Tag Archives: Work

Biting The Hand That Feeds You

Posted on by

On June 18th, The Gatestone Institute posted an article that illustrates the difference between the Israeli and Palestinian cultures. First of all, the Palestinians are simply another Arab tribe. They have never had a country, and if they want one, it would behoove the Arabs to give them one–they have no claim to Israel. The cultural differences between the Palestinians and the Israelis are significant.

The article reports:

    • Prior to the October 7 massacre, more than 170,000 Palestinians were working in Israel, constituting an important source of income for the Palestinian economy…. The Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who were permitted to work in Israel received many of the same rights as Israeli workers, including health insurance and pension plans.
    • “I will be able to earn about $120 dollars a day [in Israel], while I cannot even earn $250 dollars a month in Gaza. Due to the difficult political and economic conditions, the people of the Gaza Strip suffer greatly from poverty and are unable to build a future for their children like their parents.” — Mohammed Kamal, a 38-year-old father of four from the Gaza Strip, newarab.com, March 24, 2022.
    • It appears that the murderers and rapists from the Gaza Strip saw Israel’s goodwill gestures as an indication of Israel’s weakness. In addition, they apparently saw the controversy in Israel surrounding the Israeli government’s judicial reform plan as a sign that Israel had become extremely weak, especially when anti-government protesters threatened to boycott military reserve service.
    • The October 7 atrocities serve as a reminder that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not about improving the living conditions of the Palestinians or strengthening their economy. Instead, the conflict is about the desire of the majority of Palestinians to slaughter Jews and destroy Israel.
    • Pre-and post-October 7 public opinion polls have consistently demonstrated that the majority of Palestinians back Hamas and believe that the atrocities committed on that day were “correct.”
    • Now, Palestinians can blame Hamas not only for dragging them into a disastrous war with Israel, but also for having left tens of thousands of families jobless in the wake of their loss of permits to work in Israel.
    • Instead of brainwashing and indoctrinating their people against Israel and Jews, Palestinian leaders need to be required to focus on creating job opportunities and boosting the Palestinian economy, which the flow of international handouts have relieved them from doing.
    • The Palestinians would also greatly benefit if they would realize that there are actually dire repercussions when they “bite the hand that feeds them.”

The attack of October 7th illustrates the damage that propaganda can cause. The people in Gaza was so indoctrinated with hate for Israel that they did not fully consider the consequences of their actions. There was no consideration of how to support their families once they killed their employers and their families.

There was a post today on Twitter that suggested that all we need to do to bring peace to the Middle East is replace the government of Iran with a western-leaning republic. I think that makes sense.

Let’s Teach Our Children To Be Successful

Posted on by

On November 21, The NC Family Policy Council posted an article about the keys to help our young people become successful adults.

The article notes:

While some of these trends have been beneficial (I’m personally a fan of working remotely), not all of these have been good for our society. Many of the values that the parents of these two generations have tried to pass on have instead been tossed to the wayside. Principles like the importance of getting a good education, waiting until marriage to have children, or getting a good job have been ignored more and more.

While the long-lasting impacts of these lifestyle changes are yet to be seen, researchers Wendy Wang and Brad Wilcox have confirmed that these “traditional” values are actually beneficial for individuals, giving them the information to build what they’ve termed the “Success Sequence.”

The Success Sequence

The report from Wang and Wilcox states that Millennials are most likely to live an economically successful life and avoid poverty if they follow these three steps:

    1. Graduate from high school or get a GED by their mid-twenties;
    2. Work full time;
    3. Marry before having children.

This sounds an awful lot like what my generation was told growing up. Here’s the evidence for their model:

    • 97% of Millennials who follow this sequence are not poor when they reach adulthood. The link remains strong when this cohort of young Americans reaches their mid-30s.
    • 94% of young adults from lower-income families who followed the success sequence are not poor.
    • 95% of young adults from non-intact families who followed the success sequence are not poor.
    • The poverty gap between college and high school graduates is small among those who followed the success sequence.

Correcting For Disadvantages

What is interesting is that this works across all of the variables that are often cited as reasons for people to be economically disadvantaged, including race, gender, parents’ low economic status, not receiving a college degree, and being from a non-intact family. The poverty rate for adults between the ages of 32 and 38 after completing each step is well under 10%, even for those experiencing the disadvantages mentioned above.

These are the values the parents of the baby boomers taught their children and grandchildren. It’s time to go back to those values.

The article includes a video summary:

A Much-Needed Change

Posted on by

National Review posted an article yesterday about a new policy regarding food stamps that will go into effect in April of next year.

The article reports:

In theory, the program has a strict time limit for “ABAWDs,” or able-bodied adults without dependents: If they don’t meet their work requirement or receive a case-by-case exemption from their state, they may receive food stamps for at most three months in any 36-month period. But in practice, the executive branch has broad discretion to waive the limit for large geographic areas with weak labor markets — and previous administrations used that discretion promiscuously. As of 2017, about a third of the U.S. population lived in waived areas.

Under the old rule, any place with an unemployment rate one-fifth above the national average was eligible for a waiver. (Places could — and still can — also establish eligibility by having an absolute rate over 10 percent.) This meant that when unemployment was low throughout the country, areas with good labor markets could still receive waivers, simply because unemployment wasn’t quite as low there as it was elsewhere.

The old rule also allowed states to effectively gerrymander their waiver requests, combining high- and low-unemployment counties to maximize the number of people exempted. All told, states such as Illinois and California were able to obtain waivers for all but a few of their counties.

In short, the system was unfair and arbitrary, imposing time limits on some recipients but not others based on where they happened to live, failing to target the waivers toward truly needy areas, and allowing states to abuse the rules to draw in more federally funded benefits.

Now there will be a new rule.

The article reports:

Under the new rule, effective in April of next year, these waivers won’t be granted to areas with unemployment below 6 percent. And states will be far more limited in the geographical configurations they can request waivers for. These are entirely reasonable policies, and well within the range of discretion the statute grants to the executive branch.

Many on the left complain about the rule simply because it will reduce the number of people on food stamps — by about 700,000, roughly 2 percent of total food-stamp enrollment, by the administration’s own estimate. But increasing benefit receipt is not an end in itself, especially when it comes at the expense of an incentive for childless, able-bodied adults to find work; and given the massive growth the program has seen these past two decades, there is clearly room for cuts. (Despite the recovery, total enrollment is about double what it was in 2000.) Perhaps more to the point, whatever one’s ideal level of food-stamp enrollment, there is no good reason to gut work requirements for entire areas with low unemployment while enforcing those requirements elsewhere — or to let states play games with their maps to boost eligibility.

Food stamps and similar programs are meant to be a safety net–not a career choice. Generational welfare represents a failure of our families, educational system, and society. It is time that we encouraged and helped people to make the choices that will allow them to be financially stable and successful.

‘Merit’ Under Attack

Posted on by

Merriam-Webster defines merit as follows:

a obsolete : reward or punishment due

b : the qualities or actions that constitute the basis of one’s deserts Opinions of his merit vary.

c : a praiseworthy quality : virtue but originality, as it is one of the highest, is also one of the rarest, of merits— E. A. Poe

d : character or conduct deserving reward, honor, or esteem also : achievement composed a number of works of merit — H. E. Starr

The concept behind the definition is that something is earned. A person’s conduct, character, or actions deserve either a positive or negative response–generally today it implies a positive response.

The following quote is from an ABC News article posted yesterday:

“I want to just say something about the word that they use ‘merit.’ It is really a condescending word,” Pelosi said. “Are they saying family is without merit? Are they saying most of the people who have ever come to the United States in the history of our country are without merit because they don’t have an engineering degree? Certainly we want to attract the best to our country and that includes many people from many parts of society.”

I would like to point out that the most of the people who came to the United States came before the existence of the welfare state. Their ‘merit’ was their willingness to work to build America. Unfortunately many of the people now arriving lack that ‘merit.’ Many are coming here looking for a free lunch.

I am not opposed to family immigration, but we need to look at the consequences of having family immigration as the majority of our immigration. Uncle Fred might have been a successful farmer in his younger years, but his best years are behind him. His medical needs have increased and his ability to work has decreased. It may be the humane thing to do to reunite Uncle Fred with his family and give him the medical care he needs, but it is the humane thing to do while our veterans are waiting years for medical care that they have earned?

Can we afford to have an immigration system not based on what will help our country remain prosperous? Again, I am not opposed to family immigration, but we need to be certain that the people we bring into America will help build America and not be a burden on the people already here.

Merit doesn’t necessarily mean an engineering degree, but it does mean an ability to assimilate into America, work hard, and be an asset to themselves and to their community.

Bouncing Back

Posted on by

Yesterday CNBC reported the following:

After a disappointing February in which just 20,000 jobs were added to the economy, the job market is back on track, adding 196,000 jobs in March.

That’s according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statics, which also showed unemployment remaining at 3.8% and wages increasing by 3.2% from a year ago.

“I think the March report will reassure investors after the weak report in February brought about concerns of a possible slowing economy,” Glassdoor’s chief economist Andrew Chamberlain tells CNBC Make It. “The report is strong across the board and it’s hard to find any weaknesses. It shows that even after 102 months of positive job gains, the economy still has room to grow.”

At some point the economy will slow down. We have not yet dealt with the debt that runaway spending has created in recent years, and we have not yet fully revised trade deals that were detrimental to our country. However, March was a good month for Americans looking for work and Americans in the workforce.

The article reminds us that there may be a recession in the future, but not in the near future:

Though February’s numbers may have been alarming to some, Hamrick, Gimbel and Chamberlain agree that there’s no need to worry about a recession just yet.

“There’s no sign that one is imminent,” says Hamrick, though he adds, “we know that one is inevitable at some point.”

Gimbel adds that, “In 2018, we created, on average, about 200,000 jobs per month. That is astonishing at this point in the recovery and highly unlikely that the economy is going to keep that up moving forward. So if we drop down to creating 180,000 jobs a month, or 150,000 or even 100,000, that is OK.”

Having a businessman as President has been a good thing for the majority of Americans.

Our Future?

Posted on by

I think most Americans realize that Big Brother is getting to be a bit intrusive. Our computer searches are mined for advertising information, Alexa listens to our conversations, our government has been known to listen to our telephone conversations. This is not headed in a good direction. However, it gets even worse when you consider the fact that the next step will be modifying our behavior to fit some ideal created by someone who believes he has the right to control everyone. Not a pleasant thought. Think it’s too farfetched? An article posted at Wired on January 23 might change your mind.

The article begins:

A friend of mine, who runs a large television production company in the car-mad city of Los Angeles, recently noticed that his intern, an aspiring filmmaker from the People’s Republic of China, was walking to work.

When he offered to arrange a swifter mode of transportation, she declined. When he asked why, she explained that she “needed the steps” on her Fitbit to sign in to her social media accounts. If she fell below the right number of steps, it would lower her health and fitness rating, which is part of her social rating, which is monitored by the government. A low social rating could prevent her from working or traveling abroad.

China’s social rating system, which was announced by the ruling Communist Party in 2014, will soon be a fact of life for many more Chinese.

By 2020, if the Party’s plan holds, every footstep, keystroke, like, dislike, social media contact, and posting tracked by the state will affect one’s social rating.

Personal “creditworthiness” or “trustworthiness” points will be used to reward and punish individuals and companies by granting or denying them access to public services like health care, travel, and employment, according to a plan released last year by the municipal government of Beijing. High-scoring individuals will find themselves in a “green channel,” where they can more easily access social opportunities, while those who take actions that are disapproved of by the state will be “unable to move a step.”

We do an awful lot of business with China. When trade was opened with China, the idea was that our form of government and freedom would influence their government in the direction of freedom. Somehow, based on this story, I don’t think that is what has happened.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. There is no way I can summarize all of it, but I would like to share a few more points.

The article continues:

Perhaps we are reading the wrong books. Instead of going back to Orwell for a sense of what a coming dystopia might look like, we might be better off reading We, which was written nearly a century ago by the Russian novelist Yevgeny Zamyatin. We is the diary of state mathematician D-503, whose experience of the highly disruptive emotion of love for I-330, a woman whose combination of black eyes, white skin, and black hair strike him as beautiful. This perception, which is also a feeling, draws him into a conspiracy against the centralized surveillance state.

The Only State, where We takes places, is ruled by a highly advanced mathematics of happiness, administered by a combination of programmers and machines.

The article concludes:

Beauty is the ultimate example of human un-freedom and un-reason, being a subjectivity that is rooted in our biology, yet at the same time rooted in external absolutes like mathematical ratios and the movement of time. As the critic Giovanni Basile writes in an extraordinarily perceptive critical essay, “The Algebra of Happiness,” the utopia implied by Zamyatin’s dystopia is “a world in which happiness is intertwined with a natural un-freedom that nobody imposes on anyone else: a different freedom from the one with which the Great Inquisitor protects mankind: a paradoxical freedom in which there is no ‘power’ if not in the nature of things, in music, in dance and in the harmony of mathematics.”

Against a centralized surveillance state that imposes a motionless and false order and an illusory happiness in the name of a utilitarian calculus of “justice,” Basile concludes, Zamyatin envisages a different utopia: “In fact, only within the ‘here and now’ of beauty may the equation of happiness be considered fully verified.” Human beings will never stop seeking beauty, Zamyatin insists, because they are human. They will reject and destroy any attempt to reorder their desires according to the logic of machines.

A national or global surveillance network that uses beneficent algorithms to reshape human thoughts and actions in ways that elites believe to be just or beneficial to all mankind is hardly the road to a new Eden. It’s the road to a prison camp. The question now—as in previous such moments—is how long it will take before we admit that the riddle of human existence is not the answer to an equation. It is something that we must each make for ourselves, continually, out of our own materials, in moments whose permanence is only a dream.

This is scary–not scary enough to get me to get rid of Alexa–but scary.

A Workplace Culture That Discourages Pregnancy

Posted on by

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about the way Planned Parenthood treats its pregnant employees. I suppose it is no surprise to anyone that Planned Parenthood does not really support the idea of pregnancy.

The article reports:

The New York Times revealed in a bombshell report that Planned Parenthood treats their pregnant employees unfairly to the point of discrimination. This isn’t surprising, given Planned Parenthood’s clear dislike of pregnancy. However, it is still disturbing. It’s also still more proof that while Congress and the White House enjoyed a GOP majority, they should have defunded the behemoth organization that has been receiving taxpayer-funded subsidies despite illegally profiting from the sale of aborted baby parts and now discriminating against its own pregnant employees.

On Thursday, the New York Times published a piece describing complaints anyone paying attention to Planned Parenthood’s company “values” could have predicted. Via interviews with “more than a dozen current and former employees,” the New York Times revealed, despite projecting an image of healthcare and respect for all women, the abortion business has been subject to a dozen lawsuits since 2013. The complaints range from denying pregnant employees rest periods, lunch breaks, and overtime pay to other forms of mistreatment. Even though Planned Parenthood regularly advocates for government-mandated healthcare, they themselves don’t offer paid maternity leave.

The major source of revenue for Planned Parenthood is abortion. A pregnant employee is someone who chose not to get an abortion. Why wouldn’t Planned Parenthood treat them badly?

The article concludes:

The report reveals two important things at odds in society right now: First, the reality of how difficult it is for women to follow through with a progressive, feminist agenda which says women can work, have babies, and resume life like neither are in conflict. Both are still hard, and no matter how many waves of feminism American society observes, it may always be hard because these two ideas are simply difficult to achieve seamlessly. Second, it reveals that even the most progressive of feminist, flag-waving companies like Planned Parenthood, are often hypocrites.

While it was disturbing to see just how many pro-woman companies mistreat their own female employees as a result of being pregnant, the only organization in this story taxpayers fund — and quite robustly — is Planned Parenthood. It offers still more proof, as if we needed any, that the GOP should have defunded the organization when it had the chance. Unfortunately, it simply was not a priority. That is a grievous mistake for the women who work there, as well as the thousands of babies aborted every year.

At some point society is going to have to admit that men and women are different. Generally speaking (there are exceptions), they have different roles in society. Women have babies. It is difficult to manage a high-pressure job and a family. I know it seems unfair, but women in many cases have to choose between the two. If a women is in a financial position to hire a nanny, she will have a much easier time balancing home and career, but few women have the financial means to hire a nanny. It is unfortunate, however, that some companies do not make basic allowances for pregnant workers and mothers.

A Step In The Right Direction

Posted on by

The Washington Free Beacon is reporting today that the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services reinstated work requirements for people who receive taxpayer-funded food assistance. The change in the law will impact about 70,000 people in 69 Michigan counties.

The article reports:

Wheaton (Michigan Department of Health & Human Services Public Information Officer Bob Wheaton) said that these work requirements had been in effect before 2002, but were lifted because of high unemployment. With the economy improving, Wheaton said, the MDHH decided it was time to reinstate the policy.

Holly Wetzel, communications coordinator at the Michigan-based, free-market think tank the Mackinac Center, supports reinstating work requirements.

“Work requirements benefit the individual, taxpayers and the economy because they realign incentives within our welfare system that encourage, reward, and restore the dignity of work,” Wetzel told Watchdog.org.

Former Democratic President Bill Clinton incorporated work requirements in his welfare reform package in the 1990s, which Wetzel said were a great success. These policies, she said, preserve the food stamp system and ensure access to the most needy while incentivizing a sustainable lifestyle. Along with a more sustainable food stamp system, she said she expects that employers will see “a more vibrant and enterprising labor market,” which will help them fill positions in an economy that has brought more jobs to the country.

“[Food stamps] exist to help the truly vulnerable,” Wetzel said.

In addition to food stamp work requirements, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is currently seeking to add work requirements to his Medicaid expansion program, called the Healthy Michigan plan. If Snyder succeeds, this will have the same work requirements as are currently required for food stamp recipients.

Putting a work requirement on food stamps provides incentive for those receiving food stamps to find employment. The fact that the state is referring people to programs where they can receive job training is also helpful. Part of human nature is not to appreciate things that you didn’t have to work for. Putting a work requirement of public assistance and training people for jobs helps the recipients of food stamps climb out of the poverty they are in. This worked in the 1990’s when it was first tried, and it will work successfully again.

The Law Of Unintended Consequences

Posted on by

America is one of the most generous countries in the world. When natural disasters occur, we send aid. When Americans are in need, we help them. Sometimes we are taken advantage of because of our generosity, and Americans have accumulated a lot of debt because of our generosity. Some aspects of that generosity may be beginning to change.

The American Thinker posted an article today about impact of some of President Trump’s policies on welfare programs.

The article reports:

Welfare bureaucrats are putting the scream on, with news that President Trump’s efforts to enforce U.S. immigration law are incentivizing illegal aliens to drop out of assorted welfare programs.

Get a load of this alarmism from the welfare administrative mafias quoted by Politico:

Immigrants [sic] are turning down government help to buy infant formula and healthy food for their young children because they’re afraid the Trump administration could bar them from getting a green card if they take federal aid.

The article concludes:

The bureaucrats and do-gooders quoted all admit that they aren’t actually entirely sure why the Women, Infants, and Children program has seen its numbers drop from 7.4 million to 6.8 million since President Trump took office.  There is a dismissive note about the “improving economy” but no recognition that the sudden availability of jobs in the Trump economy tends to have a large effect on whether people (legal and illegal) stay on welfare rolls.  For a lot of the poor, the promise of a job with the prospect of higher wages and an improved standard of living – and no government supervision, no need to keep heads down and incomes low – is preferable to any state welfare, so they’re taking the jobs and running.  Jobs in that much dismissed “improving economy” are likely the biggest reason the numbers of welfare recipients, both legal and illegal, are going down.  This, by the way, is correlated with falling food stamp rolls (illegals supposedly can’t get those) and declines in other welfare populations in the Trump economy.

The quoted bureaucrats do say that, because they have fielded inquiries from illegals, those same people who supposedly aren’t bright enough to manage a voter ID card yet are amazingly cognizant on the minutiae of maintaining the exact qualifications for welfare, and who want to make sure that being a public charge won’t hurt their green card chances.

What this shows is that the open borders lobby and the welfare industrial complex are amazingly integrated, and President Trump’s effort to restore rule of law at the border and protect taxpayer assets is a threat to their money interests and raison d’être.  What it also shows is that President Trump can’t keep pushing hard enough on this.  Striking out at the money trail has always been a surefire effort to end corrupt regimes and, by extension, corrupt bureaucratic empires.

I don’t want to see anyone’s child go hungry or not get the medical services they need, but there is a message in this. People are coming to America to take advantage of our welfare programs–they want to take from America, not contribute to America. Preferential treatment should be given to people who want to contribute to America. We need to remember that although we are a nation of immigrants, early immigrants did not have welfare programs they could join. They were expected to work hard to achieve the American Dream. That was the vision of America–it was a land of opportunity, not a land of the free lunch.

The Real Unemployment Story Under President Obama

Posted on by

This is a chart of the labor participation rate since 2004:

The chart is from an article posted Friday at Doug Ross @ Journal. As you can see from the chart, the rate was a pretty solid 66 percent for the years 2004 through 2008. It began to drop in 2009 and has continued downward. The current low unemployment rate was obtained by not counting the people who have dropped out of the labor force.  As you can see, there have been a lot of them since 2009. The bottom line here is simple–the economy is not recovering at this time. It is limping along and will be further limited by the President’s war on coal and other environmental decisions.

Enhanced by Zemanta

It’s Not The Unemployment Numbers–It’s The Number Of People Who Have Dropped Out Of The Labor Force

Posted on by

Today’s Daily Caller reported that the percentage of Americans in the labor force has reached a record low–62.8 percent. According to the article, a record high 91,541,000 Americans did not participate in the labor force this October. Since January 2009, more than 11 million people have dropped out of the labor force.
The article concludes:

The economic blog Zero Hedge notes that at the current rate, the number of people not participating in the labor force could exceed those working in about four years.

This is unlike any economic recovery from a recession we have ever had.

The Unintended Consequences Of Accountability

Posted on by

This article has two sources, an article in the U.K. Telegraph posted on March 30 and an article posted at Real Clear Politics yesterday.

As the British government struggles to keep pace with the expenses involved in providing a safety net for its citizens, some government programs are being phased out and combined with other programs. One of the programs under scrutiny is the sickness benefit program.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary. is attempting to combine dozens of different out-of-work benefits into a single payment with the aim of ensuring an individual is always better off working than collecting benefits. As part of that process, there is an assessment of the people on the sickness benefit program to determine whether or not they are fit to work. Some 878,300 people on that program decided to come off the program rather than submit to the assessment. We need to learn from this experience.

The article at Real Clear Politics looks at disability payments in America:

In 1960, when vastly more Americans were involved in physical labor of some kind, 0.65% of workforce participants between the ages of 18 and 64 were receiving Social Security disability insurance payments. Fifty years later, in a much healthier America that number has grown to 5.6%.

In 1960, 134 Americans were working for every officially recognized disabled worker. Five decades later that ratio fell to roughly 16 to 1.

I am sure that in most cases disability payments are warranted. In fact, I am sure that everyone who is disabled does not necessarily look disabled. I can think of one example in particular where a person received severe neck damage in a work-related car accident and on some days appears to be perfectly normal. On other days, that person can barely move. Unfortunately, there is no way of predicting which days are which. However, I do think there are people among us who would rather ride in the wagon than help pull it. The problem is that at this point we have too few people pulling the wagon and too many people sitting in the wagon.

Government workers have no incentive to cut disability payments–their jobs depend on administering these programs–if you cut the programs, you might have to cut the number of administrators. Government spending has become like the hamster on the exercise wheel–it keeps moving (and growing) but nothing is actually being accomplished.

If we are serious about ever balancing the federal (and states) budget, we need to take a serious look at who is receiving payments from that government and what the basis for those payments is. Until we are willing to help people enter the workforce instead of helping them enter generations of dependency on government, we will not solve our financial problems.

There Were Some Things Left Out In The Unemployment Numbers

Posted on by

Yesterday Breitbart posted some of the facts the media seems to have missed in reporting on the jobless numbers this week. The article quotes James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI):

The labor force participation rate fell again as potential workers stopped looking for work.  … [I]f the LFP rate was where it was in January 2009, the unemployment rate would be 10.8%. …

The share of the unemployed out of work for 27 weeks or longer increased to 40.2% from 38.1% in January.

The employment-population ratio is exactly where it was a year ago, at an almost rock-bottom 58.6%.

This really doesn’t look like much of an economic recovery to me.

Enhanced by Zemanta