I need some help bridging a gap in my knowledge. On one hand, a person (with or without a family) cannot live on $14,137/year (minimum wage x 37.5 hours x 52 weeks) and be able to pay bills sufficiently without some sort of social assistance (I use this term because apparently welfare and entitlement bear negative connotations). However, most employees with these wages nominally are not in this wage bracket long before a wage increase. On the other hand, social assistance is at an all time high, in proportion. This creates several strains on people that may or may not be receiving social assistance. My problem is this: how can we as a country spur people from using social assistance while preventing increased wages? It seems like we cant do one without doing the other. People may gross 14K, but that is not near what they will bring home in a year, and if a person is not married or without children, virtually none of the approximately 25% of the income that is taken out will be seen again. Likewise, there are reports in Kentucky now that people on social assistance programs like SNAP are draining their benefits every month on soda pop, not to drink it, but to resell it and pay bills. One problem with this whole discussion is the broad generalizations from both sides of the discussion from demonizing people using social assistance to not knowing the full story of tipped employees.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 13:40:01 +0000
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