and none of that 51% works for the gubbermint....where I bet the median is 50 thou. We are being destroyed by government, and we are paying government to do it to us.
In this day and age I don’t doubt this. Wages have been driven down while prices have risen too. Obama’s revenge against the white man.
I googled “average payment for : SNAP, EITC, TANF, Sect 8, etc. “ and was able to very conservatively come up with at least $20,000 yearly payments tax free. This didn’t include SSI for the kiddies (for single mothers who’ve applied for SSI for their kids), or other programs. Also, there are some states where TANF is much higher than some of the Southern states.
Interesting and with charts.
If you are only making $30,000, I would advise against having three kids.
On its face, I think it sounds a bit worse than it may be.
I know a number of couples where one works part-time to supplement their income and therefore that person’s income is below $25,000
What about all the paid-in-cash jobs that never get reported? Especially to illegal immigrants! How many “poverty level” families are actually doing quite well by not reporting income?
It’s very difficult in the current economy to make more than $15/hr punching a time clock with a H.S. diploma or useless bachelor’s degree.
If those are your credentials, you’re far better off devising a way to work for yourself. That requires drive and ambition though, and while not having a functional college degree isn’t necessarily a sign of lack of drive/ambition, by the same token, ONLY have a high school diploma isn’t exactly a testament to ambition/motivation.
I’ve tried to push my adult children towards functional college degrees.
The problem is that the jobs that used to pay well for high school graduates (construction, etc.) are now being done by illegals. That pushes the labor pool sideways so that high school graduates that want to work must compete with college graduates for entry level jobs in areas such as basic management (fast food or hotel shift manager). That in turn drags down the salaries for those jobs and the college grads are not just competing with high school grads for those jobs, but at those salaries.
The illegals are indeed working jobs no American will do (for $10/hr). Knock them off those jobs and pay Americans reasonable pay to do those jobs, and viola, many of the employment problems would be solved.
It’s drives me nuts that the same leftists demanding a minimum wage are the very same people advocating a wholesale debasing of entry level work in this country by allowing illegal aliens to destroy the wage base for what used to be called “an honest day’s work”.
Sometimes I miss the days of less responsibility, no meetings, no commute, and less taxes.
“In 2014, half of working Americans reported an income at or below $28,851 (the median wage)”
Imagine that, fifty percent are at or below the median.
So while bammy's cohorts in crime can fudge the employment numbers any way they want, even use all this part time employment as justification for pulling down the unemployment percentage, jack around with the labor force participation rate, etc. etc. Nothing changes the fact that people are struggling.
Not good. Not good at all.
This is shaping up to be a perfect storm for Bernie Sanders/Liz Warren style redistributive Socialism.
I suspect government math at work. For example a single income (by choice) family where one spouse makes 60k and the other chooses to stay home with the kids (0 income) would score a 30k average income. But that would not support the picture the headline attempts to paint.
Considering the aggregate regulations driving up the cost of living, little surprise it’s a problem. Housing CoO requirements, vehicle mileage & emissions, a thousand other little “make life better” requirements. Sure, every little regulation made things better ... but added up and coupled with high taxation, one practically needs a Master’s degree or some such to earn enough to achieve “above poverty” (which continues to lack an objective definition). If you don’t comply with these regulations, you risk fines & incarceration. And to make it worse, the “poverty line” is defined high enough that it’s easy for those lower on the ladder to just let go and fall into the relatively luxurious “safety net”.
The Federal Reserve, Big Government, and Big Business have been partnering for decades to keep wages suppressed. They’ve succeeded, and most people are none the wiser.
I don’t know anyone making less than $55k and those are 1st year college grads with IT bachelor degrees. They’re out there, but at least in STEM, there is far greater demand for jobs than there is supply of candidates.
B.S. They are including illegal aliens who are NOT Americans.
A couple of years ago I had a nice full time job teaching at a university that paid well. Then, after Obamacare set in, I was placed on part time. I only get paid when I teach. The number of classes I’ve had has dwindled down to almost nothing. I could have gone independent, but I’m not far from retirement so I stayed full time to keep the pension.
I became self employed in the meantime. Teaching different places, writing course books, exams, training guides. It is not bad money as long as I can keep the contracts. coming. sometimes I have gaps of no work/no contracts that hurt. Other times I make a bundle all at once.
But I’m really, really screwed by the government.
They make me pay not only taxes, but both sides of my FICA (social security tax). This means when I work at the university, half of my FICA is paid by the university, but any other work I do contract wise I have to pay both employer and employee FICA.
So when I get a $10,000 contract, $5500 or so belongs to the federal government.
That sucks.
This is ALL Obama’s fault. When will the GOP lay the blame on who has wrecked the economy for almost 8 years?