Soundbites
Can we relate to $8 per hour? America’s economic divide has grown so large that it’s hard for those in the [top] 1 percent to imagine what life at the bottom — and increasingly in the middle — is like. Consider for a moment a household with a single earner and two children. Assume that the earner is in good health and manages to work a full 40 hours a week (the average work-week of American workers is only 34 hours) at a wage somewhat above the minimum, say, around $8.50 an hour, so that after paying his Social Security tax, he gets $8 per hour, and thus receives $16,640 for his 2,080 hours. Assume he pays no income tax, but his employer charges him $200 a month for health insurance for his entire family and picks up the rest of the $550 per month cost of insurance. This brings his take-
entertainment. If something goes wrong, there is simply no buffer. — Joseph E. Stiglitz in The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future
Attack ads
home pay to $14,240 a year. If he is lucky, he might be able to find a two-bedroom apartment (with utilities included) for $700 a month. This leaves him with $5,840 to cover all other family expenses for the year. Like most Americans, he may consider a car a basic necessity; insurance, gas, maintenance, and depreciation on the vehicle could easily take up some $3,000. The family’s remaining funds are $2,840 — under $3 a day per person — to cover basic expenses like food and clothing, not to mention things that make life worth living, like
I’d like to hear attack ads on things worth attacking. If there was an attack ad on malaria, I’d get that, because 3,000 people die every day — mostly kids — of malaria. — U2 singer Bono alluding to recent election ads while speaking to students at Georgetown University
Hire the happy Happiness is a critical factor for work, and work is a critical factor for happiness. In one of those life-isn’t-fair results,
it turns out that the happy outperform the less happy. Happy people work more hours each week — and they work more in their free time, too. They tend to be more cooperative, less self-centered, and more willing to help other people — say by sharing information or pitching in to help a colleague — and then, because they’ve helped others, others tend to help them. Also, they work better with others, because people prefer to be around happier people, who are also less likely to show the counterproductive behaviors of burnout, absenteeism, counter- and nonproductive work, work disputes, and retaliatory behavior than are less happy people. — Gretchen Rubin in The Happiness Project
We need work Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer and sexuality; it is not simply medicine but food for our soul. Without meaningful work we sense significant inner loss and emptiness. People who are cut off from work because of physical or other reasons quickly discover how much they need work to thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually. — Timothy Keller in Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work
Quitting time Work is the form in which we make ourselves useful to others.... Imagine that everyone quits working, right now! What happens? Civilized life quickly melts away. Food vanishes from the shelves, gas dries up at the pumps, streets are no longer patrolled, and fires burn The Marketplace March April 2013
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