Do You Want To Work For $5.33 A Hour?

I'd like to correct your terminology Spall. It's not volunteering if you are forced or required to do it.

It depends on which side of the fence you're on, taskr. The school places the *requirement* on the student but what the library, for instance received, was a volunteer.

I had four children go through school systems that had community service requiremets for graduation. In Maryland it was 75 hours. My middle daughter volunteered on Saturdays for two hours at our local library where she was *in charge* of Storytime and read to young children. She has always liked kids and enjoyed it a lot. My oldest daughter volunteered for a couple of hours each week in one of the open computer labs at the community college where I worked, helping students with the computers. My son volunteered at the Boys & Girls Club on Saturdays. My youngest volunteered at our Voter Registration office for two hours once a week (we're in Florida and she only had to perform 20 hours) where she learned some office skills. All of my children took something positive away from the experience and I was never inconvenienced because of it.

I just want to not where do you get of saying my math is faulty. Let us look at the math before you call my numbers faulty. 50 hours for seven years in middle and high school. That is 350 hours. 100 hours for four years in college. that is 400 hours. Add that together and you will get 750 hours. Take $4,000 dollars divide it by 750 hour and you get $5.333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333. What math did you learn?

Wow. I'm glad slave labor wasn't a requirement for graduation when I went to school. Basically what your saying is that this money is good because the alternative is unpaid slave labor. Isn't that what you call it when your forced to work without pay?

Ok, I'll explain it to you again but I doubt you'll accept my point this time either. The community service hours for high school and middle school students are a *requirement for graduation* so, in return for those and passing grades, you receive a high school diploma. Got that so far? If you choose not to go to college you are not *required* to perform additional community service hours so, according to your view that volunteering should have a dollar amount attached, you were paid nada, nothing for the hours you performed during those years. Those years carry no monetary value. Should you decide to go to college your community service hours at that level are worth grant money. The requirement for receiving the college grant money is 100 hours per year. If college was mandatory following graduation from high school I could understanding your lumping all of the hours together but, since it's not, and since the grant is specifically for your college education, the requirements for receiving it is confined to the college level only. By the way, the math I learned is math based on facts, not manipulated in order to skew the final numbers.

You're right, that's not a bad deal since you put it that way. Since the economy has my industry hanging by a thread, if my position is ever eliminated and I find myself out of a job, I may have to check that out.

Sounds like you need a pay raise :-)

*LOL* Same here! My only source of income right now is from myLot! But hopefully that will change soon! But for right now, I'd take it!

This would be a pay increase for the vast majority of myloters, so I think they wouldn't mind it. Personally I have done more for less, but I make a lot more than this at my day job.

yeah, and they're so ungrateful and don't realise just how lucky they are. Ironic to see people complaining about low pay but expecting other people to get less / things to cost less.

Um... I don't know how much you think it costs to live in the US, but unless you are extremely thrifty, and don't mind living on ramen noodles, $5.33 an hour just isn't going to cut it. The whole point of volunteering is that you choose to do it with the time you have available. Forced volunteering is even worse than the forced charity Obama supports.

Yes Spall, I do. Slave labor should not be a requirement to graduate from highschool. Not everyone has FREE time to give away like that. When I was in highschool there were some scholarship programs that required volunteering, but it was not a graduation requirement. Frankly I find that offensive.

Taskr, do you also object to the community service requirements that have been placed on high school students in order to graduate for over ten years that I know of? Just curious.

Oh well they have throw everything at me and I am still here. Obama will be the biggest blessing for the GOP.

You got that one right.

My guess is that just like every previous president, there will be no follow through on any campaign promise. People should realize after what, 200 or 300 years, when it is always the same, why does anybody still believe? Because the guy is persuasive? Because he is believable? Where does this misguided trust come from? I would almost be willing to bet that none of the promises ever come true - except for things that hurt us as a country because they were things we did NOT want. Failure to deliver is the norm, and I don't think it will be any different than the mess that happened with Clinton.

Why do you feel that you have to insult others to make your point? Would you be able to make your points without calling those that disagree with you bad names?

We will just have to see what happens, but nothing looking too good right now.

I guess this is just one more thing to add to the bill I'm authoring for either our state senate or a state referendum, an amendment to the New Hampshire state constitution called "the new Hampshire state re federation amendment". Basically it refuses and makes a violation of state law, a number of federal directives not listed in U.S. constitution as a federal power over the state. I would urge everyone to begin this process in their own states if you want to continue to even have a free state.

Well, I am involved with some groups that are working to overturn the passage of Prop 8 (the elimination of gay marriage) but for the most part I'm still pretty apathetic as far as politics. My way is more of ignoring things and doing my own thing anyway, or finding legal loopholes in order to continue ignoring things that I disagree with or that make me angry. As long as it doesn't affect me, I don't have to pick a bone with anybody. The only reason I have been prodded to get involved with the fight against Prop 8 is this is a civil and human rights issue. This affects everybody. The volunteerism thing appears to have been turned into a bigger deal than it really is, and I'm fairly sure there will always be a way to opt out or ignore it down the road.

I'm not doing anything that stupid either, not now or ever. I can't believe anybody would have the audacity to even come up with such a thing. Forced volunteerism my @ss. LOL! Nobody is going to do this, and if somebody does, they aren't playing with a full deck.

It's only a bad idea if it's a REQUIREMENT and you are FORCED or EXPECTED to do it. As long as it remains free choice and nobody EVER tells you that you have to or looks down on you for deciding not to, then I have no issue with it at all. What I am afraid of is that something like this will turn into a requirement and people will essentially be blackmailed into doing it, and that opens a pandora's box of trouble and a steep slope towards a huge loss of freedom. That is very very upsetting to me and I can't even believe that anybody would be in favor of something like that.

I know what grants are. I too went to college and appreciated any grant that was offered to me. Every scholarship and grant helped a lot. I also worked part time to pay for the additional expenses.

It's not a check, it's a grant. There is a difference. The grant goes toward education. Education is really expensive. My school costs me $12,000 a year, and that's after all of the grants I have. That means, I pay for the rest in big fat loans, because I don't have time to take on a full-time job... I barely make $12,000 a year and on top of it, I have daily living costs such as rent and bills galore. This is what college students face and I'm really insulted that anyone would think that this is a bad idea.

Yeah it is a big vicious circle that will either stop or it will stop the economy.

Capping the profits of company's sets a dangerous precedent. With essential things like gas I can understand it to prevent price gouging, but ordinary businesses should have control over their own prices. Increases in minimum wage force companies to raise prices. Does anyone else remember when a value meal at McDonalds was only $2.99?

Price freeze, not wage decrease. Or... cap the percentage of profit allowed to companies and force them to pass the savings on to consumers in the form of lowered prices. Cutting inflation and preventing it from rising is the only way. Sorry but the greedy corporations will just have to eat it. Overwhelming greed has caused this economic mess and only the control and end of greed will solve it.

According to Miriam-Webster: proceeding from the will or from one's own choice or consent Monetary compensation is not the issue. The issue is that when it is forced, choice and consent are no longer present.

It's not forced upon college students and, since the question I responded to related to compensation, which is only available at the college level, it's only that group I'm referring to.

Actually, it is. The grant is to give college students an incentive to volunteer.