Post: #1

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-...06005.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.
The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse income inequality.

As nonwhites approach a numerical majority in the U.S., one question is how public programs to lift the disadvantaged should be best focused — on the affirmative action that historically has tried to eliminate the racial barriers seen as the major impediment to economic equality, or simply on improving socioeconomic status for all, regardless of race.
Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families' economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy "poor."

"I think it's going to get worse," said Irene Salyers, 52, of Buchanan County, Va., a declining coal region in Appalachia. Married and divorced three times, Salyers now helps run a fruit and vegetable stand with her boyfriend but it doesn't generate much income. They live mostly off government disability checks.

"If you do try to go apply for a job, they're not hiring people, and they're not paying that much to even go to work," she said. Children, she said, have "nothing better to do than to get on drugs."

While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in the government's poverty data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press.

The gauge defines "economic insecurity" as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent.

Marriage rates are in decline across all races, and the number of white mother-headed households living in poverty has risen to the level of black ones.

"It's time that America comes to understand that many of the nation's biggest disparities, from education and life expectancy to poverty, are increasingly due to economic class position," said William Julius Wilson, a Harvard professor who specializes in race and poverty. He noted that despite continuing economic difficulties, minorities have more optimism about the future after Obama's election, while struggling whites do not.
"There is the real possibility that white alienation will increase if steps are not taken to highlight and address inequality on a broad front," Wilson said.
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Nationwide, the count of America's poor remains stuck at a record number: 46.2 million, or 15 percent of the population, due in part to lingering high unemployment following the recession. While poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics are nearly three times higher, by absolute numbers the predominant face of the poor is white.

More than 19 million whites fall below the poverty line of $23,021 for a family of four, accounting for more than 41 percent of the nation's destitute, nearly double the number of poor blacks.

Sometimes termed "the invisible poor" by demographers, lower-income whites generally are dispersed in suburbs as well as small rural towns, where more than 60 percent of the poor are white. Concentrated in Appalachia in the East, they are numerous in the industrial Midwest and spread across America's heartland, from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma up through the Great Plains.

Buchanan County, in southwest Virginia, is among the nation's most destitute based on median income, with poverty hovering at 24 percent. The county is mostly white, as are 99 percent of its poor.

More than 90 percent of Buchanan County's inhabitants are working-class whites who lack a college degree. Higher education long has been seen there as nonessential to land a job because well-paying mining and related jobs were once in plentiful supply. These days many residents get by on odd jobs and government checks.

Salyers' daughter, Renee Adams, 28, who grew up in the region, has two children. A jobless single mother, she relies on her live-in boyfriend's disability checks to get by. Salyers says it was tough raising her own children as it is for her daughter now, and doesn't even try to speculate what awaits her grandchildren, ages 4 and 5.

Smoking a cigarette in front of the produce stand, Adams later expresses a wish that employers will look past her conviction a few years ago for distributing prescription painkillers, so she can get a job and have money to "buy the kids everything they need."

"It's pretty hard," she said. "Once the bills are paid, we might have $10 to our name."

Post: #2

The U.S. has been slipping toward third world status for about a decade now, don't expect things to change anytime soon.

Quote:Salyers' daughter, Renee Adams, 28, who grew up in the region, has two children. A jobless single mother, she relies on her live-in boyfriend's disability checks to get by. Salyers says it was tough raising her own children as it is for her daughter now, and doesn't even try to speculate what awaits her grandchildren, ages 4 and 5.

If current trends continue, those kids have no future. There will be increased competition for the scraps these people are already fighting for.

Post: #3

I just worked 91 hours this week doing pipe work for an oil company. I'm doing grunt bullshit and am outside for the majority of the day. Go fuck yourself if you're a grown man and not willing to get your hands dirty to keep hot food on the table but want to bitch about the economy. Go suck a dick on camera or at a titty bar if you're a woman struggling to get by. People are lazy and "have to much pride" to do dirty work. It's a cold world if you're not born into money but bitching about it wont change anything.

Post: #4

Living in DC it feels like another world- pretty much everyone at least has some bullshit job working for a nonprofit. We really must live in a bubble here when it comes to this.

Post: #5

(07-28-2013 11:26 PM)houston Wrote:  I just worked 91 hours this week doing pipe work for an oil company. I'm doing grunt bullshit and am outside for the majority of the day. Go fuck yourself if you're a grown man and not willing to get your hands dirty to keep hot food on the table but want to bitch about the economy. Go suck a dick on camera or at a titty bar if you're a woman struggling to get by. People are lazy and "have to much pride" to do dirty work. It's a cold world if you're not born into money but bitching about it wont change anything.

In my case I did very hard labor for 15 years until I wore the meniscuses in both my knees to the bone and could not walk. Now I need knee replacements in my thirties. The economy took a turn and I lost my business along with 25 employees.

Fuck the people who aren't smart enough to realize that a college degree(s) could mean very little anymore besides additional debt, even in many technical fields. Went that route after 2 knee surgeries and I'm worse off now than when I had no degrees and knees left.

Build a network selling yourself, or in my case, what's left of me to sell, or die altogether. I can still do labor, but is it worth the injury to wind up under the knife? Sad part is my body is in a state of mechanical failure, but I can still work half these clowns nowadays to death.

I had ex-military from every armed force in the US quit because they couldn't take the intensity.... maybe I should have joined. lol.

Post: #6

I wouldn't recommend doing hard labor your whole life. There's no fucking way I will. My face is to pretty to be in the sun for that long and get ruined

Some guys just like that type of work but most older ones will tell you to go to school or do something using more of your brain than body. Hell, I know young guys who would rather struggle to put gas in their car than man up (haha) and do some physical labor. That's the attitude that just disgusts me. If I ever have a son, I'm making him do construction type work every summer. I imagine the military is the same way; it gives you this confidence that never really goes away and and a different perspective on a lot of thngs.

Post: #7

(07-29-2013 12:44 AM)houston Wrote:  I wouldn't recommend doing hard labor your whole life. There's no fucking way I will. My face is to pretty to be in the sun for that long and get ruined

Some guys just like that type of work but most older ones will tell you to go to school or do something using more of your brain than body. Hell, I know young guys who would rather struggle to put gas in their car than man up (haha) and do some physical labor. That's the attitude that just disgusts me. If I ever have a son, I'm making him do construction type work every summer. I imagine the military is the same way; it gives you this confidence that never really goes away and and a different perspective on a lot of thngs.

Fucking right.

Every summer I worked all day every day for 2-3 weeks cutting and hauling cord wood for our wood stove in the winter. It broke me off every day for the 2-3 weeks.

One summer my dad was building a nice new cabin on our land. I spent the summer tearing down the old cabin, helping the crew construct the new one, being the plumbers bitch (who was a drunk and would let me have some alcohol on the job if I didn't tell my dad he took two hour long breaks), and repainting our house.

Another summer my dad got me a job in a youth conservation work program. Six weeks of 8-10 hour work days hammering cut down pine trees into river banks to stop the erosion. It was my first experience receiving a weekly paycheck, and it felt awesome.

Even though I hated busting my ass every summer while all my friends got to fuck off, I'm glad my dad made me do it. It made me appreciate hard work and realize that there are hard ways and easy ways to make money.

I'm sure he loved the free labor in exchange for "life lessons" as well.

Post: #8

(07-28-2013 11:26 PM)houston Wrote:  I just worked 91 hours this week doing pipe work for an oil company. I'm doing grunt bullshit and am outside for the majority of the day. Go fuck yourself if you're a grown man and not willing to get your hands dirty to keep hot food on the table but want to bitch about the economy. Go suck a dick on camera or at a titty bar if you're a woman struggling to get by. People are lazy and "have to much pride" to do dirty work. It's a cold world if you're not born into money but bitching about it wont change anything.

Meanwhile, as you bust your ass, Ben Bernanke printed 85 Billion this month and handed it out to his friends.

Aren't you glad you earned all that cash?

Post: #9

I think this article is a bit sensationalist. Poverty is a very different state from economic insecurity. It's like the claim that 87% of women are abused (physically, emotionally, financially or accidentally, of course).

Post: #10

(07-29-2013 01:11 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

(07-28-2013 11:26 PM)houston Wrote:  I just worked 91 hours this week doing pipe work for an oil company. I'm doing grunt bullshit and am outside for the majority of the day. Go fuck yourself if you're a grown man and not willing to get your hands dirty to keep hot food on the table but want to bitch about the economy. Go suck a dick on camera or at a titty bar if you're a woman struggling to get by. People are lazy and "have to much pride" to do dirty work. It's a cold world if you're not born into money but bitching about it wont change anything.

Meanwhile, as you bust your ass, Ben Bernanke printed 85 Billion this month and handed it out to his friends.

Aren't you glad you earned all that cash?

On top of that, that debasing of the currency is also keeping the economy artificially inflated. They try to steal 3% of our money using that method every year, but with Ben doubling the QE I have no idea how much they'll end up stealing from us this year.

Post: #11

I don't know about the national scope of the article but rural appalachia is pretty messed up. Its not like "get a job you bum" sort of poor, its like "mad max" poor where the dollar store is for the regular folks and the 40 min drive to walmart is only if you are 'rich'. Like anywhere else though it goes in heterogeneous pockets. One minute you're driving by the run down trailer park where a guy is pulling a handcart that he's piling up with scrap metal from the ditch to wheel down to the recycler and then next minute you're going by a gated estate whose lawn could house the whole trailer park.

I can understand why they used it as an example though, because for some reason I am more affected by seeing a person shambling down the side of a country road in dirty clothes than by that same person sitting at a city intersection on a sleeping bag shaking a cup for change.

Post: #12

Without getting into politics....

...the country has wussed out a lot. People want a nice job without working for it, companies demand 100% from an employee but want to pay 50% of a livable wage. Back in the day, people worked hard and companies took care of their employees.

Kids want to study some BS degree in English or anthropology instead of engineering or math. Companies would rather bring in someone from India than hire an American because we are not "competitive" (cheap) enough. The H1-B stays here 2-4 years, heads back to india to teach other Indians how to do the job.

A logical fallacy lurks in minority/poor communities, and I speak from experience. My father has a trade but my family filled my head with "go to college so you won't have to work like we are do outside and get dirty". The same thing can be heard in Hispanic communities. First generation (immigrant) Hispanics think college degree in anything = automatic job. Little do they know that college degree = debt without automatic job. Oh, so a Hispanic kid is going to work in the trades? He's going to berated by coworkers and family: "you have papers and work in a trade? wtf are you doing? Only illegals work their arse off outside. Go to college".

Post: #13

It depends on location. I grew up in a poor mining town outside of Pittsburgh. The place just died after the disintegration of the U.S. steel industry. Now, with natural gas, you see former white trash making six digits and buying houses, cars, etc. The place is booming.

Post: #14

(07-29-2013 01:11 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

(07-28-2013 11:26 PM)houston Wrote:  I just worked 91 hours this week doing pipe work for an oil company. I'm doing grunt bullshit and am outside for the majority of the day. Go fuck yourself if you're a grown man and not willing to get your hands dirty to keep hot food on the table but want to bitch about the economy. Go suck a dick on camera or at a titty bar if you're a woman struggling to get by. People are lazy and "have to much pride" to do dirty work. It's a cold world if you're not born into money but bitching about it wont change anything.

Meanwhile, as you bust your ass, Ben Bernanke printed 85 Billion this month and handed it out to his friends.

Aren't you glad you earned all that cash?