Guest Post by
Over the past few weeks, I’ve focused on the many dangerous myths people are encouraged to tell themselves by the various power structures. These myths prevent critical thinking and make people far more malleable and passive. I’ve discussed the stock market myth and the Hillary Clinton myth in some detail, but today I want to expound upon the public welfare, i.e., food stamp myth.
This myth has two components to it, which work brilliantly to manipulate two different segments of the U.S. population. On the one hand, the wealthy and upper middle classes who do not need public assistance have generally bought into either one of two notions about it.
1) That their tax dollars are actually helping out the poor, and they are happy to pay their share of it.
or
2) That those on public assistance are intellectually and professionally inferior to themselves, and that these people are just lazy deadbeats who should get off the couch.
Interestingly, neither of these perspectives are accurate, but they serve the corporate-state perfectly. The reason is that by dividing the affluent classes into two false memes they never actually see the issue for what it really is. At the same time, public assistance is actually padding corporate profit margins at the expense of society. I discussed this a couple of years ago in the post, McDonald’s Math: You Can’t Survive Working for Us. Here are a few excerpts:
The key point I want to hammer into people is that food stamps are corporate welfare. They actually are not welfare for the workers themselves, who undoubtably don’t have wonderful lives. What ends up happening is that because the government comes in and supplements egregiously low wages with benefits like food stamps, the companies don’t have to pay living wages. So in effect, your tax money is being used to support corporate margins. Even better, many of these folks who get the food stamp benefits then turn around and spend them at the very companies which refuse to pay them decent wages. Who benefits? CEOs and shareholders. Who loses? Society.
Guess what would happen if these companies failed to pay high enough wages and food stamps didn’t exist? There would be massive employee organizing and ultimately the companies would have to change tack. This of course doesn’t happen when the taxpayer makes up the difference, and that is exactly what they want.
So as discussed, public assistance is actually padding corporate profits (just look at the stock market), while doing very little to improve the lives of the tens of millions who receive them.
This is actually brilliant in so many ways from a corporate-statist control perspective. It provides just enough to get by. Just enough so they don’t get out into the streets, yet not enough to be content, sovereign and proud. This is extraordinarily important, but before we get to that, let’s look at some excerpts from a recent Washington Post article titled, When Companies Pay Low Wages, Taxpayers End Up With the Rest of the Bill:
Nicole Beth Wallenbrock has a PhD in French literature and a part-time job teaching at the City University of New York, but her wages barely cover the cost of living for her and her son. She has been on food stamps for six months, she told PBS in February, and relies on help from her family and public assistance programs to get by.
“I have to accept whatever I can get,” she said. “It’s depressing. It makes me feel like a failure in a lot of ways.”
Wallenbrock is among millions of working Americans whose low wages are supplemented by government support. Families in which at least one member is working now make up the vast majority of those enrolled in major public-assistance programs like Medicaid and food stamps, according to a new study. It’s a “hidden cost” of low-wage work, researchers say, and it costs taxpayers about $153 billion a year.
According to researchers, this is the first time anyone has calculated how much is spent providing assistance to workers whose wages don’t cover their families’ expenses. The study, from the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education, found that most spending on public assistance goes not to the unemployed but to members of working families.
According to the report, wages for the bottom 10 percent of workers are 5 percent lower than they were in 1979, once adjusted for inflation. Between 2003 and 2013, inflation-adjusted wages haven’t increased for anyone in the bottom 70 percent of earners.
Working families — defined as a family in which at least one member works 10 or more hours per week for more than half the weeks out of the year — make up 61 percent of Medicaid enrollment and 74 percent of Earned Income Tax Credit recipients (it’s worth noting that the EITC is aimed specifically at low-income workers). They also represent a sizable chunk of people on food stamps (36 percent) and those who receive cash welfare through the Temporary Aid to Needy Families program (32 percent).
Many of those who rely on government support to bridge the gap between what they’re paid and what they need to live are in service industries, according to the study. About half of people working in fast food, child care and home care receive public assistance.
So basically the industries where most of the jobs in this embarrassing recovery have come from.
“We’re subsidizing the profits of Wal-Mart,” Pickus, whose union represents health care workers, told the Hartford Courant. “They’ve lived this way as if this is the way things are. It’s an amazing sense of corporate welfare.”
Earlier in this post I discussed how the affluent are manipulated when it comes to their perspective on public assistance. Yet it works in even more insidious ways on those who depend on it; particularly for those who are employed or highly educated, but still need food stamps to get by.
Let’s take the example noted in the Washington Post article of Nicole Beth Wallenbrock, who has a PhD in French literature. This person is obviously not a deadbeat, nor is she unintelligent. Yet she is on food stamps, just like so many other employed people are. Importantly, she claims: “It’s depressing. It makes me feel like a failure in a lot of ways.”
Think about this for a second. A person who is highly educated and made to feel this way about themselves is less likely to become politically active because they spend so much of their energy feeling worthless.
Not only that, but is someone trapped in this sort of despondent, negative psychological state ever going to rebel against the state? The hand that (embarrassingly in their mind) helps feed them? No, this person is going to be politically and emotionally damaged and isolated, and that’s exactly how the power structure likes it.
This is why it’s so important to destroy this myth, and make people like Ms. Wallenbrock understand that it is not them that is the failure. Rather, her dependence is an deliberate weapon utilized against her by a failed system. She needs to stop feeling bad about herself, rediscover her pride, and then fight back against the forces intentionally doing this to her. Until this myth is busted forever, nothing will change.
For related articles, see:
Walmart Admits in its Annual Report that its Profits Depend Heavily on Corporate Welfare
A First Look at a New Report on Crony Capitalism – Trillions in Corporate Welfare
McDonald’s Math: You Can’t Survive Working for Us
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
Formatting is way off on this one.
My son and his family have the first hand experience, and knowledge, of what is happening.
My son makes around $35k gross, he is grossly underpaid for his skillset, but is paid what the business can afford to pay.
His girlfriend is not working, staying home to care for their toddler.
She has been attempting to get insurance through the exchanges and they want $180 a month for a non-working 26 year old mom. Daughter gets it for $120 a year.
They want to get married but can’t. They can’t get married because if they do, the insurance for mommy & child will cost my son nearly $800 a month and try as they might, they cannot figure out where an additional $10,000 a year would come from.
You see, once married, even though the employer plan will not be paid for, the government has NO help for them. None.
So, if the head of a small family, works full time and makes a decent living, there is no help.
If he were to take a part-time job at Wally’s, he would make MORE money in the long run.
Healthcare which currently costs the family, $3000 annually, over $10,000 if married, would be free.
Foodstamps would be around $360 a month, more than they can afford for groceries now.
My future d-i-l would me eligible to complete her schooling with lots of gov freebies. My son could too if he chose to (for what jobs is beyond me).
Not to mention they would probably qualify for other benefits.
And keep the cash from the part time job.
They are seeing the reality of all these social engineering and wealth transfer plans.
Try to get ahead and do the right thing and be destitute with the government’s blessings and mandates.
Do less, work less and have a better life.
It is fucking insanity that our government policies are the primary force behind CEO’s making BILLIONS annually and their workers having to decide to take major steps backward in their careers to feed their families.
Meanwhile, JPM makes billions on oversight for SNAP.
But let us not look at that, let us hate the people forced into taking this “charity.”
I don’t buy the argument that if there were no SNAP, employers would “have to pay a living wage”. That’s just an assertion without evidence or even logic, as dumb as John Boehner’s assertion that cutting taxes will incent employers to hire more people. Why would I hire someone I don’t need just because I have more after-tax money in my pocket? When I’ve hired people, their financial needs don’t even occur to me. It’s what I need and what I’m willing to pay for it that matters. There’s just as good a case for the argument that if there were no government assistance programs like SNAP, people – needing to eat – would be even more willing to work for low wages. The plain fact is that a lot of people aren’t worth much of a wage. Nothing personal, TE, but I don’t even understand the concept of someone being “grossly underpaid for their skill set”. Take those skills elsewhere. I suppose if you’re a trained network engineer and you’re determined to live in a town of 90 people hundreds of miles from anything, then you are underpaid for your skill set, but that’s your own choice. Also, I have no love for Chase, but how much should it cost to administer a program that doles out billions to 47 million people? I suppose the federal government could do it themselves, at a cost of $50 billion instead of $5 billion.
@Iska, he is a journeyman screw machine operator and has 10 years experience running a warehouse single-handedly.
The problem is the bulk of those jobs are now in China. Hence the “grossly underpaid for his skill set.”
There is literally, next to no places to go to. And most pay less than he makes now because the businesses are forced to “compete” with companies with ZERO tax liability, next to no environmental, safety, insurance or benefits, plus wages this country hasn’t seen in 30 years.
If he could find a comparable job for comparable pay I’m sure he would go. The problem is those jobs no longer exist.
Which is the reason I laugh – hard – inside when people talk about “manufacturing coming back,” to America.
We don’t have the equipment, let alone the skilled employees, for that to happen. My guess is that it would take over a decade to even start reclaiming our lost industries.
If China decides they no longer need our fiat, want is going to hit this country like it never has before.
Imagine 70% of processed food gone *poof*, now imagine having less than 10% of the nuts and bolts we use annually.
THAT is where we are headed and THAT is why there are not jobs for him to go to.
I live in MA. My boyfriend is a long-term CNC operator for the same company in RI. He has been there for 20 years this year, and makes 19 bucks an hour. He is probably one of the highest paid employees there, because the machine he runs typically manufactures parts made of copper. There is no overtime, no bonuses. The company switched to a really crappy health plan which costs more for each employee and offers less.
He tells me there is less and less work, with more down-time for everybody. The upstairs consists of the machine shop which makes tools for the machines and does repairs. 20 years ago there were 20 guys working up there. Today, 3. They are just waiting it out to retire.
As some of you know, I sell real estate. I have to sell 3-4 as many houses to equal the price of one house 5 years ago.
I do more work for less commission because if I don’t, someone else will, that’s just the nature of the beast.
My best friend was a teacher who was laid off 3 years ago. He was actually quite glad to get out of the public school system, which was a horror story anyway. He’s now almost 50 and there are jobs in his field (biology and research) but these companies want fresh, young, PHD candidates who will work for peanuts in a lab. So, they basically are targeting foreign workers with no student loan debt who will happily come here, pay no taxes, and take lower pay.
So…what to do?
Pool resources, which is also the new normal. We rent a house, and split the expenses, which comes to about 500 a month for each of us, not including food.
I took a second job managing rental properties, and my friend got his real estate license, and now works for me as my on-site repair guy. He sits down every nigh and watches youtube videos on how to fix things. He has become very adept at fixing faucets, doors, patching walls, painting, putting down tile, etc. We discussed expanding property management to more clients.
He makes 20 bucks an hour and 30 after 5pm and on weekends. I collect 6% of the gross rental income and take all the phone calls, do the paperwork, handle tenant complaints and applications. I bring in probably another 600 a month doing this. My friend probably makes about 1500 a month.
We are putting in vegetable beds this spring and plan on selling the excess. Where I live is zoned commercial and it’s a pretty good-sized lot and we can have some chickens (and we live next door to a vet!) so we will have eggs.
I cook 99% of the meals, all from scratch, and can feed the 3 of us for about 3 dollars each person, per meal, sometimes a little more, sometimes less.
No one is on food stamps or any other assistance.
I understand there are people who genuinely need them, no doubt.
But as I read about a woman with a PHD in FRENCH LITERATURE it makes me wonder what the heck was she thinking? This is not a skill set that is going to have the employers banging down your door. I am sure her student loan debt is huge.
I have often spoke of my son. He is 23. Lives in Boston in a pretty nice rental with 3 other roommates. He works for Apple. He makes 13 bucks an hour. He did not go to college. He taught himself what he needed to know to work for Apple. He is ambitious. He eventually wants to move to CA (I know, I shake my head too but he’s young) and work for corporate. I am fairly certain it will happen. He doesn’t have a car and doesn’t need one in the city. Less expense. He doesn’t have credit cards.
People, McDonalds and Walmart are not career choices. They are no choice at all.
Stop buying into the BS college line. Go to a tech school. Guess what? Adults can go too, and really cheap I might add! Go learn to be a plumber or an electrician, or a mechanic. These jobs are not going overseas, and are sorely needed.
Every plumber and electrician I have ever called is booked solid for weeks, and has more work than they know what to do with.
There is no shame in hard work, and there are always opportunities out there if you truly want them. It won’t be easy. And you may have to cut back, or do without for a while.
It’s called life.
TE, I’m not trying to pick on your son. I have kids, too (not yet you son’s age), and I’ll be proud of any of them who works hard full-time at any job. If you’re right that manufacturing ain’t coming back, then being a journeyman screw machine operator – however skilled – might be like being the best buggy whip maker in town: not an in-demand position. The whole “underpaid” concept is one that has a moral component that is, it seems to me, irrelevant. If the US decides to give up on free trade and enact tariffs against foreign goods, that’d be fine with me, as long as that change reflects citizens’ wishes and we’re ready to suffer whatever fallout comes (inflation & retaliation by other countries). I’ve never been entirely convinced that unfettered free trade is a net positive for US citizens. It seems to me that with your son having run a warehouse single-handedly for 10 years, he’s probably worth more to the owner/company than the $35k he’s earning. I don’t know how big a warehouse it is or what kind of revenue is involved, but my guess is that compared to property taxes, utility costs, insurance costs, maintenance costs, wages, etc., his wages or salary are a relatively small percentage. In my business, I’d rather pay a $50k salary to a competent person who will stay with me for years, than $35k for a position that I have to fill over & over. Maybe he needs to negotiate better, although he would have to be able to credibly demonstrate that he has other options. His management skills are probably useful in other industries.
I realized food stamps were in fact corporate welfare when I worked at Wal-mart in 2011. Most of the merchandise in the store would only sell during the holidays or back to school, all the allocated hours were on overnight stocking in the grocery hour. The only people getting full time hours (myself included) were those working the graveyard shift stocking grocery. I also worked as a cashier and most people paid with food stamps and WIC.
@TE: I’ve seen what you’re talking about with my own eyes in my own family. We have quite a chasm between the “haves” and “have-nots”. Most of the jobs available won’t support even one person, much less a family. And most are part-time with zero benefits. The current situation is forcing people into taking handouts just to survive. And I don’t see things getting any better.