MmeGigs
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quote:
ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
Lets talk about the welfare population, not "less than poverty level" and "low income".
You appear to be defining welfare very narrowly, perhaps thinking only of cash assistance. I'm defining it more broadly - all government funded income-based assistance programs. If we're talking about the money that taxpayers spend on these programs, it makes no sense to talk only about cash assistance because that's only a small slice of the pie - less than 20% of total welfare spending.
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Poverty level isnt poverty in the traditional sense of destitute and unable to provide basic needs of food clothing and shelter.
Sure it is. Poverty level income for a family of 4 is about $20,000. It's not out-on-the-streetcorner-begging-for-change destitute, but it's not possible provide food, clothing and shelter for a family of 4 on $10/hr without some kind of assistance - if not from government, then from family or charity.
These days there are many who have recently become unemployed. We spend a LOT of money on assistance programs for these folks. Thats what unemployment insurance is, not welfare
A lof of folks who receive unemployment insurance also receive medical assistance, food stamps, etc. When unemployment insurance runs out, many folks start receiving welfare.
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None of this addresses my point, of how many on welfare are actually employable. That means they will show up for work every day, do their job, and not alienate customers or co-workers.
If we're defining welfare in the broader sense, most welfare recipients are already employed. If we're talking about cash assistance only - which, again, is just a small part of total welfare spending - about 20% are employed, another third or so - probaly more these days - are folks who are employable and are looking for work. The remaining 40% or so are folks who have two or more barriers to employment. Some are the elderly or disabled who we all understand won't be rejoining the workforce. Many of the rest of them would be employable if the barriers were addressed. Lack of transportation was the most common barrier, and speaks to why some folks don't show up for work every day. It's expensive to own a car and there's little or no public transportation outside of large urban areas. Lack of education or job skills was next. We could make better use of our educational system so that when people graduate from highschool they're ready for the working world, but that takes money, and it doesn't seem that folks want to spend more money on education. The third most common barrier was lack of access to daycare. It's expensive - around here it's $600/mo for an infant, $400-$450/mo for 2 and up, and folks who meet the income guidelines for assistance can expect to be on the waiting list for 3 years before funding becomes available.
If you're talking about people who are lazy and rude on the job and who just don't come in to work if they've got something better to do, most of these are single young folks whose parents haven't kicked them out yet. Either that or they've got drug problems. They aren't representative of welfare recipients.
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I didnt say it would, I said your calling it "market driven" is a misnomer. Part of the supply-siders argument was that the benefits of the robust economy they would create would trickle down. The rising tide would lift all boats. I know that some us here are old enough to remember hearing this. That's not the way it worked, though. Actually that is the way it worked. Real GDP per capita steadily increased, and while there was some increase in inequality it didnt offset the overall rate of increase. Over the past few decades when businesses were doing well and investors were making high returns and salaries and bonuses for the folks at the top were going through the roof, these gains weren't shared with labor. Very little trickled down. The number or working people applying for assistance went up, even though many states were tightening up eligibility guidelines.
You didn't address this last bit.
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What are classifying as a "labor related tax"?
Employer's share of Social Security, Medicare contribution, unemployment insurance contribution, that kind of thing.
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Somebody still has to pay for the health care, at an average rate of about $4 per hour per employee.
Yep, but everyone agrees that we're spending too much and that this could be cut down quite a bit. Most folks agree that we'd like everyone to have health insurance one way or another. I think that government-run universal health care is just not a possibility in the near future politically, and I don't know that it's the only way or best way to provide universal coverage. I'd be okay with trying out a car insurance model. Get employers completely out of the picture and have individuals and insurance companies deal with each other directly. It would have to be accompanied by an increase in wages, though.
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But you do expect them to charge a market rate, and if they didnt you would go somewhere else.
The market rate includes enough money to cover expenses and a reasonable profit. If suppliers didn't charge that much, they'd go out of business. The difference is that the suppliers set their own prices and have some control over their expenses. Low wage workers have little control over what it costs to live and less over what they are paid for their services. We've enabled them to work for less than it costs them to live - kept wages artificially low - by filling in the gaps with tax dollars in the form of medical assistance, daycare assistance, housing assistance, foodstamps, etc.
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So your proposal is to shift some of those increases in labor costs from a $15 minimum wage either back onto the individual (in which case there is no net gain to the individual) or to the taxpayers, again no net gain on average, just redistribution, depending on who you tax for it
I'm proposing that employers pay the actual cost of labor rather than having it subsidized with tax dollars through assistance programs. I understand that prices will go up some, but not as much as some folks seem to think they will. Prices will more accurately reflect the cost of goods sold, something that I would think folks who are pro-market would see as a good and appropriate thing. Taxes will go down as fewer people need assistance and more people become taxpayers. As a taxpayer on the lower edge of middle class, it would likely be a wash for me financially. Still, I'd rather decide which higher-priced items and services I'd like to buy than to have the government using my tax dollars to support the businesses that pay the crappiest wages. I would think that pro-market folks would see this as a positive thing, too.
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RE: I just did some calcs on the national debt clock - 
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