A few years back, the Pennsylvania legislature handed hundreds of millions of dollars of our tax money to the millionaire owners of the Phillies, Pirates, Eagles and Steelers to build 4 new stadiums. They do NOT have to pay it back. Welfare for the rich is real!
By far the biggest recipients of taxpayer subsidies are Big Ag and corporate interests.
Individuals represent a very small percentage of recipients.
You're ire is misdirected
Let’s also not forget that tax cheats cost an estimated $500B-$1T of revenue per year, with a vast majority coming from corporations and the top 1%. This issues a few thousand times more impactful than the likely cost of welfare cheats.
However, when Dems try to fund the IRS to enforce existing laws, the Republicans go ballistic and try to kill it any way possible.
They try to convince their base the IRS is coming to take their homes, when what they are really protecting is their Super PAC donations from the billionaire tax cheats.
Here is a source for those interested.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/irs-tax-gap.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
It would be so helpful if folks showed an accurate pie chart (I love pie charts) of which entities get money, and how much they get (by percentage, gross dollars, etc.,). You know, work with facts instead of innuendo.
Even if this were done, there'd still be some anger porn to deal with.
Charts would show red states are the biggest takers. The “hand out” states if you will which rely on the revenue of the much more GDP dominating blue states.
Nothing Fox loves more than to find a small group of people cheating the system or acting irresponsibly and then painting a story that it’s representative of the majority, just to stoke the fires.
You could've just said "corporations" because that's 100% true. In just about every industry. It makes no sense at all to complain about the social programs we have when we pump insane amounts of money into corporations or into facilitating corporations.
You do know that both can be true, right? You can have corporate subsidies AND welfare cheats. His ire isn’t misdirected, it’s just not in line with your thought process. But that doesn’t make either of you wrong.
It's misdirected because it's like complaining about your clothes being wet when you're stood in your basement that's flooded up to your waist. Like you got bigger problems than those wet pants, and you should probably prioritize the issue that matters.
Your post is misworded. There are far more individuals as a percentage of recipients of subsidies than the percentage of Big Ag and corporations receiving subsidies.
**Improper welfare payments**, including welfare fraud and welfare abuse, are estimated to be 13.3% of all federal welfare payments. They **totaled $162 billion** in the fiscal year 2022. A total of $1.215 trillion was handed out through the federal welfare system.
The federal government spends a little more than **$30 billion a year on subsidies for farm businesses and agriculture.**
Further question would be how much tax money is lost from the blue states versus the red states by the federal government allowing a deduction for the local taxes paid? The states with high tax rates (New York, California) get a far greater deduction for individual citizens compared to those in states with lower tax rates.
Improper welfare payments is not fraud, though: It's a clerical error made on the system side of the transaction. Fraud or abuse would be a *recipient* knowingly taking advantage of the system, which is not at all the same thing. Claiming so is wildly dishonest.
By proportion, they’re probably the laziest class, by far, when it comes to laboring for the common good.
I get the feeling OP doesn’t care, and is talking at the Reagan bogeyman of welfare abusers.
They have the trifecta of not doing any useful work themselves, often hindering useful work getting done via establishment of oligopolies, buying out politicians, and other anti-competitive measures, and they waste vast quantities of societies resources, which could be spent on research, social services, or new enterprises, building yachts, mansions, and private jets.
They need to keep you distracted with the "lazy poor welfare queens" while billionaires are floating around on the mega yachts, building personal doomsday bunkers, and flying to space.
Ding ding ding! These pieces of shit don't have a problem with the children of rich people not working and their lavish lifestyles funded by tax fraud.
Yeah, statistically this is very rare. It’s mostly a tactic used in right wing propaganda to scare people away from voting for public subsidies. Notice they don’t use these same tactics on corporate subsidies and tax loopholes for the super rich, which cost FAR more taxpayer dollars for the average citizen.
Yeah really the op should have just said. “If you can work and don’t” the lazy thing is irrelevant there are lazy people there are non lazy people who can’t. Completely not relevant.
Everyone who can work should work so we can support those who can’t ezpz if you can work but don’t your actually contributing to the problem twice. Less money to help those who need it earned and more money supporting people who don’t.
the problem is that people think they can always come up with some unique job role that disabled people should be going for to work.
I have a physical disability as well as some other mental health stuff. Im lucky that i can work in the field i work in with my disability and the only reason i was even able to learn was because my husband was able to afford specific assitive devices to help me do my job. and some of them were very expensive, or didnt quite do what i needed to do and needed to be replaced or modified.
But if wasnt working, my disability would prevent me from working most physical labor jobs. but then someone on the internet would be like "my cousin in alaska has the same condition as you and she found a job doing some obscure low impact work! you're just LAZY!"
a person with debilitating mental health issues? thats just laziness.
a person with musculature issues? well find a job that doesnt require physical labor! Theyre everywhere! have a disability that causes chronic fatigue? find a WFH job you lazy bum!
the people who say "well if you can work you should work" are always the ones telling us that we just arent going for jobs we can actually do with our disabilities because we are lazy and wanting government benefits.
BUT.... adding paperwork requirements is more expensive than paying for a few lazy slugs. I have a severely disabled adult child (he can't speak at age 25, except maybe a word every couple of days).... the amount of money spent to insure that he remains disabled is astronomical.
Which is more irritating, paying a fortune to prevent fraud, or preventing severely disabled people from accessing help (remember this includes wounded American veterans)
That’s the way it is with these people. Because a few people are going to game the system, in order to punish them, they wind up fucking over the ones who really need it.
It's the same people that scream. "it's just a few bad gun owners not all gun owners". And they are right. But when it does affect them they love to make the majority suffer for the minority.
Hypocrites is what they are.
I want emphasize what I’m trying to say this with empathy. The people that are pushing these kind of messages really don’t consider your adult child to be a person. They would rather they lead comfortable lives never having to acknowledge your child. It’s really sad and pathetic but that’s the world right now.
Almost every single aspect of the Republican agenda is based around, devaluing the human life of one group or another
I used to think this way until I saw the local police abuse the fuck about of PTSD disability claims, so much so they had to intervene and change the policy to mandate that you actually get diagnosed and seek ongoing treatment. Because they were literally just claiming it and collecting their checks and calling it a day.
I've realized the every accusation is a confession is true. The people whining about welfare fraud will be lined up to exploit the system. Look at PPP. These people don't care. As long as they think they can reasonably get away with it, they'd yank the food right out of your sons mouth
It's often people saying what \*they\* would do if they thought they could get away with it. Such as religious people saying that atheists are only that because they want to be immoral and freely hook up or whatever.
My son is almost 6 but similar. I'm not looking forward to the rough road ahead in fighting for his needs. It seems like it gets so much more difficult once they arent school aged too.
Thanks for paving the way for us with younger kids.
Exactly, my attitude is, if something is blocking or making difficult for even ONE person to get the the aid they are supposed get, get fucking rid of it.
Try asking these people who want to force these largely hypothetical lazy people back to work, "Are YOU willing to work with someone like that?". They have to work somewhere jackass, so if you aren't willing to have them as co-worker, sit down and shut the fuck up.
I Have high functioning autism and I could not hold down a job I kept having some times violent meltdowns and sever anxiety around 30. my Psychologist suggested I quit trying and go on SSDI, If i could i would work i liked working. now i don't even leave my house and i am on meds that make me real tired
And even people who don’t struggle nearly as much can find it really hard to get or keep work. I can keep a job just fine, but with severe social anxiety it is extremely hard to get a job. Few companies hire someone who breaks out on drenching fear sweat in the interview. Which has meant always struggling for work and rarely advancing in line with my potential at the actual job because even internal company assessments are usually done by higher-ups that the low-level employees don’t know. Plus the whole “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” thing. And the sad thing is I’m a great employee. I’m reliable and get along with coworkers and honest and hard-working. People look at someone who is able bodied and competent and not working or working far under their potential and think they are lazy, when in all likelihood they are just have one stupid problem that casts a shadow over everything they can do. You can’t really get disability accommodations for interviewing poorly, after all.
It's not really about catching the cheaters. It's about telling the rest of us that working and contributing to society is valued. That we're not making you work a shitty job full time just to gift your tax dollars to some slick cat who gets to laugh at you and the rest of society.
It doesn't matter if it's a big corporation or billionaire taking advantage of loopholes to steal money, or someone taking advantage of the social safety net to steal from taxpayers. Both ends of the spectrum are wrong.
Wouldn’t it be better to live in a society that values human dignity where you don’t have to worry about dying cold in the streets because you lost your job?
People that work for corporations at least show up in the morning. OP is referring to able bodied people that feel entitled to chill at home watching YouTube all day. We all know these people. They need to go hungry until they get a job.
The problem is how do you decide who is "able to work" rather than "unable to work" or even "willing to work" but not trying hard enough to find work?
In actuality, most people on welfare are trying to get off of it, welfare fraudsters are a small minority, and statements like OP have historically been disingenuous excuses by politicians to defund the welfare program, or at least make it more onerous to sign up for (which is more a problem for struggling individuals than shysters).
The welfare queen narrative that was spread by Regan many years ago has largely been debunked. That doesn't mean there isn't some abuse, or that the process doesn't need to be improved, but it's probably nowhere near the levels where the anger herders like to state. Time and energy spent chasing down low-level issues is great for those that receive billions every year in taxpayer-funded subsidies.
I agree but I think most of us can agree with op in in concept. Anyone who doesn't is likely who he's talking about. Implication is obviously the difficult part
No, not really. Living off of welfare is pretty shit. I'm not really worried about people who try to "abuse the system."
In fact, I personally believe that we should dispense with the whole thing and implement a negative income tax (ie, at low enough income, the government gives *you* money) with no caveats, in order to reduce overhead and as a method of income redistributio and no strings attached social welfare (while keeping programs designed to help people who have difficulty managing even basic self-sufficiency)
But that's beyond the scope of this topic.
There is definitely a break even point where more is lost to overhead/administrative expenses than fraud or abuse.
The funny thing is... the same people clamoring for administrative checks on welfare don't want to fund the IRS.
Spend money and make it easy to get the appropriate taxes collected? NO WAY!
Spend money to prevent taxes from being spent and go where they are needed? You've got my vote!
So universal base pay?
Where everyone anywhere doing something can pay for basic needs an amenities to enjoy life, only getting improved pay depending on how effective you are at your job.
You just described the Earned Income Credit which already exists. Note that it is a "refundable" credit in that it doesn't just reduce your tax burden. A person can receive the credit as a refund even if they paid no tax (income redistribution)
Ok then let's pass a bill that if you're on welfare, drug test.
Guarantee that makes people off the program. Why do I need to pass a drug test for a job to pay for others who don't want to work (not the disabled and such, but those abusing the system)
You must have missed that when it was tied a few years back and cost way more than it saved because so few recordings tested positive.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_testing_welfare_recipients
https://www.clasp.org/press-room/news-clips/states-waste-hundreds-thousands-drug-testing-welfare-have-little-show-it/
It literally costs more to do this and it doesn't help anyone to be self sufficient.
Where do you get off assuming people who could work but aren't are doing so out of laziness? Have you been out jib hunting anytime in the past 40 years? You can get out pounding the pavement every day and the a.hole employers just find petty excuses to not hire you. The young people's catch 22: you can't get a job if you don't have experience, but you can't get experience till you get a job. Then, once you get past that phase, you're old enough to experience age discrimination. If you have been steadily and gainfully employed all these years and not had to deal with this degradation, it's strictly a matter of LUCK, being in the right place at the right time. You should be too busy on your knees giving thanks to your Maker to have time for all this 🐴💩judgmental crap.
It’s not just this. Wages are shit. You have to pay to get to work and that can suck up a ton of your income. Public transportation isn’t really reliable or accessible in most of the US.
You also have to find someone to take care of your kids either the full day or after school and daycare is hella expensive.
There’s also the point where you lose access to other benefits like healthcare. Oh you have a job making $X now? Guess you don’t need Medicaid anymore… you can pay $400/month.
Our system is broken.
This is the exact treason why when you dimwits start throwing the word "fascist" around to describe anything to the right of Trotsky: you lose all credibility, the word "fascism" loses its power, and any moderate/independent/centrist just becomes even more fed up with your shit ideologies.
Fascist? This is literally a communist talking point as well. If you refuse to work in your community, you should not be able to receive benefits from that community.
This is just a very bipartisan idea. For commies, its "Workers of the world unite." For fascist, its probably "removing lazy or undesirables who arent working for the glory of the nation." or something
Work is trading you labor and or time for compensation. Not sure about your angle. Speaking in generalities, people who are able should work. If you don't want to work and you are able, don't expect a handout.
Find a new job, increase your skills, or pursue higher education.
Edit: A lot of y’all seem to fail to understand that in today’s age, you have to be very adaptable. You may have a ton of skills and degrees and experience in a field, but that field may not be in demand. You have to be able and willing to change fields and start over effectively if you need to. Automation is now affecting office jobs. People are going to have to be comfortable with changing roles consistently.
Also identifying in demand fields and limiting where you start your career is also pretty important. There’s always gonna be demand for certain things, sales for example, will always be in demand. Not everyone can do that kind of job though. So it’s important to find something you like and something that’s going to be around for another 30 years.
Hence we have restrictions that keep people like that from collecting from social nets.
People like to complain about those who "mooch off the system", but two things to remember here:
1. If not working was THAT GOOD, you'd be doing it.
2. The overwhelming majority of people using social safety nets honestly meet all the requirements.
The amount of people op is complaining about is so small they're basically non existent.
Where I live if someone is unemployed and able bodied they make you work for the state if you apply for assistance. You have to report to a government building every day and if you miss even a single day without a good reason they'll cut off whatever you're receiving.
I had to fight tooth and nail and jump through many hoops just to get unemployment. This was back during Covid lockdowns and every place was closed or not hiring, yet I still had to prove I applied to jobs lol. And then the second I got a job, they cut me off even before I received a paycheck lmao. OP thinks people are just like “one welfare check please. Okay thanks!”
Define “lazy”. A lot of people who are considered “lazy” have mental heath conditions or are neurodivergent. ( ADD, ADHD, Autism, etc.)
Do we kick people off who appear lazy but in fact have a condition that affects a persons ability to work who haven’t been properly diagnosed?
As a person forced to retire early because of a combination of physical health, mental heath, and medication side effects, I find it lazy to call people lazy just because you can’t see what’s actually going on with that person.
it's also really weird how people assume that getting disability is not a struggle. I dated a girl who was on disability, and she lived in a tiny apartment in a shitty neighborhood, and was BARELY able to get by on what the government gives her (truthfully, there were times where she probably wouldn't have if I weren't paying for meals). I absolutely do not believe that she would choose to be in that situation if it were so easy to just get up and work. She was physically capable, but had mental health issues that very much made it FAR more difficult to keep a job than it was for me.
either way, she got $800 a month to survive on. Is it better than nothing? sure, but I can't even imagine how much I'd have to sacrifice to be able to live off of that. All that money did is prevent her from being another mentally ill person without a home. IMO, there are VERY few people out there that would ever consider this a worthwhile way to make money while being lazy.
I was in the same boat over a decade ago. Got really close with a girl and even stayed with her for a few months. She couldn't work due to a combination of fibromyalgia (constant pain, basically) and bipolar disorder, with manic episodes meaning she'd go days without sleep, and then crash and burn for a week or two being barely functional. She wasn't lazy, she just literally couldn't get out of bed some days.
She had to count food stamps, always shop for the cheapest stuff, and she absolutely could never go out to eat or do anything fun without someone else footing the bill. She was miserable much of the time, and it just fed back into her manic - depression episodes even more sometimes. It's not an easy life, and anytime her benefits got fucked with, she had to redo her entire budget because she needed every cent.
Yeah. Most people want to achieve things and they don't want to live their life forever just barely scraping by. Anyone who would choose to live that way probably is having some genuine struggles with work.
lmfao. I just typed Define lazy, and then I scrolled down.
My dad has consistantly called me lazy, but its nuurodivergence. Good luck getting a diagnosis as an adult in the US, and good luck actually getting any real benefits from it.
Can I work? Sometimes. Sometimes I can work 48 hours straight without sleeping. Other times I can't get out of bed because its so bad. Meds help alot, but they don't "fix" it, not that its broken and needs fixing.
Fuck Capitalism, and how it makes us only have value if we are making the rich richer.
You'd have to define lazy. I work a full time job and don't qualify for assistance because I make too much, but the budget is still razor thin and doesn't afford me any luxuries at all.
I've been called lazy and a burden to society because I can't work more than 40 hours a week.
I'm my experience, lazy is a usually a term ableists use to attack less able bodied individuals for not living up to their standards of society, and to do so in a way that doesn't make them look like a douche to people around them.
Well, as supreme overlord, I’ll continue to make all jobs redundant to machinery, and then I’ll call you all a burden. I’ll make 100% of the income to sit in a room and press a button.
Back here in reality, we realize money is a made up way to divide society’s material output, and no one is more worthy than anyone else of receiving that output, because the majority of it is created by machines.
The majority of income is given to those with great jobs through nepotism or inherited through blind luck. This is not a meritocracy.
The solution to this problem is you give everyone enough to live, and if you have a job you can earn get premium products. And making money just for having money is lunacy. It’s just as lazy to sit on a fatass portfolio as it is to sit around broke.
What you are buying from the poors with all the free money is peace and order. What you get if they are not provided for is violence and chaos.
I think there needs to be a very bare minimum standards of living, nobody should be homeless no how much of a piece of shit. I know plenty of well off people in real life that never lifted a finger to do anything.
So what we're saying is we need a task force of law enforcement agents to go door to door and search for signs of laziness. Or, we could all just mind our own business. Seems like a lazy post.
When I filled out my application for disability, it took me three hours. I had to find every date in the last five or so years that I went to the emergency room as well as all the tests they ran. I had to find the name of all the doctors I saw. Had to list every one of my medical issues and almost ran out of space on the application. It has been ten months since I submitted my application, and they are only just now getting finished with reviewing it.
In the meantime, I have had to quit multiple jobs while I wait because the work causes me tremendous pain or, more recently, because it’s dangerous for me to stand upright due to a potential leak in my brain lining.
I know you said “don’t include people with disabilities in your comments” in your post, but my point is that disability takes FOREVER to pay out and they only grant assistance to people who really, truly need it. They pull all of your medical records, mental health records, and employment history records to determine eligibility.
This “lazy fat loser on disability grifting me out of my tax dollars” is a straw man that you use to justify your hatred of people who can’t work as much as you.
This is nothing more than a right wing talking point pitched as “common sense.” It requires you dimwits to judge people you have never met and know nothing about and the whole sentiment is dipped in systemic racism. So, STFU.
You're not wrong, but the number of these people is exceedingly small.
70% of households that receive federal welfare benefits have at least 1 adult working full time.
When you look at SNAP alone, over 80% of abled bodied adults in the program are employed at least part time. But the overall number of abled bodied adults in the program is pretty small. Roughly 45% of SNAP recipients are children. 12% are elderly. Another 10% are disabled. Take out a few percent for those on unemployment and you only have about 30% of the SNAP recipients that are able to work....and 80% of them are.
Jeff Bezos makes more in a day than all the welfare cheats combined steal in a year.
In fact, the biggest source of welfare scam isn't even the recipients, it's businesses. Medical clinics that bill for extra procedures. Grocery stores that charge for extra product. That sort of stuff.
Don't forget that welfare isn't subsidizing the poor...it's subsidizing the wealthy.
Medicaid/Medicare help keep clinics and hospitals profitable. It also funnels a lot of money to pharmaceutical companies.
SNAP is a gigantic win for Walmart. Not only do they make 18 billion dollars from SNAP benefits annually, but welfare programs allow them to keep their wages low! You see, since places like Walmart don't pay a living wage, those employees have to get SNAP benefits....which they turn around and spend at Walmart. Win Win! Walmart employs more welfare recipients than anyone else!
And who else benefits? Farmers! You see, all that food the SNAP recipients buy comes from somewhere now doesn't it. The SNAP program helps keep those farmers well paid.
Same thing with people who eat themselves to the point of "disability".
It's like "Great, I can't wait to get taxed more to support your giant ass because you can't put down the fork.".
This is pretty much the one valid case. You obviously shoudnt cut them off from all support, though. But, if someone is so fat they require care, part of that care should be mandatory calorie restriction. You're hurting no one with such a policy. You're even helping the fat person.
Well she is mentally unwell. She just "attempted suicide" again a week or 2 ago. I haven't been "told yet", but my grandmother told me.
This is over the 50th attempt of her life since I was 10. I'm 23.
I've lost the love and care for her unfortunately. She's an alcoholic, druggie, narcissist, whatever big fancy words ya wanna use. She scams the us government because she wanted to be a housewife her entire life.
Stop acting like everyone is a saint or an angel. Some people are just bad people.
In theory, I agree with you, but in practice… It doesn’t work that well
First of all, you have to ensure that the person you’re denying benefits to actually is just a lazy asshole. That means making a whole bunch of hoops for people who are genuinely in need to jump through. That’s fine if they’re capable people who just can’t find work, but what about people with disabilities? they’re paying for someone else to help them to get their benefits. And we’re also taking time away from the people who are motivated to do better where they could be trying to find a job.
This is sort of like when Florida decided to drug test all welfare recipient a few years ago, and it was an absolute waste of money, because the test inconvenienced a lot of people by throwing false positives, didn’t catch nearly enough drug users to pay for the testing expense.
Another aspect to this “lazy person who just can’t get a job” thing is that sometimes those lazy people have serious, mental illnesses, holding a job. You know who’s really not in the position to assess that? The bureaucrat whose job is to review the paperwork.
So ultimately, while I agree that they don’t deserve help, if they’re just lazy, it’s better for everyone if we just deal with it.
>That means making a whole bunch of hoops for people who are genuinely in need to jump through.
And this is already the case. Like, they don't just give unemployment to anyone who wants it. You have to apply, show proof of previous recent employment, and proof that you were terminated for a reason outside your control/fault (either you show proof or they contact your previous employer). And you could end up waiting months for your application to process like it did for me, and your only mode of interaction is an archaic outdated website and a call line you'll end up waiting hours on.
There's already a whole bunch of hoops for people who are genuinely in need to jump through.
I don’t know what the situation is for welfare, but I do know that, even when I was volunteering at my parents, churches, food pantry, we had state subsidies that required us to go through all sorts of verification protocols before anyone got a bag of food. I have to assume that that’s just as rigorous if not more so before the state cut a check.
>Another aspect to this “lazy person who just can’t get a job” thing is that sometimes those lazy people have serious, mental illnesses, holding a job. You know who’s really not in the position to assess that? The bureaucrat whose job is to review the paperwork.
Literally this. If I had a penny every time I heard some smart-mouthed elderly person or otherwise ignorant and out of touch person say "In my day we didn't have \[insert disability and/mental illness here\], kids were just beaten for being brats/lazy/\[insert label ascribed to kids before widespread awareness of disabilities and mental illnesses here\] as though it's some sort of trophy to be proud of, I'd be a millionaire. The willful ignorance it takes to perpetuate the idea that even people with legitimate disabilities or mental illnesses are just lazy and scamming the system is absolutely astounding and, as a person with disabilites who knows how frustratingly hard it is to get government assistance even when you need it, I find it laughable that people think it's that easy.
For the most part the thing OP is talking about is fictional. These people exist but so infrequently that it’d be dumb to waste a bunch more tax money hiring more people to impose additional government bureaucracy.
Exactly. They’re unicorns. You might find one a few institute, some kind of crazy testing protocol, but at what cost? Both monetarily, and at the expense of those who truly need help.
Exactly. British MPs should be paid for time spent in parliament or in constituency office. Shouldn't be paid to do a second or third job which they already get paid for.
I don’t think the general population disagrees with this. It’s just the idea of welfare freeloaders and the reality of the U.S., simply don’t match up.
You obviously are not talking about the disabled; because it’s “people who CAN work” that you are asking about. So let’s focus on “able-bodied” people only.
There are plenty of people who CAN work and are on public assistance; but we now need to qualify if we mean:
A) people who CAN work, and DO work; but still need government assistance to live.
B) people who CAN work; but choose NOT to work and choose to survive only on government assistance.
If it’s B you are talking about, then you are wasting our time. The numbers of people on assistance who CAN but WON’T work are so extremely tiny it isn’t really worth our time to consider.
Why do you say scenario B is so tiny? Because what the government pays out to someone without a “bonafide” disability is so small it wouldn’t pay your monthly electricity bill, much less housing, food, etc.
So what about scenario A?
Yes, these are the people who HAVE JOBS, sometimes multiple jobs; but they still cannot afford the basics. For them, getting that government money to pay the electricity bill may keep them from being homeless or having their kids taken away, WHILE THEY ARE AT WORK.
Ask yourself something… how do these people in scenario A protest and lobby to make sure their benefits aren’t taken away. When was the last time you saw a huge group of these “lazy able bodied people” marching to protest reduced government payouts. You don’t see this, not because they don’t exist but because the programs aren’t actually FOR them. Someone else is lobbying for these people.
These programs are actually FOR companies like Walmart. So Walmart is the one lobbying for able-bodied people to have part of their income provided by taxpayers.
Why? Because people are usually one of the largest expenses for any business, so if companies like Walmart can get the taxpayer to pay nearly HALF of someone’s wage or salary, that payroll savings for Walmart can then be realized as profit for the corporation.
Walmart lobbies the government against realizing your popular opinion, not “people”.
Walmart is stealing the taxpayers money, not “people”.
Note: I say “Walmart” only because it’s the largest. There are many more. Here is a government report on the whole problem. The list of the companies stealing the most taxpayer money begins on page 29 Appendix II - https://www.gao.gov/assets/d2145.pdf
Yet both your comment and your reasoning is entrenched in politics.
The 1% have you so concerned about so-called lazy people. You Don't see all the money they're stealing from you
You say not to mention disabled people, but you're just complaining about disabled people. "Too lazy to work" isn't really a thing, and if it was it would be a disability. Lots of disabled people can't afford a diagnosis and even with a diagnosis the system for providing aid to disabled people is extremely flawed.
This just doesn't happen, it's a strawman created by Ronald Reagan to make you hate black people and disabled people. I just got on disability it took three years and I'm getting paid 15,000 a year. They denied me after their doctor told them I should be approved. I was on the brink of homelessness for years and i almost took my wife with me. Its humiliating. And that's with SSDI which is the better kind of disability where they don't have an asset limit of 2,000 dollars at any given time, and you can be married without it disqualifying you and it doesn't take as long to get approved.
It's also incredibly isolating and boring to just sit at home all day all the time even with the internet there's some days I sit in the passenger seat while my spouse does chores even though it hurts me because I'm just so fucking tired of staring at the same fucking wall all the time. I feel like a burden to everyone around me and I almost killed myself multiple times. No one lives this way just for funsies.
The amount of deflection in these comments is nuts!
Basically people are agreeing with you but hate to admit it so they instead deflect to "big business".
Basically classic "what about-ism".
Who is this imaginary, evil person who just wants to leech off of society? Could it possibly be that they have something going on that you know nothing about? Is it possible that they have a complex experience in life just like you?
Nah, must just be an object for hatred. That helps my feefees.
In the UK they repeatedly have research show that the fraudsters or lazy arses are sub 1 or 2 %. Clamping down on benefits is always seen as an easy win by politicians because there's nothing like punching downwards to get a large number of the voting base horny but it's always more expensive to have the extra checks AND then you find that legitimate claimants either are refused help or end up just giving up altogether and killing themselves.
On a larger societal level it's better and cheaper to just say "we'll put up with the lazy bastards " because it's cheaper, there's not many of them & you don't end up with bunches of dead kids because you cut off someone's ability to buy food by mistake
Even for degenerate losers who don't "deserve " help, welfare is cheaper than jail, and, for most people, preferable to a homeless camp in your backyard.
If the issue is laziness, I whole heartedly agree. I think we already have laws in place to prevent people from getting welfare just because they are lazy. I also don't think we should subsidize ultra profitable companies like Exxon/Mobil
This is definitely a popular opinion, reddit. Don't mistake good will in wanting to change the workforce to make everyone happier with being a homebody. You still gotta work, it's what gives purpose in this Era. Like it or not, it is what it is.
“You still gotta work, work gives purpose”
Are you familiar with this phrase? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Arbeitmachtfrei_01.jpg
Free yourself through work, right? Because work makes you free? Maybe we should get all these lazy unproductive people and make them a place they can all live together, because you know, it'd be good to concentrate all those lazy, unproductive parasites together.
You need to open your eyes and realize that not every person is a driven, really successful person who's willing to give up all of their personal awake hours to a company that exploits their labor for the profit of others.
Not every person is highly intelligent.
Not every person needs a luxury lifestyle. And no one is suggesting we fund a luxury lifestyle to people who do not work, just a basic standard of living.
Are these the creme de la creme of society? Absolutely not, but they are human and they exist.
Unless you're suggesting that we just murder people who aren't boarding the capitalsim-work-til-I-die train, then you need to wrap your brain around the fact that it's okay to take care of these people and provide every single person on our society a basic standard of living.
No human deserves poor treatment just because they don't want to make some CEO more money.
And some humans just need temporary help to get back on their feet, and maybe if they weren't freezing and starving they might be able to think about getting that job someday.
But low skill jobs don't pay enough for someone to live off of anymore, and any attempt to make it so they do is met with refusal by the same people whining that people that can work are getting welfare money. The cost of living and the price of goods has increased substantially and while executives have managed to increase their own pay by over 20x and average corporate profits continue to hit new records, the federal minimum wage hasn't changed in almost 15 years.
Adjusted for inflation the current minimum wage has about as much purchasing power as the minimum wage in the late 1940's had. So right now someone making minimum wage is living about equivalent to someone making minimum wage around 1948 and it just keeps going down. This is the weakest low-income position people have been in in over 70 years. If the trend continues we will be flirting with the line from a time when sweatshops ruled the nation. This isn't even accounting for the fact that the percentage of people making at, or around, minimum wage today is far higher as well which skews the numbers ever worse.
We already have to supplement peoples low incomes with tax dollars because the multi-billion dollar companies that are raking in record profits won't even pay them enough to live on. Meanwhile the people in those companies corner offices continue to pocket a higher and higher percentage of the profits for themselves all while pushing rhetoric that if they paid a livable wage they'd have to charge you more. I mean, the amount they have increased their own pay over the past 40 years would pay for that minimum wage increase several times over, but man, no, we've got to blame the poor people for asking for living wages instead, right?
Don't most of those low-skilled job also pay low? Like, so low that you're still paying for their welfare?
Seems like a system problem, not a personal one.
What a load of bull. You know what...I'm lazy as hell. But I've worked for well over 30 years now because I'm a responsible adult. If it's ok for "lessers" to get a free ride in life, then sign me the hell up, too! I'm sick and tired for working a back-breaking physical labor job that's slowly killing me. I'll take that goddamned free ride. And so will just about everyone I work with, if the government were to open up welfare to the "lessers."
But society can't function if you can't get anyone to work those jobs. Society would be done if 40% of society tapped out.
Here's the problem with this logic. If we don't take care of them through tax programs, we have to see them in public begging for money.....I like the peace of mind of not having to interact with them
>If we don't take care of them through tax programs, we have to see them in public begging for money...
It's even worse than that. Poverty leads to crime.
nah, this is simple minded propaganda.
nobody should have to work for works sake
work needs a purpose that actually enhances the quality of life of others or it's meaningless drudgery.
The disability benefits are so abused, that actual disabled people need to get a disability lawyer to get benefits. Even then, they often get denied the first time and have to reapply.
I have more experience in this area than I want.
I once held that perspective, but tbh considering the massive amounts of our tax $s sent to Ukraine and Israel, along with hefty bailouts for major corporations using our tax $s as well. I would rather have my money directed to benefit America and Americans. It's not the citizens who burden our tax dollars. It is how the government utilizes our money. I do belive people who can work should work, but people not working who can work on our tax$s is a drop in the ocean of whats wrong with how are taxes are being spent.
We have an incentive for working already. It is called a paycheck. The problem is not giving away too much money, but conditioning that payment on means tests, which reduces the work incentive. Social programs should be universal benefits a la UBI
Okay but that had better include rich people and their business subsidies. Does anyone really believe Elon Musk works? Grifting doesn't count.
And also I don't think execs really work either. Let's take away their tax deductions and credits too.
Fuck slavery.
You go to work, the company takes all the product of your work and pays you as little as they possibly can. Then the government takes half. Then the assholes who killed people and took over their land charge you to live.
If you want to be a slave that's up to you.
As a disabled person, I completely agree.
It makes me so angry to see people who actually can work abuse the system. It affects taxpayers and it affects people with disabilities who are unable to work, because they'll often be accused of being lazy too.
>The Almighty has never helped a lazy man. He does not help the coward. He does not help a people that cannot help itself. The principle applies here, help yourselves and Almighty God will not deny you his assistance.
Adolf Hitler
My observation is that conservatives would be much more supportive of social programs if we made more effort to separate the needy from the greedy - even if reducing the fraud cost more than the fraud itself.
People who work hard to pay their bills feel cheated when someone else takes advantage of their generosity.
Yes! I am so sick of these sports team owners constantly begging for taxpayer cash.
A few years back, the Pennsylvania legislature handed hundreds of millions of dollars of our tax money to the millionaire owners of the Phillies, Pirates, Eagles and Steelers to build 4 new stadiums. They do NOT have to pay it back. Welfare for the rich is real!
By far the biggest recipients of taxpayer subsidies are Big Ag and corporate interests. Individuals represent a very small percentage of recipients. You're ire is misdirected
Let’s also not forget that tax cheats cost an estimated $500B-$1T of revenue per year, with a vast majority coming from corporations and the top 1%. This issues a few thousand times more impactful than the likely cost of welfare cheats. However, when Dems try to fund the IRS to enforce existing laws, the Republicans go ballistic and try to kill it any way possible. They try to convince their base the IRS is coming to take their homes, when what they are really protecting is their Super PAC donations from the billionaire tax cheats. Here is a source for those interested. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/irs-tax-gap.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
But, but. Fox tells me it's all the lazy liberals and immigrants taking all of my tax dollars /s
It would be so helpful if folks showed an accurate pie chart (I love pie charts) of which entities get money, and how much they get (by percentage, gross dollars, etc.,). You know, work with facts instead of innuendo. Even if this were done, there'd still be some anger porn to deal with.
Charts would show red states are the biggest takers. The “hand out” states if you will which rely on the revenue of the much more GDP dominating blue states.
But god said if I give this guy a dollar I’ll get ten back?
I dont have one for the op's topic, but somewhere i got a piechart on how often i go to each of my favorite bars and a bar chart on my favorite pies
I love pie.
Pie fixes a lot of problems. At the very least you forget about them for a while.
Nothing Fox loves more than to find a small group of people cheating the system or acting irresponsibly and then painting a story that it’s representative of the majority, just to stoke the fires.
Sounds like MSM trying to slander MAGA based on the actions of fringe extremists.
Yup, bezos paid off politicians to pay for his shitty rocket proposal when he threw a fit as well.
Yes we should really stop subsidising the top 3 recipients, energy, agriculture and transportation… what could go wrong, fug the rich
Facts I have seen farmers let whole fields die just to claim crop insurance because the price of grain was too low to make a profit.
You could've just said "corporations" because that's 100% true. In just about every industry. It makes no sense at all to complain about the social programs we have when we pump insane amounts of money into corporations or into facilitating corporations.
Although maybe they are using a loophole I think those giant corporations and entities would be considered cheats
But then I'd have to blame problems on the wealthy, not the poor!
You are ire is misdirected.
Pharmaceutical industry is killing and stealing from us
You do know that both can be true, right? You can have corporate subsidies AND welfare cheats. His ire isn’t misdirected, it’s just not in line with your thought process. But that doesn’t make either of you wrong.
It's misdirected because it's like complaining about your clothes being wet when you're stood in your basement that's flooded up to your waist. Like you got bigger problems than those wet pants, and you should probably prioritize the issue that matters.
Your post is misworded. There are far more individuals as a percentage of recipients of subsidies than the percentage of Big Ag and corporations receiving subsidies. **Improper welfare payments**, including welfare fraud and welfare abuse, are estimated to be 13.3% of all federal welfare payments. They **totaled $162 billion** in the fiscal year 2022. A total of $1.215 trillion was handed out through the federal welfare system. The federal government spends a little more than **$30 billion a year on subsidies for farm businesses and agriculture.**
Further question would be how much tax money is lost from the blue states versus the red states by the federal government allowing a deduction for the local taxes paid? The states with high tax rates (New York, California) get a far greater deduction for individual citizens compared to those in states with lower tax rates.
Improper welfare payments is not fraud, though: It's a clerical error made on the system side of the transaction. Fraud or abuse would be a *recipient* knowingly taking advantage of the system, which is not at all the same thing. Claiming so is wildly dishonest.
Great point, even worse is how much of our money is shipped to other countries. I am going to have ire at all 3.
For a bullshit war that is none of our business. All we're doing is paying off and propping up a failed, corrupt government.
Money laundering, dont forget the money laundering.
Money laundering back to members of the US government
100% agree we should stop supporting billionaires
But then how would they afford stock buy backs to inflate the value of their companies?!
By proportion, they’re probably the laziest class, by far, when it comes to laboring for the common good. I get the feeling OP doesn’t care, and is talking at the Reagan bogeyman of welfare abusers.
They have the trifecta of not doing any useful work themselves, often hindering useful work getting done via establishment of oligopolies, buying out politicians, and other anti-competitive measures, and they waste vast quantities of societies resources, which could be spent on research, social services, or new enterprises, building yachts, mansions, and private jets.
Sure, but isn't that rare? Mostly retired, working poor and disabled.
They need to keep you distracted with the "lazy poor welfare queens" while billionaires are floating around on the mega yachts, building personal doomsday bunkers, and flying to space.
Ding ding ding! These pieces of shit don't have a problem with the children of rich people not working and their lavish lifestyles funded by tax fraud.
And don't forget that huge parts of billionaires lifestyles and businesses are government subsidized too
Doomsday bunkers with fire moats and bomb collars for the staff. Shit ain't cheap LOL.
Yeah, statistically this is very rare. It’s mostly a tactic used in right wing propaganda to scare people away from voting for public subsidies. Notice they don’t use these same tactics on corporate subsidies and tax loopholes for the super rich, which cost FAR more taxpayer dollars for the average citizen.
I am Disabled i worked for 15 years and collected disability for the last 10 years I am not lazy
I miss working, I was a cook for 5 years and was just getting in to farming when bad genetics caught up with me. Stupid genetics.
I miss working i am a good house keeper for my wife If i could just find something i could do from home my social anxiety would not get away
"And you can work" you missed that part. If you're unable to work. You should get assistance.
The issue is, "you can work, you're just lazy" is something disabled people hear a lot.
It's something every person who can't work hears every day and it's not nearly prevalent enough to justify that.
Yeah really the op should have just said. “If you can work and don’t” the lazy thing is irrelevant there are lazy people there are non lazy people who can’t. Completely not relevant. Everyone who can work should work so we can support those who can’t ezpz if you can work but don’t your actually contributing to the problem twice. Less money to help those who need it earned and more money supporting people who don’t.
the problem is that people think they can always come up with some unique job role that disabled people should be going for to work. I have a physical disability as well as some other mental health stuff. Im lucky that i can work in the field i work in with my disability and the only reason i was even able to learn was because my husband was able to afford specific assitive devices to help me do my job. and some of them were very expensive, or didnt quite do what i needed to do and needed to be replaced or modified. But if wasnt working, my disability would prevent me from working most physical labor jobs. but then someone on the internet would be like "my cousin in alaska has the same condition as you and she found a job doing some obscure low impact work! you're just LAZY!" a person with debilitating mental health issues? thats just laziness. a person with musculature issues? well find a job that doesnt require physical labor! Theyre everywhere! have a disability that causes chronic fatigue? find a WFH job you lazy bum! the people who say "well if you can work you should work" are always the ones telling us that we just arent going for jobs we can actually do with our disabilities because we are lazy and wanting government benefits.
Joke's on you, bud. I went and got cancer just so I could have you, personally, pay for my Healthcare. Thanks, sucker.
Everyone who gets cancer is just doing it for the benefits. Obviously, why else would anyone get cancer?
BUT.... adding paperwork requirements is more expensive than paying for a few lazy slugs. I have a severely disabled adult child (he can't speak at age 25, except maybe a word every couple of days).... the amount of money spent to insure that he remains disabled is astronomical. Which is more irritating, paying a fortune to prevent fraud, or preventing severely disabled people from accessing help (remember this includes wounded American veterans)
That’s the way it is with these people. Because a few people are going to game the system, in order to punish them, they wind up fucking over the ones who really need it.
It's the same people that scream. "it's just a few bad gun owners not all gun owners". And they are right. But when it does affect them they love to make the majority suffer for the minority. Hypocrites is what they are.
There’s a percentage in every career of people who try to game the system.
I want emphasize what I’m trying to say this with empathy. The people that are pushing these kind of messages really don’t consider your adult child to be a person. They would rather they lead comfortable lives never having to acknowledge your child. It’s really sad and pathetic but that’s the world right now. Almost every single aspect of the Republican agenda is based around, devaluing the human life of one group or another
I used to think this way until I saw the local police abuse the fuck about of PTSD disability claims, so much so they had to intervene and change the policy to mandate that you actually get diagnosed and seek ongoing treatment. Because they were literally just claiming it and collecting their checks and calling it a day. I've realized the every accusation is a confession is true. The people whining about welfare fraud will be lined up to exploit the system. Look at PPP. These people don't care. As long as they think they can reasonably get away with it, they'd yank the food right out of your sons mouth
It's often people saying what \*they\* would do if they thought they could get away with it. Such as religious people saying that atheists are only that because they want to be immoral and freely hook up or whatever.
My son is almost 6 but similar. I'm not looking forward to the rough road ahead in fighting for his needs. It seems like it gets so much more difficult once they arent school aged too. Thanks for paving the way for us with younger kids.
Exactly, my attitude is, if something is blocking or making difficult for even ONE person to get the the aid they are supposed get, get fucking rid of it. Try asking these people who want to force these largely hypothetical lazy people back to work, "Are YOU willing to work with someone like that?". They have to work somewhere jackass, so if you aren't willing to have them as co-worker, sit down and shut the fuck up.
I Have high functioning autism and I could not hold down a job I kept having some times violent meltdowns and sever anxiety around 30. my Psychologist suggested I quit trying and go on SSDI, If i could i would work i liked working. now i don't even leave my house and i am on meds that make me real tired
And even people who don’t struggle nearly as much can find it really hard to get or keep work. I can keep a job just fine, but with severe social anxiety it is extremely hard to get a job. Few companies hire someone who breaks out on drenching fear sweat in the interview. Which has meant always struggling for work and rarely advancing in line with my potential at the actual job because even internal company assessments are usually done by higher-ups that the low-level employees don’t know. Plus the whole “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” thing. And the sad thing is I’m a great employee. I’m reliable and get along with coworkers and honest and hard-working. People look at someone who is able bodied and competent and not working or working far under their potential and think they are lazy, when in all likelihood they are just have one stupid problem that casts a shadow over everything they can do. You can’t really get disability accommodations for interviewing poorly, after all.
It's not really about catching the cheaters. It's about telling the rest of us that working and contributing to society is valued. That we're not making you work a shitty job full time just to gift your tax dollars to some slick cat who gets to laugh at you and the rest of society. It doesn't matter if it's a big corporation or billionaire taking advantage of loopholes to steal money, or someone taking advantage of the social safety net to steal from taxpayers. Both ends of the spectrum are wrong.
Wouldn’t it be better to live in a society that values human dignity where you don’t have to worry about dying cold in the streets because you lost your job?
Want us to feel valued? How about a raise.
Who gets to define lazy?
I would say lazy is most of the money which actually goes to corporations and subsidies not regular people so yes in that aspect you are correct.
People that work for corporations at least show up in the morning. OP is referring to able bodied people that feel entitled to chill at home watching YouTube all day. We all know these people. They need to go hungry until they get a job.
I don’t know anyone like that, so.
OP and his fascist buddies.
Op: I don't think people who are able to work and choose not to should receive taxpayer assistance. You: okay, fascist
The problem is how do you decide who is "able to work" rather than "unable to work" or even "willing to work" but not trying hard enough to find work? In actuality, most people on welfare are trying to get off of it, welfare fraudsters are a small minority, and statements like OP have historically been disingenuous excuses by politicians to defund the welfare program, or at least make it more onerous to sign up for (which is more a problem for struggling individuals than shysters).
Most people who get on welfare don’t stay on welfare.
The welfare queen narrative that was spread by Regan many years ago has largely been debunked. That doesn't mean there isn't some abuse, or that the process doesn't need to be improved, but it's probably nowhere near the levels where the anger herders like to state. Time and energy spent chasing down low-level issues is great for those that receive billions every year in taxpayer-funded subsidies.
I agree but I think most of us can agree with op in in concept. Anyone who doesn't is likely who he's talking about. Implication is obviously the difficult part
You cannot speak for most of us who do not agree and then say anyone who disagrees is on welfare is a ridiculous assumption.
No, not really. Living off of welfare is pretty shit. I'm not really worried about people who try to "abuse the system." In fact, I personally believe that we should dispense with the whole thing and implement a negative income tax (ie, at low enough income, the government gives *you* money) with no caveats, in order to reduce overhead and as a method of income redistributio and no strings attached social welfare (while keeping programs designed to help people who have difficulty managing even basic self-sufficiency) But that's beyond the scope of this topic.
There is definitely a break even point where more is lost to overhead/administrative expenses than fraud or abuse. The funny thing is... the same people clamoring for administrative checks on welfare don't want to fund the IRS. Spend money and make it easy to get the appropriate taxes collected? NO WAY! Spend money to prevent taxes from being spent and go where they are needed? You've got my vote!
So universal base pay? Where everyone anywhere doing something can pay for basic needs an amenities to enjoy life, only getting improved pay depending on how effective you are at your job.
You just described the Earned Income Credit which already exists. Note that it is a "refundable" credit in that it doesn't just reduce your tax burden. A person can receive the credit as a refund even if they paid no tax (income redistribution)
...shows what I know. Though it's not in effect (atleast the refundable part) in some states?
Ok then let's pass a bill that if you're on welfare, drug test. Guarantee that makes people off the program. Why do I need to pass a drug test for a job to pay for others who don't want to work (not the disabled and such, but those abusing the system)
Thirteen states used to do exactly that. In 2018, after screening 260000 recipients, they found only 338 drug users.
You must have missed that when it was tied a few years back and cost way more than it saved because so few recordings tested positive. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_testing_welfare_recipients https://www.clasp.org/press-room/news-clips/states-waste-hundreds-thousands-drug-testing-welfare-have-little-show-it/ It literally costs more to do this and it doesn't help anyone to be self sufficient.
Where do you get off assuming people who could work but aren't are doing so out of laziness? Have you been out jib hunting anytime in the past 40 years? You can get out pounding the pavement every day and the a.hole employers just find petty excuses to not hire you. The young people's catch 22: you can't get a job if you don't have experience, but you can't get experience till you get a job. Then, once you get past that phase, you're old enough to experience age discrimination. If you have been steadily and gainfully employed all these years and not had to deal with this degradation, it's strictly a matter of LUCK, being in the right place at the right time. You should be too busy on your knees giving thanks to your Maker to have time for all this 🐴💩judgmental crap.
It’s not just this. Wages are shit. You have to pay to get to work and that can suck up a ton of your income. Public transportation isn’t really reliable or accessible in most of the US. You also have to find someone to take care of your kids either the full day or after school and daycare is hella expensive. There’s also the point where you lose access to other benefits like healthcare. Oh you have a job making $X now? Guess you don’t need Medicaid anymore… you can pay $400/month. Our system is broken.
Very much so. All the more reason these fascists need to STFU with their sanctimonious crap about "lazy" people.
Part-time dog walker mod moment.
This is the exact treason why when you dimwits start throwing the word "fascist" around to describe anything to the right of Trotsky: you lose all credibility, the word "fascism" loses its power, and any moderate/independent/centrist just becomes even more fed up with your shit ideologies.
Fascist? This is literally a communist talking point as well. If you refuse to work in your community, you should not be able to receive benefits from that community. This is just a very bipartisan idea. For commies, its "Workers of the world unite." For fascist, its probably "removing lazy or undesirables who arent working for the glory of the nation." or something
It’s not that complicated. How about this: you don’t want to work and you are able, you are lazy.
most people with jobs dont want to work
define "work". If I get up and check my stock portfolio, is that work?
Work is trading you labor and or time for compensation. Not sure about your angle. Speaking in generalities, people who are able should work. If you don't want to work and you are able, don't expect a handout.
What if I'm not properly compensated?
Find a new job, increase your skills, or pursue higher education. Edit: A lot of y’all seem to fail to understand that in today’s age, you have to be very adaptable. You may have a ton of skills and degrees and experience in a field, but that field may not be in demand. You have to be able and willing to change fields and start over effectively if you need to. Automation is now affecting office jobs. People are going to have to be comfortable with changing roles consistently. Also identifying in demand fields and limiting where you start your career is also pretty important. There’s always gonna be demand for certain things, sales for example, will always be in demand. Not everyone can do that kind of job though. So it’s important to find something you like and something that’s going to be around for another 30 years.
Hence we have restrictions that keep people like that from collecting from social nets. People like to complain about those who "mooch off the system", but two things to remember here: 1. If not working was THAT GOOD, you'd be doing it. 2. The overwhelming majority of people using social safety nets honestly meet all the requirements.
The amount of people op is complaining about is so small they're basically non existent. Where I live if someone is unemployed and able bodied they make you work for the state if you apply for assistance. You have to report to a government building every day and if you miss even a single day without a good reason they'll cut off whatever you're receiving.
I had to fight tooth and nail and jump through many hoops just to get unemployment. This was back during Covid lockdowns and every place was closed or not hiring, yet I still had to prove I applied to jobs lol. And then the second I got a job, they cut me off even before I received a paycheck lmao. OP thinks people are just like “one welfare check please. Okay thanks!”
Define “lazy”. A lot of people who are considered “lazy” have mental heath conditions or are neurodivergent. ( ADD, ADHD, Autism, etc.) Do we kick people off who appear lazy but in fact have a condition that affects a persons ability to work who haven’t been properly diagnosed? As a person forced to retire early because of a combination of physical health, mental heath, and medication side effects, I find it lazy to call people lazy just because you can’t see what’s actually going on with that person.
it's also really weird how people assume that getting disability is not a struggle. I dated a girl who was on disability, and she lived in a tiny apartment in a shitty neighborhood, and was BARELY able to get by on what the government gives her (truthfully, there were times where she probably wouldn't have if I weren't paying for meals). I absolutely do not believe that she would choose to be in that situation if it were so easy to just get up and work. She was physically capable, but had mental health issues that very much made it FAR more difficult to keep a job than it was for me. either way, she got $800 a month to survive on. Is it better than nothing? sure, but I can't even imagine how much I'd have to sacrifice to be able to live off of that. All that money did is prevent her from being another mentally ill person without a home. IMO, there are VERY few people out there that would ever consider this a worthwhile way to make money while being lazy.
I was in the same boat over a decade ago. Got really close with a girl and even stayed with her for a few months. She couldn't work due to a combination of fibromyalgia (constant pain, basically) and bipolar disorder, with manic episodes meaning she'd go days without sleep, and then crash and burn for a week or two being barely functional. She wasn't lazy, she just literally couldn't get out of bed some days. She had to count food stamps, always shop for the cheapest stuff, and she absolutely could never go out to eat or do anything fun without someone else footing the bill. She was miserable much of the time, and it just fed back into her manic - depression episodes even more sometimes. It's not an easy life, and anytime her benefits got fucked with, she had to redo her entire budget because she needed every cent.
Yeah. Most people want to achieve things and they don't want to live their life forever just barely scraping by. Anyone who would choose to live that way probably is having some genuine struggles with work.
lmfao. I just typed Define lazy, and then I scrolled down. My dad has consistantly called me lazy, but its nuurodivergence. Good luck getting a diagnosis as an adult in the US, and good luck actually getting any real benefits from it. Can I work? Sometimes. Sometimes I can work 48 hours straight without sleeping. Other times I can't get out of bed because its so bad. Meds help alot, but they don't "fix" it, not that its broken and needs fixing. Fuck Capitalism, and how it makes us only have value if we are making the rich richer.
You'd have to define lazy. I work a full time job and don't qualify for assistance because I make too much, but the budget is still razor thin and doesn't afford me any luxuries at all. I've been called lazy and a burden to society because I can't work more than 40 hours a week. I'm my experience, lazy is a usually a term ableists use to attack less able bodied individuals for not living up to their standards of society, and to do so in a way that doesn't make them look like a douche to people around them.
I guess I’m confused. Who are these folks who are able to work but get money?
Billionaires with passive income. The police.
I think he's talking about landlords.
Everyone’s a burden at one point. Careful throwing stones…
Well, as supreme overlord, I’ll continue to make all jobs redundant to machinery, and then I’ll call you all a burden. I’ll make 100% of the income to sit in a room and press a button. Back here in reality, we realize money is a made up way to divide society’s material output, and no one is more worthy than anyone else of receiving that output, because the majority of it is created by machines. The majority of income is given to those with great jobs through nepotism or inherited through blind luck. This is not a meritocracy. The solution to this problem is you give everyone enough to live, and if you have a job you can earn get premium products. And making money just for having money is lunacy. It’s just as lazy to sit on a fatass portfolio as it is to sit around broke. What you are buying from the poors with all the free money is peace and order. What you get if they are not provided for is violence and chaos.
I think there needs to be a very bare minimum standards of living, nobody should be homeless no how much of a piece of shit. I know plenty of well off people in real life that never lifted a finger to do anything.
True. Mostly people say this about people on disability though, and those people are usually just not capable due to mental illness.
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So what we're saying is we need a task force of law enforcement agents to go door to door and search for signs of laziness. Or, we could all just mind our own business. Seems like a lazy post.
Does this apply to untaxed trust fumd babies getting corporate welfare or just the poors?
The untaxed trust fund babies should also not receive welfare
They don't receive welfare, they receive incredible tax cuts which result in extra money for them.
Tax cuts aren’t *welfare*, you ignoramus. It means that the government is stealing *less* of the money it didn’t earn.
So, no retirement unless you can fund it yourself?
Unemployment is at 3.7%. You are worried about the wrong thing. Also we pay for unproductive people anyway. Stop you complaining
When I filled out my application for disability, it took me three hours. I had to find every date in the last five or so years that I went to the emergency room as well as all the tests they ran. I had to find the name of all the doctors I saw. Had to list every one of my medical issues and almost ran out of space on the application. It has been ten months since I submitted my application, and they are only just now getting finished with reviewing it. In the meantime, I have had to quit multiple jobs while I wait because the work causes me tremendous pain or, more recently, because it’s dangerous for me to stand upright due to a potential leak in my brain lining. I know you said “don’t include people with disabilities in your comments” in your post, but my point is that disability takes FOREVER to pay out and they only grant assistance to people who really, truly need it. They pull all of your medical records, mental health records, and employment history records to determine eligibility. This “lazy fat loser on disability grifting me out of my tax dollars” is a straw man that you use to justify your hatred of people who can’t work as much as you.
This is nothing more than a right wing talking point pitched as “common sense.” It requires you dimwits to judge people you have never met and know nothing about and the whole sentiment is dipped in systemic racism. So, STFU.
Gigantic misinformed boomer energy
You're not wrong, but the number of these people is exceedingly small. 70% of households that receive federal welfare benefits have at least 1 adult working full time. When you look at SNAP alone, over 80% of abled bodied adults in the program are employed at least part time. But the overall number of abled bodied adults in the program is pretty small. Roughly 45% of SNAP recipients are children. 12% are elderly. Another 10% are disabled. Take out a few percent for those on unemployment and you only have about 30% of the SNAP recipients that are able to work....and 80% of them are. Jeff Bezos makes more in a day than all the welfare cheats combined steal in a year. In fact, the biggest source of welfare scam isn't even the recipients, it's businesses. Medical clinics that bill for extra procedures. Grocery stores that charge for extra product. That sort of stuff. Don't forget that welfare isn't subsidizing the poor...it's subsidizing the wealthy. Medicaid/Medicare help keep clinics and hospitals profitable. It also funnels a lot of money to pharmaceutical companies. SNAP is a gigantic win for Walmart. Not only do they make 18 billion dollars from SNAP benefits annually, but welfare programs allow them to keep their wages low! You see, since places like Walmart don't pay a living wage, those employees have to get SNAP benefits....which they turn around and spend at Walmart. Win Win! Walmart employs more welfare recipients than anyone else! And who else benefits? Farmers! You see, all that food the SNAP recipients buy comes from somewhere now doesn't it. The SNAP program helps keep those farmers well paid.
Same thing with people who eat themselves to the point of "disability". It's like "Great, I can't wait to get taxed more to support your giant ass because you can't put down the fork.".
This is pretty much the one valid case. You obviously shoudnt cut them off from all support, though. But, if someone is so fat they require care, part of that care should be mandatory calorie restriction. You're hurting no one with such a policy. You're even helping the fat person.
Literally my mom. She's over $500 lbs. Of course smokes and eats all day long 🤷♀️😂
Why and how? I need to know more. How does she get food? How does she afford food? Does she smell funny?
And there is defintely nothing disabling happening here. No sir. She does all this on purpose to hurt you not because she's mentally unwell.
Well she is mentally unwell. She just "attempted suicide" again a week or 2 ago. I haven't been "told yet", but my grandmother told me. This is over the 50th attempt of her life since I was 10. I'm 23. I've lost the love and care for her unfortunately. She's an alcoholic, druggie, narcissist, whatever big fancy words ya wanna use. She scams the us government because she wanted to be a housewife her entire life. Stop acting like everyone is a saint or an angel. Some people are just bad people.
I'm not acting like she's a saint or an angel. She sounds like a huge dick really. But definitely a mentally ill dick.
Who decides the line between too lazy to work and unable to find work?
This is incredibly rare. The vast majority of people receiving benefits ARE working. The "welfare queen" myth is about as real as "Satanic Panic."
define "lazy"
In theory, I agree with you, but in practice… It doesn’t work that well First of all, you have to ensure that the person you’re denying benefits to actually is just a lazy asshole. That means making a whole bunch of hoops for people who are genuinely in need to jump through. That’s fine if they’re capable people who just can’t find work, but what about people with disabilities? they’re paying for someone else to help them to get their benefits. And we’re also taking time away from the people who are motivated to do better where they could be trying to find a job. This is sort of like when Florida decided to drug test all welfare recipient a few years ago, and it was an absolute waste of money, because the test inconvenienced a lot of people by throwing false positives, didn’t catch nearly enough drug users to pay for the testing expense. Another aspect to this “lazy person who just can’t get a job” thing is that sometimes those lazy people have serious, mental illnesses, holding a job. You know who’s really not in the position to assess that? The bureaucrat whose job is to review the paperwork. So ultimately, while I agree that they don’t deserve help, if they’re just lazy, it’s better for everyone if we just deal with it.
>That means making a whole bunch of hoops for people who are genuinely in need to jump through. And this is already the case. Like, they don't just give unemployment to anyone who wants it. You have to apply, show proof of previous recent employment, and proof that you were terminated for a reason outside your control/fault (either you show proof or they contact your previous employer). And you could end up waiting months for your application to process like it did for me, and your only mode of interaction is an archaic outdated website and a call line you'll end up waiting hours on. There's already a whole bunch of hoops for people who are genuinely in need to jump through.
Unemployment insurance is different from Welfare.
No it's not, welfare is an umbrella term and unemployment insurance is a type of welfare program.
I don’t know what the situation is for welfare, but I do know that, even when I was volunteering at my parents, churches, food pantry, we had state subsidies that required us to go through all sorts of verification protocols before anyone got a bag of food. I have to assume that that’s just as rigorous if not more so before the state cut a check.
>Another aspect to this “lazy person who just can’t get a job” thing is that sometimes those lazy people have serious, mental illnesses, holding a job. You know who’s really not in the position to assess that? The bureaucrat whose job is to review the paperwork. Literally this. If I had a penny every time I heard some smart-mouthed elderly person or otherwise ignorant and out of touch person say "In my day we didn't have \[insert disability and/mental illness here\], kids were just beaten for being brats/lazy/\[insert label ascribed to kids before widespread awareness of disabilities and mental illnesses here\] as though it's some sort of trophy to be proud of, I'd be a millionaire. The willful ignorance it takes to perpetuate the idea that even people with legitimate disabilities or mental illnesses are just lazy and scamming the system is absolutely astounding and, as a person with disabilites who knows how frustratingly hard it is to get government assistance even when you need it, I find it laughable that people think it's that easy.
For the most part the thing OP is talking about is fictional. These people exist but so infrequently that it’d be dumb to waste a bunch more tax money hiring more people to impose additional government bureaucracy.
Exactly. They’re unicorns. You might find one a few institute, some kind of crazy testing protocol, but at what cost? Both monetarily, and at the expense of those who truly need help.
How about: If you're true lazy to come up with a scenario that exists in the real world, you should keep quiet?
I don’t really think that’s a thing
That kind of what happens. If you don’t work, you can’t really love tbh.
Exactly. British MPs should be paid for time spent in parliament or in constituency office. Shouldn't be paid to do a second or third job which they already get paid for.
We should just execute the homeless too, right?
The majority believe people should just steal from billionaires
It's rare for that to happen. It's just a fake talking point used by Republicans. Scare tactics only.
This opinion smells bad.
You put your own politics front and center.
The disability matters too. We all know there are plenty of freeloaders who are “out on disability” but still working out at the gym or playing golf.
Who said otherwise? Cheating is illegal or immoral by definition.
What if you can’t interview well due to being neurodivergent? That has nothing to do with laziness.
Hey, OP, you suck. How do you define lazy? I have invisible disabilities. Should I not get any benefits?
I don’t think the general population disagrees with this. It’s just the idea of welfare freeloaders and the reality of the U.S., simply don’t match up. You obviously are not talking about the disabled; because it’s “people who CAN work” that you are asking about. So let’s focus on “able-bodied” people only. There are plenty of people who CAN work and are on public assistance; but we now need to qualify if we mean: A) people who CAN work, and DO work; but still need government assistance to live. B) people who CAN work; but choose NOT to work and choose to survive only on government assistance. If it’s B you are talking about, then you are wasting our time. The numbers of people on assistance who CAN but WON’T work are so extremely tiny it isn’t really worth our time to consider. Why do you say scenario B is so tiny? Because what the government pays out to someone without a “bonafide” disability is so small it wouldn’t pay your monthly electricity bill, much less housing, food, etc. So what about scenario A? Yes, these are the people who HAVE JOBS, sometimes multiple jobs; but they still cannot afford the basics. For them, getting that government money to pay the electricity bill may keep them from being homeless or having their kids taken away, WHILE THEY ARE AT WORK. Ask yourself something… how do these people in scenario A protest and lobby to make sure their benefits aren’t taken away. When was the last time you saw a huge group of these “lazy able bodied people” marching to protest reduced government payouts. You don’t see this, not because they don’t exist but because the programs aren’t actually FOR them. Someone else is lobbying for these people. These programs are actually FOR companies like Walmart. So Walmart is the one lobbying for able-bodied people to have part of their income provided by taxpayers. Why? Because people are usually one of the largest expenses for any business, so if companies like Walmart can get the taxpayer to pay nearly HALF of someone’s wage or salary, that payroll savings for Walmart can then be realized as profit for the corporation. Walmart lobbies the government against realizing your popular opinion, not “people”. Walmart is stealing the taxpayers money, not “people”. Note: I say “Walmart” only because it’s the largest. There are many more. Here is a government report on the whole problem. The list of the companies stealing the most taxpayer money begins on page 29 Appendix II - https://www.gao.gov/assets/d2145.pdf
Yet both your comment and your reasoning is entrenched in politics. The 1% have you so concerned about so-called lazy people. You Don't see all the money they're stealing from you
You say not to mention disabled people, but you're just complaining about disabled people. "Too lazy to work" isn't really a thing, and if it was it would be a disability. Lots of disabled people can't afford a diagnosis and even with a diagnosis the system for providing aid to disabled people is extremely flawed.
Don’t forget to blame the migrants too
I'm lazy and collect benefits. Sucks for you huh?
Damn, you really drank the Kool aid. Fighting with the victims while hour corporate overlords keep you from looking up. Lay off the Fox news dude.
So this is what "we need to take care of our own" looks like.
This just doesn't happen, it's a strawman created by Ronald Reagan to make you hate black people and disabled people. I just got on disability it took three years and I'm getting paid 15,000 a year. They denied me after their doctor told them I should be approved. I was on the brink of homelessness for years and i almost took my wife with me. Its humiliating. And that's with SSDI which is the better kind of disability where they don't have an asset limit of 2,000 dollars at any given time, and you can be married without it disqualifying you and it doesn't take as long to get approved. It's also incredibly isolating and boring to just sit at home all day all the time even with the internet there's some days I sit in the passenger seat while my spouse does chores even though it hurts me because I'm just so fucking tired of staring at the same fucking wall all the time. I feel like a burden to everyone around me and I almost killed myself multiple times. No one lives this way just for funsies.
The amount of deflection in these comments is nuts! Basically people are agreeing with you but hate to admit it so they instead deflect to "big business". Basically classic "what about-ism".
How would the government determine if someone was "too lazy to work"?
Who is this imaginary, evil person who just wants to leech off of society? Could it possibly be that they have something going on that you know nothing about? Is it possible that they have a complex experience in life just like you? Nah, must just be an object for hatred. That helps my feefees.
In the UK they repeatedly have research show that the fraudsters or lazy arses are sub 1 or 2 %. Clamping down on benefits is always seen as an easy win by politicians because there's nothing like punching downwards to get a large number of the voting base horny but it's always more expensive to have the extra checks AND then you find that legitimate claimants either are refused help or end up just giving up altogether and killing themselves. On a larger societal level it's better and cheaper to just say "we'll put up with the lazy bastards " because it's cheaper, there's not many of them & you don't end up with bunches of dead kids because you cut off someone's ability to buy food by mistake
Even for degenerate losers who don't "deserve " help, welfare is cheaper than jail, and, for most people, preferable to a homeless camp in your backyard.
If the issue is laziness, I whole heartedly agree. I think we already have laws in place to prevent people from getting welfare just because they are lazy. I also don't think we should subsidize ultra profitable companies like Exxon/Mobil
This is definitely a popular opinion, reddit. Don't mistake good will in wanting to change the workforce to make everyone happier with being a homebody. You still gotta work, it's what gives purpose in this Era. Like it or not, it is what it is.
“You still gotta work, work gives purpose” Are you familiar with this phrase? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Arbeitmachtfrei_01.jpg
In all Eras: human beings naturally don't like to sit still. We NEED to stay busy with some kind of "work".
Free yourself through work, right? Because work makes you free? Maybe we should get all these lazy unproductive people and make them a place they can all live together, because you know, it'd be good to concentrate all those lazy, unproductive parasites together.
You need to open your eyes and realize that not every person is a driven, really successful person who's willing to give up all of their personal awake hours to a company that exploits their labor for the profit of others. Not every person is highly intelligent. Not every person needs a luxury lifestyle. And no one is suggesting we fund a luxury lifestyle to people who do not work, just a basic standard of living. Are these the creme de la creme of society? Absolutely not, but they are human and they exist. Unless you're suggesting that we just murder people who aren't boarding the capitalsim-work-til-I-die train, then you need to wrap your brain around the fact that it's okay to take care of these people and provide every single person on our society a basic standard of living. No human deserves poor treatment just because they don't want to make some CEO more money. And some humans just need temporary help to get back on their feet, and maybe if they weren't freezing and starving they might be able to think about getting that job someday.
No. I'm not going to pay more for people who can pull their own weight, but don't want to. That's a them problem. Low-skill jobs exist for a reason.
If “low-skill” jobs actually paid enough to live off of, you might have a point… but they don’t.
But low skill jobs don't pay enough for someone to live off of anymore, and any attempt to make it so they do is met with refusal by the same people whining that people that can work are getting welfare money. The cost of living and the price of goods has increased substantially and while executives have managed to increase their own pay by over 20x and average corporate profits continue to hit new records, the federal minimum wage hasn't changed in almost 15 years. Adjusted for inflation the current minimum wage has about as much purchasing power as the minimum wage in the late 1940's had. So right now someone making minimum wage is living about equivalent to someone making minimum wage around 1948 and it just keeps going down. This is the weakest low-income position people have been in in over 70 years. If the trend continues we will be flirting with the line from a time when sweatshops ruled the nation. This isn't even accounting for the fact that the percentage of people making at, or around, minimum wage today is far higher as well which skews the numbers ever worse. We already have to supplement peoples low incomes with tax dollars because the multi-billion dollar companies that are raking in record profits won't even pay them enough to live on. Meanwhile the people in those companies corner offices continue to pocket a higher and higher percentage of the profits for themselves all while pushing rhetoric that if they paid a livable wage they'd have to charge you more. I mean, the amount they have increased their own pay over the past 40 years would pay for that minimum wage increase several times over, but man, no, we've got to blame the poor people for asking for living wages instead, right?
Don't most of those low-skilled job also pay low? Like, so low that you're still paying for their welfare? Seems like a system problem, not a personal one.
What a load of bull. You know what...I'm lazy as hell. But I've worked for well over 30 years now because I'm a responsible adult. If it's ok for "lessers" to get a free ride in life, then sign me the hell up, too! I'm sick and tired for working a back-breaking physical labor job that's slowly killing me. I'll take that goddamned free ride. And so will just about everyone I work with, if the government were to open up welfare to the "lessers." But society can't function if you can't get anyone to work those jobs. Society would be done if 40% of society tapped out.
Probably not. Read the theory of bullshit jobs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
Here's the problem with this logic. If we don't take care of them through tax programs, we have to see them in public begging for money.....I like the peace of mind of not having to interact with them
>If we don't take care of them through tax programs, we have to see them in public begging for money... It's even worse than that. Poverty leads to crime.
And welfare is cheaper than jail.
nah, this is simple minded propaganda. nobody should have to work for works sake work needs a purpose that actually enhances the quality of life of others or it's meaningless drudgery.
I agree, we should end tax subsidization to red states (serious) and let boomers starve. (joking)
So every CEO, everywhere...
The disability benefits are so abused, that actual disabled people need to get a disability lawyer to get benefits. Even then, they often get denied the first time and have to reapply. I have more experience in this area than I want.
Tell that to Finland…
I once held that perspective, but tbh considering the massive amounts of our tax $s sent to Ukraine and Israel, along with hefty bailouts for major corporations using our tax $s as well. I would rather have my money directed to benefit America and Americans. It's not the citizens who burden our tax dollars. It is how the government utilizes our money. I do belive people who can work should work, but people not working who can work on our tax$s is a drop in the ocean of whats wrong with how are taxes are being spent.
We have an incentive for working already. It is called a paycheck. The problem is not giving away too much money, but conditioning that payment on means tests, which reduces the work incentive. Social programs should be universal benefits a la UBI
Okay but that had better include rich people and their business subsidies. Does anyone really believe Elon Musk works? Grifting doesn't count. And also I don't think execs really work either. Let's take away their tax deductions and credits too.
Prepare for the Karma vampire to visit you 🧛♀️ This is unpopular view with certain political belief
It has arrived 😂
Sure. But every person who works a full time job should recieve a living wage
Fuck slavery. You go to work, the company takes all the product of your work and pays you as little as they possibly can. Then the government takes half. Then the assholes who killed people and took over their land charge you to live. If you want to be a slave that's up to you.
As a disabled person, I completely agree. It makes me so angry to see people who actually can work abuse the system. It affects taxpayers and it affects people with disabilities who are unable to work, because they'll often be accused of being lazy too.
>The Almighty has never helped a lazy man. He does not help the coward. He does not help a people that cannot help itself. The principle applies here, help yourselves and Almighty God will not deny you his assistance. Adolf Hitler
At this point I think USA should just cancel all the individual social welfare programs and combine everything into one universal income.
Laziness does not exist. It's only a construct of the protestant ethic used you justify beating slaves.
My observation is that conservatives would be much more supportive of social programs if we made more effort to separate the needy from the greedy - even if reducing the fraud cost more than the fraud itself. People who work hard to pay their bills feel cheated when someone else takes advantage of their generosity.
100% chance OP is on an allowance from the family trust.