Bush's New Plan- Get Rid of Welfare

a reply to: Aazadan

Your math is flawed.

I live in Cincinnati, I have a 2 bedroom apartment in a nice neighborhood, $575 a month. My electric bill runs between $35-$50 a month.

$7500 a year. $145 a week.

$12 an hr x 40 hrs a week = $480 pre-tax or roughly $400 a week take home.

originally posted by: Aazadan

You're supposed to, but that's not how it works. I know people with math and engineering degrees that make pizza because of a lack of jobs. I'm really at the point where I think there must be two Americas, myself I live in part of the poorest area of Appalachia. The way you and others describing things working is simply not how they work here. This is an area where gas station attendants rely on tip jars to make minimum wage, where tuberculosis is still a serious and common illness, where the median income is 13k per year, and where employment is based on who you know rather than what you know. In the area I live in there is only one skill necessary to get a job: Successfully passing a drug test. Skills and education are 100% worthless.

And why do you live there? I think that is another part to all this when people do not try to get a better life by moving. If I worked for a gas station hoping on the tip jar with an engineering degree it is time for me to move, not like anything is worth staying for...hehe

originally posted by: Xtrozero
And why do you live there? I think that is another part to all this when people do not try to get a better life by moving. If I worked for a gas station hoping on the tip jar with an engineering degree it is time for me to move, not like anything is worth staying for...hehe

It's an inexpensive area to attend college and I have sick family in the area to take care of. I have this crazy notion of finishing school with no student loan debt. I'm within striking distance now (though it's going to take me 1 year longer than I initially thought). If I were to move elsewhere that wouldn't be possible.

originally posted by: abe froman
a reply to: Aazadan

Your math is flawed.

I live in Cincinnati, I have a 2 bedroom apartment in a nice neighborhood, $575 a month. My electric bill runs between $35-$50 a month.

$7500 a year. $145 a week.

$12 an hr x 40 hrs a week = $480 pre-tax or roughly $400 a week take home.

Then you're in good shape, most people are not.

a reply to: Aazadan

What I see here in my area is that there are lots of decent paying jobs in the outlying areas that are always hiring but there is no transportation available to a job-seeking carless unemployed population.

When I was stuck on the bus I struggled desperately.

I support more funding for getting people that want to work to the places that want to hire them.

A welfare system is necessary but, I would prefer one that was a little more "teach a man to fish" and a little less "give a man a fish".