Quote:
Originally Posted by Robbie
Then why don't all those people quit and find a better job?
And how much money does Walmart SAVE the "taxpayers" when you shop there. Oh, I guess they don't put that into the equation. Or how much Walmart pays in local, state, and federal taxes for that store. Oh, left that out too.
No, I'm not mad at them. I'm bewildered that you are eating up this pro-union lobbyists horseshit without questioning it at all.
The govt. said it so it MUST be true! 
Think about that while they spy on you, search you at the airport, and take YOUR tax dollars and siphon it off to their cronies in the military industrial complex. |
One of my theories is that people who are getting government money while working at these jobs have little motivation to quit and find better jobs because they are living a decent life on the government dollar.
Say for example you are a single mom working at McDonald's making $9/hr. Because you don't make very much you get food stamps, housing assistance, day car assistance, food assistance if you kid goes to school and energy assistance. Total your government money works out to the equivalent of making an additional $10 per hour so you are living the life of someone who is making $19/hr. If that is the case this person may have little motivation to try to find a job where they will make $13-$14/hr but because they make more and lose much if not all of their government money.
A friend of mine's sister is one of these people. She is 24 years old, healthy, in good physical shape and obviously capable of taking care of herself. She has a 3yr old daughter. She applied for welfare and gets $350 per month in food stamps, some cash (I'm not sure how much) and free health insurance. She then qualified for housing assistance. They told her they would pay up to $850 per month towards her rent and she had to pay any difference above or beyond that and if the place was less than that she had to co-pay $30 per month. The catch was that she had to work at least part time to get this. So she got a job working at some fast food place and only works about 20 hours per week. She moved into a 2 bedroom apartment and the government pays all but $30 of the rent. They also started giving her childcare money which she uses to pay one of her friends to watch her kid on the days she works.
So she barely works, yet lives in a nice apartment, has a car, has cable, internet, laptop, big screen TV, iPhone and dresses nicely. If you saw her walking down the street you would assume she was an average, everyday middle class mom. You would never guess she only works 20 hours per week flipping burgers.
She has zero interest in going to school or getting a better job or working more. Her job actually offers her more hours and she turns them down because if she makes much more money they will take away some of the welfare cash they give her. When I heard about this I was floored and from what I understand it is more common than you might realize.
Just to humor myself I went to McDonald's today for lunch. I went inside so I could get a decent look at the people working there. The manager is a guy I went to high school with and who graduated a year before me. I had seen him in here before and knew this. He has worked here since high school. I don't know how much he makes, but he is manager so it is likely in the $40K range. Of the remaining staff that I could see about half of them seemed to be high school age and the other half were adults. Not elderly, but people clearly in their 20's and 30's. I was a little surprised to see that many people of that age here.