Citizens Receiving Food Aid from Federal Gov't Now Outnumber Full-Time Private Sector Workers

If you blame the Obama administration alone, then you have your blinders on.

The GOP controlled House, under the tutelage of John Boehner, has voted down jobs programs on several occasions, and Boehner has refused to bring other jobs programs to a vote, simply because he wants to make President Obama look bad.

Obama had proposed one of the most ambitious infrastructure repair and replacement programs in the history of the United States, and Boehner not only refused to bring it to a vote, he refused to even read the plan.

Two full weeks before the plan was released, Boehner simply said "I'm not even going to read or consider it".

Just like the GOP keeps blaming Obama for not passing a budget, but refuses to bring budgets passed in The Senate to a vote because they won't do anything, even things in the best interests of America, if it makes President Obama look good.

The most obstructionist House in history, and the most obstructionist SPEAKER in History, who can't even win the support of his party on several votes that are core to Republican values.

reply to post by babybunnies


Well then all the Democrats have to do is agree with Republicans once in a while.

Then we would see 'cooperation'.

Is this going to be solved by the idiot teahadists introducing 58 bills in Congress having to do with fetuses or vaginas or repealing Obamacare and exactly 0 having to do with jobs? I don't think so.

reply to post by Tazkven


Those charts are MEANINGLESS when adjusted for inflation:

$71,800 in 1979 would cost over $213,000 today

The median income of $16k a year over $52k a year today.

Blah.

Back to the argument over FIAT CURRENCY.

reply to post by beezzer


Then companies like Costco shouldn't exist, paying cashiers 20 bucks an hour with medical benefits but yet there they are all being the second largest retailer in the United States and stuff.

How can they do this and keep their employees off of welfare? Maybe because the CEO only makes $650,000 a year.

Sure, the walmart CEO makes more at 35 million a year but have his employees are on welfare ...

Who the hell really needs 35 million a year anyways, seriously?

It is greed brother, any way you cut it.

I however agree with you about the medical market but this thread is about welfare and the number of people on it and maybe, just maybe someone wants to know why. I can not explain it any clearer than I have.

As a business owner (several), an employer, a taxpayer (weekly)...

I anxiously await the day it all crumbles, although it never likely will.

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by Tazkven

 

It's more than just "greed". Walmart pays those employees that amount because that is what the current market will bear. If the economy was good, people would find jobs elsewhere and Walmart would have to raise wages just to keep people.

How to jump start the economy...

GOP....Feed the wealthy via policy...historically low taxes, tax breaks, loopholes...with that added money they will hire...Ayn Rand

Dems...Feed the middle class (consumer class) more money and consumption and consumer demand rises as they have more money to spend...that demand drives expansion and hiring to meet the demand.

My issue with the GOP approach is that the wealthy do not take that extra income and expand absent consumer demand for those products. No company ever expands just because they have extra money...instead they invest in non-job creating investments (renters income). Oil, gold, foriegn investments.

Conversly if a company has DEMAND for thier products by consumers...they always expand and hire. If they don't have the money to do so...dozens of banks or investors will compete to give them the money to expand and hire for thier growing business.

Consumer Demand...the Consumer Class...the Middle Class (which is shrinking) is what grows and economy.

this is just a basic truth IMO. It is Math. It is Economics. It is proven over a centurry of history.

We have a tax policy...education policy...etc. that rewards the wealthiest and penalizes everyone else and the American economy will never heal unless we reverse that.

Originally posted by Tazkven
reply to post by peter_kandra

 

I am a Union Maintenance Journeyman for a company that incorporates Six Sigma, you may have heard of them General Electric, we also use a process called Lean to increase our workers productivity. We make more with less people, less waste and less moves to manufacture a completed product. We use no automated robots in the process. All Union blood and sweat creating a quality Union product made in the U.S.A. We have taken products back from Mexico and China to be built right here in Louisville, Ky. Your damn right I am proud of that.

I make a good living and it would be easy for me to keep on keeping on, I feel like I am in a bubble almost, uneffected by the majority of issues most deal with but if I ignore the issues we face as a country because I am unaffected that would make me no better, in my eyes, than those who take advantage of the less fortunate.

I said that to say this ...

The graph I showed was to show stagnated wages over a period of time but the productivity line was just a bonus, it is not because of computers or robots our productivity has increased but because of improved work flow, better training and more intelligently well laid out, ergonomic production lines. We as a country can be competitive and still pay people fairly and provide everyone a better quality of life, regardless of their position on the totem pole.

There are models of successful service jobs paying fair wages. Costco being one, paying employees after five years $19.50 an hour and also giving a bonus of more than $2,000 every six months.

By comparison Wal-Mart pays employees after 5 years $12.50 an hour.

“Instead of minimizing wages, we know it’s a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty,”

Having more knowledgeable employees results in better sales, Costco averages $814 in sales per square foot, while Sam's Club makes just $586 per square foot.

"Look at people as an investment and hire the best you can possibly afford,"

"Stretch to your limit to keep them excited about coming to work ... then watch as they actually perform."

Low paid employees like those at Wal-Mart are the ones using welfare to supplement their income to survive, it has to be degrading and embarrassing not to mention it is costing tax payers money.

The CEO of Wal-Mart makes more per hour than his employees do yearly, Michael Duke's $35 million salary, when converted to an hourly wage, is $16,826.92. Employees paid $8.75 an hour would gross $13,650 a year.

That is greed my friend not "investments", how can you possibly defend this?

If Costco can pay people fairly and keep them off of welfare why can't other companies?

The answer is simple, greed and that greed is what is killing this country.

I'm not defending the obscene salaries of what, the CEO's of the Fortune 500? I'm defending the right of the small business owner who started from nothing and built a company of a few dozen to a few hundred employees. If he has a net worth of several million or even tens of millions of dollars, who is anyone to tell him he should have to pay more taxes to support entitlement programs? If he wants to go out and buy luxury cars,clothes and jewelry,it's his right and he earned it.

Incidentally, the board of these companies who pay their CEO's very large packages usually have to approve executive compensation packages,and shareholders sometimes also have a say.

What is Duke's compensation as a percentage of corporate revenue? Their revenue was $443 billion in 2012,so that 8 thousands of 1 percent of revenue. While CEO's typically aren't paid using that methodology,we need some frame of reference to put it into perspective.

GE's own CEO, Immelt, gets $11.3 million. Look at the top of the chart and who do we see? Tim Cook from Apple,with a $378 million package.

Fortune 50 CEOs

The point is that there will always be extremely high paid CEO's who run multinational companies and there will always be people who bitch about the earnings gap.

Back to the OP. I think we can agree that there are less than 100 million individuals receiving food aid due to people being eligible for more than one program. The common complaint I'm reading is that these programs have stopped being a safety net and have become part of the entitlement mentality.

Originally posted by F4guy
Is this going to be solved by the idiot teahadists introducing 58 bills in Congress having to do with fetuses or vaginas or repealing Obamacare and exactly 0 having to do with jobs? I don't think so.

Repeal ObamaCare.......

Maybe some jobs will come back.

Too many people cut down to part time now.

All Democrats have to do is vote with the Republicans. Problem solved.

Why do they persist ?

Originally posted by Tazkven
reply to post by beezzer

 

Then companies like Costco shouldn't exist, paying cashiers 20 bucks an hour with medical benefits but yet there they are all being the second largest retailer in the United States and stuff.

How can they do this and keep their employees off of welfare? Maybe because the CEO only makes $650,000 a year.

Sure, the walmart CEO makes more at 35 million a year but have his employees are on welfare ...

Who the hell really needs 35 million a year anyways, seriously?

It is greed brother, any way you cut it.

I however agree with you about the medical market but this thread is about welfare and the number of people on it and maybe, just maybe someone wants to know why. I can not explain it any clearer than I have.

Costco has a high Union workforce.

Although we know Unions many times cause problems, but do you think Costco's 'success' might be because of a union's effort to keep the managers in line so to speak ?

WalMart has zero union I believe.

reply to post by beezzer

The fact is, government controls the regulations, the laws, the rules that companies live by. Government interference into the housing market, the medical market have done more harm for the entire economy than any "greedy" company.

That is absolutely the truth and after all that punishment is why there are 100 million people on the government dime, that is not counting other government perks that the IRS 'classfies' as income.

Rinse and Repeat and vilify business for some odd reason they can't fathom the reality after the decades of 'government help' -people are not better off, but worse off.

reply to post by SpaDe_


And how many people do you think that is one of those programs are also in the others, particularly SNAP and the school lunch subsidiaries? If a family is getting SNAP then it goes to reason they might be getting some kind of other food aid, so that 100 million number has a cross over factor.

I'm just doubting the number they pulled out of thin air, that's all.

I]reply to post by peter_kandra


I am not trying to tell anyone what to do with their money but if you own a business with employees and are driving around in a Mercedes, checking the time on your Rolex to see if the contractor for the new sunroom on your 300,000 dollar home has shown up yet and your employees qualify for welfare assistance and have no medical insurance, I hate to break to you but ... You are the problem.

reply to post by neo96

Seriously?

That living wage BUILLCRAP is exactly why there are 100 million people on government food assistance.

Yes, seriously, pay people a decent wage and the economy flourishes. Guess what happens when you pay people enough so that they don't have to get food stamps to cover eating? That's right, that money goes into the economy. Giving businesses more demand, making businesses more money, increasing wealth generation, and thereby making the economy grow for everyone not just the top 1%

Then there is no reason for welfare programs at all.

There wouldn't be a need if companies paid a decent living, instead of jacking their employees around and paying them the bare minimum. But they do, and so here we are. Instead of trying to foster a healthy middle class in this country the top 1% have decided to do an Ayn Rand and pull their money out of the US Economy thereby stagnating it and making it harder for everyone to get ahead. They are shooting themselves in the foot. Because without a large healthy middle class, businesses suffer and decline.

reply to post by HauntWok


Sorry

When the employer is already paying the employees, unemployment insurance,half of their SS benefits, paying for real estate loans,equipment loans, the light bills, and everything else it costs to keep that business doors open.

The living wage is BS simple fact when a wage increase that a an increase across the board of unemployment insurance, and their SS benefits.

And that is the difference between a business staying in business or closing their doors forever and their HEALTHCARE.

Originally posted by jimmyx

Originally posted by SpaDe_

Originally posted by cenpuppie
Well, this looked a little sensationalized so i read the document. No where does it say that 101 million people are receiving some kind of food subsidiary from the government. The number of around $114 billion in total cost yes.

A figure that the author pulls out his rear.

Actually the numbers are very accurate as described, just takes a little math on your part to add the individual numbers together of the 15 programs as the author did. It is all there in black and white and accounted for.

SNAP - 46.7 million
National School Lunch Program - 32 million
School Breakfast - 10.6 million
WIC - 8.9 million
Child and Adult Care - 3.3 million

Total = 101.5 million (I even left out programs, these are just the major ones)

c'mon...think just a little bit
don't you think that a child getting a "school breakfast" is also getting on a "national lunch program" and "SNAP" and "child and adult care".....these are not 101.5 million individual people!!!!

The numbers are correct as reported by the USDA, if you don't like how they report them take that up with the USDA, but until then the numbers as reported are factual. Not to mention that I did not include all the numbers from all of the programs.

Originally posted by cenpuppie
reply to post by SpaDe_

 

And how many people do you think that is one of those programs are also in the others, particularly SNAP and the school lunch subsidiaries? If a family is getting SNAP then it goes to reason they might be getting some kind of other food aid, so that 100 million number has a cross over factor.

I'm just doubting the number they pulled out of thin air, that's all.

Answered in my post above this one. This is how they chose to report the numbers, not spin put on it by the author.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
This should tell people how much President Obama, and his administration have been lying about the "recovery of jobs in the U.S".

...
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a total of 101,000,000 people currently participate in at least one of the 15 food programs offered by the agency, at a cost of $114 billion in fiscal year 2012.

That means the number of Americans receiving food assistance has surpassed the number of full-time private sector workers in the U.S.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 97,180,000 full-time private sector workers in 2012.

The population of the U.S. is 316.2 million people, meaning nearly a third of Americans receive food aid from the government.

Of the 101 million receiving food benefits, a record 47 million Americans participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps. The USDA describes SNAP as the “largest program in the domestic hunger safety net.”
...

www.breitbart.com...

The economic recovery, and by "recovery" President Obama and his administration actually meant "crash", is en route and all set and ready...

Just wait until people start realizing that there is no money to pay for their food stamps...

How in the heck did we allow this to happen?

This plus the mess that is the "Obamacare"...

The U.S. administration seems to be working overtime to accelerate, and exacerbate the economic crash of the U.S...

edit on 9-7-2013 by ElectricUniverse because: (no reason given)

There will be food, the government will nationalize the farms by using eminent domain to get them handed over to corporations, and then redistribute the food that way.

reply to post by neo96


It's the only way, the only way to really get this economy moving again is if employers start paying a living wage again.

They need to think of it as an investment in their country and their own business. You get people jobs that pay enough so that they can support themselves you are going to see benefits across the board. From increased revenue to the IRS (less deficits in Washington) to more people buying more things and getting more services.

This neocon business model doesn't work and it won't.

reply to post by ElectricUniverse


What is the solution from the Obama administration to this incredible statistics? to burden the last of the tax payers providers with millions more of illegals on welfare

American the land of opportunity if you are illegal, have Obama amnesty and can file for welfare, the new American dream.