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from the suppresion-of-the-proletariat dept.
Analysis of a study (PDF) carried by UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education shows that isn't the poor people won't work but the work they do can't sustain them. As a blog on WaPo puts it:
We often make assumptions about people on public assistance, about the woman in the checkout line with an EBT card, or the family who lives in public housing. [...] We assume, at our most skeptical, that poor people need help above all because they haven't tried to help themselves — they haven't bothered to find work.
The reality, though, is that a tremendous share of people who rely on government programs designed for the poor in fact work — they just don't make enough at it to cover their basic living expenses. According to the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, 73 percent of people who benefit from major public assistance programs in the U.S. live in a working family where at least one adult earns the household some money.
This picture casts the culprit in a different light: Taxpayers are spending a lot of money subsidizing not people who won't work, but industries that don't pay their workers a living wage. Through these four programs alone [food stamps, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, income supports through welfare], federal and state governments spend about $150 billion a year aiding working families, according to the analysis (the authors define people who are working here as those who worked at least 10 hours a week, at least half the year).
The workers relying the most on social programs: Fast Food (52%), Home Care (48%), Child Care (46%) and Part-time college students (25%).
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday April 16 2015, @02:50AM
Ditch the laws that make full-time workers and overtime cost more.
They did this already, at least with overtime, and it has made things far worse. US law used to require overtime be paid for workers who made less than $69,000. In 1975, they dropped that level to $23,660. As a result, people got laid off and since then fewer and fewer people have been required to do more work without getting paid more for it. It really took off in the 80's, which is a big reason why the middle class has been shrinking. It's better for the economy and the middle class to have two people splitting 72 hours than to have one person working 72 and getting paid for 40.
I've posted this link here before, but it is worth another read: This is why the middle class can't get ahead. [pbs.org]