The myth of the lazy American
The latest painful wrinkle in the Trayvon Martin case offers a chance to talk about one of the most dismaying myths shaping the political dialogue on the right: The notion that poor and unemployed Americans are lazy grifters.
This week, a Florida fire captain tangled himself up in the scandal surrounding the slaying of the 17-year-old unarmed Martin, by posting an argument on his Facebook page disputing the notion that the teenager was killed because of “racist profiling.”
Instead, this government employee argued that Martin’s parents were to blame. He claimed that urban kids have been let down by “their failed, sh%$tbag, ignorant, pathetic, welfare dependent excuses for parents.”
The facts in this case are starkly at odds with that claim.
Trayvon Martin’s mother — yes, she’s a single mom — also works as a government employee at the Miami-Dade Housing Authority and has been working there for more than two decades.
Her son had some trouble in school, including suspensions, but had no criminal record, and was unarmed when he was killed.
The reason that this one reality-bending rant warrants attention is that it echoes a larger claim simmering among conservatives — including some who post regularly here on the In Box.
The argument goes that poor people, unemployed people and people of color are lazy and that they are largely to blame for America’s economic malaise. If it weren’t for the malingerers and mooches, we’d be fine, or at least in far better shape.
The notion of a large, welfare-dependent underclass has been a theme on the right for decades, typified by the argument that “welfare queens” and illegal immigrants are illegally gaming the system.
Again, the problem with these arguments is that the facts — and these are facts, not opinions — simply don’t bear them out.
Consider again the claims of that Florida firefighter. By his construction, “urban” Americans who are “welfare dependent” are ignorant and pathetic.
But the number of unemployed blacks in the US nearly doubled during the recession, surging from roughly 8% to 16.7%.
Does that mean that the number of lazy black people doubled in a couple of years? Did the near collapse of the US economy coincide with a decision by millions of blacks to quit work and put their feet up and start drawing welfare checks?
Of course not.
What happened is that this recession sideswiped the black community, driving millions into poverty. Desperate? Yes. Pathetic? No way.
Remember, these aren’t the people who tanked the banks or wrecked the housing market. These aren’t the people who handed out the pink slips.
And it should come as no surprise that as soon as some jobs became available again, blacks eagerly went back to work. (The unemployment rate for African Americans is now at 14.1%.)
But the conservative argument about America’s poor isn’t just limited to blacks.
Paul Ryan, chief architect of the Republican Party’s spending plan, has argued that the social safety net in the US is at risk of becoming “a hammock which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency.”
Get it? America’s poor are staying at Club Med, coasting in comfort on your tax dollars.
Through the recession, the GOP argued repeatedly that even basic unemployment benefits might be an incentive to workers to stay on the dole and not go back to work.
Reflecting that philosophy, Republicans rolled out a new plan this week to cut social programs sharply. This from Politico:
From food stamps to child tax credits and Social Service block grants, House Republicans began rolling out a new wave of domestic budget cuts Monday but less for debt reduction — and more to sustain future Pentagon spending without relying on new taxes.
But the reality in modern America is that most of our poor are in families where the parents are, in fact, working — sometimes two or three jobs.
Indeed, many of our social welfare programs — from health care to food stamps — go to families that are working as hard as they can. They’re just not earning enough to make ends meet, or to pay for basics like regular doctor visits.
A new Bloomberg editorial points out that a growing number of Americans are working minimum wage jobs, jobs that pay so poorly that it requires 100+ hour work-weeks just to pay for rent.
It’s also becoming clear that many Americans are being forced to take lower-paying jobs and that a low-wage bias is creeping into the economy, as Bloomberg economist Joseph Brusuelas recently put it.
In many cases, minimum-wage work is all that’s available, which may explain why such workers are older and better-educated than they were three decades ago.
Those people aren’t bums. They’re bailing the boat as fast as they can, but the math is against them.
And what about those people who can’t find work? Millions of them were employed just a few years ago, many clinging desperately to the middle class.
Did they suddenly lose their work ethic? Did they suddenly become “pathetic” and “ignorant” loafers? Did they decide that paying their mortgages just wasn’t that big a deal? Of course not.
It may be, of course, that Democratic solutions to poverty and long-term unemployment are the wrong ones.
But one thing is certain: simply relabeling struggling Americans, as sleazebags and dependent bums won’t get the job done.
Kathy, please leave your Imaginary Friend out of this. If your god condemns marriage between two people who love each other merely because their Lego bits are the same, he sounds like an old crank. If you really want to drag a supernatural overlord into this, be careful: you may find that what really pushes his buttons is poverty, exploitation of the vulnerable and destruction of the environment.
Mervel, it’s a sad commentary that churches are not playing the safety net. Many do have the money but their interests are elsewhere. Not necessarily here in SLC, but yes, we could do better. If the individuals who make up the Church were more in tune with their realm of influence (ie; neighbor) and gave liberally to helping those who need it, there would be less need for gov’t assistance. “Love your neighbor as yourself” (as yourself – interesting point). We spend on ourselves first, don’t we? We do the opposite because it will cost us something.
Each Church Age has it’s downfall so I guess we’re “stuck”. I am a freelance writer and address this topic continually. I see good things happening with the 20ish crowd in understanding the role of the Church. I’m encouraged.
Terence, God doesn’t have buttons to push. Neither do I. He is compassionate. I am also compassionate. But I do have guidelines for my children because I don’t want them to get hurt.
Words, how they can confuse!
When Kathy writes of the Pope saying, “”The disparity between rich and poor has become more evident and more disturbing, even within the most economically advanced nations…I encourage, then, an increase in efforts to eliminate the causes of poverty and the tragic consequences deriving from it,” and then she goes on to conclude, “the Pope is right on. Why? Because the burden rests upon the Church, not the government,” she displays how words can confuse.
When the Pope speaks of the Church, he is including all of the faithful, not just the institution.
When we speak of the government, have we forgotten the government is of the people, by the people and for the people? The government is not simply an institution. It is all of us and it is through it that we can accomplish things that would be impossible by any one person.
Imagine if we were all responsible for the repair and plowing of the road in front of our own home. Care to get out there and shovel the road in front of your house after you shovel out the driveway to it?
Thank you, Kathy, for your compassionate condemnation. I feel safer already.
So, to answer your question – no. The government shouldn’t be involved in any of the above. We’ve lived as a nation for 200+ years without making these things legal. Was society worse off?
I assume you mean the govenment shouldn’t be involved in making abortion, contraception, gay marriage, legal but should be involved in making them illegal.
And yes, society was worse off.
Paul:
We have different experiences. I would do nothing but compliment your relatives for their good works, which are neither the province of the right, the left, the religious or the irreligious. But that is nonetheless a sample size of two people, both obviously driven by their religious calling.
On the other hand the experiences to which I refer are of two kinds, both in much different proportion.
One is the people I have worked with or known whose work in urban environments consists of various efforts to improve the community, or to teach or counsel. That constitutes hundreds and hundreds of people. Well over 90% of them are political progressives, way out of proportion to the general population. Do you not find that telling?
The other is more important; the people in these communities themselves, who live and work and have families and get sick and go to the movies and the rest of it. In terms of my personal experience that would be thousands of people with whom I have spent significant time. There are lazy neer-do-wells among them. There are cheats. There are criminals. My direct experience is that those proportions are about the same as everywhere else, but that the level of hard work is far greater than in the middle class. Of course, most of these poor people are left of center too, and not because they’re stupid. That’s even more telling.
“FWIW “Welfare Reform” shifted a lot of people from welfare to SS Disability. ”
How many people do you know that are on partial or full disabillity but are out fishing, hunting, riding their ATVs, etc. on a regular basis. If you can do any of those activies, then you can do some kind of work.
“I have served numerous families “camping” in tents in the woods or in hardly habitable travel trailers with no furnace beyond some electric stove or wood stove, we have people living in homes without floors, with coon’s and rats coming and going. We don’t need to go somewhere else to find extreme multi generational poverty.”
How can this be? I am not disputing that this situation exists, but we have free education in addition to all kinds of public assistance, job training, etc.
So why *multi generational* unless there is a cultural problem – laziness or whatever?
Clearly with 25% of students dropping out and multi generational poverty the current education system is not working. It has been said that if you took most any worker from 100 years ago and put them in a similar position today they would be lost, but if you took a teacher from 100 years ago and put them in a classroom today, the situation would be very familiar except for the change in technology.
Could be partly the education system but not all of it.
“But I also think the government should not promote and reward irresponsible and non-productive behavior.”
Well said. Why has no corporate executive that made the decisions on Wall Street and at the Big Banks to place huge bets on casino-style derivatives which bankrupted the companies and required government handouts been held accountable?
Why has no one from the banks that approved illegal signing of foreclosure documents been charged and arrested?
Why was a President who lied us into a senseless war not held accountable – talk about irresponsible and non-productive behavior!
Why do some people place so much focus on a handful of individuals at the bottom rung of the economic ladder who might be gaming the system while ignoring the rip-off artists at the top of the economic ladder that are gaming the system and are a much bigger drain on our taxes and causing much more damage to our economy?
Terrence, one can express strong disapproval and/or pronounce guilt but still have a feeling of distress and pity for the suffering or misfortune of another.
And yes, society was worse off.
How?
“So why *multi generational* unless there is a cultural problem – laziness or whatever?”
Multi-generational poverty is a cultural problem virtually by definition. And here’s a hint: Pete Nelson says that “that the level of hard work is far greater than in the middle class,” and yet they aren’t getting ahead? If your were the child of a hardworking poor couple who, despite their hard work stayed poor, what would that do for your belief in hard work as a way to get ahead?
It’s easy to say we’ve got a cultural problem, and it’s pretty obvious that we do. The question is how to address it effectively. We’ve certainly had decades of little or no safety net in the past, and that failed to generate a culture of “responsibility.” My guess is that you need a system in which hard work pays off– you need investment in entry-level jobs. The problem is that our economy doesn’t reward those investments. That is a situation that only the government can fix. It worked after the great depression. I can’t well imagine how anything else could work.
There will be, most assuredly, people who will take advantage of ‘the system’. That does not mean the system is not good or effective…it means that the system needs to take a closer look to insure that those who need assistance receive it and those who try to take advantage of the system find it impossible to do so. Just read the other day that our local social services have or plan to hire more system inforcers. That should help to irradicate advantage-takers.
I would like to hear a little more compassion from folks.
There, but for grace, go I…or you.
“you need a system in which hard work pays off– you need investment in entry-level jobs. The problem is that our economy doesn’t reward those investments. That is a situation that only the government can fix.”
One problem in rural areas is that the economy as a whole is just not very good. Also that unlike the city where people can get to entry-level jobs by walking or public transport, there is generally no such alternative here.
There may not be enough entry-level jobs available – or maybe there are entry-level jobs the people are either not qualified for or don’t want. For example, why should the farmers have to import workers when there are lots of unemployed people in the area?
Better that we spend some money on training, transportation, and other assistance to get the local people employed the spend it giving welfare or other assisatance to those people.
What I’ve heard multiple times is that the local people don’t want to work that hard.
I don’t know what the answer is, but the fact is we do have generational poverty in the North Country. We have families that have always received government benefits and have had very little full time work experience. Many families have always lived in public housing from the grandparents right on through the babies there now.
Closing our eyes to those facts won’t help anyone either. I think it may be that we all like to believe the myth that anyone can make it and our circumstances that we are born into don’t matter. The fact is if you are born into a very poor family your odds of being very poor yourself is very high.
What is fascinating to me is that both the left and the right denigrate work in this country. How many times have I heard people say “continue that way and you will end up flipping burgers”, well I would say that there is nothing wrong with flipping burgers, all honest work is honorable and is contributing to society. There is nothing wrong with a minimum wage job. If two people work 40 hours per week you can get to a family income of over 30k. You would still need help if you had children though and this is where we should be more than happy to give help.
I guess that would be the attitude that bothers me the most.
Scott says, “Tell me what is wrong with mandated drug testing for welfare recipients?”
Simple, it is not worth it. Florida just did it and the money they saved from booting a few off welfare was less than the cost of the tests. Of course the real benefit was the transfer of public funds to private testing corporations that the Governor has an interest in. Once again we focus on chastising the poor while ignoring the rich plundering our tax dollars.
myown says
“”
“Scott says, “Tell me what is wrong with mandated drug testing for welfare recipients?”
Simple, it is not worth it. …
“”
Maybe it is not worth it just to save money. But in this case it is worth it because the people receiving a handout should not be allowed to abuse the system and if they are using drugs then they are using taxpayer money to buy the drugs.
The fact that private testing corporations were making money is irrelevent. At least the people in those companies were working for the money they received. If there was some illegal or unethical connection between the companies and the governor then that is a separate matter that should be looked in to.
And yes, society was worse off.
How?
How was society worse off before abortion was made legal? How was society worse off before recognizing gays as equals? How was society worse off before contraception?
Illegal back alley abortions for the poor resulting in infection, reproductive tract injuries, and death (unless you were wealthy and then you could find some qualified doctor to do the deed). Gays being denigrated, beat up, not allowed to help their hospitalized loved ones. Before contraception – unwanted children. I find it hard to believe that anyone pines for the 1950’s.
My question is how was society better before contraception, legalized abortion, and equality for gays?
“Tell me what is wrong with mandated drug testing for welfare recipients?”
Why be so restrictive? Personally, I would love to have all people paid by tax dollars to be drug tested (and certainly all politicians).
Interesting comment Pete – Supporting the spending of as many public dollars as necessary to eliminate the outrageousness of a person using a few tax bucks for a drug habit, even if it doesn’t save the government any money.
Where is the outrage over corporate immorality that swindles the tax payer and provides government handouts so corporate executives can get their bonuses and buy yachts. Why don’t we have more government attorneys (or even use private ones) to go after all the financial wrong doing and the ill-gotten gains from the shenanigans on Wall Street? The investigations and fines would certainly have a positive payoff. Or I guess it’s ok to use fraudulent government money to buy yachts but not drugs? Oh snap, some corporate executives buy both. Better drug test Wall Street and Big Bank executives before they get any more government money.
Pne is right you would have to go with everyone, I don’t see how you could not? Also what is welfare? Is unemployment benefits welfare is social security welfare? Many would say that both are. So in the end you would have to test everyone, it would be a huge government nightmare and once again expand the power of government and would be very expensive and yield very little. Even if a person tested positive for drugs, are you really going to take food away from their children? Maybe you could remove their children? Then you could mandate that they person who tested positive for pot take a drug awareness class, which of course would have to be paid for by by the government, but they could subcontract it out; Boy this thing is growing by leaps and bounds!
As far as society being better today or in the past, some parts of it was better and some parts of it were not, I don’t think it is an open and shut question.
We were less violent, less drug addicted , had stronger families, much less divorce, and we were much less materialistic and we worked less hours. But we were also more intolerant of others and women were trapped without real choices.
Its a mixed bag.
There is a lot of outrage over corporate “immorality” that swindles the tax payer as well as government wrongdoing and misspending like the recent GSA conference scandal. All of this needs to be stopped.
However a lot of the anger directed against “corporations and executives” is simply due to the fact that they make big bucks compared to the rest of us whether they “deserve” it or not.
It certainly is wrong to make big profits and get fat bonuses while laying off people and running the company in to the ground. Tax structure and other laws should be structured to discourage this and to encourage corporate responsibility and keeping jobs in the US, but that is a different matter than just using taxes to redistribute wealth.
The public is to blame for a lot of it. The public desides what/who is worth a lot of money.
Case in point – sports stars, actors, and others who make $50 million a year because of their popularity. Team owners, movie studios, and investors would not be paying these kinds of salaries and bonuses if Joe Average was not paying big bucks to watch football or the latest movie.
It is the same with corporate executives – generally someone – probably stockholders and other investors – are paying these salaries. Note that stockholders are not just ‘a bunch of rich people,’ they are (indirectly) you and I through our pensions, retirement plans, or other investments which are necessary.
Adrian Rogers:
”
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them; and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
5. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
“
Mervel writes “How many times have I heard people say “continue that way and you will end up flipping burgers”, well I would say that there is nothing wrong with flipping burgers, all honest work is honorable and is contributing to society. There is nothing wrong with a minimum wage job.”
That is a real, key issue, but one that’s all but impossible to address. Back in the day, most kids had real family chores that made a real contribution, and that started them off with a feeling that work was something worthwhile. I think part of the problem may be the big chains– they have a way of dehumanizing work.
We have developed a culture that despises labor and laborers and that worships wealth more than accomplishment.
I think this is true, but remember that most of the money that government spends is NOT going to poor people, most of it goes to generals and defense contractors and social security recipients and doctors and hospitals and large drug corporations for medicare/medicaid.
We can indeed people into prosperity, we are legislating the wealthy into more wealth as we speak by spending it on all of these things. Government makes many many people very wealthy. Check out the pay of the Lockheed Martin CEO, Lockheed makes NO private products, all of their “products” are sold to the government.
Pete, taxes ARE being used to redistribute wealth. Just look at the 50% decline in the top Federal tax rates the past 50 years. That’s why the disparity in wealth and income has become so dramatic in the US and our deficit has ballooned. There are no absolutes for what anyone’s share should be of the wealth created by society’s economic production. It’s all arbitrary and subject to negotiation, unless you are the King. For the past 30 years middle and lower income folks have received an increasingly smaller piece of the economic pie due to deliberate changes in tax policy, corporate subsidies and bailouts and lobbyists.
We are not talking about the salaries of sports stars or entertainers – they are not paid by the government. As Mervel points out, there are entire corporations that are wholly supported by our tax dollars. And there many more that get exclusive benefits, like the Big Banks, who get to borrow government money at zero percent interest rate. And what they do and what they are paid is not subject to competition or adequate public knowledge. The big money in tax dollars is being siphoned off at the top while conservatives are busy pointing to the petty thief as the culprit.
Pete says: “It is the same with corporate executives – generally someone – probably stockholders and other investors – are paying these salaries. Note that stockholders are not just ‘a bunch of rich people,’ they are (indirectly) you and I through our pensions, retirement plans, or other investments which are necessary.”
Yes, we’re paying those outsize salaries and bonuses, but it’s not like we have much in the way of choice. Paul will argue the point, but in fact, as small stockholders, we have virtually no input, despite our theoretical votes on proxies. Interlocking boards of directors pat each other on the head with incredible compensation packages. There has been some revolt of late, but it will take much greater efforts, and changes in laws governing shareholder input before there is any change, and such changes will be resisted by all of the powerful lobbying, carried out with our money. The good old boys club is alive and fatter than ever.
Pete N., your observations seem to ignore the thousands of lay people involved with religious charitable organizations that we have in this country and around the world. I doubt that they all fit into this “liberal” mold that you claim dominates the charitable part of society. Sure I too know many folks that are very left leaning that do the type of work you describe. I also know many that do that work that do not. Do a google search for Catholic Charities and see how many hits you get, see how many chapters there are, not I seriously doubt that all those folks are your thousands of liberal friends? Seriously?
Paul, you think all Catholic Charities workers are Conservatives? Ever hear of liberation theology? Conservative they ain’t.
Today the Catholic Bishops came out against the Ryan Budget:
“Major reductions at this time of economic turmoil and rising poverty will hurt hungry, poor and vulnerable people in our nation and around the world,” the Rev. Stephen Blaire, bishop of Stockton, Calif., and the Rev. Richard E. Pates, bishop of Des Moines, wrote for the conference. “A just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to the poor and vulnerable persons; it requires shared sacrifice by all.”
What ever happened to “thou shall not bear false witness”?
I’m sure the Heart on their Sleeves Religious here believe their view is correct but if they are not correct then they are violating one of the 10 Commandments. The failure to be humble is in itself un-Christian and insistence that one side is right and the other side is wrong is a failure.
It seems to me that Jesus always defended the weak, the poor and the down-trodden. Jesus knew that the least among us bore burdens most heavily. Certainly greed and gluttony must be dealt with, but we should start with the greed and gluttony that bears most heavily on society and that is the greed and gluttony of the rich. When we have dealt with them then we should look to the failings of the poor.
It seems to me that the most vocal about their religiosity are the least Christian among us. What would Jesus do?
If we read that other article Brian wrote, we’ll see that laziness isn’t the problem…it’s danger! These same kids that aren’t allowed to go to some “dangerous” job will end up with no work experience, no job skills, no clue, and we’ll happily let the join the military when they’re 18.
I can’t make comments or judgements against other Christians, particularly those who are involved in charity.
However just statistically speaking as someone who works in the field I am probably the right wing radical among those I work with and I often vote for Democrats, most people in the field are pretty liberal on most economic issues. However this is where it gets tricky and where these easy stupid definitions don’t work, they are also relatively conservative on many social issues, such as abortion. So we can’t always make these sweeping judgements about conservatives or liberals. What a boring boring world if we could.
Kathy, I’m reading your comments and while you do a great job of shape-shifting, you do not seem to understand the difference between the Pope speaking about the Church’s responsibilities to reach out to the poor and downtrodden and the responsibilities of the governments of the world’s nations to also take care of the poor among us.
Kathy, at 5:43 pm today you wrote, first quoting Brian (wonderful and insightful composition btw, Brian):
“Pope Benedict has taken a fairly aggressive line against the “lazy poor” concept. Here’s an example: “The disparity between rich and poor has become more evident and more disturbing, even within the most ECONOMICALLY ADVANCED NATIONS…I encourage, then, an increase in efforts to eliminate the causes of poverty and the tragic consequences deriving from it.” End of Brian’s quote used by Kathy
Now Kathy’s response to Brian: First, not every poor person is lazy. Whoever “out there” says that is wrong. Secondly, the Pope is right on. Why? Because the burden rests upon the Church, not the government.”
Kathy, the Pope was speaking about the responsibility of “Nations” and specificallly economically advanced Nations. Even though the Vatican City is recognized with a seat in the United Nations, Pope Benedict was speaking about governments, would you now agree Kathy?
Kathy says:
Kathy, not to be picking on you, but I have taken on Paul and JDM and some others here in the past. Hard to get through to people harboring some really serious issues of race and xenophobism run amuck.
I have a question for your comment of 9:40 pm: “The bottom line is federal spending has to be overhauled in very agency and government program. For example, every mother I’ve known who was on the WIC program was given so much they were giving it away. A family of 4 can make $800 a week and get WIC. Ridiculous!”
Where do you get your numbers? And how many “every mothers” have you known who were on WIC and were given so much they were giving it away?
For the last two and a half years, I have helped, supported and worked with a single mom with two kids. Her WIC does not stretch to the end of the month, let alone her having so much she gives it away!
Honest to god, woman, where do you get your beliefs? Do you work for WIC? Do you live in the housing projects so you know for a fact that every mom who is getting WIC is just getting fat off the system?
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
— John Kenneth Galbraith
“Pete, taxes ARE being used to redistribute wealth. Just look at the 50% decline in the top Federal tax rates the past 50 years…”
I heard a statement recently that the top 1% pay 40% of taxes. This was from a politician, so I checked it out. Google it, you will find many results.
This appears to be an accuurate statement when applied to income tax, but when all taxes are considered the number is more like 28%, according to the Tampa Bay Times politifact.com (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/18/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-says-top-1-percent-pay-40-percent/)
According to Retuers (2007 income tax data):
http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/07/30/americas-top-1-percent-pay-40-percent-of-all-taxes/
1) The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government — the highest percentage in modern history — while the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden.
2) The share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago.
3) To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined.
4) Some in Washington say the tax system is still not progressive enough. However, the recent IRS data bolsters the findings of an OECD study released last year showing that the U.S.—not France or Sweden—has the most progressive income tax system among OECD nations. We rely more heavily on the top 10 percent of taxpayers than does any nation and our poor people have the lowest tax burden of those in any nation.
Warning! Bunny trail.
However, it is pertinent to discussion on this forum and perhaps this thread.
This was sent to me: http://www.scribd.com/doc/35733956/DSA-Members-American-Socialist-Voter-Democratic-Socialists-of-America-10-1-09
Anyone care to comment? Is it legit?
Pete, first, point one of your quoted text has the top one percent paying both 40.4% and 24.8% of all income tax, so something is screwy.
Anyway, even if we had an absolutely flat income tax, the top one percent would pay 24% of all income tax because they take home 24% of all income. For us to have even a slightly progressive tax rate, they’d have to pay significantly more than 24%. So your source’s claim that the US “has the most progressive income tax system among OECD nations” appears wrong on its face.
Pete, your statistics prove exactly that the rich have gotten richer – much richer the past 30 years as a result of tax laws being deliberately modified to transfer more of the country’s economic productivity to the upper echelons. As their income has dramatically increased naturally their portion of income tax increases, particularly since no one else’s income is growing. Almost all the gains in income the past 30 years has gone to the 1% while wages and income for the middle class have stagnated.
The fact is the top federal income tax rate for the highest income brackets used to be 90% in the 1950s and economic growth and job creation were just fine. Today the top rate is 35% and we have little growth, high unemployment, a deteriorating middle class, large deficits and a disparity in wealth and income not seen in the US since the 1920s. We need to return, at least, to the Federal income tax rates that were in effect under Reagan. Even he recognized you can cut taxes too much and raised them several times during his terms.
frankjoseph, I wasn’t talking about the single mother. I was talking about families with up to $800 a week income who didn’t need it and were getting it and had to give it away because they had so much.
What part of this didn’t you understand in my earlier post?
So, why not reform the program and make the guidelines more stringent?
Why is it that the rich getting richer wasn’t so much a problem 5+ years ago? I know. It’s because of the housing crisis, the economy bottoming out, and the rise in unemployment. I get that.
But people don’t seem to care much about things until they have something taken away from them. Then suddenly we wake up and it becomes a problem.
That tells me as long as we’re getting “ours” we are not interested in standing up for what’s right. Take it away, and suddenly we all have all the answers.
I am not disputing the statement that the rich have gotten richer; and it is really unfortunate that this is happening while the rest of us have gotten poorer by comparison. Something needs to be done to improve the economy for all of us and partucularly opportunities for those at the bottom, but I don’t think raising taxes and government spending on ‘entitlements’ is the way.
As far as taxes, note I said that 40% “appears to be an accurate statement when applied to *income* tax, but when *all* taxes are considered the number is more like 28%, according to the Tampa Bay Times politifact.com” Nothing is “screwy” with the statement.
Do the top 1% take home 24% of all income? I don’t know.
But here’s another question. Do the bottom 40% take home no income?
According to some sources, approximately 40% of households do not owe income tax.
See for example http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3505 or http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/30/pf/taxes/who_pays_taxes/index.htm.
I don’t have the time or inclination to figure out which of the multitude of info sources are conservatve, liberal, or unbiased.
I do think the 4 statements I listed earier are logical. They were made by Adrian Rogers, senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, conservative, author, and a three-term president of the Southern Baptist Convention. http://christian-quotes.ochristian.com/Adrian-Rogers-Quotes/
“Friend, you cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can’t give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody. And when half of the people get the idea they don’t have to work because the other half’s going to take care of them, and when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because somebody’s going to get what I work for. That, dear friend, is about the end of any nation.”
Kathy,
I can tell you that a “family” making $800.00 a week and getting WIC may be guilty of defrauding WIC.
Please turn these people in to stop the abuse of this very helpful and needed program, unless of course this family happens to be related to you.
And obviously, in your opinion, if you know of one family getting away with abusing the system that means that every single parent receiving WIC is getting $800 a week on top of it. Maybe if that family unit consists of 10 kid it could be possible to be eligible for WIC?
The bottom line that I mentioned in the farm thread is so much of our view is based on experience. My experience is with a particular economic group of people who range from $30,000 to $90,000 income. Someone else may work with the poor. That doesn’t mean my experience isn’t valid; as I should accept another experience as valid.
And herein lies the problem. Everyone has their experience. Isn’t it much better to receive different viewpoints and accept the experience we all have in order to come to resolution? Instead, time is spent on accusatory statements that do not solve anything.
Once again it’s the Brian Mann show. Try just blogging to yourself; you obviously don’t respect anyone else’s opinion.
frankjoseph, of course they are eligible for WIC. They are within their guidelines of a family of 4 making $800 a week. That’s my point. You can make alot of money and still get WIC. I raised 8 kids on one income without it based on principle.
If more Americans had conscience and wouldn’t dip into what is available just because they can, we would see at least some reduction of wasteful spending.
A CIA report in 2010 lists Nations in order of wealth distribution and inequality.
Sweden ranked 140th, the very best nation in the world when it comes to wealth equality and distribution.
The United States ranked 40th from the bottom of the pile. Even Russia and several developing nations rank better that the people in the United States of Ameria. Land of the Free Market and Home of the Brave sent to die for it.
The children of the 1% can drive their upscale Hummers to their selective stores – because the children of the 99% are driving up-armored Humvees in elective wars.
“The disparity between rich and poor has become more evident and more disturbing, even within the most ECONOMICALLY ADVANCED NATIONS…I encourage, then, an increase in efforts to eliminate the causes of poverty and the tragic consequences deriving from it.”
frankjoseph, the way I read this is a general statement made to the citizens of said nations. I didn’t read it as a direct statement to the governments.
Also, based on a few in this forum who asked, “What would Jesus do?”, and how Jesus treated the poor and needy, and what I’ve seen in the scriptures, the burden rests upon people – those who make up the Church – to care for their neighbor.
My question is how was society better before contraception, legalized abortion, and equality for gays?
PNElba, I am thinking pre-1950.
There have been human struggles since the beginning of time. And yes, we progress and make improvements to make life better.
Yet, we cannot dismiss that life went on for centuries before legal abortion and gay marriage. Not all progress is beneficial. Perhaps temporarily or personally, but what about the affects on a society?
The back alley abortions happened and the results were horrible. But don’t you agree that more abortions occur now that we’ve made it an option? What did people do before? Had their child and he/she ended up being a joy. Or he/she was adopted. And yes, there were those horrid situations where the child was not wanted. But more times than not, I believe that people learned to deal with their situation and matured through it. Today, we’ve made it easy for people to dispose of anything they no longer want and/or get what the want.
I just wonder about the long term affects on a society that has wandered far from what used to be moral and ethical living. The line keeps being moved so it can be crossed over. I think with some progress comes a threat to society.
What is fascinating Kathy is that in many ways 1950 America was more regulated economically than today and was far less materialistic and had much less inequality between the very rich and the very poor than we do today.
Strangely the social revolution of the 1960’s which did many great things, also brought a society that is more unequal and more focused on making money and having “things”. This may be part of our growing secularism where we now mainly worship the world and its entanglements of hedonism and money and “success”. Ignoring the eternal realities that were once obvious.
Kathy writes: “And yes, there were those horrid situations where the child was not wanted. But more times than not, I believe that people learned to deal with their situation and matured through it.”
That’s great that you believe that to be true. But is it, in fact, true?
Here’s another thought– anti-choice people are always championing the rights of the unborn. What about those children who would have been born to mothers who died in a back-alley abortion, or to women who were left sterile by a botched amateur abortion?
Kathy writes “I just wonder about the long term affects on a society that has wandered far from what used to be moral and ethical living.”
Kathy, it used to be moral and ethical to own slaves. It used to be that women didn’t have the vote and couldn’t own property. It used to be that a man could abuse his wife and children without fear of interference. Things change. Nobody likes every change that comes along.