Posted on 10/08/2014 4:40:41 AM PDT by Kaslin
Fifty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared "War on Poverty." It sounded great to me. I was taught at Princeton, "We're a rich country. All we have to do is tax the rich, and then use that money to create programs that will lift the poor out of poverty." Government created job-training programs for the strong and expanded social security for the weak.
It seemed to work. The poverty rate dropped from 17 percent to 12 percent in the programs' first decade. Unfortunately, few people noticed that during the half-decade before the "War," the rate dropped from 22 percent to 17 percent. Without big government, Americans were already lifting themselves out of poverty!
Johnson's War brought further progress, but progress then stopped. It stopped because government is not good at making a distinction between needy and lazy. It taught moms not to marry the father of their kids because that would reduce their welfare benefits. Welfare invited people to be dependent. Some people started to say, "Entry-level jobs are for suckers." Many could live almost as well without the hassle of work.
Despite spending an astonishing $22 trillion dollars, despite 92 different government welfare programs, poverty stopped declining. Government's answer? Spend more!
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee, points out that government measures "success" by the growth of programs: "based on inputs, how much money are we spending, how many programs are we creating, how many people are we putting on these programs -- not on outcomes -- how many people are we getting out of poverty? ... Many of these programs end up disincentivizing work -- telling people it pays not to go to work because you'll lose more in benefits than you gain in earning wages."
That doesn't mean the poor are lazy. It means they respond to incentives. They are rational about choosing behaviors that, at least in the short term, pay off.
It's not only welfare that makes it harder for the poor to climb the ladder of success. Well-intended laws, such as a minimum wage, hurt, too.
But most people don't understand that. Even Republicans, according to opinion polls, support a higher minimum wage. A minimum sounds compassionate. It's hard to live on $7.25 an hour.
But setting a minimum is anything but compassionate because that eliminates starter jobs. The minimum wage is why kids don't work as apprentices anymore, nor clean your windshield at gas stations. They never get hired because employers reason, "If I must pay $9, I'm not taking a chance on a beginner."
To most economists, the claim that the minimum wage kills starter jobs is not controversial. But it is among the general public. And so politicians pander.
On my TV show this week, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) says that people like Paul Ryan and I "just want to cut the size of government. And trust the private sector to do everything."
Well ... yes. The private sector does just about everything better.
McDermott says, "This whole business about somehow raising the minimum wage causes a loss of jobs -- if that's true, why don't we just drop the minimum wage altogether and let people work for a dollar a day or $1 an hour?"
OK, let's do it! It's not as if wages are set by the minimum wage.
That is a great conceit of the central planners: thinking that only government prevents employers from paying workers nearly nothing. But the reason Americans don't work for $1 an hour is competition, not government minimums. Competition is what forces companies to pay workers more. It doesn't much matter that the law says they can pay as low as $7.25. Only 4 percent of American workers now make that little. Ninety-five percent make more.
The free market will sort this out, if politicians would just let it. Left free, the market will provide the greatest benefit to workers, employers and consumers, while allowing charity as well.
It would all happen faster if politicians stopped imagining that they are the cause of everything.
Well, not exactly.
It stopped because poverty became an industry in this country, and many people stood to make a fortune doing business with all of the "customers" that government created for them.
LBJ should be dug up so he can be pissed on.
Bring back jobs to America.
Now.
Why don't you post something that's relevant to the item you're responding to, instead of engaging in that idiotic rant that you post on every thread?
Because boilerplate posts that border on spam are much easier than actually having to rub two brain cells together.
I was just laid off, after almost 20 years.
Just this week.
BRING BACK JOBS TO AMERICA.
Liberals keep redefining poverty thus the ‘War on Poverty’ will never be won.
Now, poor means you only have 1 72” flat screen HDTV, the latest playstation with the latest games, 2 Obamaphones, 4 pair of $200 Air Jordan sneakers, free electricity, free housing, free food, free health care, and cash subsidies, while you’re unemployed.
I was chatting with some Germans and talking about the difference between me (working long hours here in Warsaw) and the Germans. “It pays just as much to make 500 Euro a month as it does 5000 Euro per month.”
They are absolutely right. Being poor in our liberal countries pays better than working hard and earning a living. Why leave poverty when you can get paid to not work?
What kind of work do you do, and where do you live?
The reason a minimum wage is necessary is that supply and demand of labor has been skewed. Invaders (legal and illegal) depress wages at all income levels. There’s no protection from unfair completion against goods from slave labor countries. The irony of that is a lot of high-end merchandise is made in these conditions, and that merchandise isn’t any cheaper than it could be if it were made in the US. Corporations, celebrity endorsers, transportation companies, contractors who secure the sources....they’re the ones profiting.
This country has a larger poverty problem than measured by money....
Poverty of morals and ethics...
Financial poverty is symbolic of those two things...
Not inclusive of all poverty, but the largest part....
Who, exactly, should “bring back jobs to America”? The government? Who?
And that is a cultural and moral rot that has been foisted on America by its own elected leaders.
IT in Southern California.
I’m looking in Texas, or elsewhere, I will know more in a bit right now I’m applying at my company for other spots here in the USA.
This weekend I will probably expand my search outside. I am actually still “employed” until next month, but I’m out in a month.
And just for the record, we have sent a (bunch) of jobs overseas, as a company. For perhaps the last 10 years, continuously
We are still very big in America, but we have outsourced so very much it is ... the reason I talk about it so much.
America needs more jobs. Here in America.
Right.
The ‘Civil Rights Industry, Inc.’ is married to the ‘poverty’ shtick.
It would be impossible for Liberal politicians to campaign with their usual lies if they had to admit the truth about ‘poverty’ in America.
Hmmmmm ....just laid off.
Were the constant posts over the last year or so pre lay off?
I am sympathetic with your plight.
How much business does your company do overseas?
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