6 ms·

The lady in the example is 33 has a diabetes, 3 kids to support, and presumably also have to support for her disabled mother. To make the matter even more sad s

The lady in the example is 33 has a diabetes, 3 kids to support, and presumably also have to support for her disabled mother. To make the matter even more sad she had no higher level education. I can imagine how hard and tough it is for her. But I don't think raising the minimum wage or a mandated salary increase/promotion is the real solution here. The real solutions would be to: 1. Educate parents on the importance of children education. 2. Educate people to not have kids before they're financially and emotionally ready. 3. The importance and responsibilities that come with having kids. Having been born in a developing countries and went to US for university and work sometime there, I can say that US minimum salary and the other related perks are already significantly way better of most of emerging countries.

bshoemaker 8y ago
The US is not a developing country, it's the most wealthy country in the world. This comparison does not seem useful.
- grecy 8y ago
  While the US is technically listed as a "Developed country", and is of course the most wealthy country in the world, that wealth does not extend to a majority of it's citizens. In fact, the US is at or very near the worst among OECD countries in all of the following, and is much closer to Developing countries than Developed countries: infant mortality, child poverty, child health and safety, life expectancy at birth, healthy life expectancy, rate of obesity, disability-adjusted life years, doctors per 1000 people, deaths from treatable conditions, rate of mental health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of prescription drug use, incarceration rate, rate of assaults, rate of homicides, income inequality, wealth inequality, and economic mobility. [1] [1] https://stats.oecd.org/ https://stats.oecd.org/
ionised 8y ago
I would expect US minimums to be far greater than developing countries.
- akvadrako 8y ago
  Well your expectations are wrong. As a poster a little above shows, the USA is closer to developing countries than developed on many metrics.
  - ionised 8y ago
    What I mean is, I would expect it to be given the wealth of the country. The fact that it isn't is damning.
bko 8y ago
> 1. Educate parents on the importance of children education I'm not sure most parents, Vanessa included, don't know that education is important to their children's future. She likely lacks the opportunity to send her children to a school where they would receive a good education. > 2. Educate people to not have kids before they're financially and emotionally ready. I would argue that most people look at having children in terms of opportunity cost. If you're wealthy and have a good career, you tend to put off having children or have fewer children. That's why the birth rate is so low in developed countries compared to that of the developing world.
zimablue 8y ago
This is just social darwinist moralising imo. If you're going to really prescribe that as a solution, can you point to cases where "telling poor people not to have kids" has proven effective to improve society? Even if it is effective, it's still sickening to me, the idea that you should only have kids if you either inherit money or you're lucky enough to climb out of poverty. If population control ever becomes necessary in the west it has to be by random ballot not privilege.
- blacksoil 8y ago
  I'm not saying poor people should not have kids. I'm saying having kids is a responsibility. If someone is poor but willing to take on extra miles, say to have double jobs, living very frugally to save for kid's future, etc, sure go ahead. Having a kid is not a privilege, it's a responsibility. Kids deserve comfy home, loving parents, adequate education, etc..
iei02ndjd 8y ago
How exactly do you intend to fund the design, implementation, and ongoing maintenance of such a massive social engineering program? Your anecdote doesn’t really mean much. “Significantly way better” is apparently still not enough. Similar to why food stamps are cheaper than food education. The administrative burden is prohibitively expensive. Let’s not consider the thesis at hand here; jobs aren’t the answer. That flies in the face of our corporate sponsored religion. Of course believing that inherently threatens your status. This site should best stick to discussion of technology. Whenever social topics come along, the community quickly reveals its ignorance of reality for the majority, and knee jerk defense of its status quo
- hhjinks 8y ago
  >How exactly do you intend to fund the design, implementation, and ongoing maintenance of such a massive social engineering program? Maybe take some money out of military spending? Educate the population, the economy soars, and then you can re-increase the military budget 30 years down the line.
  - Gorbzel 8y ago
    Let’s fix one political boondoggle with another!
angry_octet 8y ago
You don't need to 'educate' parents as to the importance of education. It is a typical rich person bias to believe that poor and disadvanted people need to be told that. Likewise, people know that getting pregnant at 16 is not a great life plan. But the fundamentalist right have been campaigning for decades to control women's reproduction, including to prevent sexual health education, prevent contraception, and to deny access to abortion. Lack of a social safety net (including health care) means that if you get a few bad breaks you could be living in your car with your kids. Essential medicine (like insulin) which should only cost a few dollars actually costs someone on minimum wage all their disposable income. Saying that its better than a developing economy misses the point, the US is one of the richest countries in the world, and ordinary people are systematically taken advantage of by their own system of government. It's just tragic.
- goblekitepe 8y ago
  What's tragic is that millions of poor children are being raised in households considered poor because there is only a single earner. We have to address the cultural issues leading to the epidemic of single parent households. That will do far more for the children of the future than anything else.
  - angry_octet 8y ago
    That is one part of the problem, but I think you are being hyperbolic in describing it as the key. In many countries single parents (or single income families) are not automatically poor. Having a single income (at minimum wage) be above the poverty/food stamp line would be a start. Sick/carers leave and subsidised childcare also have huge impacts in allowing mothers to retain higher paying jobs. The real question is: why won't America care about children? https://www.forbes.com/sites/brycecovert/2012/07/16/the-rise-and-downfall-of-single-mothers/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/brycecovert/2012/07/16/the-rise... https://singlemotherguide.com/single-mother-statistics/ https://singlemotherguide.com/single-mother-statistics/
    - goblekitepe 8y ago
dzdt 8y ago
What do parents who understand the importance of child education do? (1) choose a better school district, i.e. buy or rent housing in a more expensive location -- not applicable to poor parents (2) read with their young kids; help older kids with homework -- requires time and a good enough living situation and enough education of the parents. Encouraging reading to kids is one of the top parent-education strategies being tried. The amount of help a parent can provide is limited by their own education level and time availability. (3) Provide a stable environment where kids have good food, space to work quietly and access to books and computers -- this can be hard to impossible for the poor! (4) transport kids to school every day -- most families in the US are expected to transport kids to neighborhood schools. For the poor, this means walking regardless of weather. In bad weather, attendence of the poor is way down, understandably. (5) extracurriculars -- other than in-school sports, these typically require fees, parents to drive kids places, and parental time. Not possible for many poor families.
mikeash 8y ago
2.5. Educate people how not to have kids before they want to, and give them the supplies they need to make it happen.
mcny 8y ago
Absolutely. Refrain from having children if you cannot afford to have children. People love to tell me I'm insensitive but I say the community needs to step up and do it part to help raise the children. We won't do that. We harp on about "personal responsibility". I think most* people who don't already have children (me included) should elect to not have children in the current situation. There is no benefit to having children in the west. We don't care after our parents. How can we expect our children to provide care for us? It makes no sense to have children on am individual level. Yes, a shrinking population can wreak havoc to GDP growth rate but what is this GDP growth doing for people out of work and unable to afford health care in Wisconsin? There is a stigma associated with not having children. It needs to go away. It needs to be the norm and not the exception to have zero children.
- richpimp 8y ago
  > Refrain from having children if you cannot afford to have children. I'm 100% on board with this. You can make a lot of mistakes in your life and still pull yourself up if you're unencumbered by marriage and kids. I know from personal experience. I was deep in debt and making poor life decisions in my twenties. It took until until my thirties to get my act together. It was hard, but would have probably been impossible if I had kids to worry about providing for. I'd even say that if you are financially able to support a family, I'd still wait until I get through my twenties before starting. With life expectancy up, there's no reason one can't wait. > It needs to be the norm and not the exception to have zero children. I get where you're coming from, and I don't look down on anyone who chooses to never have children, but I don't agree on this point. I know quite a few people who have chosen this lifestyle. I thought for a long time I'd never have kids as well. But now that I do, I couldn't imagine not having any. I think it's more important to wait until you're emotionally mature and financially secure enough to do it. If it's not for you, by all means, don't have kids. Being on the other side of it now, though, I can say that it's quite a transformative experience.
  - mcny 8y ago
    > I think it's more important to wait until you're emotionally mature and financially secure enough to do it. If it's not for you, by all means, don't have kids. Being on the other side of it now, though, I can say that it's quite a transformative experience. >> financially secure I think the point of the article is that based on the current trajectory, a big chunk of the population will never get there. I just searched this on Google: > According to a 2016 GOBankingRates survey, 35 percent of all adults in the U.S. have only several hundred dollars in their savings accounts and 34 percent have zero. Only 15 percent have over $10,000 stashed away. https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/7323d18b-465d-4d2d-a16d-e675a96c2333.png https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/7323d18...
hedvig 8y ago
Okay but changing the minimum wage would have a real impact in her life now going forward. Does your plan retroactively change her state? Also, there will always be some worse off country to say "look it could be worse, see how lucky you are?" I think that is such a disingenuous and irrelevant point.
- blacksoil 8y ago
  What I'm trying to say is that increasing minimum wage is not a sustainable solution. Salary should really be determined by economic rules of supply and demand. While it's true that Government needs to step in here and there to ensure fairness, I don't think Vanessa's case falls into it. This might sound harsh, but I do think it's better of for her to hand her children over to foster care or something. Having to support 3 kids with such salary is just too much for her. What I was proposing was "how to prevent future Vanessa"
falcolas 8y ago
It's entertaining that we, as a society, prevent people under the age of 18 from voting, and under 21 from drinking, and we say (truthfully) that it's because they aren't fully developed yet. But when a person of 16 makes a life altering decision, and we shrug our shoulders and say "they should have known better".

bshoemaker 8y ago

The US is not a developing country, it's the most wealthy country in the world. This comparison does not seem useful.

grecy 8y ago
While the US is technically listed as a "Developed country", and is of course the most wealthy country in the world, that wealth does not extend to a majority of it's citizens. In fact, the US is at or very near the worst among OECD countries in all of the following, and is much closer to Developing countries than Developed countries: infant mortality, child poverty, child health and safety, life expectancy at birth, healthy life expectancy, rate of obesity, disability-adjusted life years, doctors per 1000 people, deaths from treatable conditions, rate of mental health disorders, rate of drug abuse, rate of prescription drug use, incarceration rate, rate of assaults, rate of homicides, income inequality, wealth inequality, and economic mobility. [1] [1] https://stats.oecd.org/ https://stats.oecd.org/

ionised 8y ago

I would expect US minimums to be far greater than developing countries.

akvadrako 8y ago
Well your expectations are wrong. As a poster a little above shows, the USA is closer to developing countries than developed on many metrics.
- ionised 8y ago
  What I mean is, I would expect it to be given the wealth of the country. The fact that it isn't is damning.

bko 8y ago

> 1. Educate parents on the importance of children education I'm not sure most parents, Vanessa included, don't know that education is important to their children's future. She likely lacks the opportunity to send her children to a school where they would receive a good education. > 2. Educate people to not have kids before they're financially and emotionally ready. I would argue that most people look at having children in terms of opportunity cost. If you're wealthy and have a good career, you tend to put off having children or have fewer children. That's why the birth rate is so low in developed countries compared to that of the developing world.

zimablue 8y ago

This is just social darwinist moralising imo. If you're going to really prescribe that as a solution, can you point to cases where "telling poor people not to have kids" has proven effective to improve society? Even if it is effective, it's still sickening to me, the idea that you should only have kids if you either inherit money or you're lucky enough to climb out of poverty. If population control ever becomes necessary in the west it has to be by random ballot not privilege.

blacksoil 8y ago
I'm not saying poor people should not have kids. I'm saying having kids is a responsibility. If someone is poor but willing to take on extra miles, say to have double jobs, living very frugally to save for kid's future, etc, sure go ahead. Having a kid is not a privilege, it's a responsibility. Kids deserve comfy home, loving parents, adequate education, etc..

iei02ndjd 8y ago

How exactly do you intend to fund the design, implementation, and ongoing maintenance of such a massive social engineering program? Your anecdote doesn’t really mean much. “Significantly way better” is apparently still not enough. Similar to why food stamps are cheaper than food education. The administrative burden is prohibitively expensive. Let’s not consider the thesis at hand here; jobs aren’t the answer. That flies in the face of our corporate sponsored religion. Of course believing that inherently threatens your status. This site should best stick to discussion of technology. Whenever social topics come along, the community quickly reveals its ignorance of reality for the majority, and knee jerk defense of its status quo

hhjinks 8y ago
>How exactly do you intend to fund the design, implementation, and ongoing maintenance of such a massive social engineering program? Maybe take some money out of military spending? Educate the population, the economy soars, and then you can re-increase the military budget 30 years down the line.
- Gorbzel 8y ago
  Let’s fix one political boondoggle with another!

angry_octet 8y ago

You don't need to 'educate' parents as to the importance of education. It is a typical rich person bias to believe that poor and disadvanted people need to be told that. Likewise, people know that getting pregnant at 16 is not a great life plan. But the fundamentalist right have been campaigning for decades to control women's reproduction, including to prevent sexual health education, prevent contraception, and to deny access to abortion. Lack of a social safety net (including health care) means that if you get a few bad breaks you could be living in your car with your kids. Essential medicine (like insulin) which should only cost a few dollars actually costs someone on minimum wage all their disposable income. Saying that its better than a developing economy misses the point, the US is one of the richest countries in the world, and ordinary people are systematically taken advantage of by their own system of government. It's just tragic.

goblekitepe 8y ago
What's tragic is that millions of poor children are being raised in households considered poor because there is only a single earner. We have to address the cultural issues leading to the epidemic of single parent households. That will do far more for the children of the future than anything else.
- angry_octet 8y ago
  That is one part of the problem, but I think you are being hyperbolic in describing it as the key. In many countries single parents (or single income families) are not automatically poor. Having a single income (at minimum wage) be above the poverty/food stamp line would be a start. Sick/carers leave and subsidised childcare also have huge impacts in allowing mothers to retain higher paying jobs. The real question is: why won't America care about children? https://www.forbes.com/sites/brycecovert/2012/07/16/the-rise-and-downfall-of-single-mothers/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/brycecovert/2012/07/16/the-rise... https://singlemotherguide.com/single-mother-statistics/ https://singlemotherguide.com/single-mother-statistics/
  - goblekitepe 8y ago

dzdt 8y ago

What do parents who understand the importance of child education do? (1) choose a better school district, i.e. buy or rent housing in a more expensive location -- not applicable to poor parents (2) read with their young kids; help older kids with homework -- requires time and a good enough living situation and enough education of the parents. Encouraging reading to kids is one of the top parent-education strategies being tried. The amount of help a parent can provide is limited by their own education level and time availability. (3) Provide a stable environment where kids have good food, space to work quietly and access to books and computers -- this can be hard to impossible for the poor! (4) transport kids to school every day -- most families in the US are expected to transport kids to neighborhood schools. For the poor, this means walking regardless of weather. In bad weather, attendence of the poor is way down, understandably. (5) extracurriculars -- other than in-school sports, these typically require fees, parents to drive kids places, and parental time. Not possible for many poor families.

mikeash 8y ago

2.5. Educate people how not to have kids before they want to, and give them the supplies they need to make it happen.

mcny 8y ago

Absolutely. Refrain from having children if you cannot afford to have children. People love to tell me I'm insensitive but I say the community needs to step up and do it part to help raise the children. We won't do that. We harp on about "personal responsibility". I think most* people who don't already have children (me included) should elect to not have children in the current situation. There is no benefit to having children in the west. We don't care after our parents. How can we expect our children to provide care for us? It makes no sense to have children on am individual level. Yes, a shrinking population can wreak havoc to GDP growth rate but what is this GDP growth doing for people out of work and unable to afford health care in Wisconsin? There is a stigma associated with not having children. It needs to go away. It needs to be the norm and not the exception to have zero children.

richpimp 8y ago
> Refrain from having children if you cannot afford to have children. I'm 100% on board with this. You can make a lot of mistakes in your life and still pull yourself up if you're unencumbered by marriage and kids. I know from personal experience. I was deep in debt and making poor life decisions in my twenties. It took until until my thirties to get my act together. It was hard, but would have probably been impossible if I had kids to worry about providing for. I'd even say that if you are financially able to support a family, I'd still wait until I get through my twenties before starting. With life expectancy up, there's no reason one can't wait. > It needs to be the norm and not the exception to have zero children. I get where you're coming from, and I don't look down on anyone who chooses to never have children, but I don't agree on this point. I know quite a few people who have chosen this lifestyle. I thought for a long time I'd never have kids as well. But now that I do, I couldn't imagine not having any. I think it's more important to wait until you're emotionally mature and financially secure enough to do it. If it's not for you, by all means, don't have kids. Being on the other side of it now, though, I can say that it's quite a transformative experience.
- mcny 8y ago
  > I think it's more important to wait until you're emotionally mature and financially secure enough to do it. If it's not for you, by all means, don't have kids. Being on the other side of it now, though, I can say that it's quite a transformative experience. >> financially secure I think the point of the article is that based on the current trajectory, a big chunk of the population will never get there. I just searched this on Google: > According to a 2016 GOBankingRates survey, 35 percent of all adults in the U.S. have only several hundred dollars in their savings accounts and 34 percent have zero. Only 15 percent have over $10,000 stashed away. https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/7323d18b-465d-4d2d-a16d-e675a96c2333.png https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/7323d18...

hedvig 8y ago

Okay but changing the minimum wage would have a real impact in her life now going forward. Does your plan retroactively change her state? Also, there will always be some worse off country to say "look it could be worse, see how lucky you are?" I think that is such a disingenuous and irrelevant point.

blacksoil 8y ago
What I'm trying to say is that increasing minimum wage is not a sustainable solution. Salary should really be determined by economic rules of supply and demand. While it's true that Government needs to step in here and there to ensure fairness, I don't think Vanessa's case falls into it. This might sound harsh, but I do think it's better of for her to hand her children over to foster care or something. Having to support 3 kids with such salary is just too much for her. What I was proposing was "how to prevent future Vanessa"

falcolas 8y ago

It's entertaining that we, as a society, prevent people under the age of 18 from voting, and under 21 from drinking, and we say (truthfully) that it's because they aren't fully developed yet. But when a person of 16 makes a life altering decision, and we shrug our shoulders and say "they should have known better".