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I was going to comment on the air but I was defeated by time constraints.
Without getting into the race aspect for a moment (which is important) I want to address the Government's current role in maintaining poverty.
The US Government has a monetary policy, set by Alan Greenspan at the current time, that encourages a %% (by current measure) unemployment rate, which is called by many 'full employment'. In other words, policy is to have 5% of the working-age population that is willing to work and looking for work out of work. This is called sound fiscal policy by many politicians.
At the same time that the Fed holds to a policy encouraging 5% unemployment, the stated goal of some politicians is to get rid of Welfare as we know it, or just plain get rid of it. Many politicians who applaud the 5% unemployed goal deride people who are unemployed as 'lazy' or 'unmotivated' or a variety of other epithets. So, to put it bluntly, these people support an ecomomic policy of keeping people out of work and blaming these people for not having jobs. As the primary job of a politician is supposed to be representing the interests of their constituents and respecting the people for whom they are supposed to work, this seems to me like these politicians are not working in the interests of their people.
I am not an economist, so I do not know if the 5% unemployment rate is the optimal one. I know many economists say it is and I am willing to concede the point for the sake of argument. If this is the case, since Government is deciding that these people should not be working, Government should do something to keep these people from malnutrition, homelessness, poverty and ignominious death.
For those who claim that Welfare is the font that creates a dependant underclass, perhaps they don't pay attention to how it does so, because I won't argue that it does. As a rule of thumb, to get off of Welfare you have to work. Under the current system, every dollar you earn means you receive a dollar less in Welfare benefits. Seems simple enough, yes? The problem is, all dollars are not created equal. A dollar earned working is subject to taxes - Social Security, Medicare, for most people Federal, in many places State, in some cases even Local. The Welfare dollar is provided without any of those taxes being deducted. So, someone trying to leave Welfare who is earning a low wage is very effectively monetarily penalized by working. Making people pay for the right to work hasn't been a good means of encouraging workers in the past and I doubt that this has changed in modern times.
This system, by the way, is also supported by most of the same people who believe in the 5% unemployment rate and less Welfare monies handed out.
These same people also oppose increases in the minimum wage, saying it's bad for companies. Maybe some companies haven't yet figured it out, but if you don't pay your workers well they can't afford to be your customers. More to the point, they'll leave as soon as they have the chance. Tell me what's worse for a company: paying a living wage and treating your employees well, or having fewer customers along with employees willing to leave the moment they get a better offer? Ask Costco and Trader Joe's. Ask Ben and Jerry's. Ask Malden Mills. Then go ask WalMart.
A sane economic policy, one that is paying attention to itself, would include measures to ease people off of Welfare instead of sharply cutting them off. It would provide assistance without the intense stigma and shame (and hoops) for needing help, allowing a little more dignity for these people and not stepping on their spines. It would encourage a living wage. It could even encourage a solid education, the one metric most everybody agrees is a solid measure of increasing earnings.
Instead we have a system that promotes corporate bottom lines at the expense of low-wage workers. Tell me again why a CEO needs another $10,000,000 a year but a burger flipper earning $6 an hour, struggling to make ends meet, shouldn't ask for a $1 an hour raise? I must have missed that in economics class.
Without getting into the race aspect for a moment (which is important) I want to address the Government's current role in maintaining poverty.
The US Government has a monetary policy, set by Alan Greenspan at the current time, that encourages a %% (by current measure) unemployment rate, which is called by many 'full employment'. In other words, policy is to have 5% of the working-age population that is willing to work and looking for work out of work. This is called sound fiscal policy by many politicians.
At the same time that the Fed holds to a policy encouraging 5% unemployment, the stated goal of some politicians is to get rid of Welfare as we know it, or just plain get rid of it. Many politicians who applaud the 5% unemployed goal deride people who are unemployed as 'lazy' or 'unmotivated' or a variety of other epithets. So, to put it bluntly, these people support an ecomomic policy of keeping people out of work and blaming these people for not having jobs. As the primary job of a politician is supposed to be representing the interests of their constituents and respecting the people for whom they are supposed to work, this seems to me like these politicians are not working in the interests of their people.
I am not an economist, so I do not know if the 5% unemployment rate is the optimal one. I know many economists say it is and I am willing to concede the point for the sake of argument. If this is the case, since Government is deciding that these people should not be working, Government should do something to keep these people from malnutrition, homelessness, poverty and ignominious death.
For those who claim that Welfare is the font that creates a dependant underclass, perhaps they don't pay attention to how it does so, because I won't argue that it does. As a rule of thumb, to get off of Welfare you have to work. Under the current system, every dollar you earn means you receive a dollar less in Welfare benefits. Seems simple enough, yes? The problem is, all dollars are not created equal. A dollar earned working is subject to taxes - Social Security, Medicare, for most people Federal, in many places State, in some cases even Local. The Welfare dollar is provided without any of those taxes being deducted. So, someone trying to leave Welfare who is earning a low wage is very effectively monetarily penalized by working. Making people pay for the right to work hasn't been a good means of encouraging workers in the past and I doubt that this has changed in modern times.
This system, by the way, is also supported by most of the same people who believe in the 5% unemployment rate and less Welfare monies handed out.
These same people also oppose increases in the minimum wage, saying it's bad for companies. Maybe some companies haven't yet figured it out, but if you don't pay your workers well they can't afford to be your customers. More to the point, they'll leave as soon as they have the chance. Tell me what's worse for a company: paying a living wage and treating your employees well, or having fewer customers along with employees willing to leave the moment they get a better offer? Ask Costco and Trader Joe's. Ask Ben and Jerry's. Ask Malden Mills. Then go ask WalMart.
A sane economic policy, one that is paying attention to itself, would include measures to ease people off of Welfare instead of sharply cutting them off. It would provide assistance without the intense stigma and shame (and hoops) for needing help, allowing a little more dignity for these people and not stepping on their spines. It would encourage a living wage. It could even encourage a solid education, the one metric most everybody agrees is a solid measure of increasing earnings.
Instead we have a system that promotes corporate bottom lines at the expense of low-wage workers. Tell me again why a CEO needs another $10,000,000 a year but a burger flipper earning $6 an hour, struggling to make ends meet, shouldn't ask for a $1 an hour raise? I must have missed that in economics class.
