The Myth of the "Working Poor"

[Aristotle]

Income mobility (the ability of people in a lower income quintile to move up to a higher income quintile) has always been a strength of the US economy.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/t...20040224.shtml

These are not matters of opinion. Census data make it unmistakably clear. When it comes to full-time year-around workers, there are more heads of households who fall into that category in the top 5 percent of income earners than in the bottom 20 percent -- in absolute numbers.

Studies that follow the same individuals over time find that most of those in the bottom 20 percent of income earners are also in the top 20 percent at some other time in their careers.

Only a fraction of the people who are in the bottom 20 percent in income at any given time will be there for more than a few years. Of those whose pay is at or near the minimum wage, for example, most are young people or part-time workers, or both.

[Lokrian]

That's all well and good, but I know too many working poor personally to have to bother digging through those statistics to figure out what in the world they are trying to pull. The whole thing is moot, since obviously if there were no working poor they would not have any political clout.

[Sebboe]

I think this only includes people who actually earn income and excludes people who are unemployed. Those people might be coming into the lower quintile and then back into the 0 income bracket in a way that isn't reflected in the numbers here.

I think that with so many good paying high tech jobs being sourced out to India that many people might drop from say the third quintile to the second or from the fourth to third or people might stay in the same quintile but the average salary for bottom will stay the same and the top will stay the same but the middle three could see a drop. Or if the average salary in quintile four drops, it could have people in the third move up without actually getting a raise.

The past statistics are important but not nearly as important as the stats we are in the process of making and these numbers don't show us what the shifts mean in terms of disposable income to some extent.

There are also huge variances in the US as to how much housing costs. In Brighton MA, a rather drab little suburb of Boston, about 10 minutes from Fenway Park a 900 sq foot house right next to the Mass Turnpike just sold for $390,000. A woman on NPR spoke of 4 bedroom housing in rural Louisanna for under $60,000.

So a person making $45,000/yr in Brighton is seriously hurting to buy even the smallest house. Take that same income and bring it to rural Louisianna and that person has money to burn.

This is why disposable income less cost of housing quintiles would be much more intersting to get or adjust the RDI to be normalized across the country.

From there I'd like to see the projections of where people will be in the next 10 years and have some criteria as to why people will be better off, the same or worse off.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Lokrian
That's all well and good, but I know too many working poor personally to have to bother digging through those statistics to figure out what in the world they are trying to pull. The whole thing is moot, since obviously if there were no working poor they would not have any political clout.

Re-read the article. They don't have political clout. It is a political trick to capitalize on class warfare guilt.

Furthermore, people who don't even work (but collect [typo fixed] government hand outs) love to consider themselves the "working poor" and thus they belly up to the voting booth whenever they hear this type of pandering.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Sebboe

I think that with so many good paying high tech jobs being sourced out to India that many people might drop from say the third quintile to the second or from the fourth to third or people might stay in the same quintile but the average salary for bottom will stay the same and the top will stay the same but the middle three could see a drop. Or if the average salary in quintile four drops, it could have people in the third move up without actually getting a raise.

The past statistics are important but not nearly as important as the stats we are in the process of making and these numbers don't show us what the shifts mean in terms of disposable income to some extent.

First of all, the whole outsourcing thing is REALLY getting blown out of proportion. The percentage of workers affected by that right now is quite small.

Second, the fifth quintile is the lowest. The first is the highest. From your first quoted paragraph it seems like you think the opposite, Sebboe (like sayingsomeone drops from the third to the second quintile).

Third, past statistics are always valuable.

Fourth, disposable income is not the issue.

[Lokrian]

Originally posted by Aristotle
Re-read the article. They don't have political clout. It is a political trick to capitalize on class warfare guilt.

Furthermore, people who don't even work (but collect government hand outs) love to consider themselves the "working poor" and thus they belly up to the voting booth whenever they hear this type of pandering.

handouts: I have never been a fan of such. I've been out of work before and if one wants a job one can get one. I'm maybe, maybe for income supplements for people who already have a job who are not making ends meet. What I am talking about is that I simply know personally too many people who have been in the job market for a number of years who are working and who are by any rational standard that I can think of, "poor", to give much credence to such statistics. It's all in how one defines "poor". The official government definition of the poverty line is really rediculous in my opinion, and seperating things into 5ths... well. It just doesn't prove much.

I don't much care for the insinuation that outsourcing is being overblown. I don't know how many jobs have to be shipped overseas for someone like you to consider it overblown or what, but the bottom line is that the jobs go there for no better reason than that the people are living in abject poverty and do not have the effective right to collective bargaining that we have here to redress that wrong. Exporting manufacturing jobs basically extends our industrial infrastrucure outside our borders where it is much easier to disrupt for those who wish to do us economic harm, and besides that, a little slavery is still slavery. I don't buy the trickle down theory of exploitation of the foreign masses for their own good either. You needn't look any farther than our buddies in Saudi Arabia to see who the money trickles to.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for the non-working poor who habitually are out of work. I consider that a seperate issue.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Lokrian
What I am talking about is that I simply know personally too many people who have been in the job market for a number of years who are working and who are by any rational standard that I can think of, "poor", to give much credence to such statistics.

I'm going to side with census data over vague anecdotal evidence.

The reason census data is more valuable that many other types of statistics is because census data is RAW numbers. It isn't like some dumbass poll where they ask 500 people some questions and extrapolate that to 300 million.

Originally posted by Lokrian
It's all in how one defines "poor". The official government definition of the poverty line is really rediculous in my opinion, and seperating things into 5ths... well. It just doesn't prove much.

It proves tons. It is exceptionally valuable for studying income mobility, for example.

Only 3% of people in the lowest quintile stay there. I'm willing to accept that for that 3% the fault is theirs rather than the system.

Originally posted by Lokrian
I don't much care for the insinuation that outsourcing is being overblown. I don't know how many jobs have to be shipped overseas for someone like you to consider it overblown or what, but the bottom line is that the jobs go there for no better reason than that the people are living in abject poverty and do not have the effective right to collective bargaining that we have here to redress that wrong. Exporting manufacturing jobs basically extends our industrial infrastrucure outside our borders where it is much easier to disrupt for those who wish to do us economic harm, and besides that, a little slavery is still slavery. I don't buy the trickle down theory of exploitation of the foreign masses for their own good either. You needn't look any farther than our buddies in Saudi Arabia to see who the money trickles to.

Well if you don't want jobs leaving the country then you need to give up on the following:

1) Increasing minimum wage.

2) Required health care paid for by the employer.

3) Family and Medical Leave

4) The current OSHA ergonomic scam.

Honestly, if you are going to force businesses to pay for all of these things (instead of CHOOSING to provide them as perks to employees who are highly skilled or who stay with the company for a given period of time) then they are going to choose to just leave the country instead.

You cannot pile on the expenses and then expect a business to go bankrupt when it can no longer compete internationally.

[Grantref]

Originally posted by Aristotle
Well if you don't want jobs leaving the country then you need to give up on the following:

1) Increasing minimum wage.

2) Required health care paid for by the employer.

3) Family and Medical Leave

4) The current OSHA ergonomic scam.

Honestly, if you are going to force businesses to pay for all of these things (instead of CHOOSING to provide them as perks to employees who are highly skilled or who stay with the company for a given period of time) then they are going to choose to just leave the country instead.

You cannot pile on the expenses and then expect a business to go bankrupt when it can no longer compete internationally.

So what do we do about people who cannot afford health care, have to take care of sick family, or become unable to work due to the systematically injury-producing nature of their working conditions? Say, "Tough fucking luck, go die and decrease the surplus population"?

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Jabriol
So what do we do about people who cannot afford health care, have to take care of sick family, or become unable to work due to the systematically injury-producing nature of their working conditions? Say, "Tough fucking luck, go die and decrease the surplus population"?

Then don't whine about losing jobs. You cannot have it both ways.

Also, please don't cloud the issue with workers comp ("injury-producing nature of their working conditions"). I did not list that as a factor so don't argue against a straw man by trying to slip it in. Workers comp is a concept that benefits both sides. Workers get their medical bills and lost wages covered and the business benefits from not getting sued. That is not a factor here because both sides benefit from that.

When you dramatically increase the cost of each worker then eventually the company has to cry "no mas!" and leave. How can they compete in a global economy if they have to pay for these enormous expenses when competitors don't?

It is the height of absurdity to cry about a result that was created as a DIRECT result of one's own actions.

The bogus construct of fictional "rights" in this country is the source of this problem. Health care is not a right. Marriage is not a right. Owning a plastic gun is not a right. Having a job is not a right. Flying on a plane is not a right. Having a drivers license is not a right.

Some things are EARNED in life. Not everything is a right.

Everyone is ultimately accountable for their actions. If you heap on the costs then eventually the business will take the jobs elsewhere. That is basic economics. Cry about it as much as you want but that is just reality.

So take your pick.

1) Stop forcing companies to pay for things like health care, medical leave, ergonomic BS, etc. for every single employee (instead of what they used to do in the past which was provide those things as rewards to employees that stuck with the company for a few years)

2) Watch the businesses take the jobs out of the country where they can afford to compete in the global marketplace.

You cannot have #1 *and* #2 because they are not compatible. You must choose.

Personally, I prefer #1 because #2 just results in the people not having health care and every other perk anyway.

It doesn't have to be an absolute removal of benefits. At least let businesses scale them in after an employee has worked with them for a number of years. When you make it a blanket requirement the businesses just CANNOT afford to keep the jobs in the US.

That is an economic reality. No amount of pissing and moaning will change the bottom line. If you force them to provide those benefits, the company will either go bankrupt or be forced to leave the country.