Paul Krugman: How the Other 47 Percent Lives

[cal04]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/how-the-other-47-percent-lives/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=0

I couldn’t make space for it in today’s column, but any affluent reader who wants a sense of what America is like for many hard-working people should read about the website McDonald’s has established to help its workers manage their family budget. The sample monthly budget they offer includes $900 from a second job; monthly rent of just $600 (which is very low even for a single-bedroom apartment in inexpensive cities, and of course ludicrous in metro New York), and zero heating expenses.
http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/mcdonalds/budget/budget2.php
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/07/15/2300321/mcdonalds-buget-low-wage/

This disparity between the way many of our fellow citizens live and the lives of the 1 percent ought to inspire a lot of empathy — and to be fair, in many cases it does. On average, however, widening inequality seems to be reducing, not increasing, empathy, as the life experiences of the affluent diverge from those of ordinary workers, to such an extent that the upper class no longer sees members of the working class as people like themselves.

Of course, Rick Santorum says that this is all “Marxism talk” — even the term “middle class” — because there are no classes in America.


Love for Labor Lost
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/opinion/krugman-love-for-labor-lost.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[Curmudgeoness]

1. If this were not so pathetic, it would be laughable.

Let's look at this "budget" and see how unrealistic it is (and this is based on two jobs, both paying about 1,000.00 a month):

Savings: 100.00
Rent/mortgage: 600.00
Car payment: 150.00
Car/home insurance: 100.00
Health insurance: 20.00
Heating: 50.00
Cable/phone: 100.00
Electric: 40.00
Other: 100.00
Monthly spending money: 750.00

I don't know who put this together, but they don't have a clue. Hell, most people pay more than the 20.00 health insurance allotment just in co-pays to visit a doctor, not in premiums for the insurance.

No place have they included groceries, which include food and all those other things we need, like cleaning and laundry supplies. I guess that is "other" or "spending money". They sure make it sound wonderful that you have 750.00 left over for "spending money"!

[dem in texas]

4. Where to get Food

The employees are getting the food out of the garbage bin - but wait didn't Starbucks just fire an employee who did that?

[Doctor_J]

6. This looks like the cost of living in Bangladesh or the like

certainly no place in the US.

Now if the people to whom this applies would stop listening to hate radio and fox "news" all day they might band together and get something done.

[Curmudgeoness]

7. Yep, that sounds about right.

Although I find the "second job" in the budget much more ridiculous than the cost estimates they have and expect people to live on in the US. However, I am not sure that the minimum wage workers are the ones who are eating up the hate radio/conservative Republican bullshit. From what I see, it is the ones who are in the lower middle class and middle class who buy into that. They seem to think that the "poor" are robbing them.

[Squinch]

2. At the minimum wage, the worker has to work 72 hours per week to get enough

even for this ridiculous budget.

Also, there's no childcare. So I guess they need to work 100 hour a week.

I guess they don't "deserve a break today." Or any other day.

[Curmudgeoness]

5. Yep. That second job line is a hoot, isn't it?

At minimum wage, if you work 40 hours per week for the full year, you make $1256 a month. Of course, you had better never get sick. So you do need another almost full time job to get to their "budget".

[Enthusiast]

3. Consider those that defend this status quo.

If they defend this just imagine their contempt for "useless eaters", like those of us that no longer "work for a living".

Do you harbor any doubts that they're coming for your pensions, social security and medicare?