lower income people more than anyone else, mostly because although the income exemption is initially set high in the proposals, it gets set much lower in the finished proposal. Punish the poor! They're dependent and lazy!
Ah, then you've seen in person what I've only heard about happening. I live in a mostly rural area.
Okay, suppose I and others like me quit. Are you going to wipe your grandmas ass? Are you going to tell your employer "yeah I have to take monday afternoon's off every week because I have to take my grandma to get her procrit shot." You'll run out of personal days and sick days right quick and if you kept it up you'd probably get fired.
If no one does the job because of the pay, then what happens. Maybe nursing home companies will bribe the government to let them import a bunch of desperately poor people from Mexico or Honduras, set them up in company housing and pay them even less. Maybe they'll build massive institutions with skeleton crews of staff that are essentially warehouses with horrid conditions like the ones that existed not so long ago.
By the by, I'm white and male bodied (but not male gendered, but that...is another story) I like helping people, but think "helping people jobs" ought to be more respected and rewarded by society.
Tax deductions are welfare for the upper and middle classes, they just aren't called that. It just means they don't send you a check directly. If they didn't exist the government would have more money yes? Money to build infrastructure? Money to upgrade the rail system so that people could drive less and use less fuel?
Sure, I think she was dumb for buying the juice but far be it from me to judge all poor people by her. I'm not even opposed to tax deductions for certain things as long as upper and middle class folk realize that they're just as dependent on them (and government) as poor people are.
An excellent idea, but shouldn't all jobs pay a living wage? And depending on location, living wage jobs can be hard to get.
And what programs are those? Because of widened eligibility, middle class folks now can qualify for educational financial assistance, lowering assistance to lower income folks who have less options. For example, if getting a Corpfoo Enterprise Linux cert of some kind costs $5000 and the program only pays for $3000 that makes it harder for lower income folks to take advantage of the program. But middle class folks aren't as affected and can take advantage of it. Every year, there's fewer and fewer lower income people in higher education.
Maybe not a dick, but we're all in this together, and you personally may have benefited from government in ways you might not have noticed. For example government subsidizing suburban sprawl (intentional) and white flight (unintentional) at the expense of the urban centers.
Could you define lower middle class for me, because I've met far too many people who say they weren't affluent, but when you get to the details they were.
Nobody truly makes it on their own anymore. But what do you propose we do with those you believe do not deserve to make it? Bring back indentured servitude or slavery?
18K in the 1970's? That's quite a bit, a bit over double what my family made. You're basically proving what I said, people who are well off don't want to admit it.
I believe that it was more possible in the past, but that there's less class mobility today.
Considering how little the government actually spends on non-elderly poor they haven't been exactly throwing money. Character doesn't buy food, character doesn't buy training or the ability to move to a new location.
Let me tell you a story. There once was a company called Motorola, they made televisions. Dont laugh they really did. Well Motorola's executives decided to get out of the Tv business because they decided they didn't want to try to compete with the Japanese. So they sold their TV operations to a company called Matsushita, also known as panasonic. Now that gave panasonic an "in" in the US market they didn't have and an american name, Quasar (at that time there was still a resistance to buying japanese major electronics). They had their own modern factories in Japan, all they wanted was the brand and some technology and Motorola knew it. Motorola didn't tell their employees that. So when the deal was made they said to their employees. "You can either stay with the new company (which they knew would shut down the factory) or you can try for a job at Bolingbrook. But we can't guarantee you a job....and you'll have to move there to apply, we don't want any long distance commuters,they're unreliable....and by the way, there's no financial assistance to find a place or moving expenses."
They fucked over their employees to help their short term bottom line. The long term economic viability and strength of motorola is LESS than it was then. You can't buy motorola TV's you can't buy motorola radios, about the only direct to consumer goods motorola makes are cell phones. Motorola could have been Sony, but they sold out their American workers.
Now what were those workers supposed to do, are you saying they didn't have character? Things happen to people that are beyond their control, market forces, economy have more effect on poverty than anything else.
Most poor folks are working poor, so she's paying tax money too. I suspect you qualify for tax deductions she doesn't (mortgage interest perhaps) That costs the government money too, should she then get to tell you that you can't upgrade your video card?
Suppose she didn't spend that 15 dollars, that's not much, even if she was to save that much every week that wouldn't be enough to lift herself out of poverty. It couldn't get her a nice RHEL cert, or even a MCSE. It wouldn't be enough to bankroll a move to a place with better economic prospects.
A lot of folks say what you do, "It's because they make bad judgements that people are poor." Everybody makes bad judgements, but I think folks like you say that to absolve your self of any responsibility to help anyone other than yourself. If it's their fault then you don't have to care, and you can complain about your taxes. Maybe the real problem is that her job doesn't pay a living wage.
I haven't seen it myself, but I have heard of places with limited grocery store competition (often in poor neighborhoods) where the food prices (especially for fresh food/produce) are astronomical. And if one was to stick to the dollar menu or value meals it might actually seem to be cheaper (and feel more filling due to the fat content and more nutritious than ramen). It would be close, I think, especially if one wanted meat products at the grocery store.
Around here, that wouldn't be the case.
here is where we run into problems. Everybody thinks they're middle class. I remember watching some documentary where they asked people what class they belonged to. Practially every one said some kind of middle class. They they asked the actual income. It turned out that they had people under the poverty line and millionaires claiming to be middle class.
here in america, no one wants to admit they're affluent, and poor people don't want to admit that either since there's such a stigma (you've seen what some of the other commenters think about the poor) So I'd wager, that your geeky acquaintances are more affluent than you think they are, not rich, but affluent. You also have to keep in mind that middle class is affluent to those in the lower class.
No. The pay is so low because there's a greater supply of would-be PAs there there is a demand for them. Contrast with, say, an accountant: it's hard to become one, so the supply stays relatively low and they get more pay.
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Group homes for disabled folk are constantly understaffed because they can't hire people for the wages they pay, same goes for nursing homes. CIL's (Centers for indepentent living, agencies that advocate for disabled folks) are constantly trying to recruit PA's and match them to people who need them, and there aren't enough because it pays crap and the work is hard. Accountants sit in an air conditioned office all day hitting numbers on a keyboard and reading. Folks like me wipe your grannies or your relative with cerebral palsy's ass, lift them in and out of wheelchairs and keep them company so they don't get depressed. The job is a-fucking stressful, but it needs to be done.
It's not low skill, I have to keep an eye out for all sorts of medical issues, know about medications and keep track of all sorts of information. I don't see why what I do should be valued less. We as a society should be judged on how we treat our weakest and vulnerable members. As for lesbians and social work, you don't know too many social service types do you. Go visit social service agencies, you'll see. I know one thing you won't see much of, straight men.
While you were comparing the price of orange pop to the orange juice did it occur to you that tap water would be even cheaper?
Yep, tap water is cheaper but you're forgetting Vitamin A and C. Cheap supplements would help, though I'm not for certain if the "food stamp" program covers them currently and getting vitamins through food is better than getting them through supplements. I don't get "food stamps (Link card here in Illinois) myself, just work with people who did. (Individual PA's and group home workers have to be familiar with this stuff).
There's a difference between truly poor and "I don't make much money myself but I can always hit up my parents for money or a new computer/car/stereo"
What about everything else? Beans for breakfast? Milk? Bread? Meat products? Fish? Humans are omnivores you know.
You're guilty of extrapolating from one incident and assuming much about her lifestyle. Could have been a one time splurge you know. Would you want to eat beans and rice for every meal every day?
I mean making actually indexing the per hour dollar amount to that time period. (That's when the minimum wage really stopped keeping pace with inflation) I'm not talking about assessing back wages. Just bringing the dollar amount in line so that people earning the minimum wage today aren't getting paid effectively less than those earning the minimum wage in 1980, which is what is happening now.
Your girlfriend might still be getting paid horribly but she has more workplace protections than those at Publix do.
It's "low" to your average tech geek.
Think about your average tech geek, they're white or asian, they grew up on the suburbs. maybe their dad got them a shell account on their workplaces Unix box, maybe they got a neo geo when they were kids. Their high school had a math team and a library right out of Shermer High School, they had an IBM PC when the things were $2000+. They could afford to take SAT/ACT preperation courses, their school had classes to prepare them to take the AP tests AND they could afford to take AP tests, thus effectively paying LESS for an education than poorer folks who couldn't afford to take AP tests. By the time they hit college, they were effectively years ahead of the poorer kids. Then they got jobs, maybe for a tech/gaming magazine or working for some company. They make good money, they can afford tons of tech toys, they upgrade their gaming box every 6 months. And they don't realize how privileged they were/are.
And how many of you have some expenses subsidized by affluent parents?
It's easy to be smart with money when you have a lot of it, you have more choices. Compare the price per ounce of orange soda vs orange juice sometime. Healthy food costs more than unhealthy food, that's why you see all those slender affluent women in the suburbs (plus they have the money and time to excercise) but when you head down to less affluent areas you see more overweight women. No money for healthy food, no money or time for regular pilates and yoga.
Did you know that the government requires "food stamp" (they're now debit cards though) recipients to take a class in how to spend their food dollars before they get their benefit? They say things like "buy healthy food, buy fresh fruits and vegetables, don't buy junk." but every recipient knows that if they followed that advice their benefit wouldn't last the month.
It's folks like you that cause politicians to talk about helping the forgotten middle class? How can the middle class be forgotten when everyone talks about them and wants to cater to them. It's the poor and lower class that are truly forgotten. When's the last time you ever heard a politician say, "hey let's index the minimum wage to inflation and the CPI and make it retroactive to 1980" or "Let's increase the "food stamp" benefit so that people can actually afford to follow the food buying advice we give them." or "Hey lets tighten up labor laws so we don't have grocery chains hiring teenagers because they can: pay them less, know they're less likely to unionize and are less likely to complain about sexual harassment or bad workplace conditions."
I'm always amazed at how little affluent people (especially on slashdot) know about how lower income people live. There are no food stamps anymore, they replaced them with debit style cards about a decade ago.