Wal-Mart: Lower-Prices, Higher Taxes

Also check out:

Wal-Mart Says Their Customers Are Running Out of Money

'My Time at Wal-Mart' Blogger is Wrong About Welfare

The U.S. is the Most Overworked Developed Nation in the World – When do we Draw the Line?

Poverty is Big Business

One in Three Americans Face Poverty, Latest Census Info Shows

Pictorial - Myth Vs. Reality of Life On Welfare

Breadlines and Foodstamps (Infographic)

During the Great Depression, "bread-lines" were an unfortunate but common sight as millions of Americans teetered ot the edge of starvation.

If today's SNAP benefit (foodstamps) was measured as a bread-line, there would be a line 7 miles long at every single Wal-Mart in America. Ironically enough, the heirs to the WalMart fortune hold more wealth than 42% of Americans combined. 

It is also important to understand that the enormous number of people on foodstamps has nothing to do with personal choices, bad habits, laziness, or other stereotypes, but rather is a product of poor economic policy. Just like the bread lines of the Great Depression were not filled with people who simply "chose" not to work, what is happening today is an emergency, but one that is less seen, slipped under the rug with rhetoric and plastic cards. The truth is, that even for many people who are lucky enough to find a job at all today, they still cannot afford to buy food for their families. By some accounts, as many as 80% of Wal-Mart employees themselves are on foodstamps.

There are solutions though. First, create a PRACTICAL MINIMUM WAGE. Second, end the vampiric economic policy of the Federal Reserve Bank. It's really that basic.

To see the high-resolution original presentation of the following graphics, click HERE and HERE

Also check out:

Wal-Mart Says Their Customers Are Running Out of Money

'My Time at Wal-Mart' Blogger is Wrong About Welfare

The U.S. is the Most Overworked Developed Nation in the World – When do we Draw the Line?

Poverty is Big Business

One in Three Americans Face Poverty, Latest Census Info Shows

Pictorial - Myth Vs. Reality of Life On Welfare





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World's Richest Woman Wants You to Work Harder for $2 a Day

Capitalism can only function properly with strong anti-monopoly legislation by the government. Without it, you no longer have healthy competition, you wind up with fascist totalitarianism. Which is what we are seeing today throughout the Western world and across traditionally capitalist societies. 

In the following article, you will see the perfect example of exactly how broken the system has become. How deluded our economic leadership actually is. Sadly, that delusion is not exclusive to the overlords, but is about the only thing that trickles-down into our society, so that even your Neo-Con neighbor will espouse this same philosophy to their own detriment, to the detriment of their very own families.

I can't think of a more sorry, or deluded creature than the wage-slave and wannabe entrepreneur who defends the greed of maniacs like this woman here.

World's richest woman makes case for $2-a-day pay

The world's richest woman, Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, drew international scorn recently after saying that people who are jealous of the wealthy should drink less and work harder. And now she's back with some more helpful advice.

Speaking at the Sydney Mining Club, Rinehart said her country's mining industry couldn't compete with nations that are willing to pay workers less than $2 a day for their sweat and labor.

The implicit suggestion: Employers should be free to pay workers whatever they please.

This echoes Rinehart's earlier to-do list, in which she urged Aussie lawmakers to cut the minimum wage so that, well, she wouldn't have to spend so much money on things like workers' salaries and benefits.

"The evidence is inarguable that Australia is becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export-oriented business," Rinehart said at the Sydney Mining Club. "Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country's future."

Yep, it's getting harder and harder to be a job creator.

Rinehart knows what it means to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. She inherited a fortune now estimated to be worth about $18 billion. That's a heavy burden to bear.

Yet, inexplicably, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard didn't take Rinehart's advice in the generous spirit with which it was offered.

"It's not the Australian way to toss people $2, to toss them a gold coin, and then ask them to work for a day," Gillard said. "We support proper Australian wages and decent working conditions."
Socialist.

As Rinehart observed in an earlier magazine piece: "There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire. If you're jealous of those with more money don't just sit there and complain, do something to make more money yourself. Spend less time drinking, smoking and socializing and more time working."

And, apparently, you should be happy with whatever table scraps you receive by way of compensation.

So here we have a woman who has never earned a dime in her life, but instead inherited everything she owns, telling you that the only reason you are not as wealthy as her is because you drink and smoke too much.

No one told her she eats too damn much.

Now let's not be mistaken. Obesity is not the issue here. Point of fact, many, many poor people are obese because they simply cannot afford nutritious foods, and turn to high-fat low-cost, low-nutrition flavor enhanced genetically modified food-ish products in order to satiate their starvation.

But this woman on the other hand, can clearly afford to eat healthy, and have every other benefit which the poor do not have, in order to be healthy. Proper healthcare, plenty of recreation options, the best of everything. Instead, she dares to condemn the poor, to judge the poor, while sitting there in her stinking pile of greed, gluttony, sloth and pride, while accusing the working man of being envious.

The average working man (or woman) does not begrudge the wealthy not one bit. Not simply because they are wealthy anyway. In fact, the average worker tends to pride themselves on being the salt of the earth, who would not actually be happy to live drowned in wealth, but instead would rather live with humility, among family and friends. To earn their daily bread, with an honest day's wage for an honest day of work. The average worker does not yearn for much more than the health of their family, and the simple pleasures of life. The security of a strong home, and good health. To die in a warm bed, surrounded by loved ones, with a mind full of mental photographs that celebrate the fruits of their labors. Holidays with good food and good people, vacations alongside local lakes, weekends to the shore perhaps, playing in the snow, picnics and rainbows. The humble pleasures of life on Earth, that should never be stolen away from us by imposed drudgery and servitude, by slavery, so that a few people might live in misplaced opulence.




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Need a Job? Go to Prison!

Approximately one-in-ten Americans are out of work right now, through no fault of their own. Many, many millions more are doing their best to get by on an impractical minimum wage, while taxpayers subsidize the labor costs of major corporations such as Wal-Mart. Why are there so many people out of work, why are so many people underpaid? It seems clear from examples like the following, that the American worker is destined to work for mere pennies a day, if they are to remain competitive.

Prison Industry Stealing U.S. Jobs

As if American businesses don’t have enough trouble competing with free traders, who exploit cheap labor in third world countries to make sizable profits, they are also fighting government-run corporations that pay prisoners pennies on the dollar to manufacture cheap goods and undercut private industry. 

Is it any wonder that the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the industrialized world? According to a recent report on cable news, the U.S. government is using federal prison inmates to steal business away from civilian manufacturers by producing comparable merchandise for pennies on the dollar.

At the very heart of this scheme is Federal Prison Industries, or Unicor, a U.S. government-owned corporation that employs 13K prisoners at slave wages to produce everything from windbreakers to solar panels. Although the agency is currently restricted to selling their products exclusively to the federal government, they still cut into a major slice of several industrial markets.

Michael Mansh, owner-operator of Ashland Sales and Service, a Pennsylvania apparel manufacturer that does contract work for the U.S. Air Force (USAF), recently spoke with this AMERICAN FREE PRESS reporter about the impact Unicor has on many small businesses.

“I make certain products, and [Unicor] makes the identical product,” said Mansh. “They get paid higher prices than commercial manufacturers even though their labor rates range somewhere between 23¢ and $1.15 per hour. They don’t pay workers compensation,they don’t pay taxes  and they don’t have to pay any of the benefits private enterprise has to pay—yet they get paid a higher price by Department of Defense than I do.”

Full article at link: http://americanfreepress.net/?p=5780 

This picture was posted by the California Department of Corrections to wish everyone a happy Independence Day, as these workers sewed flags for ten-cents an hour:

These inmates have a job, and you don't. These prisoners build Patriot missiles.

22 Stats Show How Global Economy is Killing American Worker

We are sharing the actual list here for reference only. Please visit the original source to view the full article.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/22-stats-that-show-how-the-emerging-one-world-economy-is-absolutely-killing-american-workers

22 Stats That Show How The Emerging One World Economy Is Absolutely Killing American Workers

#1 One professor has estimated that cutting the U.S. trade deficit in half would create 5 million more jobs in the United States.
#2 The United States has a trade imbalance that is more than 7 times larger than any other nation on earth has.
#3 Overall, the United States has run a trade deficit of more than 8 trillion dollars with the rest of the globe since 1975.  That 8 trillion dollars could have gone to support U.S. businesses and pay the wages of U.S. workers.  Federal, state and local taxes would have been paid on that 8 trillion dollars if it had stayed in the United States.  This is one reason why our national debt is getting ready to cross the 16 trillion dollar mark.
#4 When NAFTA was passed in 1993, the United States had a trade surplus with Mexico of 1.6 billion dollars.  In 2010, we had a trade deficit with Mexico of 61.6 billion dollars.
#5 In 2001, American consumers spent 102 billion dollars on products made in China.  In 2011, American consumers spent 399 billion dollars on products made in China.
#6 The Chinese undervalue their currency by about 40 percent in order to gain a critical advantage over foreign competitors.  This means that many Chinese companies are able to absolutely thrive while their competition in the United States goes out of business.  The following is from a recent Fox News article....

To keep Chinese products artificially inexpensive on US store shelves, Beijing undervalues the yuan by 40 percent. It pirates US technology, subsidizes exports and imposes high tariffs on imports.

#7 According to the New York Times, a Jeep Grand Cherokee that costs $27,490 in the United States costs about $85,000 in China thanks to all the tariffs.
#8 The U.S. trade deficit with China during 2011 was 295.4 billion dollars.  That was the largest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world.
#9 Back in 1985, our trade deficit with China was only about 6 million dollars (million with an "m") for the entire year.
#10 U.S. consumers spend about 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that Chinese consumers spend on goods and services from the United States.
#11 The United States has actually lost an average of about 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
#12 According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing about half a million jobs to China every single year.
#13 The United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.
#14 During 2010 alone, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities closed their doors in America every single day.
#15 Since the auto industry bailout, approximately 70 percent of all GM vehicles have been built outside the United States.
#16 As I have written about previously, 95 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were middle class jobs.
#17 According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends continue.
#18 The percentage of working age Americans that are employed right now is actually smaller than it was at the end of the last recession.
#19 The average duration of unemployment in the United States is nearly three times as long as it was back in the year 2000.
#20 Due in part to the globalization of the labor pool, only about 24 percent of all jobs in the United States are "good jobs" at this point.
#21 Without enough good jobs, more Americans than ever before are falling into poverty.  Today, more than 100 million Americans are on welfare.
#22 In recent years the U.S. economy has embraced "free trade" and the emerging one world economy like never before.  Instead of increasing the number of jobs in our economy, it has resulted in the worst stretch of job creation in the United States in modern history....

If any single number captures the state of the American economy over the last decade, it is zero. That was the net gain in jobs between 1999 and 2009—nada, nil, zip. By painful contrast, from the 1940s through the 1990s, recessions came and went, but no decade ended without at least a 20 percent increase in the number of jobs.

Analyzing a Practical Minimum Wage

On this page, we will itemize a sample budget for a single person in order to analyze what a fair standard would be for a minimum-wage worker. It is our position that a person working eight hours a day, five days a week, at any job, should be able to support themselves to a minimum basic standard of living. This practical wage is necessary in order to elevate the class of working poor to contributing members of society. Working for anything less than what is needed to subsist on independently, is nothing short of slavery.

All figures are based on national averages, for a Federal standard.


RENT ------------------------------$1000
BASIC UTILITIES --------------$200
ADVANCED UTILITIES ------$150
FOOD ------------------------------$300
NON-FOOD GROCERY -----$50
CLOTHING -----------------------$75
TRANSPORTATION ----------$500
HEALTHCARE -----------------$350
MISCELLANEOUS -----------$400
------------------------------------------------------
Average Basic Monthly Expenses  $3,025

A full-time job at 40 hours per week is 173.2 hours per month calculating 4.33 weeks in each month. To find a reasonable minimum wage, we divide the average basic monthly expenses figure, by the number of hours worked. For the average American worker to support themselves without government assistance or by borrowing beyond their means, that worker must earn...

$17.47 per hour

Of course, that figure must be after all taxes and contributions are taken, or that anyone earning that amount must be exempt from all such garnishments and liability. A person who cannot even afford to pay their own way, cannot afford to pay taxes. Forcing them to pay taxes that will jeopardize their basic standard of living, is unsound economics and in the long run will only force other taxpayers to subsidize those workers, in turn jeopardizing their own living standard, in a perpetual cycle that we see happening today as more workers descend into deep poverty. 

If $17.47 per hour seems unreasonable to you, or just downright impossible, consider a few more facts. There was a time when a grocery clerk, or a department store salesperson could actually support themselves on what they earned. That is not so today.

Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, it’s just not the average American worker. -Source

Based on consumption growth since 1968, the minimum wage today would have to be $25.05 to represent the same share of the country's total consumption. Based on national income growth, the minimum wage should be $22.08. Based on personal income growth, it should be $21.16. -Source

After adjusting for inflation, minimum wage workers today are paid about 26 percent less than they were in 1974.

At the top 1 percent of the American income distribution, average incomes rose 194 percent between 1974 and 2011.  Had U.S. minimum wages risen at the same pace as U.S. maximum wages, the minimum wage would now be $26.96 an hour. -Source

Here is a detailed description of how we arrived at our sample budget figures:


RENT- $1,000

It is very difficult to find an accurate national average cost for a rental apartment. Local market values have a very wide range, and rental units are not uniform. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) the median asking price for an unfurnished rental unit was $1,277 in the first-quarter of 2012. That amount is below what one might have to spend even for the most basic, small studio apartment in New York City, but enough to secure a large 3-bedroom apartment in a mid-western town. We must assume, however, that the minimum-wage worker will most likely be living where work is available which is more often in regions where rent is much higher. For the purposes of our analyses, we have generalized to come up with a figure that is below the national average, in order to establish a minimum standard of living. $1000 is what one might expect to pay for a one-bedroom apartment in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area.


BASIC UTILITIES - $200

This is another expense which is difficult to accurately quantify through statistical data. Again, we see large variances in regional costs as well. For example, the cost for electricity in Idaho is about 8-cents per kilowatt-hour, while in Hawaii it is over 33-cents. Sometimes, some utilities are included in monthly rent payment. Electricity, water/sewer, garbage collection, natural gas, heating oil and more can be part of a renter's basic utilities expense. The person's utility configuration may also play a role in their overall monthly budget. For example, if a person uses electricity for heating, rather than natural gas or oil, they will pay a much higher electric bill than the national average. Electric heat can be more costly than other heating sources as well. According to The WhiteFence Index, the average monthly cost for electricity  was $118.82 for the month of July 2012. Natural gas stood at $19.55 for the same warm-weather month, but was much higher in places like NYC which stood at $35 05.

So calculating roughly $120 per month for electric, and putting aside another $80 for other potential utility expense such as heat or garbage collection, we come to the estimate of $200. That estimate is supported by a NUMBEO cost of living survey of more than 3,000 people who paid an average of $197.99 for basic utilities over the past 18 months.


ADVANCED UTILITIES - $150

While some may argue that things like internet access, cellphones, and television are not necessities, they are still quite important to a productive member of society. Television may wind up as a worker's only form of entertainment, and entertainment is indeed a necessity for a human being's mental health. Internet access, while it may seem like a luxury to some, it really has become quite an important tool. For example, most jobs today cannot be applied to except online over the internet at the company's website. Internet access might be free at some place like a library, but that would incur additional transportation costs for an individual, often business cannot be taken care of under imposed time limits, and a worker's work schedule may not be compatible with a library's business hours. Telephone service is absolutely a necessity in modern society, whether it be cellular or a land line service. One must be able to report emergencies, make doctor's appointments, be accessible to potential employers, etc.

Using the WhiteFence Index again, we see that the national average for television service is roughly $55, and internet is close to $40. According to one comprehensive survey, the average cellphone bill was $47.11 in December 2010. $50 a month won't pay for a smart phone or excessive use, but the mobility of a cellphone makes it well worth the five or ten extra dollars one might pay over the average cost of a home telephone line. Having a cellphone can actually save a person money in the long-run, when they can coordinate rides rather than paying cab-fare, when they can receive an important call right away rather than going home to check an answering machine, and many other ways that we take for granted.


FOOD - $300

The maximum benefit for a single person using "food stamps" or partaking of the Federal Supplementary Nutritional Allowance Plan (SNAP) is $200 per month. SNAP is not intended to be a person's only food source, though often it is sadly enough. Surviving on less than $200 a month can be very difficult, even dangerous to one's health. For our estimate here, we have added a modest $100 to the Federal supplementary amount. A person who is working will require more portable meals to take with them to work, which can incur additional cost. Also, it is sometimes necessary to eat a prepared meal from a restaurant or vendor. An unexpected delay at the doctor's office, a lunch stolen from the break-room refrigerator, or any number of unforeseen events can take place which will leave a person needing to pay for a meal outside of the home. Even at $300 per month, a person will still have to be a wise shopper to eat healthy, as more nutritious foods are usually more expensive. The USDA estimates an at-home moderate food cost plan for an adult male to be $292.80.


NON-FOOD GROCERIES - $50

This is another category which is difficult to calculate due to wide variances in a person's habits, living conditions and so forth. Nonetheless, we must budget some amount for things like soap, detergents, razor blades, toothpaste, deodorant, over-the-counter medicine, paper products, light bulbs, etcetera. $50 does not seem an unreasonable amount to calculate for such necessary goods.


CLOTHING - $75

Even for a person who is not concerned about fashion, clothing can be a significant expense, and is often neglected by those living at or near the poverty level. Clothes wear out over time, more quickly for a person who is working regularly. Each year, a person will likely need new pants, shoes, shirts, and underclothing as the old ones become worn and frayed or accidentally damaged. A person who works in some fields may have to spend more, to keep up proper appearances, such as dress shoes and ties, or dresses. Even a person who goes on a job interview at a fast-food restaurant should have an outfit or two that is a step above their daily wear. Such an outfit would also be reserved for events such as court dates, funerals, and so forth. A person may also need to replace a winter coat every few years, or unexpectedly as well. On top of the expense for the clothing itself, we also have a significant expense in the maintenance of that clothing. Most low-income workers do not own their own laundry facilities, and even if they did, it would incur additional utility cost.

Again, because of so many variables, in a person's habits, the job they have, the environment they are exposed to, it is difficult to calculate a specific dollar amount to be applied to everyone, so we will have to make a conservative but informed estimate. Assuming that a person does not work in a "dirty"job such as construction, in a kitchen or butcher shop, or something of that nature that would require a lot of clothing to be cleaned regularly, we will estimate a very modest 3 loads of laundry per week, at a cost of $4 per load,or a bit more than $50 per month in laundry expense not including detergent.

Next we will calculate the cost of new/replacement clothing based on a quick Google search of popular bargain retailers. Two pair of jeans at $40 per pair, or $80. One pair of quality name-brand footwear, at $75 for the pair. Two packages of undershorts, $20. One package of socks, $20. Three collared polo-style shirts, $45. We will also set aside another $60 for seasonal-wear and accessories, such as swim-suit, winter gloves, replacement coat, sweatshirt, pajamas, etc. This gives us a total of $300 for clothing for the year. This is quite a modest sum really, considering that many people spend double that much twice a year, with other itemized purchases throughout the year. We then divide the $300 by twelve months for an estimated monthly expense of $25. We then add the $50 per month laundry expense, for a grand total of $75 per month to stay clothed.


TRANSPORTATION - $500

Public transportation is generally considered to be much cheaper than owning your own car, but that savings is often offset by the higher cost of rent and general living expenses in a big city. There may also be times when a person may wind up having to pay for expensive cab fares, when mass transit is not an option. Finally, public transportation is not reliable or doesn't exist outside of city limits. So for this section, we are going to calculate the costs of operating a car as one's primary transportation.

A modest car loan of $4,000 over 48 months at 12% interest would incur a monthly debt payment of  $105.34. Taxes, registration, licensing, and safety inspection all vary widely from state to state and city to city, while estimating repair costs and depreciation can be tricky, but the Federal standard is set at 55.5-cents per mile in 2012. (Some sources put overall operating expense as high as $1.39 per mile.) Assuming a short 20-mile round-trip commute, and also assuming that all errands are taken care of while going to or returning from work, we come up with the conservative estimate of 433 miles per month, at an operating cost of roughly $240, plus the $105 for the loan payment is $345. Now we add insurance cost. CarInsurance.com has pinned the national average at $1,794 for July 2012, or roughly $150 per month. We will round off the transportation cost to $500 per month. This is roughly the same amount as 7 mass transit fares in NYC per day, or as few as 3 metro rides per day in Washington DC.


HEALTHCARE -$350

The healthcare system in the United States is a complete disaster, with premiums now double and triple what they were only ten or twenty years ago. Even for a person who can afford health insurance, choosing the right plan can be a descent into madness trying to sort out all of the facts. According to a 2011 report by eHealth, the average monthly premium for an individual was $183. But that report also shows that figure was a 9.6% increase form the year before, and that the average deductible was $2,935. Which means, of course, that such a policy is only good for serious illness or injury. A more practical policy would cost a person quite a bit more, in order to see a doctor when they are sick, or twist an ankle, or something of a more common nature. If we have a look at the plans available to US Federal employees, we see that individual policies range from about $280 monthly, to more than $600. Dental care and vision care may not be included in many policies, making overall healthcare costs even higher. We will realistically estimate monthly healthcare costs to be $350 for a most basic level of practical coverage.


MISCELLANEOUS - $400

The items we have covered here are only the most basic cost of living needs, and have been conservatively estimated so that only the most frugal person could get by on these amounts. These figures do not account for a wide range of unexpected and miscellaneous expenses. Having one's car stolen, for example, could be absolutely devastating to someone who was only carrying basic insurance on their vehicle. Things like holiday gifts, fitness center dues, vacations, student-loan payments and educational expenses, furniture, haircuts, life insurance, and more have all been left out here. Having a child to care for, would dramatically increase expenses as well. Website eHow recommends adding 15% to any budget to allow for unforeseen and unexpected purchases. So we will do that here.

* * *

Thank you for taking the time to read our report, and please feel free to leave comments below.

'My Time at Wal-Mart' Blogger is Wrong About Welfare

Young college student Christine Rousselle generated some internet buzz, and even garnered some main-stream media attention, with her blog article about her experience working as a Wal-Mart cashier during Summer breaks. Specifically, she attacks people who are on welfare or public assistance, while demanding welfare reform, rather than addressing the true root causes of poverty. This is my point-by-point rebuttal to her propaganda piece, exposing her flawed arguments and bias, which are typical of those who would rather attack poor people than strive to change the conditions which put these folks on welfare in the first place.

Her article is hosted by The College Conservative and can be viewed at that link.

My Time at Walmart: Why We Need Serious Welfare Reform 

Dec 13 by Christine Rousselle

During the 2010 and 2011 summers, I was a cashier at Wal-Mart #1788 in Scarborough, Maine. I spent hours upon hours toiling away at a register, scanning, bagging, and dealing with questionable clientele. These were all expected parts of the job, and I was okay with it. What I didn’t expect to be part of my job at Wal-Mart was to witness massive amounts of welfare fraud and abuse.

I understand that sometimes, people are destitute. They need help, and they accept help from the state in order to feed their families. This is fine. It happens. I’m not against temporary aid helping those who truly need it. What I saw at Wal-Mart, however, was not temporary aid. I witnessed generations of families all relying on the state to buy food and other items. I literally witnessed small children asking their mothers if they could borrow their EBT cards.

The temporary nature of any aid is directly correlated to what created the need in the first place, and how long it will take for those conditions to be mitigated, if they ever are. This goes to the root causes of why we even have a need for a welfare program in the first place. The sad fact of the matter is that the relationship between government and business in this country have set economic conditions which induce a condition of permanent poverty in our country. Sure, some people may get on the welfare rolls, while others manage to make it off of welfare and get back on their feet. But overall, there remains a permanent underclass of citizens for which there is no economic opportunity whatsoever to be self-sufficient, and that underclass continues to grow each year as the job market continues to deteriorate. So long as those conditions persist, the temporary nature of welfare is idealist rather than realist. These are concepts that this young college student might have difficulty understanding though, so let's cut right to the chase here. Even in her own experience, she is not the expert she pretends to be.

Working for two summers at Wal-Mart is hardly comparable to working there for "generations." Unless she has worked there long enough to see one generation to the next come through her line using foodstamps, then she is in no position to render such an assessment authoritatively. Did she see Bob Jones come through her line every month for 18 years, with little Bob Jones Jr., who now also comes through her line every month with his own foodstamps? No, the only thing she could possibly have seen was parents buying food for their children, using an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card. Is it her position then that children should be barred from welfare benefits? Personally, I can't think of anyone more worthy of help than a hungry child.

I once had a man show me his welfare card for an ID to buy alcohol. The man was from Massachusetts. Governor Michael Dukakis’ signature was on his welfare card. Dukakis’ last gubernatorial term ended in January of 1991. I was born in June of 1991. The man had been on welfare my entire life. That’s not how welfare was intended, but sadly, it is what it has become.

Here was have already caught Miss Rousselle in a flat out lie. Massachusetts did not even begin using the EBT card until April 1, 1997. Before that time, benefits were paid by check, and foodstamps were actual paper certificates which were torn out of a booklet, which are facts that she is too young to remember. The idea that she even remembers the name of someone who was governor of some far-off state when she was born is very difficult to believe as well, and exposes how she was really reaching too far in order to try to make her point. I can't even remember who was governor of my home state when I was born, and seeing it written on some tattered 20 year old ID while I was at work wouldn't do much to sear it into my memory either.

It is also a fact that, contrary to popular belief, welfare does indeed have a time limit. Massachusetts happens to be one of 17 states with a shorter time limit than the maximum Federal benefit of 60 months. That is a maximum of five years, over the course of a person's entire lifetime, that they can get public assistance funding should they find themselves in need. The state where the imaginary ID was issued, offers even less time.

Seeing this blatant lie, it is clear that anything else this young woman has written might be entirely fabricated as well, but we will go ahead and continue here as an academic exercise. Other things she claims to have witnessed as a cashier, we will go ahead and itemize here.

a) People ignoring me on their iPhones while the state paid for their food. (For those of you keeping score at home, an iPhone is at least $200, and requires a data package of at least $25 a month. If a person can spend $25+ a month so they can watch YouTube 24/7, I don’t see why they can’t spend that money on food.)

Having a telephone and an internet connection is not simply a luxury, it is a necessity to function in our society. You can't even apply for a job in this day and age without an internet connection. And a telephone? Well that really should be obvious why someone needs a phone. To call to make a doctor's appointment, to talk to your social worker, to call 911 if your house is on fire, there is a long list of reasons why a person needs a telephone.

By using this blogger's logic, we might just as easily say that if a person can spend $100 a month for electricity, then they should use that money for food instead. Or toilet paper, if they can afford toilet paper, they can afford food, after all, poor people were born with hands. Toilet paper is a luxury. Go out and pick leaves if you don't want to wipe with your hand.

b) People using TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) money to buy such necessities such as earrings, kitkat bars, beer, WWE figurines, and, my personal favorite, a slip n’ slide. TANF money does not have restrictions like food stamps on what can be bought with it.

A pair of cheap Wal-Mart earrings is hardly luxurious spending. Making oneself presentable in public is indeed a necessity if one ever hopes to get back off of welfare. Walking into a job interview with no makeup on wearing a pair of old sweatpants is hardly the way to make a good first impression.

Judging by the rest of this list, and in particular her repeated disdain for children, it seems clear that Christine believes if you are poor, you should take no pleasure in life whatsoever. Kit Kat bars huh? Well maybe sugar for someone's coffee should also be made illegal for poor people. While we're at it, let's just force all poor people onto the old bread and water diet, then make them sit in an empty room staring at the walls all day. And her "personal favorite" the slip n' slide. What exactly is wrong with that? It's not as if someone went out and built a new swimming pool with a waterfall using tax dollars. I hardly find it offensive that my tax dollars went to buy a sheet of plastic so that some kids could have a little fun running around and keeping keeping cool playing with a garden hose in the hot summer months.

If someone walked in and bought a $3,000 flat screen the size of a panel van and paid for it using TANF dollars, that might be considered an extravagant purchase. A few token purchases of minor, simple pleasures is hardly abuse of welfare. Recreation and relaxation are necessary to the mental health and stability of human beings.

c) Extravagant purchases made with food stamps; including, but not limited to: steaks, lobsters, and giant birthday cakes.

Oh, the old steak and lobsters routine again. Every time there is a conversation about food stamps, there will be some right-winger who pipes up to tell us all about the time he saw someone use foodstamps to buy seatk and lobster. It's bullshit. People who are getting foodstamps are next to starvation, they aren't going to go blowing that money on a lobster. Not without a damn good reason anyway. Maybe this is their gift to them self, or their spouse, for their birthday, and they won't eat the rest of the week in order to afford this one treat for themselves. A steak is not necessarily even a luxury at all, but simply food, a necessity. Chuck steaks have long been a staple food for households on a lean budget. And birthday cakes. Again this young woman attacks children, and this time she wants to take away their birthday. Would you really walk in to a poor person's house, and take away their child's birthday cake? She probably would, along with their brand new favorite WWE action-figure. After all, we don't want the children of poor people to grow up spoiled with a sense of entitlement.

d) A man who ran a hotdog stand on the pier in Portland, Maine used to come through my line. He would always discuss his hotdog stand and encourage me to “come visit him for lunch some day.” What would he buy? Hotdogs, buns, mustard, ketchup, etc. How would he pay for it? Food stamps. Either that man really likes hotdogs, or the state is paying for his business. Not okay.

If this is actually true, then this would indeed constitute fraud. It would also be easily solved with a quick phone call to the local Social Services office. Obviously she knew who the man was, and where his hot dog cart was, yet she did nothing about it. It's also possible that the man did actually declare his income from the hot dog cart, but still didn't earn enough from the venture to put him over the threshold to be eligible for some foodstamps.

As far as the state paying for his business though, maybe we should take a closer look at what the state is paying for the Walton family for their little business, known as Wal-Mart. Low wages, lack of benefits, lack of overtime work and full-time positions makes the company one of the worst employers in the country, leaving taxpayers on the hook to make up for the shortfall. Thanks to the low wages paid to WalMart employees, US taxpayers must subsidize those workers to the tune of $2.66 BILLION annually, for things like Medicaid and Foodstamps. In Florida alone 12,300 WalMart employees are on Medicaid. The combined net worth of the six members of the Walton family is the same as the combined net worth of the poorest 40% of Americans, yet this young little Wal-Mart worker is attacking a small-business man trying to run a hot dog cart.

Let's Kick Wal-Mart Off Welfare

Why Wal-Mart Loves Welfare

Rep. Robert Hagan slams Wal-Mart over workers needing public assistance

Wal-Mart Welfare


So we wind up with only one of her four examples could even really be considered to be possible welfare fraud, while at the same time the very same company she works for actually forces employees to get on welfare in order to survive. That is not some temporary need. That is the new reality in America, that even people who get up and go to work every day, still need welfare in order to get by. That is not entitlement, that is Wal-Mart policy.

The thing that disturbed me more than simple cases of fraud/abuse was the entitled nature of many of my customers. One time, a package of bell peppers did not ring up as food in the computer. After the woman swiped her EBT card, it showed a balance that equaled the cost of the peppers. The woman asked what the charge was, and a quick glance at the register screen showed that the peppers did not ring up as food. (Food items had the letter ‘F’ next to their description.) The woman immediately began yelling at me, saying that, “It’s food! You eat it!” 

This wasn’t the only time things like this happened: if a person’s EBT balance was less than they thought it would be, or if their cards were declined, it was somehow my fault. I understand the situation is stressful, but a person should be knowledgeable about how much money is in their account prior to going grocery shopping. EBT totals are printed on receipts, and every cell phone has a calculator function. There’s no excuse, and there’s no reason to yell at the cashier for it.

It sounds to me that the real sense of entitlement here is coming from Miss Rouselle herself, as if someone using an EBT card owes her more respect than the average customer. Let's face it, working with the public is a strenuous, infuriating job. But just because someone is on welfare doesn't mean that they have to checkout their groceries in silence with their heads bowed, groveling to the emotional needs of the cashier. If the green peppers rang up wrong, it is your responsibility fix the problem. You may not have programmed the computer system that week, it may not be your fault, but you are the person standing there in front of the customer. That is what you are being paid for, to be a representative of the company, and to serve the customer.

As far as yelling at a cashier about the balance on their EBT card, I will agree that it's not very good manners, and it's certainly not the job of the cashier to monitor someone's account balance and spending habits. But just the same, even poor people are entitled to have a bad day once in a while, and might actually be expected to be having a bad day just about every single day. So you might try cutting them some slack. At the very least, don't pretend that this sort of incident is exclusive to EBT card users. Anyone who has ever worked in retail can tell you how frequently someone with a credit card or a bank card freaks out when their card gets declined, or won't swipe because the card was damaged. Stupid, pain in the ass customers come from all walks of life. Just because someone is getting government assistance in no way makes obligated to kiss your ass.

The worst thing I ever saw at Wal-Mart Scarborough was two women and their children. These women each had multiple carts full of items, and each began loading them at the same time (this should have been a tip-off to their intelligence levels). The first woman, henceforth known as Welfare Queen #1, paid for about $400 worth of food with food stamps. The majority of her food was void of any nutritional value. She then pulled out an entire month’s worth of WIC (Women, Infants, and Children program) checks. I do not mind people paying with WIC, but the woman had virtually none of the correct items. WIC gives each participating mother a book containing actual images of items for which a person can and cannot redeem the voucher. This woman literally failed at image comprehension.

After redeeming 10+ WIC checks, Welfare Queen #1 had me adjust the prices of several items she was buying (Wal-Mart’s policy is to adjust the price of the item without question if it’s within a dollar or two).

Now our young Conservative remarks about the "intelligence levels" of a few of her customers. If someone is indeed of low IQ, wouldn't that actually show more of a need for assistance than the average person even? Someone who cannot perform even basic and simple tasks would be considered handicapped. But maybe we should just let all the people with autism, or brain injuries just starve to death in the streets.

Paying for $400 worth of food with foodstamps is not abuse. The woman obviously had a family, and trying to feed an entire family on only $400 a month is not easy. People on welfare get a monthly allotment, and will often spend it all on one trip, rather then spending money going back and forth whenever they need something. Many people on foodstamps don't even have their own car, and can only get to the supermarket when they find a ride with someone else.

Admonishing the woman for her selections and the lack of nutritional value in the food she was purchasing reveals the ignorance of the young cashier. Because poor people cannot afford to make a trip to the supermarket a few times a week, they cannot buy much fresh food, leaving their cupboards filled with nutritionally deficient packaged and processed foods. Healthier food is also much more expensive. It is more important to not run out of food in the middle of the month than it is to eat fresh and healthy. Besides, as Christine tried to tell us earlier, things like beef should not be on a poor person's menu anyway, so bologna and Spam it is then.

She then closes one paragraph and opens a new one literally contradicting herself. In one breath she is telling us that the woman can't read pictures and didn't have the right items to go with the WIC checks, but then turns right around and tells us that she processed ten of those WIC checks. If she didn't have qualifying items, then what were those 10+ checks actually spent on? Did Christine commit fraud by falsifying the record of what had been purchased? Or is Miss Rouselle full of crap yet again, going out of her way to make a false portrayal of her "experience" as a Wal-Mart cashier?

Finally, as far as adjusting prices goes, when every dollar counts, it's hardly surprising that a person would be watching that tally closely to make sure there were no errors, and that the person would expect any errors to be corrected. Again, that's your job, so do your job, and don't complain about it when a customer expects you to do your job.

She then pulled out a vacuum cleaner, and informed me that the cost of the vacuum was $3.48 because, “that’s what the label says.” The vacuum cleaner was next to a stack of crates that were $3.48. Somehow, every other customer was able to discern that the vacuum cleaner was not $3.48, but Welfare Queen #1 and her friend Welfare Queen #2 were fooled. Welfare Queen #2 informed me that she used to work for Wal-Mart, and that the “laws of Wal-Mart legally said” that I would have to sell her the vacuum for $3.48.

This bit I do actually find believable. Anyone who has ever worked in retail has at least a few stories like this. But again, pain in the ass customers come from all walks of life and are just a part of the job. It has nothing to do with how someone pays for their groceries.

After contacting my manager, who went off to find the proper vacuum price, Welfare Queen #1 remarked that it must be tough to stand on a mat all day and be a cashier. I looked at her, smiled, shrugged, and said, “Well, it’s a job.” She was speechless.

Speechless, probably because it's a crappy job, that if you weren't still living at home with Mommy and Daddy, you would have to be on welfare too. While this "welfare queen" was probably feeling bad for the young girl, and maybe even a little guilty for being a difficult customer, the cashier was passing judgement on someone she knows nothing about.

After they finally admitted defeat, (not before Welfare Queen #2 realizing she didn’t have enough money to buy all of the food she had picked out, resulting in the waste of about $200 worth of products) the two women left about an hour and a half after they arrived at my register. The next man in line said that the two women reminded him of buying steel drums and cement. I said I was reminded why I vote Republican.

An hour and a half huh? That has to be a new record for slowest cashier in a Wal-Mart ever. She's not doing much to make Republicans look good here.

I am wondering how $200 worth of products were wasted too. Unless it was $200 worth of deli meat, you take the cart and go put the stuff back on the shelf. Again, pretty common task in retail and in particular working in a supermarket, reverse-shopping.

Maine has a problem with welfare spending. Maine has some of the highest rates in the nation for food stamp enrollment, Medicaid, and TANF. Nearly 30% of the state is on some form of welfare. Maine is the only state in the nation to rank in the top two for all three categories. This is peculiar, as Maine’s poverty rate isn’t even close to being the highest in the nation. The system in Maine is far easier to get into than in other states, and it encourages dependency. When a person makes over the limit for benefits, they lose all benefits completely. There is no time limit and no motivation to actually get back to work. Furthermore, spending on welfare has increased dramatically, but there has been no reduction of the poverty rate. Something is going terribly wrong, and the things I saw at work were indicators of a much larger problem. Something must change before the state runs out of money funding welfare programs.

I don't live in Maine and have never made a study of Maine's welfare system, so I cannot speak with authority on those details. However, we have already established that there is indeed a time limit for welfare benefits, and what she states there is plainly false.

She does make a statement here that does not seem to fit with the tone of the rest of her article, when she mentions that a person loses all benefits if they earn just a little too much. This is true, and is a factor in why a person might not take a few extra hours when offered, or otherwise partake of small opportunities that will jeopardize their lifeline. Is she suggesting though, that earning caps should be raised, so that people on welfare can stay on welfare even if they earn a little too much?

Finally, I do agree that increased welfare spending and no reduction in poverty are of very serious concern. But those problems will not be solved by attacking the intelligence of some lady at the grocery store who is trying to feed her kids with precious few resources. These problems are not a matter of personal choice, but the result of bad government policy overall, not only as they pertain to the welfare system. You aren't going to get rid of welfare by attacking the people who are on welfare. The only way to get rid of welfare is to give them job, real jobs, where they can earn an honest living. With 30 million people looking for work, and many millions more earning far less than what is needed to survive, welfare is absolutely necessary, unfortunately. Attacking the victims of flawed economic policy is nothing but a distraction from the real problems, and the real culprits. It is propaganda designed for the government and the corporations to scape-goat their own responsibility, to shift the blame. Meanwhile, the reality is that someone needs to earn more than double minimum wage, twice the rate of poverty, simply to get by. It's not a matter of personal choices, work ethic, or social graces. It's simple arithmetic.

Here is a sample budget, from a friend who lives in upstate NY. Feel free to comment if you believe it's unreasonable.

$1000 rent (trailer)
$100 electric
$50 cooking gas/hot water heater
$100 heating oil (monthly fee for lock-in price)
$300 groceries (including household goods such as soap, trash bags)
$50 clothing (laundry, underwear replacement when necessary, shoes)
$50 cellphone (basic prepaid service)
$100 triple-play (home phone, basic cable, internet)
$130 auto loan payment ($4k/36 mos/12.5%)
$120 auto insurance (under 35 with no tickets)
$150 gasoline (local only)
$50 auto maintenance (minimum)
$250 medical

$2450

That's over $15 an hour, TAKE HOME pay, just to survive. More than double minimum wage, BEFORE TAXES.

Pictorial - Myth vs. Reality of Living on Welfare

"People on welfare are lazy." 

Employment has been a requirement for welfare assistance since 1996. Sadly, there are simply not enough jobs to go around, while millionss of low-wage workers lucky enough to have jobs are still forced to get foodstamps and other assistance. Half of all welfare recipients have jobs.

"Everyone on welfare has a flat-screen TV, I can't even afford one."

The reality is that most people who are poor, or who are on welfare, cannot even afford television service so they would have no need of a television set at all.

"I always see people on food stamps taking their groceries out of the store and loading them in a Cadillac."

Appearances are not always what they seem. Just because someone gets into a nice car doesn't mean it's their car at all, or that they didn't just lose their job and the repo man will be the next person you see behind the wheel. Sadly too, people tend to exaggerate to get their point across when voicing their anger about public assistance programs.

"If they were really poor, they couldn't afford nice clothes."

Just because a person is not a slob and tries to take care of their things, doesn't mean that they are not poor. In fact, keeping up appearances is instrumental when trying to pull oneself back out of poverty, after losing a job or otherwise hitting hard times financially.

"How are you online? If you were actually poor you couldn't afford a computer."

Modern technology is often taken for granted on the one hand, but then at the same time looked upon as something privileged, that only people of some financial means should have access to. In the modern world however, it would be next to impossible to get a job, make crucial appointments such as court appearances or doctor's visits, or otherwise operate in society at all without things like cell phones and computers.

"If you can afford cigarettes, you don't need welfare."

Living in poverty is a state of constant high-level stress, combined with long, tedious hours of forced idleness and despair. Cigarettes are not only an addictive habit, but also come to represent normalcy and freedom to someone who no longer has any control over their own lives. You might be surprised what someone would stoop to in order to taste the freedom of lighting up. Like ashtray picking.

"How is it that poor people can afford to go out and get tattoos, but they can't afford to pay for a doctor?"

If you can find a doctor that will treat a bad case of Lyme disease for two packs of Newports and a bootleg DVD of Sons of Anarchy, you let us know down there in the comments section. In the meantime, poor folks will continue to get what they pay for.

1.2 Million People Dropped From Labor Force, Skewing Unemployment Stats

Never before in history, have so many people fallen out of the labor force in a single month.

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that's not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. As for the quality of jobs, as withholding taxes roll over Year over year, it can only mean that the US is replacing high paying FIRE jobs with low paying construction and manufacturing. So much for the improvement.

Visit the source of this brief to see more chart graphics from Zero Hedge at the following link:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/record-12-million-people-fall-out-labor-force-one-month-labor-force-participation-rate-tumbles-

You can also check out the article The New Yorker did on this, at this link:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2012/02/the-jobs-report-and-the-missing-12-million.html

Detroit, the New America