In Germany a family of four receives around $2500 every month, month after month, until they die (no time limit, this is the so called existential minimum everyone is guarenteed), plus free television, free public transport, etc. The U.S. have to offer a lot, but social programs are not among this, unless you have the perspective of the person who has to pay for all of this, because social programs arn’t cheap.

I learned about responsibility when I worked as a commercial pilot for 7 years. The reason flying taught me about responsibility was because a pilot is responsible for his or her actions, whether they believe so or not. You could choose to ignore the fact that the results of a simple decision can kill you, or get you safely to your destination. This applies to life in general.
Every action has a reaction, as we’ve all heard, and positive actions often result in positive reactions.
To sum things up, everyone is living their daily lives the way they see fit. Most of us don’t stop and think that the little things we do each day have huge direct impacts on our lives. Take smoking, or eating unhealthy as examples. Often times we don’t realize it until it’s too late what we’ve done wrong.

So do we really have control over our financial futures? Yes. You simply have to acknowledge being responsible for your actions, and admit that where you’re at in your life is 100% your fault. Everything else falls right into place after that.

There’s such good correlation to hard work, creativity, and building relationships to success here. Nobody is stopping you from doing what you want.

Sam

The wages in Norway are really good but the cost of living is also huge. Many Swedes are for example working two weeks in a month in Norway, living in Sweden and making twice the amount of money then they would do in four weeks in Sweden, doing the same job.

Stop seeing children as bad or worse, a waste of money.

Go take a look at some of what’s going on in Japan, Germany and China due to population shrinkage. It’s not a pretty thing.

Also the idea that all scholarships are based n color is ridiculous. Your school has no scholarships for athletes, engineering majors or future poets? I do not find that likely.

Another great story is all the white men not hired because they hired a less qualified minority. How many times have minorities not been hired or interviewed because of their names? There have been studies that show that people with ethnic names are less likely to be interviewed even with equal qualifications. If you didn’t make the hiring decision you have no idea why one person was hired instead of another. Maybe the white guy was rude in the interview or made a sexist joke, it is impossible to know.

Unless you are a minority (and in case you were wondering I am of Puerto Rican descent) you have no idea the challenges that come with entering college and the work force and being the only brown face in the room. Often being a minority especially one that started in poverty, is like running a relay race with one too few people on your team. It doesn’t mean you won’t finish the race, it is just harder to do so.

Instead of viewing it as a “reward” to the parents, what about thinking of it as taking care of children who didn’t have the good fortune to be born to parents who knew better. Just a thought.

Societal poverty typically cannot be placed at the feet of individuals any more than the rest of their societal structure can. There is an arguement about how to change it but that wasn’t the question in this post.

Individual poverty, specific to the US, can obviously often be attributed to individuals, but the line you are asking one to drawn is going to be in a different place for different people. One man’s excuse is another’s motivation: one child of addicts uses his background as an excuse why he is a loser, another child of the same addicts uses his background as motivation to work hard an succeed. One child of wealthy parents fails because they never had to work for anything (ironically ending up a loser addict like the first guy), another uses it as a standard to work toward and surpass.

Therefore I have a hard time with the premise of the question. I think of life much like a game of poker. The winner of a hand is based on both the luck of the cards dealt and the skill with which the hand is played. The unfortunate reality is that some people will be dealt bad hands, and many will play those hands poorly. The important part to me is the rules, not who gets the chips, because it will never be even. To me EVEN is not FAIR as people with more skill should win the hand and there is nothing you can do to take the chance out of the game.

I believe as a compassionate society, no matter the reason for poverty, we should supply a survival level for any member of our society. To me ‘survival’ is likely more basic than to most people (think dorm living and cafeterias). It should protect people from the elements, but not be comfortable enough that reasonable people who can take care of themselves would rely on it for long.

As far as I am concerned the only time I care if someone who is poor is deserving or not is 1) when I argue public policy, or 2) when I am practicing personal charity.

In the first case it is purely to make a point as I think policy written because of individuals is often the most flawed (write fair rules, but don’t expect even outcome). In the second case it doesn’t matter where my general line would be because it would be made on a case by case basis: I provide cash to those who are good with money but strapped, material assistance (ex. food) to people who are clueless about money but honorable, and absolutely nothing to total losers who wouldn’t appreciate it anyway (I speak of people I know, I don’t have the information to classify strangers so they usually get some food if they look hungry).

Now in US, I receive letter from a local charity to help ‘poor’. Who is ‘poor’, some one who does not have PS3/XBox/Wii!!! Thats not ‘poor’.
Parents buy fancy(pricy) shoes,cloths, phone for kids but will not buy books!! Heck here you get free books from library to read.

Time to end my rent. ‘Poor’ in US are much better then middle class in families in some countires. Education is much better here then in US.

Meanwhile, my condition did not respond to treatment and I was strongly discouraged from exploring alternative treatments. I did so anyway and finally got to a point where I could work again, but not as an attorney. I could find no job that would cover the monthly costs of my student loans and eventually defaulted on the private loans that made up a small percentage of the total debt. I finally went back to school for retraining and am gainfully employed again, but not at an earning level anticipated when I took on the debt to finance a legal education. I’m covering my bills now, but I’m left with little left over and my credit is still being rebuilt.

I didn’t have to take on the student loan debt, but I was 22, optimistic and had been told over and over again that education was the way to financial security. Obviously, there’s no guarantee I would have kept that job had I not gotten sick, but losing the job when and how I did was definitely not my fault. And between being denied long-term benefits/adequate health coverage and being discouraged by doctors from pursuing the course of treatment that eventually controlled my condition, it sure felt like conditions beyond my control were making things way harder than they should have been.

I’d say my financial state right now is a combination naivete and bad luck. It could have been worse; it was my personal tenacity that got me through the illness and vocational retraining. The thing is, none of you know me or anything about me. You wouldn’t know all the above had I not just chosen to share it. And it’s not your place to pass judgment on my financial situation and how I got here.

High taxes, yes, but alls schooling up to and including university (masters degrees) is free as is health care incl. all procedures at hospital.

The USA is no longer the land of milk and honey. Neither is Denmarrk, necessarily. There are many countries and ways of doing things. Only 25% of USAians even have passports. Nowonder so many have no clue about options.

Please, adults, stop thinking that you know everything about how everyone should live their lives!

Unfortunately I suspect that a lot of other employers who pay poorly in the UK will be harder to shame into action.

Up here in Scotland our government ostensibly pays everyone they employ a living wage, but has been embarassed by newspaper articles etc. highlighting their inability to get the companies they give contracts for outsourced services to to follow their lead!

I just wish the people who compare the percentage of the tax bill paid by our wealthier citizens vs our less wealthy citizens ALSO looked at the percentage of income paid as taxes in those same groups. It’s unfortunate that the discussion is generally only framed around one part of the equation and ignores the other.

LOL, as an American living in Singapore I can tell you haven’t traveled much.

And friends of mine who did degrees in computers? Guess what happened to them when the tech bubble burst?

I love my job, but it didn’t exist when I started university. No one knows how the job market is going to look in five or ten years. To base your entire life on “good career prospects” isn’t the sound strategy it promises to be.

(Incidentally, I do know someone who has a degree similar to the poster. She’s got a great job.)

This is different than saying 50% pay no taxes, many pay FICA taxes for SSI and Medicare, state taxes and other federal taxes like those on gasoline; however, for about 25% of tax filers the other federal taxes are offset by credits meaning that about one quarter of tax filers pay no federal taxes.

There are some things that are out of one’s control of course, like being a single mom or having an addiction or not having a high school degree. But usually those bad situations (in America at least) were the result of some poor choice at some time (having unprotected sex, dropping out of school, snorting that first line). Rich kids make those mistakes and sometimes have parents who can still support them or make them go away; but when poor kids make them they can be life defining.

And your suggestion that people make the choice between shoes and big screen TVs is such a throwback to the “welfare queen” stories.

Your remarks are insulting and generally untrue.

Don’t get me wrong. America was my home and I loved my country. But we just couldn’t see a future for our children there. And that makes me incredibly sad.

After that, I scraped by for several years on a solo practice (one memorable moment was the day I had to negotiate deposition dates with opposing counsel while I was giving birth to a premature baby who ended up in the NICU), worked at a part-time “law-related” job at my alma mater that refused as a matter of policy to promote from within, and finally emigrated to France because if I’m going to be busted back down to the working class from which I came, I wanted to do it in a country where my children would have health insurance and would not have to be paying off student loans until age 36, as I did. Thank God I married a French man.

So yeah — if you want financial stability, it’s stupid and irrational to have children. But I love them! And I hope that if they try to “get above their raising,” they are more successful than I was.

The U.S. has more social programs than any other country. ONLY in the U.S., can you not do ANYTHING, not have a job or contribute to society in any way and still get free money. And the MORE kids you have in this condition, the more free money you get.
I’m not saying this “free” money is enough to live on, but it’s not supposed to replace a full-time salary. Only a job can do that.

As for these burger flippers and trash collectors: first of all, trash collectors in my area make more than I do. They’re state employees with pensions and benefit packages that make mine look like a joke. Not to mention, these are mostly jobs, not careers. No one says you should work at Burger King or Sassy Nail Salon your entire life. Work there while you have no qualifications to save up for school and get a career. If we make these jobs higher paying jobs, where will High School and College kids work while they’re in school, or people who don’t yet have the proper credentials to start a career?

I think people need to be healthy to work, therefore healthcare should be more affordable. But other than that, I don’t agree with your stance at all. America stands for the ability to work to your fullest potential and excel above those who do not. There are resources available and they must be utilized, by whatever means.

Anyone could be dealt a “crappy hand” in life, but it’s all about how you play it.

This BS statistic is about as accurate as trotting out the McDonalds coffee case everytime someone wants to talk about tort reform.

If we look across countries the one key factor behind lack of poverty always seems to be the effectiveness of government institutions. Good government matters. A country’s natural resources sometimes matters but not nearly enough as good government. A good government maintains strong property rights, has a relatively smooth-running justice system, is stable, and is relatively transparent. This usually (but not always) means a democratic government. A good government invests in roads, electricity, water, sanitation and other things that attract investment, which put people to work. Most importantly, it invests in education, which turns farmers into software engineers within a few generations.
Poor counties – even those with abundant natural resource wealth – are poor because their corrupt governments squander the money, not because their people are any less industrious than ours. These countries have thugs as policemen, and do nothing to provide businesses with the environment to grow and flourish (roads, electricity, stable property rights, etc.).

It’s a bit different in the US. Within our country, the poor are usually poor because they lack marketable skills and education. Why this happens is the big question. Some people that we term “lazy” often really are “unlucky” – they come from broken families, with a busy single parent and went to an underfunded school with mediocre teachers. The quality of the education matters, and in their case, the education system failed them, and they didn’t learn the skills that would make them productive citizens. Of course, this would never happen in a well-off home, where the parents make a point to invest in early education, to pay for after school programs, and for the affluent, to pay for tutors.

Climbing out of poverty is possible, but it’s always easier not to be poor in the first place.

Working hard is part of the equation, but education determines whether you work 10 hour days in a law firm or 10 hour days in a McDonalds. The better question to ask is why our education system is failing the disadvantaged.