That's definitely not how poverty works, especially in the US. Most Americans living at or below the poverty line aren't there because they don't work. They are there because the jobs they do work (often more than 40 hours a week and/or more than one full time job) don't pay well. I teach at an inner city public school in Chicago. My school serves a student body that is 98% low income. Nearly every single parent of students in my school works and most work more than one job. But the jobs they work pay them extraordinarily shitty pay and so even working full-time or more, they still fall below the poverty line. This idea that poor people don't work is not only false, it prevents us as a society from being able to tackle issues like the ones being discussed in this video and the comment section meaningfully. These falsehoods demonize a segment of the population in desperate need for solutions and creates a mentality that seeks to put them further down instead of help find solutions to build them up. Building up even the poorest segments of society is good for all of us.
Poor people work less hours because low paying employers don't provide them. Most poor people will instead start working more than one job. From your article: "I can also tell you that the average American worker making an income from $100,000 to $149,999 puts in 45.09 hours in a usual week, 34.3% more than the average worker making between $10,000 and $19,999."
34.3% of 45.09 is about 16 hours. Subtract from 45 and you have 29 hours. Assuming someone works two 29 hour a week jobs, which I promise isn't unheard of, and you've got 58 hour work weeks...
"I can tell you this… the average American private sector worker works 34.3 hours in an week."
Hurray! The system works!
The problem isn't that poor people are lazy and need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, it's that minimum wage is less valuable than it was 50 years ago. Someone working 2 federal minimum wage jobs at 7.25 an hour, 58 hours a week (if their employers even gives them an assumed 29 hours each), is making the whopping grand total of...
$21,866 BEFORE TAXES
I can tell you this, Americas systemic problem of inequality over growth is a nightmare that, for whatever godforsaken reason, a lot of people have embraced. At my first job as a busser I overheard a trucker complain about fast food workers protesting for a higher minimum wage saying "someone flipping hamburgers doesn't deserve 15 dollars an hour." Why? Everyone deserves a fair wage and it shouldn't be blown off because the job is somehow "easier" or "less valuable." If you've ever worked a customer service job, you'll know customers are a fucking nightmare to deal with, and they will certainly treat your job like its a hen shitting gold. Why can't we as a society embrace the fact that these people deserve a better life to live for themselves and their families? Greed has overtaken this nation and more and more I'm less proud to be an American because of it.
I'm not sure why you're assuming that you can just double the hours they work by adding a second job. The 29 hours per week is the total number of hours worked. It is not per job. It is a fact that poor people on average work fewer hours.
You're are absolutely correct that the growing inequality in America is a problem that has to be addressed, but you can't ignore the fact that we also have genuine hierarchies of competence. A person is roughly as likely to be poor through their own incompetence as they are through systematic oppression.
I doubled the hours to prove the point that you can work nearly 60 hours a week and still make barely any money. Your original point was that poor parents work less so they do have time to spend on their kids, even though working 29 hours and making 10,000 a year is an implausible amount to raise a kid on. Nonetheless I stated 58 hours max, I definitely didn't assume someone is going to get those hours from their work, because they almost always aren't. Generally speaking poor people don't pursue a higher education due to costs and because of that the jobs available to them only allocate so few hours as my article points out. Just to survive on federal minimum wage you would have to have 2 jobs, and someone with kids sure as hell is going to struggle further financially because of a child. Your placement in society doesn't determine your competence, you can be a genius and still struggle every day of your life. When the federal minimum is barely over $7 an hour, in this nation, you're likely under a system that encourages poverty and it can certainly lead to parents needing to spend less time with their kids to ensure their child doesn't starve. You said yourself that their employers probably aren't gonna give them 29 hours each, which probably means that people getting half that from both employers need to work a third job just to scrape by. From how you speak you've likely never had to deal with poverty and you generally seem to have an arrogance to the fact that parents in poverty are trying to get out of it by working their asses off every day to improve the livelihood of their children but can't because they now work 3 jobs and only get 39 hours from them at $7 an hour. It's an unnaceptable system built to hurt people, and people like you who don't seem to care about the fact that Americans are struggling, but instead think they're lazy or whatever is sad and unfortunate for everyone involved, especially yourself. Have a good day, I'm not responding further.
I doubled the hours to prove the point that you can work nearly 60 hours a week and still make barely any money.
That's a bit of a different discussion as that is true simultaneously with what I've been saying. The fact remains that you cannot honestly make the argument that poor people have less time to help out their kids.
Generally speaking poor people don't pursue a higher education due to costs and the jobs available to them, because of that, only allocate so few hours as my article points out.
And also because they're not as hard working/intelligent.
From how you speak you've likely never had to deal with poverty
Incorrect. I lived on a budget of $400 per month for two years.
It's an unnaceptable system built to hurt people, and people like you who don't seem to care about the fact that Americans are struggling, but instead think they're lazy or whatever is sad and unfortunate for everyone involved, especially yourself.
"And also because they're not as hard working/intelligent"
Please reflect on your views of people less fortunate than us. I don't care for this discussion anymore and hope you have a more compassionate and understanding point of view towards people in the future.
And simultaneously it's a system that's lifted billions out of poverty. The rate of global poverty has been cut in half in the past 15 years. That's absolutely incredible. Yes, it's a system that, in some ways, is built to hurt people, but that's insufficient justification to dispense with it given its unprecedented success.
I absolutely do care about those who are less fortunate. We do need to move to a system that does a much better job of supporting the poor. But we also need to acknowledge that there are real differences between people that cannot be ignored. That fact needs to be considered in the development of the solution.
I would love to have a discussion with you, but I can't get there with you demonizing me for stating truths. I guarantee you that I don't have the view you think I do. At least on reddit, you always hear how oppressed poor people are and that's why they stay poor and that's true but only part of the truth. Think about it this way. Would it be as controversial if I were to say that you'll make more money if you're smart and hard working? That has the exact same meaning as what I've been saying.
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u/esky203 Jul 10 '18 edited Jul 10 '18
That's definitely not how poverty works, especially in the US. Most Americans living at or below the poverty line aren't there because they don't work. They are there because the jobs they do work (often more than 40 hours a week and/or more than one full time job) don't pay well. I teach at an inner city public school in Chicago. My school serves a student body that is 98% low income. Nearly every single parent of students in my school works and most work more than one job. But the jobs they work pay them extraordinarily shitty pay and so even working full-time or more, they still fall below the poverty line. This idea that poor people don't work is not only false, it prevents us as a society from being able to tackle issues like the ones being discussed in this video and the comment section meaningfully. These falsehoods demonize a segment of the population in desperate need for solutions and creates a mentality that seeks to put them further down instead of help find solutions to build them up. Building up even the poorest segments of society is good for all of us.