| sc94597 said: When you say social security do you mean welfare, or do you mean the mandatory pension system we all must go through in the U.S? 47 million Americans recieve food stamps, and probably similar numbers receive or are eligible for medicaid. Fewer recieve direct cash welfare, but with food, healthcare, and (for some) shelter covered, it's not an issue. Nevertheless, the "poor" afford these things because 1. in the world perspective, including the first world countries they aren't poor when you consider the local purchasing power of the USD and the lesser costs of living in the U.S due to a plethora of resources, land, etc which Europe and Japan do not have, 2. With credits their income tax is almost entirely refunded, allowing them to splurge on non-essential electronics, cars, etc. (This is what my mother who is in the bottom 5 percentile does, she pays some of her debts then buys a new computer or a television, etc.) The complaints about the U.S system isn't that the poor don't get benefits, but that the government doesn't pay for the middle class as well. Social Democrats in the U.S want universal health-care, state paid education, etc: all things which the poor recieve already (some might say in excess) for the middle-class. The issue other philosophies present are the costs involved, not just the monetary costs, but the costs to economic and social freedoms, examples being mitigated income mobility, innovation, risks, and progress, more monopolies, and fewer choices. |
I was talking about welfare yes. I have no clue how the pension system works in the US. In Canada you have rrsp, registered retirement savings plan. You can put part of your income away each year before tax and invest it the way you like. Or don't do it and the limit carries over to the next year.
Welfare in the US sounds like it suffers from the same problems as in the Netherlands. People rather stay on welfare than get a low paying job and lose income in the process. You can blame welfare for that, or low minimum wages.
In Canada I only know welfare from a friend that went through a rough time during a divorce. Getting a simple job here at least does improve your situation. We helped her out with food a couple of times, so she could stay on the internet and complain about the hard times on welfare...
The easiest way to get poor is by being bad at handling money. Unfortunately you can't force people to make smart decisions. I suspect a lot of 'poor' people are in that situation with big credit card debt, created by buying luxuries, or simply by being wasteful with money. For example in the Netherlands I noticed how a lot of people on welfare had the thermostat cranked up high in winter, while at our house my parents kept it to a more reasonable temperature and told us to wear a sweater to save some money.
