Poverty rate growing in state

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

quote:Originally posted by swake



Your argument pointless, off base and you are attrubuting positions to me that I have not taken.

Re-read.  "Class envy" was attributed to USR, not you.

quote:
It is a moral failure of our regional culture, just like our high divorce rate and high unwed mother rate. Places with better social and governmental support networks for the poor and disadvantaged are places with less poverty and higher incomes.

You aren't making sense or I grabbed my obtuse glasses off the nightstand this morning.  If those areas have less poverty and higher incomes, then why do they need better social programs?  Better social and governmental support networks are generally there because their is greater poverty, greater instances of unwed pregnancy, and greater instances of crime.  Just what am I missing here?

If you are implying Tulsa doesn't have good support networks from faith, other private, and government sources- you really aren't in touch with what all our region offers the less fortunate.

quote:

No, but I do have a somewhat impersonal education in what I am talking about. When I was younger my father was the head psychologist a maximum security prison and my mother was the supervisor of a child abuse investigation unit. I got to hear a lot about a some of the people I'm talking about coming and going.

We are a wealthy enough nation that everyone should have basic food, shelter and healthcare.  It's simple and not as costly as NOT doing that.

Everyone does have "basic" food, shelter, and healthcare.  Quit pretending it doesn't exist.  

Welfare, Food Stamps, Section 8, Medicaid.

quote:

An example. Shelter and basic healthcare for the homeless. We don't provide this as a society. But we DO pay for not doing so. I have read that the average healthcare bill for a chronically homeless person is over $100,000 dollars a year, for healthcare only.  Add in the cost of the jail time they regulary do, the cost of the charity they receive. Society pays a ton of money for these people, and to keep them in miserable condition. A lot more than we would pay to keep them in some basic form.

Wait.  We don't pay for it.  No we pay a high price when we don't pay for it.  No, wait, we pay $100K per year for homeless healthcare.  Which is it?

quote:

We all know that kids that grow up desperate with food and shelter insecurity are much less like to not complete high school and are much more likely to have kids at a young age and to become drug addicts and yes, criminals. Kids that grow up in abusive homes are off the charts with all of those problems and they in turn have lots of kids just like them. We spend nearly nothing on investigating child abuse.  What is the annual healthcare bill for a street drug user? What the annual cost to keep someone in prison? What does it cost in welfare and healthcare when a 15 year old has a child? When a 20 year old has three? The nice anecdotes about kids overcoming these situations are so rare that they rate being on the nightly news.

I don't think we spend too little money, I think we spend it in the wrong way. We spend far more on a prisoners than we do on students. We all pay far more for healthcare than we should because we have a permanent uninsured underclass that uses emergency rooms as a doctors office.

We have a fair to poor education system that we love to complain about, but we pay teachers such a low wage that very few top college graduates would ever consider going into public education. But we certainly pay when they drop out and start stealing or dealing. We pay far more than we would if we just did the right thing.

My arguments are no more or less pointless or off-base than yours.  My opinion is, you can't spend someone out of bad habits or poor choices.  I've personally tried too many times with family members and friends.

It's just not possible if the individual doesn't take personal responsibility or initiative.  I recognize there are people with mental and physical addictions and mental illnesses who simply cannot make good choices nor take initiative.

It's like a family trying to make a drug user clean by getting them into re-hab or 12-step.  Until that person is really ready to make a change no matter what level of help comes their way, they aren't going to improve themselves until they are ready to do it for themselves.  That is human nature.

Instead of acknowledging what all of us already know, what is your solution?  Spend less on prisons and law enforcement and put more money into colleges?  Put all poor people into $100K houses so we can feel better about our own success?

I really don't see where you are going with this.

I would have some form of nationalized health care. I believe that by removing insurance from the cost equation and by providing preventative healthcare to all instead of catastrophic healthcare only to all, which is the very costly alternative we trying now, we could actually cover everyone, have better health for all and actually spend less.

And, I am not for less law enforcement. I'm for more. Spend less on prisons and more on cops. I'm for less jail time and also for alternative punishments over prison in many cases. Studies have shown that the severity of punishment is a poor driver of behavior. The best deterrent to crime is the surety of punishment. If a criminal thinks they have a 10% chance of being caught for stealing a car, they are going to steal that car regardless of the length of prison term they might get. Come on, they are stupid enough to be stealing a car. But, if they think there's a 90% chance they WILL get caught, it's a whole other situation even if the punishment is only a couple of months in jail. Let's solve every crime possible and the crime rate will go down quickly, not because we've locked everyone up (we are already trying that here in Oklahoma) but because potential criminals will be scared to commit a crime.

Certainly there are really bad people that should go away forever, but, in most cases longer prison sentences do nothing but drive up cost and get politicians reelected. That and create more hardened criminals.

I'm also for paying teachers a LOT more money. Change the calculus for college students where only the altruistic or mediocre become teachers. Make teaching a career that is well compensated and in demand for students. I'm also for ending tenure, for merit pay for teachers and for a much longer school year.

[Conan71]

Okay, Swake.  I think we are back talking where we can reasonibly understand each other.  I don't disagree that having a policeman nearby is a good deterrent to crime.  Unfortunately, that's a municipal issue, and we have more emphasis on wanting to attract convention business, and upgrading our river than paying for more police.

To effectively police to the point of deterrence, you are talking about needing a cop for every few blocks.  If you concentrate on one problem area, the criminals move to an area less patrolled.  It's really still a choice issue that no one can control in the mind of the criminal instead of the criminal himself.

As far as education, I wish we had better deals on higher education for kids in our state.  TCC's recent gift to our community's graduates is working to get more kids enrolled.  I just wish our four-year schools could offer better in-state deals for kids with less paper-work and hassle, especially targeting rural and "at-risk" areas.

I don't know how much raising teacher pay would improve the level of education.  I don't think the teachers at Jenks, where my kids are enrolled, are paid vastly higher than teachers at McLain in north Tulsa.  Yet Jenks performs better every year than McLain.  A lot has to do with how involved parents are, what other social distractions there are in the neighborhood, and crime.  You could pay teachers $100K per year at McLain and police the hell out of that area and that still wouldn't change the poor performance at that school as long as parents aren't involved or conducive to their child's education.

I'm not entirely "anti" on universal health care.  It needs a closer look and I don't like it packaged as a campaign promise.  It's too in-depth to package into an eight minute sound bite on the campaign trail.  In fact, I think you were the only other person who responded when I started that thread a few months ago, and I appreciate your positions on it.

Point is, we spend a ton on social programs, when someone acts like we aren't it get's my hackles up.  I know from a first-hand view that there are tons of money spent on healthcare by the gov't.  You would crap if I told you how much the gov't pays per day for skilled care.  We already pay plenty.  We need to manage it all better.

Government is too big and too layered and trying to serve too many people in too many ways to do everything more effectively than private companies.  That's MO.

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Re-read. "Class envy" was attributed to USR, not you.

That's a lie, Conan.  I've known plenty of nice rich people.  Some self-made, some who inherited their wealth.  Some seem almost ashamed of their old money.  And I've met some homeless people who, after I heard their stories, turned out to be far better educated than I ever could have guessed... once again, there but for the grace of God go I...

It's unfortunate that I have had multiple experiences in Tulsa with a local upper crust that... let's just say... is extra crustie... hmm... accusing me of class envy?... ah, the memories... typical Cascia mentality... []

For the decades during/after WWII, the highest tax bracket paid over 90% in taxes... then there was the war on poverty in the 60s...

The propaganda of flat-tax right wing radio insists that it's only today's liberals who want progressive taxation...

Yeah, CF... you certainly tell us how government is always the problem.

You keep telling me that a rise in minimum wage does nothing to combat poverty.  In most states, you'd be right, because the national minimum wage is a joke in most of the country.  In Oklahoma, it will have an effect.  

You don't have to be rich to be an elitist.

All you need for that title is someone who's suburb-phobic who insists government programs like social security, medicare and minimum wage laws have never helped anyone and imply should be dismantled and scrapped...

And that nobody in the lower 50% in income pays taxes... yeah, guess we're just a buncha bums...[}:)]

Conan can argue more about how pampered the lower classes are...  Then can talk about how he worked for minimum wage... you know, all I'm asking for is a minimum wage that is adjusted for inflation so it's not used as a tug of war with millions of students, single mothers, and children caught in the crossfire...

Yeah, talk about class envy... nobody seems to  remember what it was like when their min wage jobs had more purchasing power and just have no sympathy for the folks who today work JUST AS HARD as you worked back in the day for less adjusted pay...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12699486/paul_krugman_on_the_great_wealth_transfer/print

http://www.inclusionist.org/files/lowwagework.pdf

[aoxamaxoa]

This thread has become the tower of babel....

You can no longer get off a boat and make it through hard work and innovation in America. We are no more greater than Vietnam for opportunity.

Be afraid if you have had afluenza. Tax rates on the rich need to escalate back into the %70 bracket as in the 1950's post WWII to rebuild this country. Return to the theory that govenment should give a hand up to the uneducated, unhealthy, and underclass.

The Republican mantra for too long, other than FAMILY VALUES, has been lower taxes. BS.
Look back to post WWII for a leason in what this country needs to lift up those that have missed out on Reaganomics.

What's that smell?

It's the tower of babel burning.....

[Breadburner]

**Sniff**Sniff**

[TheArtist]

Alright, lets break this down a bit.

I know the economy in this area is doing well enough that a person, even without having graduated high school, can get a job paying 8 to 10 dollars an hour, or even more. There is no reason for any capable person to have worked for 5 dollars an hour for 10 years.

I could go out right now, lie about my work history, say I didnt have an education and get a decent starter job, find a cheap place to stay, not use a car, and within a relatively short amount of time find a way to go to school, get a better job and be making well above the poverty rate.

The opportunities are there. This isnt a bad economy.

Yet we have 30% drop out rates what does that tellyou about the parents of those kids and their value of an education and probably the "stick-to-itiveness" (or however you spell that lol) of their work ethic?

How do we get those kids to stay in school if their parents dont care? If its not through having more teachers, mentors, or some sort of program where we have to spend money. How? If we dont want to spend money are we saying that we dont care that peope live in poverty and therefor we shouldnt be complaining about the poverty rate? I am talking generalities here not the special cases of mental illness etc. 30% of our kids and adults are not mentally ill or drug users. I hope.

I contend that most of the people who live in poverty in this area are doing so because they dont have the tools, descision making skills, education, ethic, whatever you want to call it, or simply choose to... rather than it being the fault of the economy and there not being enough opportunity to progress.

Certain jobs dont require much skills and if you raise the pay for those jobs your devaluing the effort the other person took to gain the skills to be in another job.


If one person is making 5 dollars an hour at a job that requires little or no skills.

Another person is working at a job for 7 dollars an hour and they work smarter or harder at that job.

If you raise the wages of the 5 dollar job to 7 dollars an hour, you are devaluing the effort or skills of the other person. Reminds me of those communist factories where nobody was incentivised to work harder because pretty much no matter what job you did you got paid the same.

If the one worker whose work has less value, is now making as much as the worker who is working harder or smarter, would that be fair? Wouldnt it be likely that the second worker would then be paid more, because that would only be right? If you raised the rate everyone works to reflect that fairness and work value, then your essentially right back where you started with the same disparity in income and prices for commodities and goods.

If 5 dollars an hour was poverty wage, then soon 7 dollars an hour would be a poverty wage. Playing with the wages may have a temporary effect but soon it would all settle back down to... merit.

A kid working part time or a person who is single, someone who is semi retired, a second income, someone in a third world country, etc. are a few examples of the kind of people who can work at "starter", low skilled, jobs for low wages. Someone with a family of 4 should not expect that those types of jobs will enable them to raise their family. And we shouldnt try to screw with the system to artificially give more value to a job than it really has. If you need more money you need to be working at a higher value job. The opportunity exists to do so.

You may temporarily decrease the poverty rate, but in the end you may actually see the the poverty rate grow once everything settles out. By disincentivising merit, not creating a culture that values a different kind of higher value work, that is forced to evolve and change from one type of work to another, you will create forces that could hold the society back. You will run the risk of growing even more poverty in that society.

[aoxamaxoa]

babel babel

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by aoxamaxoa

babel babel

See, you don't actually post anything AOX. People don't disagree with you, no one is trying to silence your position. You have no position. You don't say anything. All your posts contain are snarky insults, and it's not even always clear who you are insulting.

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by TheArtist

Alright, lets break this down a bit.

I know the economy in this area is doing well enough that a person, even without having graduated high school, can get a job paying 8 to 10 dollars an hour, or even more. There is no reason for any capable person to have worked for 5 dollars an hour for 10 years.

I could go out right now, lie about my work history, say I didnt have an education and get a decent starter job, find a cheap place to stay, not use a car, and within a relatively short amount of time find a way to go to school, get a better job and be making well above the poverty rate.

The opportunities are there. This isnt a bad economy.

Yet we have 30% drop out rates what does that tellyou about the parents of those kids and their value of an education and probably the "stick-to-itiveness" (or however you spell that lol) of their work ethic?

How do we get those kids to stay in school if their parents dont care? If its not through having more teachers, mentors, or some sort of program where we have to spend money. How? If we dont want to spend money are we saying that we dont care that peope live in poverty and therefor we shouldnt be complaining about the poverty rate? I am talking generalities here not the special cases of mental illness etc. 30% of our kids and adults are not mentally ill or drug users. I hope.

I contend that most of the people who live in poverty in this area are doing so because they dont have the tools, descision making skills, education, ethic, whatever you want to call it, or simply choose to... rather than it being the fault of the economy and there not being enough opportunity to progress.

Certain jobs dont require much skills and if you raise the pay for those jobs your devaluing the effort the other person took to gain the skills to be in another job.


If one person is making 5 dollars an hour at a job that requires little or no skills.

Another person is working at a job for 7 dollars an hour and they work smarter or harder at that job.

If you raise the wages of the 5 dollar job to 7 dollars an hour, you are devaluing the effort or skills of the other person. Reminds me of those communist factories where nobody was incentivised to work harder because pretty much no matter what job you did you got paid the same.

If the one worker whose work has less value, is now making as much as the worker who is working harder or smarter, would that be fair? Wouldnt it be likely that the second worker would then be paid more, because that would only be right? If you raised the rate everyone works to reflect that fairness and work value, then your essentially right back where you started with the same disparity in income and prices for commodities and goods.

If 5 dollars an hour was poverty wage, then soon 7 dollars an hour would be a poverty wage. Playing with the wages may have a temporary effect but soon it would all settle back down to... merit.

A kid working part time or a person who is single, someone who is semi retired, a second income, someone in a third world country, etc. are a few examples of the kind of people who can work at "starter", low skilled, jobs for low wages. Someone with a family of 4 should not expect that those types of jobs will enable them to raise their family. And we shouldnt try to screw with the system to artificially give more value to a job than it really has. If you need more money you need to be working at a higher value job. The opportunity exists to do so.

You may temporarily decrease the poverty rate, but in the end you may actually see the the poverty rate grow once everything settles out. By disincentivising merit, not creating a culture that values a different kind of higher value work, that is forced to evolve and change from one type of work to another, you will create forces that could hold the society back. You will run the risk of growing even more poverty in that society.

Wages, especially low end wages, are very small components to overall cost of goods. A marginal increase in the minimum wage will create needed wage pressure from the bottom of the employment pool. And this is very needed as overall wages have not increased in the United States in a decade.

That $5 job becomes $7, and the $7 becomes $9 and so on. Most increases in the minimum wage have increased federal tax revenues in this way and have helped the overall economy. This is due to people at the low end of the wage scale spend every cent they have, it's a huge and immediate cash influx into the economy with only a marginal overall increase on the cost of goods.

[aoxamaxoa]

quote:Originally posted by swake

quote:Originally posted by aoxamaxoa

babel babel

See, you don't actually post anything AOX. People don't disagree with you, no one is trying to silence your position. You have no position. You don't say anything. All your posts contain are snarky insults, and it's not even always clear who you are insulting.

\

Just a difference in egos....

Posties can be so verbose.

I can do it in fewer words...

Look in a mirror....

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by aoxamaxoa

quote:Originally posted by swake

quote:Originally posted by aoxamaxoa

babel babel

See, you don't actually post anything AOX. People don't disagree with you, no one is trying to silence your position. You have no position. You don't say anything. All your posts contain are snarky insults, and it's not even always clear who you are insulting.

\

Just a difference in egos....

Posties can be so verbose.

I can do it in fewer words...

Look in a mirror....

You are the light beer of posters, 1700 posts, no content.

[TheArtist]

Quote from ..."Wages, especially low end wages, are very small components to overall cost of goods. A marginal increase in the minimum wage will create needed wage pressure from the bottom of the employment pool. And this is very needed as overall wages have not increased in the United States in a decade.

That $5 job becomes $7, and the $7 becomes $9 and so on. Most increases in the minimum wage have increased federal tax revenues in this way and have helped the overall economy. This is due to people at the low end of the wage scale spend every cent they have, it's a huge and immediate cash influx into the economy with only a marginal overall increase on the cost of goods."


The cost of goods rising was a tiny and unimportant part of what I was trying to get at.


Why incentivise keeping so many low end jobs when we need to transition into more high end jobs? Is it really good in a global market to prop up a lot of people competing with uneducated workers in third world countries? Is that the kind of labor force we want? Or should those jobs die out here and we move up to a different level?

Why be a city or state competing with other cities and states that incentivises people to do well at low end jobs when those same people could be making much more at high end jobs?

Making the economy better or increasing tax revenues by raising wages of low end jobs just sounds fishy to me. The primary mission of jobs isnt just to raise more taxes. That cant be the goal or you will lose sight of other issues. The economy should get better for other reasons not because of artificial wage increases.

Wages should increase because of natural economic factors. Having more skilled knowlege workers, for instance, will raise wages and improve tax revenue. I would rather push the economy in that direction rather than having a city of workers that are trying to compete with some poor workers in Bangladesh or Mississippi. Who wants to enable a local economy like that?

We want more high wage jobs in this state. You dont get that by simply raising the wages of people who are doing low wage work.

While there are some correlations between minimum wages and poverty rates. The strongest correlations to wages and poverty levels is connected to education not the amount of the minimum wage. Another strong correlation is between rural, more poverty, and urban, lower poverty rates. There are of course exceptions like Detroit and St Louis, both of which are in states that have higher minimum wages than Oklahoma.

I believe Texas has about the same minimum wage that Oklahoma has. Yet within Texas you can find huge disparities between cities. Plano has one of the lowest rates of poverty in the nation and Brownsville and College Station have some of the highest rates of poverty in the nation.  

Quite a few states with higher minimum wages have higher poverty rates than some with lower minimum wages.  We can go round and round with statistics  but suffice it to say the strongest correlations, no matter how you slice it, to poverty and wages is with the educational levels and types of jobs the people in an area have.  

http://www.huliq.com/32195/household-income-rises-poverty-rate-declines-number-of-uninsured-up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S.A._minimum_wages

[aoxamaxoa]

quote:Originally posted by swake

quote:Originally posted by aoxamaxoa

quote:Originally posted by swake

quote:Originally posted by aoxamaxoa

babel babel

See, you don't actually post anything AOX. People don't disagree with you, no one is trying to silence your position. You have no position. You don't say anything. All your posts contain are snarky insults, and it's not even always clear who you are insulting.

\

Just a difference in egos....

Posties can be so verbose.

I can do it in fewer words...

Look in a mirror....

You are the light beer of posters, 1700 posts, no content.

well, for having no content...i can sure rankle some nerves.


very content....

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

It's unfortunate that I have had multiple experiences in Tulsa with a local upper crust that... let's just say... is extra crustie... hmm... accusing me of class envy?... ah, the memories... typical Cascia mentality... []

For the decades during/after WWII, the highest tax bracket paid over 90% in taxes... then there was the war on poverty in the 60s...

The propaganda of flat-tax right wing radio insists that it's only today's liberals who want progressive taxation...

Conan can argue more about how pampered the lower classes are...  Then can talk about how he worked for minimum wage... you know, all I'm asking for is a minimum wage that is adjusted for inflation so it's not used as a tug of war with millions of students, single mothers, and children caught in the crossfire...

Typical Cascia mentality...[}:)]

I don't have an issue with minimum wage increasing.  It's still no panacea for moving more people out of poverty, though.  Minimum wage jobs are typically entry-level for the job market and aren't intended to be a life-time career stop.  People who are only working for minimum wage after being in the job market for a number of years likely haven't bothered to improve their job skills to move them on up the ladder.  

Sorry for accusing you of class envy, but so many of your posts seem to have a real bitter disdain for this country's wealthy, and you have mentioned being under-employed several times in the time I've been reading this forum.  

I do have an issue with brutal taxation on the class which provides the bulk of money either via direct involvement or passive investment into private enterprise which employs others.  The more money you take, the less that class has to create more higher paying jobs.

Tax cuts have actually provided record net tax revenue for the IRS.  It's a proven theory which works.  We don't need more money in the government coffers, government needs to better manage what money it has and shift it's priorities.  Soaking the rich is no solution.

It's a fallacy that all wealthy people are stepping all over the heads of a bunch of minimum wage schmucks to get wealthier.  Look at how many high-paying private sector jobs there are out there.

I don't think there's anyone who is still touting a "flat tax".  That's been a proven failure in other countries.  According to the models which have been created, the "fair tax", which is a national sales tax, would still provide good tax relief for the lowest earners via rebates and would actually provide higher tax collections for the Fed. Gov't than more progressive taxation.

[cannon_fodder]

National Sales Tax +1