131–140 of 200 posts
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Oh. You still need to pay for after-school child care; that's what I was referring to. School here gets out at 3:00PM; we get home from work around 6:00PM.
That's why there are sports teams and chess club.
Most women don't do this because of the social stigma, and those that don't care about the social stigma don't do it because they don't want to contract STDs--in particular, Genital Herpes which can be transmitted through skin-to-skin contact. I'm surprised that the article didn't examine the health risks of the business.
I'm certain that a high class escort is safer from health risks than someone who works on the street, but how much safer? That is information I'd be interested to learn.
That said, I have several friends--women and homosexual men--that have done and do this type of work. When they talk about it, they always say that they "love it." They do it for awhile and pay off some debt. Then they inevitably age out of it or go onto work that they find more meaningful. This article confirmed the stories they told me.
Problems with the article: > Throughout history, it has invariably been easier to be male than female. Yes, this is an overgeneralisation and yes, there are exceptions, but by any important measure, women have had it rougher than men. This one is a PC-friendly thing to say, the opposite point of view is not. If you haven't read it, I must urge you to check out the excellent "Is There Anything Good About Men?" essay b…
It's similarly thought provoking, but a bit more balanced, less angry, yet a bit patronizing to men.
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The pressure does not come from being stigmatized but from the fact that a single person income is not enough to feed a family of four in plenty of places. Which places? The fact is, plenty of people survive and overfeed themselves in spite of working less than 27 weeks/year (80% of the poor fall into this category). If a person can't feed their family working full time, they need to move out of Manhattan.
Because everybody lives in Manhattan? The world is a lot larger than just the US, and even in the US if you've moved out of Manhattan (say to one of those suburbs) and you have a family of four to feed you'll be surprised how much month there is left at the end of your money as a single earner. Overfeeding is more related to what you eat than the money you spend on it, in fact it is easier to overfeed on cheap food t…
Food in the US is much more expensive in the majority of the world. I imagine that in the Netherlands it's even more expensive. Still, home-cooked adequate nutrition in the US costs a great deal less than junk food. McDonald's, Popeye's, and Frito-Lay can't even come close to competing with dried corn, dried beans, dried brown rice, soybean and canola oil, potatoes, squash, onions, collards, carrots, ramen, eggs, multivitamins, oranges, bananas, molasses, oatmeal, and the occasional spinach, lettuce, tomato, and cucumber.
(This was even true when I lived in a poor inner-city black neighborhood in Dayton, where everything in the supermarket cost more, and you couldn't take the carts out into the parking lot. Supermarket prices were a lot cheaper in the rich neighborhoods, and I went to Aldi maybe once a month to stock up on the stuff that was cheap there.)
"There is one labour market women have always dominated: prostitution." Uhm. No. The most common prostitute is a man selling sex to another man.
Problems with the article: > Throughout history, it has invariably been easier to be male than female. Yes, this is an overgeneralisation and yes, there are exceptions, but by any important measure, women have had it rougher than men. This one is a PC-friendly thing to say, the opposite point of view is not. If you haven't read it, I must urge you to check out the excellent "Is There Anything Good About Men?" essay b…
Having children generally makes your life rougher. Across history, women have rarely had the choice to opt out of that, while men often have. Furthermore, women have generally borne the brunt of the enormous workload of childraising. The statistic you cite, therefore, supports the point you claim it to undermine.
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What you listed adds up to about 1400 on average. If you can't pay the principal, mortgage seems like unnecessary debt. Also, I'm not familiar with supermarket prices in Europe, but if the person staying home does cook, 350 euro ($450) seems too expensive for the basic ingredients.
You'll have to because affordable housing is so rare that you end up buying a house because the mortgage roughly equals the rent elsewhere. Of course then you do have to pay for the maintenance. > but if the person staying home does cook, 350 euro ($450) seems too expensive for the basic ingredients. That's from direct experience and believe me I don't throw money around if I don't have to. A very basic bit of shoppi…
Can you install a loft bed and put the freezer under the bed? Do you have any space outdoors where you could put a freezer? Have you tried buying dried foods only in bulk?
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It fits. The Heritage Foundation study assailed the Census Bureau's definition of poverty. My point made no comment about that; I was just debunking the idea that a family of four can live "easily" on a single minimum wage income, which is preposterous.
I agree - which is why MOST low-income families of four have a parent who works two minimum wage jobs, which pushes them just above the 'cant make it' threshold (hopefully).
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Yup. Food has never in history been cheaper as a proportion of total income. Especially if one person stays home to cook all meals, you can feed a family of four with amazing food for $200 a month. Yes, you need to move out of Manhattan, and give up non-essentials, but a single person on full-time minimum wage can easily feed and house a family of four. Now if that person actually makes an _average_ wage, they can al…
"...a single person on full-time minimum wage can easily feed and house a family of four." With all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about. It's not "societal expectations" that cause lots of gainfully employed people in the United States to be part of the working poor and hungry. As an example, the minimum wage in DC is $8.25, which yields $1320/month. The actual amount would be even lower after taxes…
The grand-parent claim for my post is "a single person income is not enough to feed a family of four in plenty of places". (By "feed" most people understand food and housing, not insurance, savings and unforeseen expenses.) My point, which you didn't bother to even read completely before coming here and yelling slogans, was that _even on minimum wage_ one person can pay for housing and food for a family of four (and you have yourself proven this point even for a relatively expensive location such as DC); therefore, _on average wage_, it's possible to do OK with such an arrangement (assuming one person to stay at home and cook). Since financially it works out for the _average_ family, it's social norms that cause the typical situation to be different.
You should really work on your reading comprehension.