You've heard the saying, give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime?
It's kind of like that. I coasted through most of my 20s, wasted a lot of time. I decided some years ago that I wanted to work as a dev, so I studied for a couple years and made it happen. But I have a large number of friends from early 20s to 40 (many of whom come from middle or upper-middle class families) that are perfectly happy coasting through life - they work in restaurants, bike shops, strip clubs, or take bouts of unemployment while on food stamps, etc. These are the urban equivalent of the trope of coal miners that refuse to learn new skills. Why are they like this? Because they are comfortable. You can live and be perfectly happily in a major city on 25k/year, living with roommates and on/off government assistance (though you'll never save money or advance). I'd raise the minimum wage significantly to help battle some of this (food stamps or housing assistance for people that work is corporate welfare in my eyes). But much change must come from within, and we have to find a way to motivate people.
So yes, help the poor - by providing education, healthcare, and time and opportunity to learn new skills when they are unemployed. But everything should be designed to encourage people to learn and contribute productively to society. No, it's not easy to make money, no, it's REALLY not easy to become comfortable, and yes, it's really, really difficult to become wealthy for 99% of people. But it's everyone's responsibility to try to contribute to society and we owe it to ourselves to strive for more.
"I think comments like these are more likely propaganda than real experiences."
You would be incorrect. I'm right here, a real person, with real experiences.
"You read the parent comment and think the poor and just lazy and all your have to do is work yourself a slave and suck corporate dick."
I assume your trying to say "the poor `are` just lazy" and that wasn't what I said or was trying to say.
To the contrary, I think it's much harder to dig yourself out of a hole once your in it. In my case, during that period, I went from working in a high-rise to applying at Jack-in-the-Box because it was the only thing within walking distance and I couldn't even get that job.
I for one got lucky and found some opportunity, but that wasn't my point. My point was that, for me, hitting rock bottom, having a minimal safety net (i.e. not sleeping outdoors), was just enough for me to change my life perspective.
If you want to talk about your experiences or opinions, go for it, but don't dismiss mine as "propaganda".
I'm not so sure, it is just that this is HN and that is the one place you will find people for which the "American Dream" did actually work or it is actually looking good.
Really? I know lots of people that work hard and are doing pretty good. Not rich, but doing ok.
I also know people who are doing poorly and a good deal of them (not all!) are that way through poor choices (and would admit it).
Of course I also know people who are doing poorly through no fault of their (poor health, caretaker burden, etc). For those folks I'm glad we social programs to help them.
It never really did, nor was it ever intended to do that. It's always been a wage that was at or slightly above the federal poverty line.
The lowest minimum wage I remember hearing about as a kid was $1.50/hr. I thought that sounded like a lot of money at the time, but I probably was not even 10 years old.
That would have been in the first half of the 1970's when the federal poverty line was around $2,500. So working full time, you'd make $3,000 or about 120% of the poverty level.
Today, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and the poverty level (2016) is $12,200. So still, a full-time minimum wage worker earns nearly 120% of the poverty level.
> I think comments like these are more likely propaganda than real experiences.
So you are calling redm a liar. Do you have anything to back up that accusation? Or are you calling them a liar purely because it suits your poorly-constructed narrative?
> When we all know statistically America is worse than ever before.
"We all know..." is false. What you mean is probably more along the lines of "This is what I think, without having done any research to support my wild claim."
> You read the parent comment and think the poor and just lazy
Where did the GP call the poor lazy?
> and all your have to do is work yourself a slave and suck corporate dick.
See above.
> Nope, it's always the corporate stooge.
Why are you accusing redm of being a 'corporate stooge'?
We've been helping the poor for a long long time and we still have them. Either we are doing the wrong things (though we keep doing them, and asking for more of the same) or it's evidence that kind of help actually incentivizes what it's ostensibly trying to eradicate.
