Quote:
Originally Posted by charlieo1126@gmail.com
Always good to start a trouble thread with wrong information and it would be nice to use the word working poor and that includes a lot of people , if it works properly it could cut child hunger and needs by 50%
|
While I have a visceral reaction against giving away money like this, and while I am skeptical of this “child hunger” argument (given that I’ve seen plenty of overweight poor children, but I’ve NEVER seen a kid on the sidewalk in this country starving to death), there are a lot of people in this country who my Uncle Johnny used to call “pitiful poor.” (He grew up poor in southern Virginia without running water or a toilet, so “pitiful poor” was below that.) That sort of poverty doesn’t mean you can’t be happy or smile or laugh, but it grinds you down, and it hurts to not be able to buy anything or afford a little birthday present for your child.
The fact is, while plenty of this money will be used to by drugs, liquor, etc., nearly all of it will be used to BUY THINGS. When poor people who haven’t had enough money to buy things get a lot more, they buy a lot more. They spend it all. That means more things have to be made or cooked or whatever, and that means people have to be hired to make all this. Essentially, we the people are giving money to poor people so they will help grow the economy by consuming more. It sort of balances out, though it’s perhaps not a very efficient way of doing things.
One interesting point is that if the minimum wage were double what it is now, all those people earning minimum wages would have a lot more to spend without it having to come from the government. This would incentivise people to take jobs and work, and they might actually be paying taxes instead of receiving much more back as “refunds” than they ever pay in federal income tax. Business owners would have to charge more to cover the extra cost of the wages, yes, but that’s how it works. You and I would have to pay a little more to buy things. Maybe that pizza would cost a dollar more! But would you rather support people through fair wages or through government handouts? Also, if businesses were required to provide health insurance to workers, then yes, prices would go up, but the need for Medicaid would go down a lot. As it is, American taxpayers are subsidising all these businesses that pay so little that full-time workers still qualify for Medicaid, free lunches in school, big tax rebates, etc.