Popular vote ramblings

[Dallas Tex]

With this in mind, FREE and Reduced School lunches for the poor should be fine as long as children are attending school. Correct? 37% of Stuyvesant High School is on the program. I expect many of these children although poor now, to grow up to be adults who can contribute to society.

All I ask is that you consider what is lost when the parent abdicates the responsibility for making their child daily lunch. A young parent or an irresponsible adult could grow and learn in a multitude of areas: Planning, time management, money management, responsibility, accountability. For many young single parents this could be the first opportunity in their lives that had to be responsible to plan anything a week ahead, wake up on time, budgeting. This may be just a tiny first brick in the foundation of skillsets that will get them through life.

The ability to successfully navigate life is mostly based on tiny acquired skills that build on each other starting at a young age.

Many folks don't have the supportive family or community that could help in this area. It may seem ridiculous to you but buying $10 worth of food, planning 5 lunches, and successfully preparing & delivering them on time may be the first time some folks have ever practiced responsibility. It sounds like such a small thing but for some folks it will become the first tiny building block in a group of successes and required life skillsets. That is, if they're not provided with an easier alternative.

[theflashunc]

All I ask is that you consider what is lost when the parent abdicates the responsibility for making their child daily lunch. A young parent or an irresponsible adult could grow and learn in a multitude of areas: Planning, time management, money management, responsibility, accountability. For many young single parents this could be the first opportunity in their lives that had to be responsible to plan anything a week ahead, wake up on time, budgeting. This may be just a tiny first brick in the foundation of skillsets that will get them through life.

The ability to successfully navigate life is mostly based on tiny acquired skills that build on each other starting at a young age.

Many folks don't have the supportive family or community that could help in this area. It may seem ridiculous to you but buying $10 worth of food, planning 5 lunches, and successfully preparing & delivering them on time may be the first time some folks have ever practiced responsibility. It sounds like such a small thing but for some folks it will become the first tiny building block in a group of successes and required life skillsets. That is, if they're not provided with an easier alternative.

This is akin to the notion that if Millenials gave up their $4 latte, they'd be able to afford mortgages and solve the student debt crisis.

[Corso]

This is akin to the notion that if Millenials gave up their $4 latte, they'd be able to afford mortgages and solve the student debt crisis.

It would be a start...

[Dallas Tex]

This is akin to the notion that if Millenials gave up their $4 latte, they'd be able to afford mortgages and solve the student debt crisis.

Its not the dollars. It's practicing responsibility, putting the needs of your child before your own, maybe for the first time in their lives. Being accountable to your child who counts on you to make his lunch 5x per week.

Is your point that its hopeless, and if young single parents haven't learned responsibility by the time school starts they never will, so feed their kids for them?

[GrantM]

All I ask is that you consider what is lost when the parent abdicates the responsibility for making their child daily lunch.

Personally, i think parents who make their kids' lunches abdicate their responsibility to teach them to make their own damn lunch.


-g

[HorsCat]

I grew up in a former British colony, one where Marmite was an actual thing. In my younger and more vulnerable years, I abdicated my kids' lunchmaking responsibility, in the name of "good nutrition." Eventually I learned that I was just producing spoiled, entitled gourmands. Enter Marmite. Those rugrats learned to wield a knife, slather stuff on a piece of bread, and make their own damn sandwiches after just one Marmite experience.

A nother
G reat
A application of
M armite

[Dallas Tex]

What is Marmite?

[thollandpe]

Suffering is part of life.

For some, more than others. And sometimes it has to do more with luck than work ethic. Reminds me of a phrase, I forget if it's John Bradford or Keith Urban.



TH

[HorsCat]

What is Marmite?

Truly nasty stuff: Marmite - Wikipedia

[BBB]

It's not a patch on Vegemite though...

Vegemite - Wikipedia

[theflashunc]

Its not the dollars. It's practicing responsibility, putting the needs of your child before your own, maybe for the first time in their lives. Being accountable to your child who counts on you to make his lunch 5x per week.

Is your point that its hopeless, and if young single parents haven't learned responsibility by the time school starts they never will, so feed their kids for them?

There is so much absurd reductivism and projection and paternalism in this kind of analysis it really boggles.

The fundamental premise of the social safety net is that as the richest country in the history of the planet, we acknowledge that doing what we can to alleviate the plight of the poor, especially poor children, is just a basic level of human decency.

The social safety net did not create poor parents. Or shitbag parents. Or parents who are addicts. Or addicts who are mentally ill. Or parents who trying to get ahead are working two jobs are leaving before their kids get up and getting home after they go to sleep, and still aren't getting ahead. Those things have existed as long as far back as people having babies in caves and will long outlive all of us. So if, as a society, we make the decision that kids who go to public school should at least not have to worry about where their meal is coming from that day while they're there, whether or not mom and/or dad can afford it, well, that's just the bare minimum we can do.

It's a backstop against abject hunger in children that would further stunt their education and social development, which is already behind the eight ball as it is if they're in the situation to qualify for a free lunch program.

Pack a lunch? Like there's a bunch of Doris Day moms out there just too lazy on the government dole, if only they'd learned responsibility. It's an analysis of the situation that's as wrongheaded as it is superficial.

[Dallas Tex]

The social safety net did not create poor parents.

What do you call a program that incentivizes women to have babies that they can't afford? Then increases the incentive to have additional babies?

[King Of Dirk]

Pack a lunch? Like there's a bunch of Doris Day moms out there just too lazy on the government dole, if only they'd learned responsibility. It's an analysis of the situation that's as wrongheaded as it is superficial.

Sorry to poke my nose in, but I find it interesting that as you accuse Daltex of "paternalism" you go ahead and assume that moms would be the ones packing a kid's lunch.

[Matthew Strongin]

What do you call a program that incentivizes women to have babies that they can't afford? Then increases the incentive to have additional babies?

And what program would that be?

[BBB]

What do you call a program that incentivizes women to have babies that they can't afford? Then increases the incentive to have additional babies?

Isn't this a tad simplistic? There's usually two people involved in the process. Is it the system or program or simple biology at work? How does a lack of education fit in? Race, family, social pressures?

Alternatively, do you let the baby starve? It's hardly to blame for the situation.

[GrantM]

What do you call a program that incentivizes women to have babies that they can't afford? Then increases the incentive to have additional babies?

I dunno, how about paying living wages so they can afford them?

If I was an extremely low income woman without many prospects for a rewarding career, you bet i'd find meaning in creating a family.

-g

The $15 Minimum Wage Doesn’t Just Improve Lives. It Saves Them. - The New York Times

[Dallas Tex]

And what program would that be?

EITC, work 10 hours per week at Walmart: with one kid get a $3,400 'tax refund'. Two kids, $5,700. Three $6,400.

WIC, SNAP, etc. increases in relation to head count. In texas section 8 rent vouchers are linked to head count.

[ABiCi]

EITC, work 10 hours per week at Walmart: with one kid get a $3,400 'tax refund'. Two kids, $5,700. Three $6,400.

WIC, SNAP, etc. increases in relation to head count. In texas section 8 rent vouchers are linked to head count.

He asked for you to name the program that incentivises women to have more children they can afford, not to list programs which take into account the number of dependents the recipient has when calculating the amount received.

[BBB]

And this is where lack of education is going to bite.

Assuming this tax incentive encouraged people to have more kids ('hey great I can get $6400 if I pop out three squealers'), how does $6400 really assist in the total cost of raising a child, which I understand to be $200,000 plus in US per child from birth to age 17.

That's north of $600,000 the person with three kids is going to have to find. The tax incentive - assuming it is not taken away, not means tested or otherwise modified - works out to $108,800 for three kids for 17 years. There's still more than $500,000 that has to be found.

It may sound nice to get that money back at tax time, but it's a drop in the ocean.

Education is a key to equality and providing proper funding to educate people is critical (including on things such as sex education, maths, finances). You have to have the money and the programs in place to educate people. Of course this is no guarantee that you won't get unwanted pregnancies or people will make life long choices based on a very short term incentive, you still have to bring people along and provide for them. The alternative is to let people (children in this case) starve.

[Dallas Tex]

And this is where lack of education is going to bite.

Assuming this tax incentive encouraged people to have more kids ('hey great I can get $6400 if I pop out three squealers'),

I put 'tax refund' in quotes, because it is in no way a tax refund. The recipient may have paid $0 in federal income tax. This 'refund' is a stipend that increases with the number of children, and for you out of towners its only available to very low wage earners. And $6,400 may not be much to you, but if your housing, food, medical costs are already covered it could play a larger role in your income.