This is one of the things I have been debating on our local paper’s site.
How bad do you manage your life if 48 hours after missing one check you need to wait in line for hours to get food? I have made $1,000 a month in this nation and been unemployed from that job and not come close to starving.
I truly don’t believe that this is anything more than the union telling people “This is your version of a picket line.” They’re not on strike but they can show for the cameras they’re “suffering”.
How can so many so useless, demonstrate such incompetence in such a short period of time?
Having lived around DC for 3.5 years and left five years ago (for retirement), I will vouch that a fair number of folks are clearing $100,000-plus each year, and maxed out on debt (they paid for homes they couldn’t afford....they bought expensive cars with no real downpayment....they maxed out with 50,000 to 100,000 in credit card debt....and they have college debt which they attempt to pay down at least $6,000 a year. About every month, I’d bump into someone and finances would come up, and it was clear that these idiots had no emergency savings existing, and they were living month-to-month off their government employment check.
The WaPo gave one example in a story around 2011 timeframe....a couple who bought worked, and were clearing near $250,000 a year (I think one of the two had a military pension even feeding into this). They were a month-by-month couple. The house was way more than they could afford, and the gal had still 20,000 left to pay on student debt from the 1990s.
I've been debating this same point with people. Most federal workers have been on the job a number of years, and are making a decent salary. If you've been responsible in managing your finances, and living within your means, there's no way you should be standing in a food line 48 hours after missing that first paycheck.
Food can be bought with credit cards—does this mean these folks maxed out all their credit cards?
I use lean times to roll through my survival supplies. Then when better times return, I restock the supplies fresh. Perhaps they have been told, or at least suspect, this will be a long one. Would not surprise me that there are numerous long term plots afoot. And some might be a little more effective then a story about hookers peeing on Obama’s former bed.