Are there enough jobs in the US to ever be rid of poverty?

[bluedawg12]

I believe racism does play a role in poverty.

But I am wondering- does our current style of economy even allow for jobs and a strong middle class for every one, not even to be wealthy, but just good education, good jobs, health care access and good quality of life.

Or, is that, the way things are we could never be rid of poverty?

Let’s say tomorrow we were able to purge racism, and any form of discrimination as a barrier to access to good jobs, what so ever.

Are there actually enough decent jobs in the United States to support a middle class?

Is it possible to distribute wealth more evenly in our country- even theoretically?

Have good jobs gone over seas, down sized, or been automated?

Do we even have enough good jobs, other than the lowest paying jobs that would not support a person, a couple, much less a family.

Are we doomed to either working poor, or out right poverty and that the ugly truth is that the poor must always be with us?

Anyone with an enough economic background to enlighten?

[roseBudd]

1. Employers would never stand for full employment because then

they would have no power. Remember during the Clinton economy the incentives for new hires in lots of sectors like IT and healthcare?

[kath]

13. Agree. Our economy (or at least the elites) is dependent on the existence

of a permanent underclass. The last thing they want is full employment.

[cantstandbush]

33. Not enough jobs, but there sure is enough money.

Recinding those tax cuts to the billionaires and multimillionaires would be a start. Then recouping all the money that Halliburton and other like them have defrauded from the public coffers, then cutting all the pork in Congress, and then paying a living wage would help.

[bluedawg12]

2. Where would people work? Farming? Steel mills?

Manufacturing jobs?
IT services?

Dead end or over seas with multi nationals.

[rzemanfl]

3. Of course there are, just reduce the pay of executives

to maybe just ten times that of rank and file employees and give them the difference. There would still be poverty among the ill, mntally challenged, drug addicted, etc. but the newly comfortable working class likely would be much more generous with social programs than the rich pricks who run everything now.

[politicaholic]

4. I'm no economic genius, but if education isn't a priority...

in the next twnety years there will be a MAJOR gap between the classes.

The public education system in the US is pathetic at best.

[SeaNap05]

25. Education will be a problem

The only way to get ahead to the next level is if you have experience then the education to back it. I hear so many employees say if they only had a degree they could advance. There is money sitting everywhere for someone to get higher education. I hold a master's and spent alot of money to obtain it, I'm not going to be left behind or look back and say what if.

Poverty Debate is going to be a big one you guys. It should lead into a the 06' election.

[rogerashton]

5. I'm not sure it is a well-formed question, but

If it were our objective to provide everyone who wants to work with a job that would support a middle-class style of life.

However, powerful and wealthy people would lose out -- so it isn't our objective.

[bluedawg12]

6. It's probably not well formed, but having tried and asked for help

I wonder in reply to your second part: Isn't it our stated goal to provide Americans with good jobs?

It may be lip service, but that is what pols talk about. A chicken in every pot, 20 acres and a mule, etc.

So, is the money so cramped up at the top that it is something that has to be spread around?

Even if we don't posit getting the money out of the paws of obscenely paid execs-which would make the right apoplectic- where would people work? Just as things are now--how can we talk about getting rid of poverty when there are no jobs?

[freeplessinseattle]

11. there are plenty of jobs, if non-profits were funded by corp

taxes that corps should be playing. in other words, if corporate welfare was eliminated then there would be plenty of money for necessary jobs in non-profits that are struggling right now. so much more valuable to society than yet another salesperson or web designer job.

[whistle]

7. Bush seems to think so, he wants the disabled of New Orleans...

...to become entrepreneurs and become participants in his ownership society. For example the African-American woman being interviewed outside in a parking lot by ABC News last night following Bush's speech, the one in the wheel chair with a clutch of kids.

Well Bush's vision for people like her would be to come back to New Orleans, apply for a Federal loan, build some business that could capitalize on the opportunities why are availed by her disability and free herself and her children from the chains of poverty.

Unfortunately the president was a little off target with her and her family. She would just like to know when she could return to her home in New Orleans and how soon she might cash her social security and medicare reimbursement checks so that she could get her monthly supply of insulin and diabetic supplies and needles. Di I hear Bush say she would have to apply with FEMA for a small business loan to get help? It looks like the Huston Astrodome may become there permanent home. Programs, popcorn, peanuts, candy and cold beer!

[bluedawg12]

8. They are lying it's a pyramid and will always need a base of poor

The other thought, if it's true that the poor are the doomed to be at the bottom of the system, then, at least, the right should stop blathering against social safety nets like medicaid, medicare, soc.sec, etc.

[bluedawg12]

9. Wallyfart an example of the pyramid

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/007131

Wal Mart is donating money to the relief effort. More than $17 million in cash to relief efforts including $15 million to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. They've also donated $3 million in product and water as well as the use of 19 vacant facilities.

Facts. For instance, you can learn that any displaced Wal-Mart associate, of which there are 34,000 can report to work at any Wal-Mart store.

Further, if their homes were flooded or destroyed, associates are eligible for up to $1,000.


Now think about this. Wal-Mart's sales in for 2003 were $245 Billion.

Lee Scott, The CEO of Wal-Mart receives an annual paycheck of $30 million, twice what the company donated to the Bush-Clinton Katrina fund.

Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million associates, the largest employer in America.

34,000 displaces workers is nothing to this company.

Couldn't Wal-Mart do more than put them back to work in Alaska?

[dcfirefighter]

10. Step #1, eliminate the payroll tax

Progress and Poverty ought to be required reading for every progressive out there, as well as everyone who thinks economics can solve social problems. It was written in 1879, and I believe it outlines the means to eliminate poverty.

Basically it boils down to this: there are unlimited 'wants' in the world, but limited labor and resources. If resources are economized, a greater use of labor must occur, achieving full employment. As labor becomes scarce, wages and working conditions must rise to attract more labor.

Generally, the ability to substitute natural resources for labor decreases the value of labor. See oil.

Modern economists have lumped natural resources in with 'Capital', however, the classical economists, Mill, Smith, Marx, etc., separated the factors of production into Labor, Land, and Capital, where capital was exclusively man-made - machines, buildings, and so on. These three combine to create Wealth - that which everyone wants and needs. However, given time, each of the factors can at least partially substitute for the others.

Our country has deliberately encouraged the use of capital and land over labor - look at our tax laws: Labor must pay a payroll tax and an income tax on any wages, as well as paying a sales tax any time it spends it's wages. All told, the percent of tax against labor is near 40%. Conversely, capital is allowed to depreciate, land doesn't pay much of a tax at all if it isn't sold, and there are a variety of loopholes in the income tax to ensure that the owners of capital and land receive their full share.

Additionally, when labor manages to become employed to the point that labor begins to be scarces, the Federal Reserve (a private agency unaccountable to the public) hikes interest rates to slow the economy in order to stave off inflation. The details of other alternatives for eliminating inflation are worthy of another forum altogether.

Full employment could be achieved by eliminating all taxes on labor, direct, and indirect: the payroll tax, the income tax (at least for income <$150,000), sales taxes, building taxes, and taxes on labor-produced capital. This really leaves only license fees as a viable form of government revenue - if you consider an exclusive right to do something as a license. Land titles fall into this category. The market rate on all of these licenses has been calculated to exceed $4.5 Trillion in the U.S., or $15,000 per capita.

There's no economic deadweight to taxing land - no one is employed producing it, it's supply is fixed, and it's demand is always growing. Taxing land does not make it more expensive - in fact by removing the speculative value and finance charges, while freeing up land held for speculative gain increases the availability of land for productive use and housing - increasing employment and wages.

[bluedawg12]

12. that was excellent dcfirefighter n/t

[Yupster]

14. It's a hard question because poverty

really has no definition.

You can pick an income level and call everyone below it poor. It's difficult to make it an accurate measure. I happen to now millionaires who have incomes below the poverty line because they have lots of wealth, not income.

Also poverty changes radically from place to place and from time to time.

For instance, things that are complete necessities today were not known 30 years ago. My family rented a house on a lake every summer when we were kids over 30 years ago. We packed five people into a station wagon without air conditioning and drove seven hours in August. Today I can't believe how mom and dad did that. I remember the day my aunt got her first window air conditioner unit. I slept on the floor in her room. Today a person or a school without air conditioning is assumed to be poor. My school never had air conditioning.

Poverty also changes from place to place. A poor family may have four people in a 900 square foot apartment. In another land, that might be considered luxurious lodgings.

As far as the jobs, I do see a big problem in skilled jobs going overseas. That has got to have a levelling effect on lifestyles throughout the world and that will not be to our benefit. I blame the internet of all things for that.

Also you mention low wage jobs, and there will always be some low wage jobs with barely any utility. For instance, a small business owner may cleanup his place before going home at 9 pm like he had always done. If someone offers to do it for $ 6 an hour he may say okay, but charge him $ 15 an hour and he'll just do the job himself like he'd always done before.

There will always be some jobs like that.

Hope all that helps a little bit anyway.

[bluedawg12]

15. Yes, and it causes me to think about what we would want

in an ideal world for Americans.

Not more things. Not bigger cars.

But: a safe residence, perhaps ideally their chance to own a house, access to health care, access to good food for reasonable cost, good public education, access to some form of outdoor/natural environment that is not privately owned ( like most lake front and beach front) I guess you could say the 19th century concept of public parks in urban environs ( James Law Olmstead ideas).

How's that for starters?

[Totally Committed]

16. We must find them if necessary...

Race is definitely a factor in poverty, and so in under-or-unequal education. Since education is a factor in employment, people of color are more prone to lack of or under employment.

But, the question you ask is interesting. Can the richest country in the world possibly find a job for every American who wants one? The more apt question is, will the people doing the hiring and creation of those jobs be willing to set aside their own racial prejudices (even the ones they don't even think they have...) and hire these poor, and these people of color to work in their companies, and if they do, will they be willing to give them the dignity of a decent wage?

Thanks you for this thread. This is the kind of question that can lead to an honest and open discussion this Party needs to have about race and class. The other side has shown they care diddly-squat about them, and we have told them for decades we do care. Well, time to put up or shut up!

Blacks in this country have come through time and time again for the Democratic Party. It is time to repay their loyalty and their dedication to the Democratic cause. Other minorities will be waiting to see what we do now, but I hope we act, not just because we are being watched, but because we realize, after decades of promises unkept, they deserve all the help and support we can step up to the plate and give them now... finally!

TC

[bluedawg12]

17. The ugly secret may be that we need always to have poor

and have poverty.

Because there are not enough jobs for all Americans. Perhaps, think tank elitists know this, and maybe we need to have poor people.

Imagine if everyone wanted to go to the bank and take out their funds the same day...a run on banks.

Now, what if everyone showed up tomorrow to find work, and expect to find work....could we really accommodate them all?

If not, perhaps the racial divide is not from neglect it's planned?

What led me to wonder about this is the issue of social stability. Conservatives want social stability, much more than say equality, so the need for social stability should be driving them to rid us of poverty because poverty is destabilizing....but they don't try to fix this. Unlike everything else which they feel they can mange and fix. Puzzling.

Great replies. Thank you for your insights.

[Totally Committed]

18. In a society and economy as rich and as large as the U.S.

the only reason to have poverty at all is GREED of the already wealthy.

We see this exemplified dramatically, and right in front of our eyes, in the Bushies.

If we are willing to look the other way and allow the wealthiest of the wealthy to go on amassing their wealth at the expense of the most vulnerable... then, you are right... we will always have poor people.

And we should be mortally ashamed for that.

TC

[Dilligent]

19. We will always have poor

until people are taught about the money they DO have. I agree that the greed of the richest in the country keeps WAY people down but the remaining fact is, as someone else on this board, stated the other day "you could give everyone the same amount of money and within a number of months/years you would have the same percentage of poor, middle class & wealthy that you do today". I have seen this in my own family with an accident settlement and am seeing it now with two of my son's friends that finished their apprenticeships and got big raises. Schools need to teach kids basic personal economics. You don't base your purchases on how much it will raise your monthly payments (we did this when we first married-big mistake), you get your basic taken care of first-health insurance, savings(if only a dollar)before the MP3 player, your kids don't have to have $150 shoes. People need to be able to tell the difference between NEED & WANT. That is the biggie. I am not putting other people down for doing this I am just passing on HARD lessons learned in my on 60 yrs. that should be taught early on so if we do ever have full employment it would benefit everyone.

[Totally Committed]

21. If I may just reply to this:

First of all, I agree with the "personal economics" message in your post. This is techincally true. But,....

The poorest and the inner-city schools are often the most understaffed, poorest equipped, and in the most disrepair. The education students receive there is UNEQUAL to that of schoold districts in which the more affluent educate their children.

It is not uncommon for a student in one of the poorest schools to graduate without being able to read or write above a grade-school level. These are the people you want to teach abour personal finance?

Until all children are educated, nourished, and cherished by this society EQUALLY, there is no use to even talking about alleviating poverty. Our first committment should be to the children of the poor. We must begin their education. We must feed them nutritionally. We must allow them to be raised in houses that have heat, hot water, and safety.

We must beging somewhere, and as a parent and grandparent, I can tell you, most of the people who raise these children would be grateful to see their children being raised up. Decent safety nets and governement assistance for the parents, the old and the infirm would be the next step. Adult education could begin. AND THEN... personal finance could be taught.

But, first things first. This can be done incrememntally, imo.

TC

On edit: I'm you didn't mean it this way at all, but the "THEY CAN'T HANDLE MONEY" argument sounds a lot like an excuse for keeping people poor, but with a clean conscience. It's always easier to blame the victim, than to look at root causes. So, to be clear: No ne should be starving, under-educated, or living in squalor in a country that is this rich. No one. If the poorand peopl eof color had been equally educated, equally employed, endured no racism, and enjoyed lives of dignity across the board in this society for a century or two, and STILL squandered their "wealth", then maybe I would agree with you that there will always be poor in this society. But, I'm not willing to even begin to think that way until the equality we promised them decade after decade is delivered.

It's like saying people who cannot yet drive should never be allowed to own a car. All they need is driving lessons, and the means to buy one.

[serryjw]

30. You do have a point BUT

it is REALLY the difference B/T middle class and wealthy rather than POOR vs wealthy.The POOR need to first cover basic survival. A perfect example is neighbors that I really like. They have two kids under 2 and live on $20K (gross). They have shelter, food but not much else.
I am a perfect example. I lived way below the poverty level for several years due to illness. I had no furniture, worn out clothing, running shoes 3 years old, glasses that were 3 years old ...etc. I received a lump sum of $15K and within 6 months it was gone. I was still having health problems( so I wasn't working), bought some basic furniture (including a BED!), did some dental work, bought some clothing etc. $15K doesn't last very long when you have NOTHING! I still don't have a car, have not been on a vacation in 10 years and have less than $100 in the bank!
Yes, it has been discussed many times how lottery winners have spent all their winnings in a short period of time. I am NOT talking about being foolish but when you make no money it goes very fast no basic survival.

[seabeyond]

20. is every citizen going to be responsible

and able and capable of being fully employeed to wipe out poverty?

[chaska]

22. Full employment is impossible in a purely capitalist society.

[bluedawg12]

23. I think so, too and that means that poverty is institutionalized

and the outcry about social safety nets and questions about why don't they get a job is non-sense. There would not be enough jobs for all Americans- especially now with out-sourcing and the influx of cheap foreign labor.

[SeaNap05]

24. Help the Middle Class

The Middle Class makes the largest sector of our class system. They need breaks. They spend the most and buy the most. Poverty does need to be addressed and will be a focus in the 06' election cycle, but this need not be an abandonment of the Middle Class. The U.S. needs social balance, but who is getting the most breaks today, the Rich and the Poor.

[Politically_Wrong]

26. Yes there are enough jobs...

But Mexicans keep coming over (both legally and illegally) and they are taking the jobs for less of a pay (that sounds racist...I'm NOT a racist...it's just the truth)

[bluedawg12]

27. Is there a Democratic Message cooking here?!!! Idea!!

Do we have the makings of a sound, appealing Democratic platform here?

I smell honesty and truth coming from real people.

.....
In summary of what we have been saying.

There may not be enough good jobs because of multinationals outsourcing jobs over seas.

Influx of unregulated cheap labor competing with American workers.

Decline in manufacturing jobs such as steel and textiles and even automotive.

Decline in industry sector, airlines come to mind. Two just went belly up.

Unskilled labor base not shrinking due to poor education system.

Unfair tax breaks on the backs of the middle class.
.......

I feel that these ideas would appeal to voters in blue and red states.

The middle class has been hit hard.

The middle class is the strength of any democracy.

In America the middle class, which used to include unionized labor with good pay and benefits has declined.

.......

How about something like this as a vision or democratic style speech?

Democrats offer a new vision for America.

An America that strengthens the middle class and gives hope that everyone can rise to the American dream!

The Democratic vision of a new and brighter future... rising above the tide of corporate cynicism and permissive attitudes towards corporate greed.

Stopping the out flow of good jobs to cheap foreign labor markets, while our American middle class struggles, often two bread winners are not enough and families have to chose between paying the bills or spending time together.

Stopping the wasteful tax breaks for world wide corporate empires that off shore their earnings and hide them with clever accounting practices while hard working Americans shoulder the tax burden.


Democrats want to stop the corrupt scandals of a few that have washed away the retirement benefits of hard working Americans and CEO's who have blown money on lavish parties as heartlessly as hurricanes have blown away lives and homes.

The middle class is the heart and soul of America, those at the very top, those few, live off the hard work of the middle class. Those at the very bottom, far too many, can only be lifted up and when the middle class rises and they will only prosper in a new tomorrow so long as we keep the middle class strong.

[gulfcoastliberal]

29. Yeap, this is what's needed - not meaningless hot air from beltway dem

"leadership" and their pals at the DLC. We need to put forth bold ideas rather than watered-down conservative ideas. Excellent post.

[bluedawg12]

32. look at what we can do just brainstorming together

us, the people, here on the inter net.

The inter net may be the most democratic and empowering thing to ever be devised.

We going forward with this.

[ClassWarrior]

28. Of COURSE there are! We just have to envision them...

This is the kind of thought that has to be behind ANY Dem message, as you suggest in post #27. We have to think BIG. Dream BIG. All things are possible in the greatest nation on Earth - we just need the will to do it.

NGU.

[killbotfactory]

31. There are jobs waiting to happen everywhere, but we just don't

want to pay for it.

Everywhere you see a weed in the sidewalk, a broken window, urban blight, trash on the road, etc... there is a job that could be done.