Quote:
Originally Posted by Robbie
kane, go into Walmart and look at the employees. Ask yourself...does that mesh with what you read in those stats?
Do I know people with kids who work at Walmart? Yes. Do their kids get "free lunch" at school? I have no idea. I do know that the girls I know personally at Walmart who have a kid, have enough money to go out to the local bars and to eat out at restaurants and even buy a little weed.
They also get employee discounts on everything in Walmart (which is pretty sweet...I've done some Christmas shopping at K-Mart by giving a friend of mine the money and made out like a bandit with her buying everything with her discount)
I'm not going to subscribe to this b.s. that people with jobs are being mistreated somehow because they are ringing you up at the cash register at Walmart or taking your order at McDonalds.
Why aren't you and I doing that? Why aren't you and I working at Walmart or at McDonalds?
Because we had bigger things in mind. And our money that we make shows it.
Just like a doctor makes more than a guy paving the road. Does the guy paving the road work "harder". You bet your ass he does. But that doesn't mean he "deserves" as much money as the doctor who has the intelligence and the education and skills.
One thing is for sure...99.99% of the people are "worker bees". I don't know why that is. But I'm glad of it. Makes it easier for ambitious people to rise up.
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I actually think the handouts are helping to keep these people in the lower wage jobs and they are also helping to keep wages for jobs like this down.
A while back I watched a documentary about poverty in the US. One of the people they followed was a woman who admits she was dumb and got knocked up at 18. Right after her kid was born the kids dad went to jail for a long time.
Three years later she gets married to another guy. They end up having three kids together and for 5-6 years lived a very normal, happy life. They both worked, made a decent living and had a normal middle class life. Then one day he decided he didn't want that anymore and left. Just disappeared. She has no idea where he is. From time to time he pops up on the state's radar when he starts working and they take money from his checks to pay back child support, but then he quits the job and disappears again. He is a deadbeat.
She has a full time job working at an assisted living center. She doesn't make much and has 4 kids so she gets food stamps, housing assistance (they live in a nice 4 bedroom house) daycare assistance and other things so she lives a decent life with all of these government programs.
At her job she started coming up with some good ideas for actives for the residents. Her boss was so impressed that she offered her a huge promotion. The company has 8 different facilities. She would be in charge of the activities for all of them and oversea the people at each place that worked with the residence. It was a big pay increase. She sat down and crunched the numbers and realized that if she took the job she would make too much and no longer qualify for her aid. If that happened it would be the equivalent of a 25% loss in pay. She went to her boss, explained the situation and her boss told her that if she had a bachelors degree she would be a in a different pay grade and they could pay her more for this job and she would get better raises so her starting pay would be about the same as the combination of benefits plus wages that she has now and it would increase as she got raises. So they agreed to promote her, but not give her a raise and the company paid for her to got to school. When she got the degree she would get the big raise and a bonus check that would make up for the lack of a raise now, but for now she could stay on the benefits while getting the degree.
She came right out and said she likely wouldn't have taken the job had they not given her the option of going back to school because she didn't want to lose her government aid. I think that is prevailing thought for a lot people. I would bet there are plenty of younger people working at walmart making a shitty wage and getting plenty of government handouts and the combination of the two of them allow them to live a decent life so they don't have a lot of motivation to go out and do better.
I grew up in a small town where there were a decent number of poor people. I was on the free lunch program because we were poor and I would guess that at least 50% of the students were was well. I would guess that those who work at Walmart and are the sole bread winners for their houses and have kids are getting food stamps and free lunches and other things. Some may be getting more than others, but I would not be at all shocked to see it.
Sorry for the long ass post. It is 3am and I am rambling.