why are there so many?

Question

working homeless in America?
i am not talking about the drunks, druggies, or the ones who like being homeless. i am talking about the working family who is living out of their car or worse. why is there so many of them and how can we put an end to it?

Answer 1

Many causes for this.

Min wage does NOT provide a living wage. You cannot pay the bills on min wage. Just not going to happen.

Increases in the Min wage have meant more and more jobs have slipped into being jobs you cannot make a living off of.

Payroll deductions are eating many of these people's checks alive. Insurance is unreasonably expensive but the alternitive is also. Child support and in some states debt attachments, maybe IRS trouble. Alot of things coming out of the check including taxes. For the working poor even SS deductions are a brutal hit to net income.

The increasing cost of living combined with the decreasing wages is a vicious cycle. Fewer good paying jobs mean more and more people are having to take any job they can get whether or not that job will pay the bills. A little money is better than no money. What you can buy with those wages are dropping dramatically. Soaring gas prices hit the poor the hardest. The gas prices raise the cost of everything. It doesn't discourage driving it means people pay more for a loaf of bread or a can of soup in the grocery store. A noticable chunk of gas prices is federal taxes.

A number of states now tax food and medicine. An unreasobable burden on the working poor.

The welfare safety net is gone. Many people are ineligible for ANY Federal or state aid. Some too proud to apply for the little they are eligible or or unable to maintain the hoops and constant struggle to keep paperwork filled out to be eligible. It is nearly a full time job to be aid eligible in many cases. How can you work and do that at the same time? Unfair decisions by local buearocrats also leave many off any kind of assistance. Without resources to fight they just struggle to make it.

Most charities are set up for one time aid and are being swamped by the waves of people falling under the poverty line.

Outsourcing is killing high paid fields like high tech industries. This is pushing many former high tech workers back into prior proffesions and swamping low skilled white collar jobs locking long time blue collar workers out of promotions and even taking jobs from them. Outsourcing is also dailly removing many livable wage jobs forcing blue collar workers supported by the factories, IT workers and other outsourced technologies bereft of real employment.

Illegal Imigration is furthor eroding wage scales. It also creates compitition for the same resources. Working poor are living in the same neighborhoods, competing for the same charitable resources, housing, transporation and other resources. This has the effect of driving up housing costs in the low rent areas, reducing aid availible and creating delays that working people both legal and illegal cannot afford for things such as health care. Remember low wage jobs do not have paid sick time. Every minute you are at a Doc's office is a minute you don't get paid for. Low income people work the most dangerous jobs typically.

Child support saddles many with unlivable pay deductions while the lack of it leaves many single mothers unable to afford to raise a child given their lack of earnings. Many child support agencies will do things which make it impossible for the payer to make money such as revoking comercial drivers liscences, passports and other things necessary for continued employment. Even in cases where it the payer has a decent job the percentages are off of gross not net, not tax deductable nor realistic. Often they are set so high that the payer cannot possibly pay the amount due and remain working at a White collar job. This means both payer and payee are economically destroyed. How this benifits anybody I do not know. The Child support effort in the US is an abysmal failure to all involved. It is wrecking lives up and down the nation.

Legal issues. The poor are the ones hit with the vehicle inspection problems. They are the ones driving through the high crime areas and thus getting pulled over as suspicious people even when all they are doing is trying to make an honest living. As such they are ticketed very heavily. Tickets that this group can least afford to pay. It is the poor that cannot drive cars that meet pollution standards, let thier registration and insurance lapse. Which often gets thier liscence revoked which in turn winds up getting them tossed in jail, which furthor aggravates the situation and leads to homelessness for many. It is this same group of people least able to use public transportation if it's even availible in thier region. Paying higher costs for food required by multiple trips to grocery stores that using public transportation would require alone would derail such a frail budget. So oppressive laws are a big problem.

Rising health care costs are devastating to the poor. Insurance often too expensive to afford, cash pay too much. Do you get better and live in your car or do you lose work from not going to the doc or even die? Some choice.

The increasing complexity of cars has made it more expensive and difficult to keep junkers running. These junkers are the life blood of the very poor. Without them they are doomed. Unable to work on them with thier own hands expensive repairs and parts eat into the incomes of the poor.

Social dynamics have left people increasingly alienated and at the same time nation wide people in general are seeing a major decrease in buying power. So freinds and family are unable or unwilling to help. Often friends and family live hundreds of thousands of miles away. So the staying on a friends couch doesn't happen as much. Often that couch is already occupied today. If not the owner of the couch cannot afford thier own bills much less helping out a friend or a relitive.

The cost of living almost forces 2 income families. In the poor there already is no choice. You cannot live on a single income. So even a temporary cessation in income for either member can cause homelessness.

Debt, late fees and preditory lending. They are killing poor and middle class. The necessity to buy on credit is a fact of life for most Americans. We are a culture of debt. Most CC cards will automatically charge a late fee and make you argue to get it removed after you prove you did send the bill in on time. It is a common scam but a destructive one for the poor. It eats the poor allive. Many scam mortgage companies buy up margional notes with the intent of forclosing. The Feds have shut a couple down for this but dozens are still out there operating taking homes from htousands of families each year. Typical mode of operation is to claim that the last payment from previous mortgage company was never recieved then to pile on thousands of dollars in fee that eventually build up to where all equity in the home is gone. So these people cannot sell, cannot get out because thier credit is unfairly ruined by the preditory lender and they cannot pay the expected costs. Nor can they afford the legal fees to get the problem temporarily straitened out.

I can go on. Things are pretty glum right now for America economically. I see no answer for it coming from either party, only more of the same pain heaped on those already overburdened.

Answer 2

I think there are as many reasons as there are working poor.But I think the main reason has to do with inflation.Most peoples wages haven't gone up enough to keep up with the rising cost owning a house or living in an apartment.When minimum wage doesn't go up with inflation,it gets to the point where you have to choose between a roof over your head and eating.

Answer 3

plain and simple, becuase the gov needs these people to do the jobs no one else wants to do. when you here about the illegal alien debate and the mexicans doing the jobs we dont want, that is tottal B.S. we just dont want to do it for 1$ and hour. befor the homless did alot of this work, but now they are forced out. did you know that americas wages, "everybodies" should be 8% higher than what it is now, but because of illegals its not and will steadily decline, or not rise with the economy like it should.

Answer 4

Well, I don't think the government or the churches are doing their parts in this. Since the government won't do it, and if churches won't, it is time for individuals and families to take initiative and begin helping these persons one at a time. As to how, I wish I knew.

Answer 5

Draciron and Timelord are exactly right! Sadly I don't think it will end anytime soon. Not as long as big companies are filling the pockets of politicians. And I am talking about BOTH major parties!!

Answer 6

Because your country is An Exploiter.