Now we get a summarized Budget... Oh Boy...

  The government sure has its way of taxing its individuals especially in the Middle to Lower class. This article says around 88 percent of the money that is being found to fix the 'budget emergency' is being ripped out of health and social services. But according to this article it seems like many groups of people will have it tough finding a way to make a living. Young and unemployed people will find it difficult to find job opportunities. 16,500 public servants are losing their jobs and companies will get a $10,000 gift if they employ an old person. Disabled people who have been on pensions will also be thrown into this job searching frenzy. For younger people it will be harder to get the pension because there will most likely be people who are disabled that are more qualified. On top of that you have to be unemployed for six months until you get employee benefits. So whatever happens in those six months no matter how many jobs people like me apply to we get nothing! And lets say you manage to get a job that pays about $45,000 a year with a couple of kids and you rent a house. Of course it's impossible to live on that much money – that's why the Government has always stepped in to help, so your kids have enough to eat. Those benefits are going to be frozen, which means that even though the cost of your fish fingers and two minute noodles goes up, the money coming in doesn't. Once your youngest kid is six, you'll stop getting part of the benefit completely. And don't expect your wage to go up – with all those newly unemployed people competing for jobs, you're lucky to have it. You'll be too worried about old people taking your jobs to be brave enough to ask for a pay rise. As for the High Income earners they don't pay much tax at all, in fact Middle to Lower class make up for what they pay. If you're still at school, you can look forward to some good old US-style debt for the rest of your life. That's right, as of 2016 universities will be able to charge whatever fees they like. You'll still be able to get a loan from the Government, but they're going to be higher, and you'll be charged a higher interest rate on them too. Good luck ever trying to get a loan for a house with those debts. The debt just keeps going up!!

Mother's day flowers come with more than just a price!

   This article focuses on a Columbian woman named Lorena who has worked minimum wage for years working in the cut-flower industry. She started a family at the age of 19 and since then she has needed more money to raise a family. Cutting flowers were the only source of labor in the region of Columbia where she was located known as Bogota Savannah. She didn't have very many alternatives to her job choices but to arrange carnations, alstroemerias, and cut flowers to export to US consumers. Her two daughters have gotten the chance to get an education and one of them is actually involved in missionary work. Years of work making minimum wage of $333 per month has left Lorena with debilitating injuries, she remarks that she wants to support her family and doesn't want the same for her children. The National Retail Federation estimates that this Mother’s Day weekend, Americans will purchase more than $2 billion worth of flowers. Almost 80 percent of those flowers come from Colombia. These flowers are often prone to attracting pests and disease and to combat this, companies pump highly toxic pesticides and fungicides into the greenhouses where these flowers are kept. When exposes to these chemicals in unsafe working conditions, workers often suffer from rashes, headaches, impaired vision, skin discoloration, and female workers report substantially higher instances of birth defects and miscarriages. Lorena says that over the years she has worked countless hours of huddling over flower beds, trimming stem after stem. Years of cutting, bunching, and arranging bouquets in massive factories she's developed tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, a spinal column disability, and a torn rotator cuff. The company provides minimal healthcare, Lorena has to fight to see a doctor she remarks, "Every time I go they say there are people with more serious problems and they push her to the back of the line. The company offers precautions by providing the workers with masks and gloves to protect themselves from the harmful chemicals sprayed on the flowers. She even recounts a story when a co-worker collapsed in the middle of his shift with his face turning purple was said to have died from a heart attack, but there's a rumor that he had succumbed to the chemical sprays. This is something to think about the next time you consider giving flowers to your significant other when these workers in South America who live off of peanuts trying to support their family working marathon shifts with very little rest in between.
   
    This also parallels the strenuous work that illegal immigrants engage in here in America just to find a job opportunity with a decent amount of money to support themselves and in many cases their families. The US is known for giving their lowest paying jobs that nobody wants to do to immigrants and those who earn low income. This country also heavily relies on jobs provided to people who work for American companies over seas just to make a living. This country runs on the strenuous labor and extensive work hours that these workers must endure just to give service to those who are more fortunate than they are.

Michael Zelenko, May 8th 2014, Vice.com