Why don’t some people accept that Poverty in America is a lifestyle choice?

[Byron Carter]

I think the best comments in here are about choosing to be rich. If poverty is a lifestyle choice then so is wealth...yet none of these people seem to have chosen wealth for themselves?

I wonder why? Lack of ambition, poor work ethic and they're bad with money probably.

That's a false equivalency.

I can decide to not jump into the water and drown. I can make that choice. That doesn't mean I can in turn jump into the water and magically swim the Atlantic.

Choosing to NOT do/be something is possible.

"Minimum Wage" isn't the only low/no barrier to entry jobs that are available. There are PLENTY of jobs that offer "OTJ", or "On the job" training. Here's a short list of good paying jobs that only require a high school diploma.

-The Military
-Waste water treament
-Welding (Traditional and underwater)
-Machinist
-Insulation
-Landscaping
-Construction
-Nursing Aide
-Pharmacy Tech
-Prison/Jail Officer
-Childcare
-Trash Disposal


Some of these jobs are hard, and have a negative stigma. No one grows up wanting to be the "Trash man" or the nursing assistant wiping old people's butts. Guess what though? The trash man can afford to pay his rent. He also gets a lot of overtime when he wants it.


If you're poor - it's because you're disabled, lazy, dropped out of school, got addicted to drugs, or you're a female who got pregnant before she was married. Most likely a combination. Find me a poor person over 21 who isn't one of those 5 in the U.S. and I'll change my avatar to whatever you want.

 

[D3THRONED]

That certainly won't be common, but I would need proof of that to be common in the US before believing that as well. I see you completely abandoned what you were talking about before. No, comment whatsoever on my question or the validity of your statements as there's nothing here about supporting that $30k is "making it" in western Europe, or that you think socio-economic mobility is just about non-rich people becoming rich. That seems to be a far too common thing on Sherdog when people get caught being wrong. Too few man up to even that low bar.

The funny part about people defending the wealth distribution and socio-economic mobility is that in studies both sides of the US political voter base show that they have about the same ideal distribution and the same views on how the current situation is. That in turn also shows that both sides are equally wrong on how the state is, as it's far more tilted towards the rich than they think.

Easily, it's called working in a plant. There's a thing called turnarounds and overtime, you should research into it. When I was 19 I was an apprentice and made 21$ an hour working 72 hours a week. After 40 hours I was making 31$ an hour. That's nearly 80-90k yearly with no experience. Anyone can do this that isn't physically disabled. It's just up to a person to not be a lazy fuck.

 

[sub_thug]

That's a false equivalency.

I can decide to not jump into the water and drown. I can make that choice. That doesn't mean I can in turn jump into the water and magically swim the Atlantic.

Choosing to NOT do/be something is possible.

"Minimum Wage" isn't the only low/no barrier to entry jobs that are available. There are PLENTY of jobs that offer "OTJ", or "On the job" training. Here's a short list of good paying jobs that only require a high school diploma.

-The Military
-Waste water treament
-Welding (Traditional and underwater)
-Machinist
-Insulation
-Landscaping
-Construction
-Nursing Aide
-Pharmacy Tech
-Prison/Jail Officer
-Childcare
-Trash Disposal


Some of these jobs are hard, and have a negative stigma. No one grows up wanting to be the "Trash man" or the nursing assistant wiping old people's butts. Guess what though? The trash man can afford to pay his rent. He also gets a lot of overtime when he wants it.


If you're poor - it's because you're disabled, lazy, dropped out of school, got addicted to drugs, or you're a female who got pregnant before she was married. Most likely a combination. Find me a poor person over 21 who isn't one of those 5 in the U.S. and I'll change my avatar to whatever you want.

This is exactly right. EMTs/paramedics, Firefighters, LEOs, and others can be included on that list. Many jobs in IT do not require a college education, and programming skills can be learned for free via sites like Codecademy. Verizon will hire people to do cable installations. The guy who came to fix my cable box a few weeks ago told me that he made almost $100k/yr, and he was in his mid 20’s. Not only did he get a great salary and benefits, but he got stock options as well. The downside was that he typically worked over 10 hours per day, going from call to call. Anyways, these are good, respectable jobs that can easily lead to careers that come with full benefits and the ability to get educational benefits/college credits for things done on the job. It’s a false narrative that people must choose between flipping burgers and having a white collar job that pays 6-figures off the bat. If you are poor today, it really is because you are lazy and don’t have the initiative to find the opportunities to get yourself out of poverty. Complacency kills.

 

[The ScorpioN]

Not only that, but their behaviors are also labeled as "criminal activities" by those that want to put as many of them back in jail and place them back in a state of servitude and alienation.

What behaviors?

 

[Squarechoke]

Easily, it's called working in a plant. There's a thing called turnarounds and overtime, you should research into it. When I was 19 I was an apprentice and made 21$ an hour working 72 hours a week. After 40 hours I was making 31$ an hour. That's nearly 80-90k yearly with no experience. Anyone can do this that isn't physically disabled. It's just up to a person to not be a lazy fuck.

That's going to be an issue with the unions as it will likely not fit all our laws, but more importantly you won't find many factories so poorly run that they need people to work that much overtime. A well managed factory employs enough people to not have that need and I've mainly seen small businesses have people work that much. Not to mention the obvious fact that if companies have people work a ton of overtime it's of course at the expense of job opportunities since they clearly don't hire more people.

But what I was talking about was working a normal job and earning the kind of money the others were talking about, plus I was also talking about what was common to see as the discussion is about nationwide trends, not personal anecdotes. I wouldn't have thought that was a hard line of thought to follow.

 

[tehend]

Poverty IS a lifestyle choice. It is the result of hundreds of years of whites enjoying and benefiting from their lifestyle choice of owning slaves and creating racial hierarchies throughout the world. It's the result of people feeling like they don't belong, because they were told for hundreds of years that they were worthless. Not only that, but their behaviors are also labeled as "criminal activities" by those that want to put as many of them back in jail and place them back in a state of servitude and alienation.

Lol