While my mind has reverted back in time, I have been looking at some number issues like a third grader and yet it has real significance in our world to go back to our childhoods to understand what went wrong. As I sit thinking about poverty and the culture of poverty, I must wonder what and how our nation became the siphon of numerical boorishness. It has become a breach of law in the context and form of incomputable data.
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| Median personal income for the population age 25 or older. Wikipedia Personal Income in the United States |
Today, the federal poverty line is for a single person, $10,830 and while the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. If a person were to work 40 hours in a 4 week month, their income would be $1160 and $13920 annually. The lowest common denominator worker would make $3090 more than the federal poverty level, which is 28% more on $7.25. While we hear about world poverty and good ole U.S.’s fight for the greater good and equalizing the world, there are many who do live on less than $2.50 a day, also Globalissues.org claims that at least 80% of humanity live on less than $10 a day. So, breaking down the poverty line in the U.S. for one person, the amount the person lives on per day after spending money on housing at the cost of $500 a month ($6000 a year), afterwards the person has $13.76 to buy food and clothing and whatever excess they can afford. On minimum wage that daily spending allowance with the same amount in rent becomes $22 a day. Keep in mind that the only paid expense in this calculation is for a roof over one’s head and not the energy that is needed to run the unit or buy other necessities for it. In America, that would certainly require some extreme due diligence and self control to live in such a confined economic compass. Some of these minimum wage workers are often living with others, in shared housing and joint household financial responsibilities but for true self sufficiency and sustainability, the minimum wage worker has just very little above the National poverty line. Forget a car or internet or television or whatever luxury they desire. Yet, American culture inbreeds our desires and need for consumerism and excessive displays of vanity. The lines of ethics and moral coding are blurred into oblivion. Are we not then living in moral poverty, although the world suffers in smaller numbers. Is the quest of the American dream to live in freedom or free to earn a living wage with allowances. In my opinion the American institution is to preserve truth and justice. It makes me ponder how much truth and justice have we lost as the world's economy has stabilized but our is ripping at the seems. This data only applies to one person and forget trying to raise a child or more on that income. It is tiring to hear about other nations ailments when the United States is collapsing from dire need of healthy attributes?
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| Household Budgets Changed - See How at Womansday.com - Evolution of Household Budgets |
According to Monster.com, EMT’s, pharmacy techs, auto mechanics, preschool teachers, CNA’s, line cooks and other various jobs earn slightly above the newly federal minimum wage. Retail is notorious for hiring at minimum wage. As it is there are supposedly over 9 million people who make minimum wage in this country, however I suspect the numbers as much larger. One thing pundits are spinning concerning how raising the federal minimum wage will make American companies leave the United States and outsource jobs to foreign workers, is a cheap shot at controlling the market. According to CIO.com, in 2005, they predicted 8 million outsourced jobs. Jobs that has become global has had its reward’s as the global market has widened and the economy can be more balanced but is it truly American greed sitting like a bull in the way to progress? While outsourced jobs are training other able body humans to work at a lesser amount, the American ingenuity and ethical deployment of sustainability has also left the Nation. Those who are educated can't seem to find work in their fields, as positions have halted in the industrial complex. There is no security in any job market other than banking and because their exorbitant incomes, they can take the pressure and hits to their wallets. Average citizens are losing homes, loans, credit and practicality.
Immigration has filled the void in some respect but the decline in the types of employment from the 1950’s to now have diminished as well. The majority of the U.S. workforce was blue collar industrial and agricultural jobs with average family median income of $23,000. A house at during those times cost $8,500 and by the close of the decade was $12,500, according to ThePeopleHistory.com. A house today averages close to $200,000 and in California that cost increases by 3 folds. Is that not a 425% increase since 1950? Inflation over the last 50 years of $8,500 on the Westegg.com inflation calculator would be $60,741, which is $139,259 difference and a 436% increase in pure profit. What does that matter to a person making minimum wage? It would take that person 70 years to earn $200,000 without any expenses. This is just a perspective of a citizen who had relatively little or no knowledge of numbers and or resources from others, i.e. family, extended family, working on building a family and trying to apply a sense of security in today’s world. Money doesn’t buy happiness but it does buy and build security. Is this another flaw in our human precept of survival?
Immigration has filled the void in some respect but the decline in the types of employment from the 1950’s to now have diminished as well. The majority of the U.S. workforce was blue collar industrial and agricultural jobs with average family median income of $23,000. A house at during those times cost $8,500 and by the close of the decade was $12,500, according to ThePeopleHistory.com. A house today averages close to $200,000 and in California that cost increases by 3 folds. Is that not a 425% increase since 1950? Inflation over the last 50 years of $8,500 on the Westegg.com inflation calculator would be $60,741, which is $139,259 difference and a 436% increase in pure profit. What does that matter to a person making minimum wage? It would take that person 70 years to earn $200,000 without any expenses. This is just a perspective of a citizen who had relatively little or no knowledge of numbers and or resources from others, i.e. family, extended family, working on building a family and trying to apply a sense of security in today’s world. Money doesn’t buy happiness but it does buy and build security. Is this another flaw in our human precept of survival?
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