McDonalds tells employees to enroll in Food Stamps...

Well that is an interesting piece, but the way you are using it misses the mark. Namely that to get a lot of those benefits one has to work. Without working one doesn’t get EBT it runs out after 3 months if you don’t have a job. You also don’t get free child care because you’re not working and you don’t get the earned income credit because you are not earning any income. So in order to get government benefits these days you have to work hence the reason fast food restaurants and big box retailers get away paying so little.

And if a corporation were to qualify for EVERY CONCEIVABLE loophole and tax credit, it would pay zero taxes and - OMG!! - receive millions in tax rebates year after year. Maybe some dishonest liberal should create that chart.

Of course that would just be another "Bigfoot" sighting, because that corporation doesn't exist. Neither does DonDiego's welfare recipient, who qualifies for everything under the sun, but it makes for a good story, doesn't it.

Remember the most famous welfare recipient of all, the "Welfare Queen?"

"She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000."

Of course it was Ronald Reagan who said it, so many fools actually believed that story. It was a lie.

I can't believe it. You have some on this board believing that people who are lifetime workers at McDonalds should be paid something like $20 plus per hour and should be given full dental, medical, etc. They are static thinkers and don't look at the whole picture. If McDonalds were to pay people that price they would 1) have to triple the price of their crappy hamburgers and 2) lay people off. Mc Donald's should be a high school or college job and THAT IS IT, unless you move up to manager or into the corporate offices. Someone should not make a career at flipping burgers for McDonalds.

The problem I have with this thread is that I used to work as an engineer making upwards of $80 K. I was laid off. I took a job making $35 K. Then I got fired. I was denied unemployment benefits. I challenged this decision and I won my challenge to not receiving unemployment benefits as Texas said I should not have been fired for giving my opinion when I was asked for my opinion. It took me over 3 months to win my appeal.

Then suddenly I was denied unemployment benefits because I had to re-challenge my dismissal less than a month after I had won my appeal for unemployment benefits. Since I didn't re-challenge my dismissal and the company also changed what they initially said I was fired for, I fell off the unemployment rolls and stopped getting unemployment benefits.

Luckily I'm a veteran and the VA is taking care of my medical needs.

When I apply for jobs I believe I am educated enough to hold, I never hear from the companies. When I apply for the minimum wage jobs, I never hear from those companies either. Perhaps I'm perceived as over qualified and they realize I'll leave if something better comes along.

Luckily I can eat because of EBT (food stamps) benefits.

But I'd really like to know more about the "Home Heating Assistance" program as we're heading into winter.

I would dig ditches or anything to provide myself an income, but can't get anyone to employee me.

PS and since I am no longer drawing unemployment benefits, I no longer contribute to the unemployment numbers. Quite slick for the government if I do say so myself.

Now where do I sign up for welfare since I'd love to go to the mailbox and pick up my check!

Thanks for sharing your story. What benefits you get are going to depend on what state you live in, and you will have to apply for them in that state. Since you said you had some health issues I recommend you go see a SS attorney (they won’t charge you anything) and see about applying for disability. That way you can work part time (make up to just under 12k) get your disability, EBT and eventually get on Medicare instead of Medicaid.

I am kind of in the same boat you are mid 40s, some health issues I was making very good money, but I make about 30k a year now on self-employment stuff. I tried out the job market and I found out the same thing you did. They don’t want to hire you on the low end jobs because they think you won’t be happy or that you’re too smart and will cause them problems. Then on the high end jobs they are looking for somebody younger and healthier with no family commitments so they can work them 70 – 80 hours a week. I had one guy that interview me tell me that I needed to lie on my resume, take off my education and prior employment because nobody was going to hire me if I didn’t. LOL that’s the way things are nowadays instead of trying to massage your resume to make it sound like you had more responsibilities and experience than you really did you have to massage your resume downward so you qualify for a Mc Job.

Score:

PJ Stroh - 1
DrMilled - 0

Score:

Pjstroh - 2
DrMilled - 0

i. DonDiego opposes the policies dictated by the Affordable Care Act. He is unlikely to foment a revolution in spite of his distress. [DonDiego opposes many Acts of Congress without rebellion or even disobedience.]

ii. DonDiego has not questioned the legality of the ACA, . . . he possesses insufficient legal knowledge to do so, . . . and must admit to not having read the 2000+ pages of the ACA or the 20,000+ pages of regulations stemming therefrom. Nonetheless, he does question the legality of the President to modify the Act on-the-fly without Congressional involvement. He opines the President should get his knuckles rapped over such matters, but recognizes it is unlikely.
iia. There may well have been unlawful activities within the procurement process, . . . favoritism, wasteful decisions, etc., . . . but these issues are so common in Government that nothing is gonna be done anyway.

iii. DonDiego does question the competence of President Obama's Administration in failing to provide a functional means by which to shop/apply/register for ACA insurance online on time, . . . and the apparent waste of several-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars in the process, . . . with more to be spent to "fix it". He also notes an Administration which cannot procure a computer web-site competently and in a reasonable time is also unlikely to administer the complexities of the actual "insurance market" well. DonDiego recognizes the complexity of the legislation, . . . but it really isn't rocket science.

Re: McDonald's
DonDiego has no opinion as to how much McDonald's should pay its employees. Only that the wage should remain a decision decided among the McDonald's Corporation, the McDonald's Franchisees, and the employees. The effect of McDonald's on poor old DonDiego is truly minimal. There is a McDonald's hamburger emporium within 3 miles of the DonDiego Tomato Ranch which he has never entered; he's lived here over 6 years. Over the last few years he recalls entering McDonald's on the occasional long road-trip, oftentimes only because teechur had to pee; DonDiego fears the frequency of his own micturation will soon equal teechur's.

Re: Inequality of Employee Wages and Corporate Officers Pay
This is troubling. And if the reader thinks McDonald's Corporate Officers are overpaid, he really needs to look at Bank Officers. Greed has, indeed, overtaken the hierarchy of corporate America. Significant drivers of the inequality, . . . facilitators, . . . is Government policies - like the Big Bank Bailouts et al and the present "Qualitative Easing Policy", all of which benefit those who already own significant capital and paper-assets at the expense of those who do not.
It's just these sorts of things the Government should keep out of. If the markets are allowed to work, they will work, . . . not to the benefit of everyone individually, but especially not only to the benefit of those whom the Government chooses.
None of this is likely to end well.

Bill Maher had this very topic as his new rules on Friday night you can watch it on youtube by following the link.

Bill Maher Minimum Wage - New Rules

Before our government implemented minimum wage laws the "free market" was exactly the method used for determining worker salaries. don Diego might do some homework on the size of the middle class in this country before and after those laws. People who worked in sweatshops for less than a dollar a day would likely disagree with Don Diego's assessment of the free market and its positive effect on the job market.