
Most of America’s rich think the poor have it easy - smacktoward
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/08/most-of-americas-rich-think-the-poor-have-it-easy/
======
zo1
I think the article presents a false scenario. Leaving aside the notorious
ease with which some of these "polls" manipulate results by virtue of changing
the wording of the questions.

I mean, if you really ask yourself what does it mean: "Do you think the poor
have it easy?" It's vague, and already has a pre-implied bias associated with
it. There's no "yes, but". There's "no" and there's "yes, I'm a selfish rich
bastard because my privilege blinds me of the plight of the poor" (if you
believe the tone of the article". Most people when answering yes probably do
so because they have "some" notion or reason that the poor have it easy in
some way. Perhaps they simply believe that the poor should work for the
benefits, etc. It all get's clumped under "yes" in their mind, but the
interpreter and subsequent reporter blows it out of proportion.

What, I personally believe, it boils down to is that the "rich" are not
comparing the poors' situation to their own. They're mostly comparing it to
the hypothetical situation of the poor having to work hard (I assume via
manual labor) to be comfortable or the receive the benefits mentioned.

------
nether
It seems very difficult for one group to empathize with a less fortunate or
more marginalized group. Whether it's rich vs poor, white people vs non-white,
men vs women, each thinks the others "don't have it _that_ bad," or at least
not as bad as they claim. As a straight guy, I found this chart quite jarring:
[http://cdn.okcimg.com/blog/mofo_mysteries/Suicide-
Three.png](http://cdn.okcimg.com/blog/mofo_mysteries/Suicide-Three.png) (from
the end of [http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/mofo-and-other-
mysteries/](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/mofo-and-other-mysteries/) ); I
just cannot contemplate how isolating and anguish-inducing having an atypical
sexual orientation is. To feel badly for marginalized groups is a tacit
admission of privilege and unfairness in the world, which makes us feel bad
about ourselves.

~~~
tempestn
Part of why I find HN so refreshing is that the majority of people here, while
probably having above average wealth, also seem to have above average empathy.
One example is stories about basic income; they tend to get a generally
positive reception, even though a basic income would not be likely to benefit
most HN contributors. Similarly, the (largely male) community seems to be very
much behind making the tech sector more welcoming to women. Those are just a
couple of examples of many.

~~~
venomsnake
Actually basic income will benefit HN visitors. And everyone else. What you
earn at your job is on top of the basic income. Or even better - basic
consumption allowance.

Also we are engineers - we love to solve problems and try to not moralize much
the solutions. We approach a time in which laborless production of material
goods will be solved problem, so we need basic demand for the economy to chug
along.

~~~
cousin_it
I agree with that reasoning, but I would word it differently. The economy
would probably chug along regardless. The 1% of rich folks would happily
colonize the solar system with nanomachines or whatever. The big problem is
what happens to the other 99% who only have their labor to sell, if machines
depress the price of labor below the minimal cost of sustaining a human body.
That's why we need basic income.

People might also get psychological problems due to being idle and irrelevant,
I have no idea how to solve those.

And in the long run, we need Friendly AI anyway :-)

~~~
zo1
One problem I have with the basic income whenever I see it mentioned, or
discussed in the context you noted. It's always phrased as "we need basic
income because bad scenario X will happen". It's never phrased as "if scenario
X ever happens, we will have to institute basic income".

The reason I think the distinction is important is because such proponents are
yet to conclusively prove/argue that scenario X will ever happen. And as I
don't believe such a scenario will happen anywhere remotely in our lifetimes,
we can't and shouldn't use such a wild hypothetical as a valid reason for a
huge program. To use it as a reason, and claim it as valid, would be quite
disingenuous.

Granted, you do phrase it as "[...]what happens[...]if[...]. That's why we
need basic income." But you're yet to prove conclusively that the "if" will
ever happen.

~~~
cousin_it
To be fair, many people think that technological unemployment is already
happening, so basic income would be a good idea even today. Many others
disagree and call it the "luddite fallacy".

Personally, I think technological unemployment is not a fallacy and we'll see
much more of it in our lifetimes. For example, self-driving cars might put a
50-year-old truck driver out of a job. What would you advise him to do,
retrain as a neurosurgeon? What if by the time he's finished retraining,
neurosurgery is also automated? Even if theoretically there was an endless
supply of jobs for humans, the job market always takes nonzero time to react.
When technological change becomes quicker than that, we're in trouble.

------
scrapcode
I come from a family of 4 that had a combined gross income of about $45k, if
that. We never had Government assistance. I saw my Father struggling at times,
but it worked out great. He made it happen.

When I left the "comfort" ($26k/yr) of the military, I went from being in what
was considered by the Navy as a "Highly advanced electronics technical field"
to being unemployed. That was scary. I couldn't find a job. I was eligible for
unemployment benefits for up to _24 months_!!! I netted $800 every 2 weeks.

I quickly got a job as an Office Manager for a business my Father worked for
making $17/hr which was a very high wage for the area. A friend of mine
boasted at the time about how his Father was now making $23/hr with 20 years
in a certain company (for relation purposes). My weekly take home was about
$100 more than unemployment. Essentially, at that point I worked my ass off
for $100 a week, at what was considered a fairly high wage.

There are less than 50 jobs in the area that pay $20 or above, and individuals
sitting on their ass are getting paid $17/hr. There is no motivation to get a
job. That is a problem that adds to the deficit, and needs to be fixed!

~~~
techsupporter
Unemployment is not welfare, it is insurance. Your employer, including the
military, pays into a pool. People who lose their jobs are entitled to draw
from that pool. As you realized, the payments from that pool end after a
certain period of time. Finally, benefits and that length of time vary wildly
by state. For example, Texas unemployment insurance pays a maximum of $465 per
week for a maximum of 52 weeks. The "motivation to get a job" is that benefits
will end after a certain time and that time is almost never able to be
extended.

After unemployment benefits end, you are at the mercy of whatever local social
services exist for you. In virtually all cases, as a result of the 1996
Welfare Reform Act, if you are not totally disabled you must be doing
something defined as "work," be it looking for work, going to school, or
volunteering at an assigned location. That only lasts for so long, provided
you are not disabled. At some point, usually between 6 and 9 months, benefits
for people who are looking for work and who don't qualify for unemployment
end.

Then there is what is known as the benefits cliff. Almost all benefit programs
have a bright line limit between "qualified" and "not qualified." It is some
multiple of the federal poverty line based on household size. If a person or
household earns even $1 more than that line, benefits are stopped on that
date, even if that is a net loss for the person. A common example: A single
parent can receive a $400 child care subsidy provided total household income
is less than $19,000 per year. The parent makes $18,500 per year ($9.25/hour)
and can pay for rent, food, and transportation out of the rest, but the child
care subsidy is a definite need. If the parent works full time and receives a
raise of $0.25 per hour, or $500 per year, the child care benefit is
immediately forfeit, resulting in a new net expense of $4,300 to the parent.
What incentive is there to then take the raise and for the parent to work to
improve?

~~~
riffraff
> Unemployment is not welfare, it is insurance.

isn't that true of all welfare programs (i.e. healthcare, pension,
disability)? (I might be struggling among a cultural gap between US and
europe)

~~~
techsupporter
In the United States, it's not the same.

Social welfare programs here are paid out of general budget allocations. This
is for things like food stamps, disability payments (one exception, dealt with
in a moment), housing assistance, Medicaid, and similar.

Unemployment payouts, Social Security ("Old age pension"), Social Security
Disability, and Medicare are paid for through dedicated taxes and charges on
employers (in the case of unemployment). That's why we usually call them
insurance or entitlements. Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, is
paid as part of Social Security itself.

~~~
zo1
_" Unemployment payouts, Social Security ("Old age pension"), Social Security
Disability, and Medicare are paid for through dedicated taxes and charges on
employers (in the case of unemployment). That's why we usually call them
insurance or entitlements. Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, is
paid as part of Social Security itself."_

And are you able to choose _not_ to pay into such a scheme? If not, then it
might as well be a plain tax that happens to be labelled as separate.

------
nkangoh
I once had a conversation with someone who described themselves as "rich."
They claimed the poor had it easy. I asked him: "If the poor have it so easy,
would you switch places?"

There was silence.

Do the poor not have to pay for things that the rich have to pay for? Yes. Is
their life ultimately easier as a result? I don't think so. Coming from a poor
background and now having experience with the average software engineer's
salary, I'd rather have the latter, 100%.

~~~
techsupporter
Your question seems to me to be a false equivalence. The word "easy" is
perceived as coming from this: A "rich" person sees him or herself as putting
a lot into the economic system and, therefore, receiving much from it but he
or she also sees a "poor" person as putting very little into the economic
system yet still receiving an amount sufficient for survival and some luxuries
from it (and, since social welfare is paid for through taxes, also reducing
the amount that the "rich" person receive back from his or her economic
input).

In other words, "those people have food, a refrigerator, a car and an iPhone,
how bad can it really be?"

------
dscrd
"Poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits
without doing anything in return" vs "Poor people today have hard lives
because government benefits don't go far enough to help them live decently".

If you focus on the latter part of the sentences, I can see how it's easy to
be a bit confused about which is the correct answer.

~~~
danjayh
It bothers me that the entire premise of this poll seems to be that someone
ought to be able to live comfortably on government benefits. Living at
somebody else's expense* _should_ be uncomfortable.

* Note - in the case of private charities, where the funds to provide benefits are not collected by force/with threat of imprisonment, I'm perfectly OK with providing higher levels of support.

~~~
CmonDev
"Living at somebody else's expense* should be uncomfortable"

Better stop automating things than.

~~~
danjayh
I think that the proliferation of the service industry is a natural response
to (and possibly a solution to) the increased automation of manual labor. If I
thought it were possible I'd say that the solution was for an increase in
knowledge workers (since the automated factories still need them), but many
people do not want and/or can't do that type of work.

------
glenra
I can't help noticing their survey didn't include the option "Poor people have
hard lives because government does TOO MUCH that harms them."

Licensing restrictions make it illegal for people with few resources to do
many jobs they might otherwise enjoy, zoning laws make it illegal to work from
home, minimum wage laws and employer mandates make it hard to get early job
experience, price supports increase the price of food, building standards make
it illegal to build cheap housing...

------
chrismcb
What does "most secure" and "least secure" mean? Without knowing this, this
poll is meaningless.

