The Head Of A Household Of Four Making Minimum Wage May Have More Disposable Income Than A Family Making $60,000 A Year
From Wyatt Emerich of The Cleveland Current. [Editor Note: The Cleveland Current gave this reply from their editor:
“Wyatt Emmerich wrote a guest commentary for us that time. He is president of Emmerich Newspapers Inc. The article did appear in our paper, as with the Northside Sun, one of his [news]papers. It is not a hoax. It is not online at our site, only available in print version.”]
Emmerich analyzes disposable income and economic benefits among several key income classes and comes to the stunning (and verifiable) conclusion that "a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year." And that excludes benefits from Supplemental Security Income disability checks.
First of all, working one week a month, saves big-time on child care. But the real big-ticket item is Medicaid, which has minimal deductibles and copays. By working only one week a month at a minimum wage job, a provider is able to get total medical coverage for next to nothing.
Compare this to the family provider making $60,000 a year. A typical Mississippi family coverage would cost around $12,000, adding deductibles and copays adds an additional $4,500 or so to the bill. That's a huge hit.
Almost all welfare programs have Web sites where you can call up "benefits calculators." Just plug in your income and family size and, your benefits are automatically calculated.
And while most private workplaces require drug testing, there is no drug testing to get welfare; welfare does not judge you if you are stupid enough not to take drugs all day.
You can do as well working one week a month at minimum wage as you can working $60,000-a-year, full-time, high-stress job.
My chart tells the story. It is pretty much self-explanatory.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/Money%20Earned.jpg
The chart is quite revealing. A one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year.
If the family provider works only one week a month at minimum wage, he or she makes 92 percent as much as a provider grossing $60,000 a year.
The full-time $60,000-a-year job is going to be much more demanding than working one week a month at minimum wage. Presumably, the low-income parent will have more energy to attend to the various stresses of managing a household.
If the one-week-a-month worker maintains an unreported cash-only job on the side, the deal gets better than a regular $60,000-a-year job. In this scenario, you maintain a reportable, payroll deductible, low-income job for federal tax purposes. This allows you to easily establish your qualification for all these welfare programs. Then your black-market job gives you additional cash without interfering with your benefits. Some economists estimate there is one trillion in unreported income each year in the United States.
Even if you didn’t cheat, you could do almost as well working one week a month at minimum wage than at a $60,000-a-year job.
Also, SSI pays $8,088 per year for each "disabled" family member. A person can be deemed "disabled" if thy are totally lacking in the cultural and educational skills needed to be employable in the workforce.
If you add $24,262 a year for three disability checks, the lowest paid welfare family would now have far more take-home income than the $60,000-a-year family.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/entitlement-america-head-household-making-minimum-wage-has-more-disposable-income-family-mak
