US Poverty Level

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reckedracing

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My theory is that anyone living in poverty only has themselves to blame, strictly based on mathematics and analysis based on my accounting back ground.
Environmental factors, opportunities, blah blah blah, your mileage may vary.

So lets take a look at the numbers.
2011 HHS Poverty Guidelines
Poverty level for the US 48 is $10,890 for a single person, with an increase of $3,820 for each additional person.

If we look at the math, someone earning only minimum wage 7.25, working a full year 40/52, should earn 15,080. We could throw taxes in the mix but lets face it, anyone in this income level is not going to be facing more than a combined effective tax rate of more than 20%, so even reducing the 15,080 by 20% still leaves 12,064.

Based on assumptions of the job market, if you make yourself available for any shift, for any type of work, in any industry, in any part of the country, you WILL be able to secure a job making this minimum wage. If you cannot secure work you are either too proud, lazy, or have a criminal record that you are responsible for and is ultimately determining your employment or lack there of. And I firmly believe that not only would you be able to find one job, but you could have multiple jobs, whether you needed to or not.

So now the most glaring factor to the poverty levels to me, would be the addition of people into a household, with a constant earning potential. If you're working a minimum wage job and you have a couple trophies at home, all the sudden you are again responsible for being below the poverty level.

So this all comes back around to the all time high level of poverty thats been in the news recently. It just makes me wonder if this could have been prevented if people took a little more responsibility for their futures.

Opinions?
 
So this all comes back around to the all time high level of poverty thats been in the news recently. It just makes me wonder if this could have been prevented if people took a little more responsibility for their futures.

BUT THIS IS AMERICA! The gubment/corporations/special interest groups/anyone but me should be responsible for my hardships and they owe me, dammit!
 
My theory is that anyone living in poverty only has themselves to blame, strictly based on mathematics and analysis based on my accounting back ground.
Environmental factors, opportunities, blah blah blah, your mileage may vary.

So lets take a look at the numbers.
2011 HHS Poverty Guidelines
Poverty level for the US 48 is $10,890 for a single person, with an increase of $3,820 for each additional person.

If we look at the math, someone earning only minimum wage 7.25, working a full year 40/52, should earn 15,080. We could throw taxes in the mix but lets face it, anyone in this income level is not going to be facing more than a combined effective tax rate of more than 20%, so even reducing the 15,080 by 20% still leaves 12,064.

Based on assumptions of the job market, if you make yourself available for any shift, for any type of work, in any industry, in any part of the country, you WILL be able to secure a job making this minimum wage. If you cannot secure work you are either too proud, lazy, or have a criminal record that you are responsible for and is ultimately determining your employment or lack there of. And I firmly believe that not only would you be able to find one job, but you could have multiple jobs, whether you needed to or not.

So now the most glaring factor to the poverty levels to me, would be the addition of people into a household, with a constant earning potential. If you're working a minimum wage job and you have a couple trophies at home, all the sudden you are again responsible for being below the poverty level.

So this all comes back around to the all time high level of poverty thats been in the news recently. It just makes me wonder if this could have been prevented if people took a little more responsibility for their futures.

Opinions?

Liberals will argue that being prideful, lazy or a criminal isnt your fault because people are incapable of thinking/acting in their own best interest. If you come from a neighborhood where everyone is a lazy criminal, what other life do you know? Since you were raised by a bunch of lazy slackers who break the law, you will do the same. You cannot change your future and its someone elses fault your life sux.

Liberals do not believe in personal responsibility. You are not personally responsible for your illegitimate kids. Its the school's fault for not spending enough time on sex education, not enough places handing out free condoms... and with more funding from rich people, we could correct these injustices and save future people from having a life as bad as yours is. Cant find a job? Thats because you must have been discriminated against because you are a minority, a woman, or disabled in a wheelchair (or, suffering from ADHD :rolleyes:). Time to roll out Rev. Sharpton and the ACLU to boycott whoever didnt hire you.

People like to be told that they arent the one's to blame. If you tell them its someone else's fault that their life sucks, you can rally them against whomever you paint as the enemy. This is how the left wins elections. Its always poor vs rich, black vs white, lower classes vs those in power, workers vs business owners, pro choice vs pro life, gays vs straights.

As long as people take the easy way out, they will always remain poor, they will always blame others for their problems, and they will always vote democrat.
 
^^^how the fuck did you come up with that conclusion so fast?, yet type it out, and make 20 different points that are dead on and soo true.????

I gotta like you now.
 
for the most part, im going have to agree. if you're a born american citizen, you should be able to at least make $11,000/year. however, like always, its not black and white.

what if you're 20 or whatever, lets just say young, and you just started working? then you contract some kind of disease or get into an accident and this prevents you from working ever again. then you go on benefits. however, because you didnt work enough quarters, you only get $700 a month.

how about a personal case? never seen a car or an airplane before with no formal education ever and you get shipped to a foreign country. dont know how you're supposed to make a living besides picking fruit...

from my standpoint though, too many damn americans are fucking lazy piece of craps that whine and cry about $hit they dont deserve.:ph34r:
 
i bet 80% of that list would be reduced if you didn't include blacks.

and yes, it is racist....no, wait. fuck you, it's not racist. it's the fucking reality of it.
 
what if you're 20 or whatever, lets just say young, and you just started working? then you contract some kind of disease or get into an accident and this prevents you from working ever again. then you go on benefits. however, because you didnt work enough quarters, you only get $700 a month.
this is such a minimal amount of people it's not even work acknowleding on the census.

how about a personal case? never seen a car or an airplane before with no formal education ever and you get shipped to a foreign country. dont know how you're supposed to make a living besides picking fruit...

if this is the case for anyone, they probably dont' have a social security number. They arent' included on the census. and if they are on the census, they probably aren't collecting welfare or anythign like that. they are self sustained with 10 people in the house and gather all of their money. either way, it's not part of the poverty. with that said, thank you for $2.99 strawberries, i wouldnt' be able to have it with americans picking it.

from my standpoint though, ALL americans are fucking lazy piece of craps that whine and cry about $hit they dont deserve.:ph34r:

fixed. even the guys who work 80 hours a week are still lazy. mostly because they do it because they are forced to, not because they want to "live the american dream".
 
No that's just flat out racist. Just like saying if it didn't include Hispanic and oriental people too, 'MERICA would be a thriving land of wealth and happiness. Not true.

For the most part, the OP is right. If a person made themselves available to all types of work, would still be able to net minimum wage. But because this is an average, unfortunately it's not all 100% able to happen this way. Some areas of the country may have a surplus of people looking for work, and others may desperately need workers. This requires a change of location. And unless you have at the very least first+last rent saved up for a new place, it's very hard to move cities, let alone across the country. So availability and willing to work is an awesome plus, sometimes it's just not enough. And I'm just an outsider, looking at your country from the outside
 
1) i was just giving an example since OP said "everyone." and you are right, that population is insignificant. but there are some people who cant help it.
2) actually, my parents helped fight in the Vietnam war because they were very familiar with the jungle and terrain. being farmers though and living in a jungle, theyve never cars before.

anyway, if someone who doesnt reads, writes or speaks english and 'takes your job,' you are a mother fucking idiot.

and yes i agree, people need to take personal responsibility and not ride the gravy train.
 
No that's just flat out racist. Just like saying if it didn't include Hispanic and oriental people too, 'MERICA would be a thriving land of wealth and happiness. Not true.

what part is racist? the part where i said if you take out the blacks, it will drop 80%? I was just shooting from the hip on those numbers, we would need to include mexicans as well.


Minorities were hit hardest. Blacks experienced the highest poverty rate, at 27 percent, up from 25 percent in 2009, and Hispanics rose to 26 percent from 25 percent. For whites, 9.9 percent lived in poverty, up from 9.4 percent in 2009. Asians were unchanged at 12.1 percent.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/14census.html?_r=2

we will need census data that breaks down the number of each group.
 
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i dont trust the census.

its not filled out by every person in america.

im willing to bet that they selected the poorest demographics and targeted those areas for the census filing.

its all statistics, and you can get statistics to go which ever way you want when you decide which portion gets to fill out the form.

when they do a full census, for every person to fill out. then i may give it some credibility.
 
what i find even more disturbing and frustrating is the f**king welfare system; any felon can get welfare EXCEPT drug sellers? WTF? why even feed pedo-bears, murders and rapists?

also, apparently, due to some BS privacy law, if an illegal uses someone's social securty number to get benefits, the workers cant do shit about it and have to grant them the welfarez if they qualify??? workers cant even contact the person getting scammed that someone is using their SSN.

lastly, if you go in for yous welfarez, bring your own damn translator. i cant even imagine the resources we waste finding translators for people who cant speak english to get them their welfare.

killz the welfarez.
 
wait, you got 4? like, 4 census forms instead of the one?

because they only sent out a certain number of those forms, if you received 4 and only needed one then that only goes to prove that the census numbers are complete bs.
 
So, what standards are the estimated poverty level set to? Housing alone is a big factor. Rates vary greatly there. Availability too. In my area, its a bit of a challenge to find cheap housing, cuz people toein the poverty line are already in it. Its not impossible to find, just difficult.

Im not disagreeing with you, just wondering how this is determined. I hate to question the wonderful job the US government has done so far.
 
I've filled out a census before too.
 
I think the biggest problem with the whole thing is that the poverty level is $11k. Are you kidding me it should be $20k a year realistically
 
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