No person who works 40 hours a week should need or even qualify for government support services. Unfortunately, that is our current reality. Of the millions of Americans who rely on the most basic services to maintain essential human needs, a vast majority were found to have full-time employment.
A study done by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that “the 12 million wage-earning adults (ages 19 to 64) enrolled in Medicaid — a joint federal-state program that finances health care for low-income individuals — and the 9 million wage-earning adults in households receiving food assistance from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) shared a range of common labor characteristics. For example, approximately 70 percent of adult wage earners in both programs worked full-time hours (i.e., 35 hours or more) on a weekly basis and about one-half of them worked full-time hours annually.”
Wage stagnation has been influencing our economy for decades and can be tied back to the early 1970s. It has been a growing problem that is now affecting more social classes. For a time, wage stagnation was more associated with lower-wage positions, but now the middle class has seen its own stagnation, with those who hold a four-year college degree not seeing pay growth since the year 2000.
Wage stagnation can be attributed to the rise of automation, which has reduced jobs; globalization, which has led to cheaper goods in the market; and...
TIFFIN, Ohio — On Friday, state Rep. Gary Click deleted a Facebook post accusing three named Democrats of funding his primary opponent and replaced it with a correction. The claim was “made in err...