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Topic: Earning it

msharmony

Sat 01/06/18 07:36 AM

For conservatives and thus-inclined Democrats, work requirements are about making sure that people who receive federal aid aren't lazy loafers living off the dole — "welfare queens" in Reaganite parlance.

Built into the claim that it's only fair that poor people should be made to work for welfare are a few troubling assumptions: that poor people don't or won't work; that only compensated, market labor is real work; that society (and the state) always require work to precede income; and that each person is due to receive simply what they earn. Each of those is false.

87 percent of able-bodied adults covered by the Medicaid expansion are already working, in school or seeking work, and that about 75 percent of those not working are full-time caregivers.

before deciding whether it's morally right for them to receive income without working, consider a far larger group that takes in far more money without toil: the idle rich. They soak up plenty of unearned money from the economy, in the form of rent, dividends and capital income. Salaries and wages — that is, money paid for work — only make up about 15 percent of the income of Americans making $10 million per year or more; the rest is capital income from simply owning assets.

In other words, the well-to-do already do what workfare advocates seem so nervous about: rake in money they haven't earned through market labor and thrive off the government's largesse. Perhaps that itself is unfair — so why duplicate it on the other end of the economy? Put simply, it seems ludicrous at best and sadistic at most to start one's fairness policing from the bottom up.

In fact, none of us live entirely on what we earn. We rely on the infrastructure, knowledge and technology developed by those who have come before us, and those contemporaneous with us. Instead of trying to mince each person's life's work into careful calculations of contribution and merit, it seems more sensible to pursue a fairer economy overall: one that directs its excesses not to the already rich, but to those who have the greatest need; one that recognizes in its distributive structure that every person is immeasurably valuable, deserving of life and dignity.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/if-the-poor-must-work-to-earn-every-dollar-shouldnt-the-rich/2018/01/05/c36d9a10-f243-11e7-b390-a36dc3fa2842_story.html

Edited because the piece was far too lengthy in original form.

IgorFrankensteen

Sat 01/06/18 08:07 AM

Sounds to me as though they have part of the story right, though they veered off course a bit in trying to justify things.

Rather than using a vague and somewhat illogical moral equivalency to justify providing help, I would prefer that they go after the artificiality of current capitalist calculations directly, and then separately address the idea that a society has a choice between accepting that some people CAN'T function, and will always require the rest of us to help; and accepting instead, that the truly handicapped and needy and old and young will die in the streets.

They mention the structural free support that the wealthy get, but need to be a bit more arithmetically accurate about it, as well as they need to recognize how many resources are artificially priced below cost.

Tom4Uhere

Sat 01/06/18 09:29 AM

Greed is learned.
It is the great motivator of nesting social animals.
It defines us.
We either want something we do not have or want to have more of something we already have.
Keyword is "Want".

There are examples of human beings that are not driven by greed.
These are people that we call wanderers.
They move about the planet seeking nothing, accumulating nothing.
If they nest, they nest to reproduce or have shelter but they can let go of the nest without emotional turmoil.

Most of the other animals on this planet are wanderers. Some are greed driven and accumulate things but are able to let go of ownership easily.

Since greed is learned, it can be unlearned and untaught.
We just haven't figured out how to do that yet.
There is a difference between greed and need.
We are born with needs.
Those needs are simple in nature. Need for water, air, food, a mate. Everything else is greed based.

Dodo_David

Sat 01/06/18 01:21 PM

consider a far larger group that takes in far more money without toil: the idle rich. They soak up plenty of unearned money from the economy, in the form of rent, dividends and capital income.

Apparently the author of this quoted commentary has a warped definition of "unearned".

msharmony

Sat 01/06/18 02:29 PM

consider a far larger group that takes in far more money without toil: the idle rich. They soak up plenty of unearned money from the economy, in the form of rent, dividends and capital income.

Apparently the author of this quoted commentary has a warped definition of "unearned".

I think that is her point actually, what constitutes 'earning' something, if it is the actual effort or task that receives compensation, than things like interest and dividends and other 'perks' of investing wealth would not technically be 'earned'

Dodo_David

Sat 01/06/18 04:09 PM

People earn income by risking their money through investments.
Those so-called "perks" are compensation for the risk.

IgorFrankensteen

Sat 01/06/18 04:47 PM

The idea that wealth is "earned" only by sweat, goes way back in history.

I am convinced that that is the wrong way to think. It ALSO isn't the way to think, to claim that risk is a form of "work," to try to answer that old concern.

There are two real problems besetting us:

* the actual values and costs of business are being manipulated falsely;

* actual wealth creation is often not occurring at all, but fake profits are being claimed.

The standard capitalist calculations work fine, WHEN THE VALUES ASSIGNED ARE HONEST AND ACCURATE. The trouble is, right now, and for a very long time, they are not, and have not been so.

When the real cost of any resource is being artificially reduced, be that material resources or labor resources, the wealth extracted will be fake wealth.

Classic example: it was once allowed that people who mined mineral resources, could make a huge filthy mess of the area, and just walk away, leaving the cost of cleaning up afterwards, to other people. That real cost came home to roost, in the form of the destruction of the ability of other people to extract wealth from the same environment, and from rises in health care costs later due to pollution.

The same problems come up when labor is underpaid. There are real costs of having human beings perform any task, which include a lot more than just the immediate cost of keeping them alive during the time they are working. If we allow employers to pay less than the full cost of labor, the profits they extract wont all be real wealth. It will instead just be shifted real costs, that will have to be paid later by SOMEONE.

The most egregious fake wealth being produced these days, is that which is the result of renaming things, or even lying about them. That's what happened in the infamous subprime mortgage mess, that almost destroyed the entire economic world. NO new real wealth at all was being created. Instead, very rich people were CLAIMING as profits, what were actually entirely unsecured loans that they had no intention of repaying, because they pretended that they weren't unsecured loans.

msharmony

Sun 01/07/18 08:37 AM

People earn income by risking their money through investments.
Those so-called "perks" are compensation for the risk.

but they do not involve actual 'work', like what people feel assistance recipients should have for the basics to live off of.

dust4fun

Sun 01/07/18 09:40 AM

So let's try getting this straight. Are people saying that if you have a desk job and push papers, or are responsible to make important decisions that is not really working? Only people that do things as being physical are truly working? So the President and people in congress and the senate don't actually work? While that is probably a bad example for the amount they get done, but the use of the brain is a physical action and with out paper pushers many people doing physical labor wouldn't have anything to do, or they wouldn't get paid for it. If someone buys a lottery ticket and wins big we understand they took the risk and deserve the reward, its part of the game. Anyone making money has risk and reward and people who get "rich" have gambled their money and built a network of people that have trust in them in order to build their wealth, they have done "work" to put these structures in place.
As far as everyone putting some effort into "working". If someone is 100% physically disabled they still have the function of their brain to do many different things. Someone with mental disabilities is still able to perform some physical activities, so why not have them do so? Its physical and mentally better for them to do so, unfortunately it usually cost more
for everyone else evolved than this actually produces, in other words its often just cheaper and easier to pay them to do nothing at all

msharmony

Sun 01/07/18 09:53 AM

No. earning is being equated to taking in a salary or wages as compensation for 'work'.

And people who bash public assistance are equating earning basic necessities with whether people are taking in salary or wages as compensation for work.

The author is challenging a notion that all money people have is and should be 'earned' through some sort of overt action or salary/wage incurring 'job'.

Integrityis1st

Sun 01/07/18 08:15 PM

nothing simple going on here. Like to weigh in on this, but I can't even comprehend what's going on.

ciretom

Sun 01/07/18 09:14 PM

nothing simple going on here. Like to weigh in on this, but I can't even comprehend what's going on.

It's pretty simple.

OP linked an opinion piece from a millenial liberal.

In essence the opinion is "don't keep money away from the poor, remove tax breaks and increase taxes on the rich!
I mean, they keep arguing there should be work requirements for the poor to deserve being given actual benefits, but really they should put work requirements on the rich to justify them keeping their money since the money isn't coming from labor, since they're so focused on people deserving money.
The government allowing the rich to keep their money is the same as the government paying them money, but they aren't working like poor people to deserve it!"

The author is challenging a notion that all money people have is and should be 'earned' through some sort of overt action or salary/wage incurring 'job'.

Not really.

She's disingenuously equating and conflating welfare reform and tax reform. She does this by calling tax incentives "subsidies," trying to find some way to make it seem the government is giving taxpayer money to rich people the same as they are giving taxpayer money towards poor people.

Integrityis1st

Sun 01/07/18 10:04 PM

When you justify bs with more bs, does that make you smart? Wasn't so much the millennial liberal article. Then there's this(edited because the piece was far too lengthy) which is no surprise.

msharmony

Mon 01/08/18 12:56 AM

For conservatives and thus-inclined Democrats, work requirements are about making sure that people who receive federal aid aren't lazy loafers living off the dole — "welfare queens" in Reaganite parlance.

Built into the claim that it's only fair that poor people should be made to work for welfare are a few troubling assumptions: that poor people don't or won't work; that only compensated, market labor is real work; that society (and the state) always require work to precede income; and that each person is due to receive simply what they earn. Each of those is false.

87 percent of able-bodied adults covered by the Medicaid expansion are already working, in school or seeking work, and that about 75 percent of those not working are full-time caregivers.

before deciding whether it's morally right for them to receive income without working, consider a far larger group that takes in far more money without toil: the idle rich. They soak up plenty of unearned money from the economy, in the form of rent, dividends and capital income. Salaries and wages — that is, money paid for work — only make up about 15 percent of the income of Americans making $10 million per year or more; the rest is capital income from simply owning assets.

In other words, the well-to-do already do what workfare advocates seem so nervous about: rake in money they haven't earned through market labor and thrive off the government's largesse. Perhaps that itself is unfair — so why duplicate it on the other end of the economy? Put simply, it seems ludicrous at best and sadistic at most to start one's fairness policing from the bottom up.

In fact, none of us live entirely on what we earn. We rely on the infrastructure, knowledge and technology developed by those who have come before us, and those contemporaneous with us. Instead of trying to mince each person's life's work into careful calculations of contribution and merit, it seems more sensible to pursue a fairer economy overall: one that directs its excesses not to the already rich, but to those who have the greatest need; one that recognizes in its distributive structure that every person is immeasurably valuable, deserving of life and dignity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/if-the-poor-must-work-to-earn-every-dollar-shouldnt-the-rich/2018/01/05/c36d9a10-f243-11e7-b390-a36dc3fa2842_story.html

Edited because the piece was far too lengthy in original form.

msharmony

Mon 01/08/18 12:59 AM

For conservatives and thus-inclined Democrats, work requirements are about making sure that people who receive federal aid aren't lazy loafers living off the dole — "welfare queens" in Reaganite parlance.

Built into the claim that it's only fair that poor people should be made to work for welfare are a few troubling assumptions: that poor people don't or won't work; that only compensated, market labor is real work; that society (and the state) always require work to precede income; and that each person is due to receive simply what they earn. Each of those is false.

87 percent of able-bodied adults covered by the Medicaid expansion are already working, in school or seeking work, and that about 75 percent of those not working are full-time caregivers.

before deciding whether it's morally right for them to receive income without working, consider a far larger group that takes in far more money without toil: the idle rich. They soak up plenty of unearned money from the economy, in the form of rent, dividends and capital income. Salaries and wages — that is, money paid for work — only make up about 15 percent of the income of Americans making $10 million per year or more; the rest is capital income from simply owning assets.

In other words, the well-to-do already do what workfare advocates seem so nervous about: rake in money they haven't earned through market labor and thrive off the government's largesse. Perhaps that itself is unfair — so why duplicate it on the other end of the economy? Put simply, it seems ludicrous at best and sadistic at most to start one's fairness policing from the bottom up.

In fact, none of us live entirely on what we earn. We rely on the infrastructure, knowledge and technology developed by those who have come before us, and those contemporaneous with us. Instead of trying to mince each person's life's work into careful calculations of contribution and merit, it seems more sensible to pursue a fairer economy overall: one that directs its excesses not to the already rich, but to those who have the greatest need; one that recognizes in its distributive structure that every person is immeasurably valuable, deserving of life and dignity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/if-the-poor-must-work-to-earn-every-dollar-shouldnt-the-rich/2018/01/05/c36d9a10-f243-11e7-b390-a36dc3fa2842_story.html

Edited because the piece was far too lengthy in original form.

seriously, the title of the page is 'If the poor MUST work to earn every dollar, shouldnt the rich?

the issue is defining the requirements to have the dollars, if it is a requirement that EVERY dollar be earned through some type of 'work'(salary or wage), than why is it not the same for wealthy who have plenty of money that is non salary or wage ...

Igortigr

Mon 01/08/18 01:12 AM

There is a good American proverb, you want to help a person buy it a fishing rod. Work is good, this is a feeling of life. There are no boundaries in perfection. To limit someone, I think, to cut a branch on which you sit. Sincerely.

msharmony

Mon 01/08/18 02:22 AM

I agree that contribution is good, contribution feeds a sense of purpose,

there are many ways to contribute that earn no salary or wage however. drinker

Igortigr

Mon 01/08/18 02:41 AM

Communism? Maybe. To each according to needs, from each according to his abilities. God willing. But this is a red rag for today's realities. Regards.

notbeold

Mon 01/08/18 04:45 AM

In Australia you have to do "work for the dole" supposedly to get you job ready, and learn new skills, and keep you from the beach, and 'give back to society', and a list of other government spin reasons.
I've done it. You get an extra $20 a fortnight for travel expenses, and work 15 hours a fortnight. Choices often involve working for free for churches, scouts, charitable food shops, and places like that.

Few skills are learned, few jobs are found, the extra $20 doesn't cover expenses, and you have 2 or 3 less days a week available to find a real proper paying job, but the politicians and bean counters can feel good that they're not giving money away to 'dole bludgers'. It doesn't help real people at all.

If a participant's vehicle has any sort of breakdown or accident they lose out since the unemployment benefit doesn't cover living basics, let alone car repairs. If they fail to turn up to work, it's - cut them off benefits first, ask questions later.

My town has lost most of its manufacturing, there are more school leavers than jobs these days, older workers are invisible, and now everyone is supposed to get jobs in tourism, high tech computer / robot stuff, and service industries. But no one has any money to pay for these supposed services, few tourists flash the cash, and computers - don't talk to me about *%$! computers.

Someone with assets, investments, and a non-labour based disposable income, etc, is at an advantage over a struggler, first home buyer, young family, or just plain unfortunate people like the working poor, if they lose their job.
So why give relief to someone who doesn't NEED it.
Regardless of who sweated in the dirt and the sun, or in air conditioned comfort.
Why attach un-necessary strings to financial relief to people who do actually need it, when no person benefits from the imposition.

Failing to be antisocial does not equal communism.

msharmony

Mon 01/08/18 07:58 AM

It is much the same here in my experience not. Although the impoverished and needy are not left to starve, so long as they can get to a Human Service office and prove their citizenship and their need with a slew of documents. The Food Stamp system is available to combat actual starvation. However it is only for food items and covers nothing else(paper products, hygiene products, and other non edible items)

So we also have a cash assistance program that is like what you have. There is a requirement to perform some 'job' or 'job related' activity. Often, while unemployed, this equates to a 'volunteer' position they set you up with in some Government office to 'earn' that assistance while you are on it. Its pretty cheap labor (it amounted to a got above 2 US dollars an hour when I did it, if you count for the cash assistance, and a little over 4 with cash AND food assistance) for them and a sense of purpose for the unemployed, but with the similar hurdles and obstacles that you mention.

Edited by msharmony on Mon 01/08/18 08:02 AM

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