Do people actually understand how welfare in America works?

[SamuelRSmith]

richardhutnik said:

Post some arguments from economics that show that 0% unemployment is a reality, and it is entirely possible for people to end up being able to make enough money they could afford food, medical, shelter, clothes, toiletries and so on.  

Finally, some fun!

Primarily, throughout history, unemployment was below 0%. What do I mean by below 0%? I mean that, there were more jobs than there were working adults. My evidence? The fact that before the Industrial Revolution (and during) there were jobs for the vast majority of children... now, you can argue that this was a tragedy, and I'd agree. But the argument was about 0% unemployment being a reality.

There are also tonnes of examples in the modern world. For example, in all the places where child labour is still prevelant. Also, places like shanti towns, etc.

Now, I know you're next argument is going to be about the standard of living throughout these examples, but that is something unrelated, and actually related to your next argument, and that is about the capital stock of the economy. Going back to pre-Industrial Britain, every wanting adult and child were able to find work. Hit the industrial revolution, and every wanting adult and child were still able to find work, despite greater automation, and the like. The difference being that the capital stock of the economy increased, and so people's incomes stretched further (as prices fell). This meant that, gradually, the standards of living across Britain slowly increased. At first this is evidenced by expanding life expectancy, larger living quarters, growing heights, etc; later, it was shown by the fact that fewer and fewer families had to send their children into work just to generate enough income. Notice that people didn't lose jobs because there weren't any, they lost them because they no longer had to participate.

If it hadn't been for the ever-increasing tax and regulation problems, Government meddling of the economy, and the introduction of welfare systems all across the developed world, this still would have been the case today.

If you want practical realities, is it possible for everyone to be a nurse, or go work on computers?  Is the way the economy is structured now, when a new wave comes in of productivity advances, does that suddenly mean that there are jobs created elsewhere?

It's not that jobs are suddenly created, it's that jobs were already there, but the labour had been moved away to fill a more "urgent" role in the economy. If that role is now satisfied by technology, then the labour can move to less urgent jobs. Incomes stay high not because the raw figure of the income is increasing, but because the technological improvements (increased capital stock) have resulted in a greater abundance of goods, and thus lower prices, meaning that you can get more bang for your buck, so to speak.

If you want an argument against 0% unemployment, that advocates the future of work is going to be non-profit NGO's using people to address social problems, I give you "The End of Work":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Work

I'd like to posit the following: when is this going to happen? The development of capital stock has essentially outpaced population growth since the dawn of humanity. Better stop those pesky farmers, they put the hunter-gatherers out of work. I mean, if we look at time periods where the data is much more easily ready, there is no evidence of this. Think about it, the past 50 years have seen the greatest period of technological development and automation since the dawn of time; population growth has exploded, plus the migration of labour; women have re-entered the work force; and people are living and working for more and more years. Has unemployment suddenly exploded? No. In fact, out side of recessions, employment has either been flat or increasing during the good years, and that's just in the USA. On the world-net, we have tens, if not hundreds, of millions more jobs today than we had just a few years ago.

Now you need to present arguments against this.