Tyler Durden at Zerohedge pointed out In Entitlement America "a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year.He has a chart and everything. Go read. Then read this.
(Chart)
Note that more than doubling pretax income from $14,500 to $30,000 results in a loss of 28% of their net income. It would take an exceptionally rare person to go through a drastic drop in quality of life for the possibility of getting really high income and better standard of life some day way in the future.
I started off my "professional" (post-college) career in February of 1986 with a $5/hr. job at age 24. That's $10,400/yr. I moved into my first (and only) apartment on Jan. 1 1987. It cost $225/mo. A year after starting employment, my pay was $15,600/yr. By the time I was 30, I was making $30k/yr. I bought the house I'm currently living in when I turned 29. I'm 50 now, and I'm doing pretty good, but nowhere near $250k. I've never taken food stamps, never received an Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid, a rent subsidy, or Utility Bill Assistance. I did my own taxes for years - 1040EZ for Federal before I bought the house. I guess all that stuff was available, but I was young, single, healthy and working.
If I'd been a young high-school dropout with a live-in girlfriend and a kid or four, perhaps I'd have been all over that "free money."
And I'd still be making $15k/yr, afraid to make more because of the loss of those "benefits."
And my kids would probably be in the same boat, and complaining that "The MAN" was keepin' 'em down.
