Does the military exploit poor families with the sign on bonus?

Question

I am a 6th and 7th grade teacher, most of my students come from poverty stricken homes. I have heard many of my students say they are going to have a "rich Christmas" this year because they have a brother or sister who signed up with the Army and they get to help spend a $10,000.00 bonus that they got.
This really concerns me. It's almost like they are selling out their own families for money. The army has been recruiting heavily in our area. Is this exploiting the poor?

Don't start with the liberal name calling, Janice. Just get off your high horse. I have dedicated my life to helping underprivilidged kids, and if you spent 10 years teaching in the ghetto, you'd have a clue as to what it is like here. 80 percent of our kids don't finish high school. Less than ONE percent go to college.
Yes, the military can be good for these kids, I will agree with you. My husband, my dad, all served in the military, and I have a brother stationed in Iraq right now.
My concern is that these kids are being exploited because most of them know nothing else, and I really don't think the recruiters tells these kids what's going to happen.

Answer 1

If you go to Dunbar High School in the bad part of town close to where I live... the military has a PERMANENT office located two doors down from the principles office. If you ask any kid in school there they know right where it is. By contrast if you go to Barron Collier High School, a bit more south in more upscale area.....ask any kid there..... they don't have a recruiters office in their school and recruiters almost NEVER visit except for ROTC events.

This is nothing new... the poor will fight the war....always.

It makes me mad to hear people who twisted John Kerry's words when he said..."people who can't navigate the school system end up in Iraq"... because they know what he meant by that. What he meant was...people from poor areas of this country who can't afford college and didn't get scholarships, are being told that their best chance at life is to join the military to get an education. We're basically sending a message to an entire class of kids that if they want to do something with their lives and climb out of poverty, they better learn how to dodge bullets first.

I bet if you go to any inner city school, every kid there has been solicited at least once by a military recruiter.... but if you were to go to any school in Beverly Hills, you won't get the same result.

Is this exploitation ?....absolutely.

The united states military is deliberately targeting disadvantaged kids, to replenish their ranks by offering them education. Something they should have access to in the first place because they live in the richest nation on earth.

Answer 2

Let me preface this by saying that my husband is a marine and I totally support all of our troops. But sometimes recruiters can be exploitive. I'm not sure if it's that they are exploiting the poor or not but in some cases recruiters will do a bait and switch. Promise certain specialty's or other things, give a big check and then have someone sign. It's only when it's too late do these kids realize that they will not be getting all those things they were promised because they didn't get them in writing. I know that when I was 18 years old I probably would have believed everything a recruiter said as well. And of course this is not every recruiter, in any situation you're bound to have a few bad apples in the bunch. Anyway, back to the idea of the military exploiting the poor and interesting book to read in this area is "AWOL" (it has a really long subtitle that I don't remember) and it talks about how the poor and middle class are shouldering the burden of defending our nation, while the upper class is (hence the name) AWOL, which in the marine corps at least they no longer use. It's now called being UA, an unathorized absence. Anyway, that's just my two cents.

Answer 3

Being from a poor family when I joined the service many years ago I do not think it is exploiting them at all. Teaching these kids from poor families you should realize that they have little oppotunity for advancement much beyond the status of there parents in the areas they live in, in many if not most cases. The mlitary offers an option out of that and many poor take it. I am from the Applachain South and this area like the Southern states in general, many rural, inner city and western states are "over represented" in the mlitary and historically always have been. The reason is the oppotunity the mlitary offers to get money for college, job training, travel andlearn what else is available. Five of us were friends in hig school in the mid to late 1960's; three went into the Marnes, two of us retired, one I lost track of and the other two are in or been in and out of prison. If I was exploited then I also exploited the service to get myself more self-disciplined, learned a job, have seen more of the world (some good and some not in truth) then my neighbors and family and when I retired got a good job based on my experience and skill. None of that would have been available to me if not for the service. The forty plus years of social programs designed to help the poor, the Great Society envisioned by JFK and LBJ, have done much less of that then the military services. The social programs became hand outs and the military is a hand up with pay. If te kids joining did not get the bonus would they still have joined? If they had no or limited other options and intelligent enough to see that yes but if a few did join because of the bonus and still get the other benefits then it is good for them also. Spending the money to give the families a better Christmas is a bad thing? Explotation was making social help programs an "entitlement" to buy votes and having generations think they do not have to work to get ahead because they are entitled to money-the military is the hand up put of that life that JFK wanted those programs to be and not what they became.

Answer 4

Exploitation is defined as the act of utilizing something in an unjust, cruel or selfish manner for one's own advantage.

I am not sure you could define a bonus as exploitation, governments have always targeted the lower classes and perhaps this is a form of exploitation and by definition the poor may be exploiting the government.

I frankly think the military life can appeal to the poor as it offers much more than a little bonus for signing. It pays fair for a high school education and opportunities are presented that otherwise would not be available such as collage, travel, exposure to people and places. This is my opinion but I do not think it is exploited.

Answer 5

It is not exploiting the poor as must enlistees in the Army come from the middle class and those the go into combat arms (infantry, airborne, Ranger and so on) 85% come from white, middle-class families. This was true even during Vietnam.
Exploiting would be by definition mean that the government was getting something for nothing. A $10,000 bonus check is a right, tidy sum of money. Coupled with this is the Montgomery GI and the Army college fund (It put me through college!) is a fair trade for serving your country.
The reality is most young people poor, middle-class and wealthy choose NOT to join the armed forces even after 9/11 when our country was attacked. In any case with unemployment at 3-4% a bonus system is the only way to attract kids that would otherwise get a job at KFC or Walmart.

Answer 6

The poor have always been exploited and always will. If the rich don't exploit them then usually they exploit each other.

The answer to the riddle is if you are poor, do whatever you have to do to stop being poor and if you are not poor,you never ever want to be poor.
As far as the 10,000 dollars. Back in the old old days, when men were needed for the military machine, they would wait for them to stumble out of the bar drunk and then pop them over the head with a club and throw them into a wagon... the next day would wake up in the British Marines or Navy.

Answer 7

Quite the opposite. The military provides so many opportunities for young people to pull themselves out of poverty. I am a living example. My parents were divorced, both poor. My mom had a drug dealer boyfriend and lived in subsidized housing. She always had creditors calling. I went in the military with nothing. This May, I will have a master's in engineering and should probably start at about $70000.

The military is a job. No one has to take the job if they don't want to. The term "exploit" sickens me, because most impoverished people would have a harder time stratifying their social staus. If you take away the military option, you slam the door on the poor.

Answer 8

What is the murder rate and drug overdose rate among the "poor" in your area? Compare that percentage to the percentage of people serving in the military who are killed in action. You will see pretty quickly that the ones left behind in the hood are more at risk. Also, do you consider it to be exploitation if a sign on bonus is offered and the employer is NOT the military? Many schools in bad neighborhoods offer sign on bonuses for teachers, or some even have "danger pay". Is that exploitation, or just marketing to fill a job position? If the government really wanted to exploit the poor for the war they would just draft them, or use the courts to force first time offenders into the military as a way to stay out of jail. The truth is that today's military needs people who can learn to operate high tech equipment and they are willing to pay for those skills.

Answer 9

Those kids are misinformed. that bonus? doesn't come until AFTER, at the very minimum, Basic training..which is 8 weeks long. Most bonuses don't come until after schooling..and those can last a year.

is it exploitation? hell no. less than 30% of people aged 18-35 are qualified to enter military service. Bonuses are given because the militray is strapped for bodies and is trying to find a way to entice them to serve their country instead of working someplace else.

Answer 10

No they don't. The military is volunteer and the bonus is just a thank you for volunteering to serve your country. It is usually paid in increments. I got 4,000 in 2002 and 4,000 in 2005. I doubt they are exploiting anyone. If anyone has access to a TV knows that we are at war and the sacrifices a military member makes. A career opportunity is not selling your family .
I come from a poor single parent family at 18, while in college and I got training, a degree, a skill, and life long friends.

Answer 11

the sign on bonuses aren't paid in ONE lump sum , the bonuses get paid in increments. The NAVY in 1980 got me out of a bad neighborhood.. all my friends that remained at home ended up dead or in jail.. I was happy to go in the navy and when I went in the only bonus they gave us was a coffee cup. And when I wanted to re-enlist all they wanted to give me was to take away my birthday and send me out to sea .. but I LOVED EVERYDAY of it. No matter how poor the neighborhood is the recruit still has to have good asvab scores and meet all the requirements,, the days of go to jail or join the service are long gone. Whether a poor or rich neighborhood the Armed Services need men and women. A "rich" Christmas in my opinion is having all my family together and celebrating the season, and that doesn't cost a thing...... in the one response to the DUNBAR school , not too many of those kids couldn't pass the asvab test, they can't even pass the FCAT