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Whoever downvoted this comment doesn't understand it at all. The working poor are a revenue source. By keeping people indebted, they remain predictable consume

Whoever downvoted this comment doesn't understand it at all. The working poor are a revenue source. By keeping people indebted, they remain predictable consumers and fixed-income assets, like a human bond. The impoverished are effectively trapped by the welfare system itself, because it reduces benefits as incomes rise at a faster rate than can be made up by the equivalent amount of work. If the minimum wage was a living wage, like in Australia, then this wouldn't be a problem. But instead American welfare/min-wage clearly incentivizes staying just poor enough to keep getting benefits, or else you are actively making yourself poorer by working more. This is why so many Walmart employees are on food stamps.

jacalata 10y ago
> the poor get handouts, the working poor get fines > many Walmart employees are on food stamps. Are you implying that Walmart employees are not 'working poor', or is the first sentence a dramatic over-generalization that doesn't contribute to the conversation?
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  Minimum wage Walmart employees are often working poor. Poverty depends on perspective. Most Revolution-Era Americans were living in what we today would call extreme poverty. But you can have a tv and a smartphone today and still be quite poor, because of the difference in consumer cost between things we need and things we don't need. www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/17/the-stuff-we-really-need-is-getting-more-expensive-other-stuff-is-getting-cheaper
  - jacalata 10y ago
    Yes, I agree that Walmart employees are the working poor. I don't understand how you can recognise that and also argue for the validity of this statement >There is a big difference between poor and working poor. The poor get handouts, the working poor get fines because they can't afford Obamacare. Then people wonder why the poor don't struggle their way to working poor.
    - WillPostForFood 10y ago
      I suspect you guys agree. I don't think he is saying there is a big difference in that they are both poor. The difference is that the poor are are being rewarded (transfer payments) while the working poor are being punished (they have to work, but still get fined, and pay taxes).
      - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
        Poor, working poor, lower middle class, they're all crude definitions for people who are struggling. Arguing over who is more or less struggling or deserving is to play the oldest rich person's game of fight-for-scraps.
        WillPostForFood 10y ago
        The argument isn't about who is struggling more, or is more deserving, it is how you might use different policies to help working poor vs the poor who can't even get a job, and how policies that intended to help one might inadvertently hurt the other.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Walmart pitches social programs as part of your compensation package when you apply. They dont exist to help the poor, its there to subsidize wages for the benefit of corporations.
JamesBarney 10y ago
The impoverished are effectively trapped by the welfare system itself, because it reduces benefits as incomes rise at a faster rate than can be made up by the equivalent amount of work This isn't true. The CBO extensivesly evaluates changes in benefits and taxes to calculate effectice marginal tax rates across the income distribution to make sure that you never make less money from working more. There are a couple of ranges where you will lose money from working more, but none of them are larger than 25c/hr. https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/50923-MarginalTaxRates.pdf https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-...
- linkregister 10y ago
  Some tax credits disappear faster than the rate of increased income. The only federal ones I'm familiar with are on the upper-middle-class portion. California has some incentives that cliff at around $40k per household, no graduation (e.g. renters deduction).
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  The document you link to says: The marginal tax rates include the combined effects of federal and state individual income taxes, federal payroll taxes, and benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and cost-sharing subsidies for health insurance, generally on the basis of 2016 law. Unfortunately, SNAP and ACA health insurance subsidies are not the only means-tested welfare bits, and the other ones are _not_ being included here. Most prominently missing are Medicaid, TANF, and Section 8 housing, but there are a _lot_ of means-tested programs (e.g. Pell Grants) that only apply to certain households. Now I do think it's true that the income ranges where the effective marginal "tax" rate is over 100% are fairly narrow for most households. But the ranges where the rates are less than 100% but not much less are far wider. And that gives you an effective take-home hourly wage that is tiny. If you happen to have kids, it almost certainly doesn't cover daycare costs, for example...
  - JamesBarney 10y ago
    The analysis does include Medicade and TANF. Does not include section 8 because only a very small percentage of the non-elderly non-disabled poor receive section 8 housing subsidies. Granted is there some small(~1-3%) portion of the poor who have a marginal effective tax rate greater than 100%. Probably. Are they representative of the vast majority of the poor? I don't think so.

jacalata 10y ago

> the poor get handouts, the working poor get fines > many Walmart employees are on food stamps. Are you implying that Walmart employees are not 'working poor', or is the first sentence a dramatic over-generalization that doesn't contribute to the conversation?

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
Minimum wage Walmart employees are often working poor. Poverty depends on perspective. Most Revolution-Era Americans were living in what we today would call extreme poverty. But you can have a tv and a smartphone today and still be quite poor, because of the difference in consumer cost between things we need and things we don't need. www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/17/the-stuff-we-really-need-is-getting-more-expensive-other-stuff-is-getting-cheaper
- jacalata 10y ago
  Yes, I agree that Walmart employees are the working poor. I don't understand how you can recognise that and also argue for the validity of this statement >There is a big difference between poor and working poor. The poor get handouts, the working poor get fines because they can't afford Obamacare. Then people wonder why the poor don't struggle their way to working poor.
  - WillPostForFood 10y ago
    I suspect you guys agree. I don't think he is saying there is a big difference in that they are both poor. The difference is that the poor are are being rewarded (transfer payments) while the working poor are being punished (they have to work, but still get fined, and pay taxes).
    - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
      Poor, working poor, lower middle class, they're all crude definitions for people who are struggling. Arguing over who is more or less struggling or deserving is to play the oldest rich person's game of fight-for-scraps.
      - WillPostForFood 10y ago
        The argument isn't about who is struggling more, or is more deserving, it is how you might use different policies to help working poor vs the poor who can't even get a job, and how policies that intended to help one might inadvertently hurt the other.
cmdrfred 10y ago
Walmart pitches social programs as part of your compensation package when you apply. They dont exist to help the poor, its there to subsidize wages for the benefit of corporations.

JamesBarney 10y ago

The impoverished are effectively trapped by the welfare system itself, because it reduces benefits as incomes rise at a faster rate than can be made up by the equivalent amount of work This isn't true. The CBO extensivesly evaluates changes in benefits and taxes to calculate effectice marginal tax rates across the income distribution to make sure that you never make less money from working more. There are a couple of ranges where you will lose money from working more, but none of them are larger than 25c/hr. https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/50923-MarginalTaxRates.pdf https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-...

linkregister 10y ago
Some tax credits disappear faster than the rate of increased income. The only federal ones I'm familiar with are on the upper-middle-class portion. California has some incentives that cliff at around $40k per household, no graduation (e.g. renters deduction).
bzbarsky 10y ago
The document you link to says: The marginal tax rates include the combined effects of federal and state individual income taxes, federal payroll taxes, and benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and cost-sharing subsidies for health insurance, generally on the basis of 2016 law. Unfortunately, SNAP and ACA health insurance subsidies are not the only means-tested welfare bits, and the other ones are _not_ being included here. Most prominently missing are Medicaid, TANF, and Section 8 housing, but there are a _lot_ of means-tested programs (e.g. Pell Grants) that only apply to certain households. Now I do think it's true that the income ranges where the effective marginal "tax" rate is over 100% are fairly narrow for most households. But the ranges where the rates are less than 100% but not much less are far wider. And that gives you an effective take-home hourly wage that is tiny. If you happen to have kids, it almost certainly doesn't cover daycare costs, for example...
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  The analysis does include Medicade and TANF. Does not include section 8 because only a very small percentage of the non-elderly non-disabled poor receive section 8 housing subsidies. Granted is there some small(~1-3%) portion of the poor who have a marginal effective tax rate greater than 100%. Probably. Are they representative of the vast majority of the poor? I don't think so.