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T_i_B

(14,734 posts)
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 07:28 AM Oct 2012

Things Rich People Never Understand about welfare

http://lauramcinerney.com/2012/10/23/things-rich-people-never-understand/

Every year I watch Conservative Conference and every year I find myself shouting at the telly in a vein attempt of educating rich people about how poverty actually works, and not because I ever lived in deep poverty but because I lived around it for a good amount of my life and I bothered to pay attention. I wish politicians would do the same. [NB: Obviously some rich people do understand. Unfortunately they just don't seem to do a good job of passing the message to the ones in power]

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Things Rich People Never Understand about welfare (Original Post) T_i_B Oct 2012 OP
So what are they? jenw2 Oct 2012 #1
Try the book ,"Nickeled and Dimed". It shows the incredible trap the poor are in. SharonAnn Oct 2012 #3
I have yet to find anything except greed that the rich have a clue about Pakid Oct 2012 #2
+1 Blue_Tires Nov 2012 #5
Great article LeftishBrit Oct 2012 #4

LeftishBrit

(41,192 posts)
4. Great article
Fri Oct 26, 2012, 06:03 PM
Oct 2012

Another thing that rich people - and even some not-so-rich people if they were born in the 1970s or later and live in the south - don't understand is that much so-called 'welfare dependency' in the UK is due to the destruction of British industry under Thatcher in the 1980s, especially in the North.

The miners and steelworkers and others in the 1980s weren't fighting for the right to claim benefits; they were fighting for their jobs, for their communities, for their way of life. The abrupt destructon of their jobs and way of life of course led to 'welfare dependency' - what did anyone expect? I'm amazed that more people don't see it. Most people don't go on the dole just because the dole exists; they go on the dole because they don't have jobs. And there is a global recession which has greatly aggravated the problem.

This government, and the Right in general, tend to combine two attitudes which might sometimes just about be justifiable individually, but together constitute savagery: (1) People should be deprived of benefits to discourage 'laziness' and force them to get jobs (possibly justifiable in some cases if there were full employment); and (2) People should not be secure in their employment, and should have to constantly compete to retain their jobs, or they won't be productive (possibly justifiable in some, though not many, cases, if there were good provision made for those who cannot thus compete). Together, it means that people will first get thrown on the dole, and then off the dole to force them to get jobs that aren't there!

Argh!

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