“…the International Agency on Research of Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, classified hormonal contraceptives in 2005 as a group one carcinogen along with asbestos and radium.”
As for the libertarian stuff, I’ve presented my ideas in the anarchism threads.
Pav, sorry for the delayed response.
Just to refresh our memories:
Pav asserts: In some cases, the divorce financially harms the male as opposed to remaining married, that’s my point.
Anita, totally winging it, counters: In more cases, the female is financially harmed, although that gap is starting to shrink because women are gradually making more.
Pav then counter-counters, and with facts and figures, no less. Forcing Anita to actually have to back up her blather with evidence.
Which, just so you know for future reference, is really very inconvenient for me, Pav.
I’m going to take a slightly different approach in trying to support my claim. That’s because I think you focused on what you considered the benefits she’d gain (not all of which match up with the information I found), without following suit with the benefits he’d gain. You can decide for yourself if my reasoning holds water.
Here are some of the man’s annual expenses, both before and after the divorce, using annual Minnesota averages I found – starting out with an annual household income of $57,243:
[size=85]1 http://www.mortgage-lenders-plus.com/mortgage/minnesota-mortgage-lenders.html
2 http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_home#tab2
3 http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib23/eib23_reportsummary.pdf
4 http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2009/11/how_much_will_health_care_cost.shtml
5 http://www.dentalplans.com/search/zipsummaryshortok.asp?zipcode=55104&NetworkPlanID=&hpsel=&img
6 http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/21/pf/cost_raising_child/index.htm[/size] , http://childsupportcalculator.dhs.state%20…%20lator.aspx
He’s saving around $20,000 per year in living expenses after the divorce, and that is only a partial picture, as it doesn’t include any reductions in things like car insurance, or personal expenses his wife may have incurred.
Now let’s look at her situation. From everything that I’ve read – and let’s face it, the welfare system is complex and not easily navigated – my understanding is that contrary to your assertion, one can’t receive the college child care assistance you reference if you’re also receiving welfare.
From what I gathered, when you apply for welfare in Minnesota, there are 4 components:
The child care grant is only offered IF you are NOT participating in MFIP: http://www.getreadyforcollege.org/pdfGR/ChildCare.pdf
I couldn’t find anything to support this. Everything I could find on subsidized housing did say that the rent was a portion of income, and the maximum benefit for a 2-bedroom apt was $916 with the average rental cost of being $1,000.00. http://www.housinglink.org/HousingResources/SubsidizedHousing/Section8Voucher/Section8VoucherMaps/Section8VoucherAgencies.aspx?id=3
There is also a waiting list to receive Section 8 benefits, and the waiting list in St. Paul is currently closed. http://www.housinglink.org/HousingResources/WaitingList.aspx So in theory, she and her child could end up on the street and/or staying in emergency homeless shelters, until she can afford to pay the entire rent herself until the waiting list opens back up and she moves to the top of the list. But we’ll use the best case scenario below.
[size=85]* edocs.dhs.state.mn.us/lfserver/Public/DHS-4737-ENG
1 http://www.housinglink.org/HousingResources/SubsidizedHousing/Section8Voucher/Section8VoucherMaps/Section8VoucherAgencies.aspx?id=3 $264 annually for her, $48 is lowest annual cost per child so her cost goes up by at least $312
2 http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_home#tab2
3 http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib23/eib23_reportsummary.pdf
4 http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2009/11/how_much_will_health_care_cost.shtml
5 http://www.dentalplans.com/search/zipsummaryshortok.asp?zipcode=55104&NetworkPlanID=&hpsel=&img
6 http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/21/pf/cost_raising_child/index.htm $12,606 minus the $9,540 in child support her ex pays[/size]
By my calculations, she still ends up behind by $3,538 each year, whereas he has gained more than $22,000. I did not include tuition assistance, as using these figures and the fact that she’s currently on welfare, she would not be eligible for childcare assistance, so she would have no way of even attending college.
All of this assumes that the husband was the sole breadwinner, and that she was 100% dependent upon him financially. Whether or not this specific situation is the norm, I think we can agree that it’s not generally in the woman’s best interest to be completely dependent upon her husband financially. That is the sort of scenario which has led many a woman to stay in a bad marriage, and it’s one of the many reasons that equal opportunity in the job market is so important for women.
I think it would be appropriate to wrap things up with a large caveat, at least from my perspective.
Neither of us is a social service worker and we both did a whole lot of googling to come up with our data. And even though there was a long delay in my response, that was due to work constraints - I really only spent last night doing any research [probably obvious]. Furthermore, I, for one, fully concede that virtually any data found on the web, even on seemingly reputable sites, is still subject to manipulation and interpretation.
So we are two non-experts, and without really doing a whole lot more in-depth research, I think we’re still left with the fact that we have our own strong personal opinions, and everything we’ve seen, read, and heard up to this point in our lives has been filtered through personal experience. Meaning that if we’re honest, we’ll acknowledge that as humans, we tend to seek out data that backs up our opinions and we dismiss, probably without even realizing it, data that contradicts our beliefs.
The reality of the state of welfare, in either Ohio or Minnesota, is probably somewhere in-between our two views. It’s an interesting topic for us to sit here and debate, but I do hope that public policy is influenced by those who have a lot more expertise in the matter, and ideally, a more objective handle on the facts.
Don’t worry about the delay!
I also apologize for the facts and figures inconvenience!
1.) My first area of contention with your figures is that you are basing the whole thing upon a much higher income level. I’m really not concerned with how your, “Average,” male is affected, when I say some men end up worse off, I’m concerned with how your Lower-Middle Class or Low-Class male is affected. My example was a guy that only made $30,000/year to begin with, which you can see is less than your guy even has left.
In my example, the guy is also paying 31.8% of his pre-tax income to child support whereas this guy is only paying 16.7% of his pre-tax income.
I came up with $2,400, per month, using my Federal Child Support Calculator that I lnked in the previous post with her not working. $28,800/year, a little over 50% of his pre-tax income, so that throws the numbers of dramatically as that is greater than all of his costs you calculated, including child support.
I wish I knew which calculator had the best of it.
childsupportcalculator.dhs.state … sults.aspx
If we assume that something in-between is true, your guy’s not driving a Cadillac while mine is scambling to afford his bus pass. I’m more concerned with my guy.
2.) In my example, I didn’t give the Mother MFIP, I only gave her the child support, food stamps, and college grants. If she’s not participating in MFIP, (In College) then she gets the college childcare grant. My main point of contention is that she should not be getting free college education with the ability to become a career-student.
Honestly, though, I don’t really have that big of a problem with her getting the free education in Minnesota because that is all she is getting, in addition to the fact that her books and such will be paid for. I would just be inclined to set a limit of five-six years to graduate with a four-year degree. The problem with the Federal Grants is that they do not take the costs of the college into consideration. Go to a cheaper college = get cash. That’s why the school situation differed in the Ohio and Minnesota examples that I made, because the schools differed.
Besides, with MFIP the Mother works. My contention was she shouldn’t be getting all of this stuff without working, especially straight cash for going to college. The Feds just need to set a Grant cap on college which is inclusive to tuition and maybe $1,500/year for books. If the cap were $10,000, but you went to a college with an annual cost of $5,000, the Feds would pay the 5K and you’d get a check for $1,500 once per year. My problem is mainly the straight cash, when that occurs.
3.) My first problem with your rental costs is that you are saying that he is paying $4,488/year, but then she’s paying $1,000/month for a two bedroom apartment. I understand that your figures come from two different sources, but if you’re talking a two-bedroom apartment vs. a two-bedroom apartment, you have to use the same figures for both people…so that skews it.
4.) My second problem with you using an average housing cost upon which to base your figures, for the Mother’s rent, is that she is not going to be living in an, “Average,” two-bedroom apartment, nor should she be when she is not working. It would make sense that she would live, at-best, in a slightly-below-average apartment, and that’s mostly going to be so only because of area and not necessarily conditions as any Section 8 housing, or any other Government housing, must adhere to certain conditions.
5.) Section 8 is also not the only form of public housing that there is. The Minneapolis Public Housing Authority is an example of a Public Housing Authority that does not rely exclusively on Section 8. Honestly, Section 8 really just amounts to rent assistance and is available in many houses/apartments with private landlords depending on whether the landlord wants to do it. With the MPHA, you pay a maximum of 30% of your Adjusted Gross Monthly Income to rent, of course, if you make nothing, you pay nothing. In other words, with all due respect, your $1,000/month just became $0/month in a real hurry.
mphaonline.org/assisted-livi … c-housing/
6.) My Mom is not a Social Worker, but she has been a Public Housing Manager for twenty-five years. That’s the thing, most people think Section 8 when they hear public housing, but Section 8 mainly exists to assist people who are in better shape than the Mothers we have been talking about in our scenarios, that’s where actual public housing comes in. There’s a huge difference between the two, Section 8 includes Private Landlords and it’s basically just rent assistance.
That’s true, there is a natural tendency to want to have your beliefs justified. I’ve wanted to find a middle-ground on this issue with you, though, and I think we’re getting there. I honestly think we could probably put an ideal hypothetical scenario together for any income level and largely agree on terms.