http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47872983/ns/business-real_estate/ Our twins have, collectively, $110,000 in college loans. One works full time as a library clerk making $11/hr and the other has been unemployed for over a year (he has a math & teaching degree). My son in law works full time but has had two pay cuts and he's down to about $9/hr. This politics as usual, for both sides, has got to end. We need someone with real answers (and, please, no posts about Spaceman Ron Paul)- but that person doesn't seem to exist.
That sucks. Hopefully things turn around for everyone. My daughter will have loans also, and unless things change, all my other kids will too. We can help, but only on a month to month basis.
We gave each kid about $2,000 per year. Normally we couldn't afford it, but we got a lot of it back in taxes.
We have saved, and done a decent job of it, but it's still not near enough. We played with the money too much before kids.
A little. It's tough because we live in an area that is very affluent. In fact the county we live in was #3 in the country a few years ago. That doesn't mean a lot, but when a lot of her friends are getting new cars for their birthday and already have their entire college paid for, it's tough. Feels like a bit of a failure
I think they should raise the minimum wage in the us. I think we've tried to help the economy grow from the top down for about 10 years now with all of these tax cuts. From what I understand the GDP has not significantly dipped. If more of the lower class have money to spend, that should drive up consumption. Consumption is what drives our economy, and creates the jobs. Businesses don't want to hire workers if they have nobody to buy their products.
Im still in school but I just managed to snag a job outside my field that pays 16 an hour and will eventually have full benefits. Im holding on like a death grip and I will go to school part time if I have to. Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2
I think the minimum wage is fine at present, but should be carefully monitored. It's designed not to be a wage for "consumers", but just enough to survive on. And when it goes up, all prices in the economy pretty much go up, so to be on it and trying to expect those people receiving minimum wage to be consumers is like a tiger chasing its tail- it never catches up. I don't know what the final solution is, but I do know that colleges that were doing fine with the money they were receiving 5 years ago are now charging 40% more (or so) and it fails the sniff test to me. It's sort of like they will charge as much as they can until kids can no longer get enough loans to make it though and that will be the equilibrium as opposed to simply working hard to keep costs and tuition as low as possible. In other words, greed for more money and more projects.
The minimum wage has been steadily mocked for over 40 years by the refusal of every administration to make honest adjustments to it to keep up with inflation. Congress has effectively embezzled from the citizens it "serves" by just sitting back and watching the redistribution of wealth. To correct it now and restore the standard of living Americans had in the 60's would bring it to over $40 an hour. That gives you a rough idea of just how badly Real Americans have been raped by big business/big government. It's why our country has nearly collapsed financially, and why we have billionaires witth multiple super-yachts and submarines while children and the elderly die from lack of affordable medical care.
HAHA! $40 / hr is about $80k per year. You think a minimum wage worker should be able to buy 2 of your Lapine homes every year?
LOL. There are no "homes" available in La Pine for $40,000, but $80k a year is about what it now takes to attain the minimum standard of living working Americans had in the 60's.
Shit - under that standard, I'm barely making minimum wage? WTF? I wish I could have a "minimum wage" earning job and get paid the same as I am now. Life would be grand.
