So you're ok with people working for the market-set "minimum wage" not making a living wage and getting no aid from the government? The government keeps watering down the value of money, which is tough on the poor. If we have large segments of the population working and not able to provide for their family, we're gonna have problems. I'm fine with a market-set "minimum wage", but I think if we adopt that, for the benefit of society we have to help those workers who just aren't gonna make it.
Err, procreation is free and is executed immaturely quite often. Quite a few people are trying to raise a family with minimum wage. That's not ideal, but don't tell me people don't try to do it.
Then they can suck it up and live with their conscious decision to engage in risky behavior. Hopefully, for their kids sake, they'll overcome the huge obsticle they created for themselves. The last time I checked, anyone could still get all the free condoms they needed from the health clinic. Simply put...Not my problem. Their decision...not mine. If they don't like it their circumstances there are plenty of recourses available to help them better themselves. Handing them more money while devaluing yours and mine is not the answer. Whatever happened to "Serving the greater good"? The government has no business setting fair labor prices (minimum wage). The free market is supposed to take care of that.
The minimum wage is not a living wage. A minimum wage earner is near or below the poverty line as it is. I think minimum wage workers should get off their asses and improve their situations. There are millions and millions of public and private dollars out there for the ambitious to better themselves. UPS, for example will pay for pretty much anyone's college tuition if you go and throw boxes at one of their processing centers a few hours a week. https://ups.managehr.com/EarnandLearnProgram.htm The government has not forced the working poor to remain the working poor. There are plenty of avenues to escape poverty, and raising the minimum wage is not one of them. I am not saying bettering yourself and your situation is easy, but I am saying it is worth it.
I'm agreeing with you on the minimum wage, and I'm not saying poor folks shouldn't better themselves. But even if they do aim for that, what should be done in the meantime? Check in to the homeless shelter and go to the soup kitchen? Not that i'd fully disagree with that, and I'm all for abolishing many of the things the federal government does as well as forming voluntary sources of aid for poor Americans. But going cold turkey would be a really tough sell. I'd tackle the two issues seperately and agree to something that put an additional burden on welfare if it meant a truer free market system.
Why? When my wife and I were first married we were making a combined $16.25 and hour. We had crappy cars, a crappy little rental, a crappy little TV, and furniture my wife bought at the Good Will Store. We sacrificed, made sound decisions, and over time improved our situation. Anyone with half a brain cell can do the same. All we do by coddling the down trodden is encourage them to stay the same. Today, in this country, we do little to encourage the misfortunate to better themselves. We provide way too many incentives for someone to stay right where they are.
When this happens on a large scale it affects society. I think welfare is poorly executed, but I don't think it is too much to ask of a country's citizens to provide the very basic needs to the poorest of its people. I'd push for a more citizen-guided tax system and redefine "very basic needs" as it exists today to something more stringent. The government is basically getting private businesses to subsidize its people. If that is what government is trying to do, why not cut out the middle man and just subsidize its people. How much lower than 16.25 could you have gone?
Well let's see...My first job ever paid less than $5 and hour and at that point in my life, early teens, I got along just fine. I made chicken scratch my first four years in the Corps but I didn't complain...I also didn't even think about fathering kids or getting married either. For two young people getting by on our own with little to no help from our parents, my wife and I did just fine with that combined $16.25 an hour and I have no doubt we would have been okay with less. But again, as time went by we bettered ourselves. We worked hard and sacrificed early on so we could have a better future for us and our future children. That's the American Dream and it wasn't so difficult to make it a reality.
I hope you can see I'm not really disagreeing with you. I'm not super keen on government handouts and I'd like to see more private aid as there is more accountability there. But we have to live in reality and work toward an ultimate goal. If we have a married couple each making 3$ an hour, it's gonna be impossible to live on their own. That's probably extreme considering the value of money these days, but there has to be some cutoff where you say, the quality of these people's lives is bad. If we provide them meager sustenance to fill their bellies and some form of roof over their head until they can manage on their own, that isn't such an extreme demand on the American taxpayer. And if those taxpayers have more say in what their money is spent on, all the better. And we've removed the burden of minimum wage from businesses. We could really do much better domestically.
