Quote:
Originally Posted by tucson
Senior, I enjoyed reading your last post :-) I see an honest description of your grandparents and other family members who came from Europe during yrs of hardship, as did a lot of our ancestors. It was a different time than today. But still, one can choose to either get a job, or a 2nd job, go to school to learn a new and better paying profession, start a new business OR collect welfare for rent money, food stamps, etc. NOT judgmental,
...just being honest..... :-)
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You just don't get it. There is a book called "nickeled and dimed in the USA". I don't remember the author, but she is collage educated but pretends she's not and tries to live on the wages of several professions. "Merry maids", waitressing, and "Wallmart" are ones I remember. Very interesting read. Also if you watch "Undercover boss" you will see people whose struggles are very real, who want to go to school but can't figure it.
The bottom line is we no longer pay a living wage and even when parents are both working two jobs they can still get behind just trying to keep up. One medical mishap is all it takes. I don't know anyone who would rather go through the humiliation of jumping through all the hoops one goes through to get wic or food stamps or welfare rather then have a livable wage paying job that allows them dignity and hope.
In the "good old days" my great grandfather fed his many tenants from his garden, took in his children's families so they would have housing and mortgaged everything rather then have to evict anyone. The local bank had made a deal with him that they wouldn't foreclose until he died.
Also in our ancestors immigrant day, you could have many people living in a two room tenement apt without getting evicted.
Life was better in some ways, for some people and worse for others, and it is the same today.
Gone are the days when you could work your way through collage, replaced by incurring large debt that there is no guarantee of a job to pay for it. We are still in a recession which may not be a depression but it's pretty darn close. Food and shelter should be attainable to everyone no matter what jobs they do.