Over Half Of America Gets More In Welfare Than It Pays In Taxes

[mjr]

Interesting article.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...-it-pays-taxes

I think it lays out the numbers pretty well, and even at the end says that it doesn't give a full picture.

So where is the author wrong?

[Greenday]

Hm, what's wrong with our economy that so many people can't afford to live on their own salary? Is it because minimum wage isn't a livable wage? Is it because a certain political party is trying to make it so companies don't have to provide their employees with basic perks like sick time or healthcare?

[mjr]

Hm, what's wrong with our economy that so many people can't afford to live on their own salary? Is it because minimum wage isn't a livable wage? Is it because a certain political party is trying to make it so companies don't have to provide their employees with basic perks like sick time or healthcare?

Is it because one party tells people they're perpetual victims, and nothing's ever their fault?

[s_stabeler]

And exactly how is it the fault of people on MW that the MW hasn't kept pace with the cost of living? You could equally say that businesses are the ones saying it's "not their fault" when their employees need to work themselves to the bone just to afford to support themselves. NOBODY has argued either that wages should be ridiculously high (except where businesses have claimed that wages sufficient for their employees to survive on their wages are ridiculously high) or that benefits should be at a level where someone can live comfortably without working. HOWEVER, there seems to be an attitude that people need to earn the right to be paid enough to live on, yet should receive little-to-no help in the meantime.

[Daskinor]

Interesting article.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...-it-pays-taxes

I think it lays out the numbers pretty well, and even at the end says that it doesn't give a full picture.

So where is the author wrong?

Don't get bent out of shape. The article is very intellectually dishonest. They link to a report about one topic income inequality, and somehow came to the conclusion that half of america is on the dole.

Look at this graph from the original report.



Kinda looks familiar to the one in MJR's article but has a point. Looks like the lowest quintile and second lowest quintile do receive money from the government that increases their income after receiving transfers and paying taxes. The middle is about even then it skews heavily towards the richer end in the other direction.

This shows allot of things, just not what the article claims. These numbers include social security and medicare, government grants (including business ones). Not just section 8, food stamps and welfare.

Could debunk the rest of this flaming pile of crap. And its just that crap, im just not bored enough to go any further. Its all just logical fallacies past that point anyway.

[gremcint]

"Is it because one party tells people they're perpetual victims, and nothing's ever their fault?"
you mean republicans? cause that's what they do. hence all the whining about how white men are oppressed despite still being in control of the majority of the power in the country.

[Gravekeeper]

The article is very intellectually dishonest.

Are you suggesting a Bulgarian website that follows Austrian economics posting under "Tyler Durden" might not be on the up and up?

Nonsense~

[Canarr]

you mean republicans? cause that's what they do. hence all the whining about how white men are oppressed despite still being in control of the majority of the power in the country.

Honestly, that's a pretty bullshit argument. Whether or not most politicians, or CEOs, are white males is no help at all to unemployed white men in Detroit or Kentucky. Yes, other demographics suffer as much, or worse; but to say, "How can you be oppressed or disadvantaged? Most people in power share a few visual characteristics with you!" makes no sense at all.

[Greenday]

Let's just give more tax cuts to billion dollar companies who pay their employees crap and don't provide benefits by not giving employees enough hours to be full-time. Then force those employees to be on public assistance and complain that they don't pay taxes! That'll teach the liberals!

[Canarr]

I read in an article a few years ago that the US government pays out something like 2-3 billion dollars of food assistance (is that the name) per year to employees of companies like Walmart and McDonalds. Basically, your tax payers are funding a part of these companies' bottom line, because instead of making them pay a livable wage, they just pick up the tab instead.

How that doesn't piss off everyone paying taxes in the US is beyond me.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

How that doesn't piss off everyone paying taxes in the US is beyond me.

Oh trust me, it does. However, while a number of people see the reason and aim their anger at the MW and the companies that are being subsidized, there are also a great number of people who glare at the people on MW because "they should pull themselves up by their boot straps and get a better paying job! MW isn't supposed to be lived on! It's for high school students!"

[TheRoo]

That whole pull yourself up by the bootstraps is great when it works, but not so much when it doesn't. In 2001, I had a 2 year old son, and was going through a divorce at 25 years old. I was an assistant manager at a gas station, and after taxes and child support, I'd net about $250 per week.

17 years later, I'm doing pretty well, and I certainly worked my ass off to get where I am, but I had a lot of help along the way. Not everyone is so lucky that they have parents to help with living expenses while I went back to school to get my degree. Not everyone has a sister in an industry I was trying to break into who sent me the link to my first job using my degree. Not everyone has the right hiring manager look over their resume to see that they actually are qualified for the position. Not everyone has a brother who's boss happens to know a hiring manager who started looking for my exact skill set matches mine, literally the same day I started looking for new opportunities.

Every day, I think about how lucky I got to be where I am today. Last year I paid over $30,000 in taxes, but that's ok. I'm not a big fan of a lot of the spending that goes on, but the social safety nets we have in place are definitely not in that category. I have no problem paying for disabled people to have health care (I think we should do it for everyone, but that's another rant for another time). I have no problem helping struggling families literally put food on their tables through food stamps. I enjoy donating my time, money and talent to Special Olympics to give people with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to travel to out of town tournaments a couple times per year, when for a lot of them, that's the only time they leave town. If everything hadn't worked out exactly how it did for me, I could very easily be in the same boat.

What I do have a problem with is this corporate welfare that the GOP pushed through earlier this year. Why don't we talk about my former company that got a $4.3 billion tax cut, and then decided they were going freeze wages and reduce bonuses for their middle class workers (not the executives of course. CEO got a 30% raise), and then reduce their workforce by 10%, over 25,000 people. They originally said it was going to be through attrition, but last week they laid off 1,000 people.

[jackfaire]

Honestly, that's a pretty bullshit argument.

I don't think the argument is that white males can't be disadvantaged. I think the argument is that Republicans love to tell their constituents "you are disadvantaged but not because I gave tax breaks to the company that moved your job overseas but rather you are disadvantaged specifically because you are a white male and everyone else is out to get you. Even though you make up the majority of the population you are a minority"

Yeah I am just as screwed as a white male making barely above minimum wage but I am not at a disadvantage BECAUSE I am a white male. My disadvantage is my lack of a college degree, the insistence of companies that I have one in spite of my years of experience (over 10 in my field), and my having to live on less money than I need while technically making too much for any assistance.

Every Republican candidate I have seen lately though has told me "the fix to your problem is to give this corporation over here bigger tax breaks and to raise your taxes to pay for it"

I am an independent I don't vote on Party lines I vote for ideas. But long story short I think that's the message that's coming across.

My Step-dad who's a big Republican supporter keeps quoting "well I am in a minority (white male)" because that's the message the politicians he votes for keep pushing.

[jackfaire]

That whole pull yourself up by the bootstraps

Doesn't exist. The statement was created as a way of saying "do an impossible thing for an impossible result" it was meant to show the sheer absurdity of expecting a person to operate in a vacuum and somehow improve their lot in life. No one has can or ever will "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps"

Even making yourself rich requires other people giving you money. No one in this country "pulled themselves up by the bootstraps" most of the companies in existence like tech companies got grants and loans to become what they are. Many of the tech companies especially now like to pretend they did it all on their own so they don't have to pay back any of those loans or pay their fair share of taxes like we should all be grateful they exist in the first place.

I'm not homeless right now because my mom and Step-dad have been letting me live with them since 2011. Between a new job I am starting and the results of a ballot measure in my state next year I might be making just enough money to finally be making a living wage. Even then it's only going to be enough to rent my own place not enough to buy a home.

None of this is "by my own bootstraps" I work a job waiting on people if those people didn't have jobs that paid them enough to come eat I wouldn't work. If minimum wage was raised to match Cost of living even more people could afford to eat there and I would make more money and get more hours.

Automats used to be a thing and when I see them in movies set in older decades I think of how awesome those places seem. I read an article recently about how they went away largely because they started cheaping out on ingredients.

I wonder if wages had kept pace with COL would they still be around? After all if people could continue to afford the quality they'd come to expect then the Automats could afford to continue providing the quality they had. Instead they had to cheap out to keep prices matched to Income.

I feel like this gave rise to the scale where now we have cheap crappy grocery stores and high end grocery stores when they probably all started out being much closer to a median quality.

I know Fred Meyer in my region alters their prices and products depending on the Median Income for the neighborhood it's in. We had one move only a mile down the road from its previous location and it went from the affordable neighborhood grocery store to being too pricey for us to go to.

Sorry this got way longer than I intended.

But yeah that saying total BS meant to indicate the very idea was total BS.