Do people actually understand how welfare in America works?

[Mr Khan]

SamuelRSmith said:

Mr Khan said:

Again, the assumption of free labor mobility is about as fanciful as the Tooth Fairy. In a free market, just as many people would be screwed over by structural problems, such as the failures of certain whole industries or certain positions becoming obsolete.

Prove it. Prove that "free labor mobility is about as fanciful as the Tooth Fairy".

Let's take the development of the tech industry in the USA. Used to be that there were 2 major sectors: Silicon Valley and the Route 128 Sector near Boston. For various reasons not particularly relating to the viability of the tech sector as a whole, the Route 128 companies were outcompeted and failed. Now, if you live in Boston and you find yourself unemployed with the only other growing part of your sector on the other end of the damn country. If you've got a family, and are living in an era before the internet made this thing a little easier, if all you're good for is the tech sector and the industry is growing on the other side of the country and you have outstanding debts over here, how do you get there? What of the collapse of skilled manufacturing in America? The rust belt where companies disappeared and nothing came in to replace them, leaving behind workers who had a decent living behind them, but weren't really good for anything else and anything related moved quite far away.

Now, i suppose the answer to this is "if you kick minimum wages out, the market will accomodate excess labor," which could be true, but for the simple purpose that hiring individuals takes time, capital investment, and the capital to hire might not be there if you have a ton of unemployed people in the first place (lowering demand and all). Market reaction time and the fact that jobs don't just happen to appear where you live means that more people would remain destitute longer under optimal free-market conditions, moreso than your scenario suggests.