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I'm not very comfortable with the answer to this problem being 'how to make homeless and sick people keep working'. America desperately needs better social secu

I'm not very comfortable with the answer to this problem being 'how to make homeless and sick people keep working'. America desperately needs better social security nets. (for example) Seeing Bezos net worth skyrocket by billions at the same time as millions of people losing their homes is absolutely disgusting.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
A third of Americans not paying their rent or mortgage is not about sick and homeless people not working. It's about people not working due to lockdown. A lot of those people not working are lower class. A lot of professional jobs just shifted to work from home. We need that one third of Americans working. They need opportunity. They aren't getting it.
- fiblye 6y ago
  I think the point of the person you responded to is it's not really reasonable to tell the poor and homeless to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to work some low wage job during a pandemic. The problem is until the world manages to find a safe way through this problem, we should have a social safety net for those who can't work--and the thing standing in the way of getting there is a few people who have enough wealth to wholesale purchase a medium sized country if they wanted to. Yes, there are some jobs that we do need done and are safe to do, but the labor bubble probably isn't big enough to accommodate all of those currently suffering.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    I spent nearly six years homeless. I don't qualify for disability, though I am disabled. If I hadn't tried to establish an earned income, suicide would have been my only way out of my predicament. No one was going to rescue me. With a third of people not working, we don't have the means to rescue everyone. The only way to fix this mess is to find ways to get people working again. There is no other real solution. I get really tired of hearing pie in the sky talk of how people in lousy circumstances "shouldn't have to" do x, y or z. In practice, it winds up being a means to trap them there and give them no way out.
    - eirini1 6y ago
      your imagination is non-existent.
    - namdnay 6y ago
      > With a third of people not working, we don't have the means to rescue everyone Other countries seem to manage it. Bigger income taxes and use the money to help those who are out of work I know it may seem like your actions are being criticised, I really don't think that's the case, we're all grateful for the efforts that you're making. But as someone else pointed out, you're walking through the trenches distributing band-aids. At the same time we need to ask ourselves why there are so many people in the trenches in the first place, whilst others are living in mansions 200 miles behind the front lines.
      - kennyadam 6y ago
        Exactly. Arguing that there's no possible way to help everyone, while the top 1% are hoarding more and more is exactly how that same 1% want it. Don't tax the job creators! Those billionaires earned every penny and didn't exploit anyone! We need to cut Amazon's taxes or they might not build another distribution center here that pays less than a living wage!
      - noelherrick 6y ago
        Just note that a lot of more socialist countries do not have clearly higher taxes, and they look much better financially when you factor in the ridiculously high price US folks pay for healthcare
    - zaarn 6y ago
      In other countries, people would have come to rescue you, the government would have been able to provide you with housing and enough money to live. Not everyone can work and those people deserve social net to be able to live comfortably.
    - fiblye 6y ago
      While your circumstances are unfortunate, this is about the government maintaining stability during a widespread disaster. If a fire burned down half the country, nobody would be saying “well those people should get back to work.” We’d have politicians rushing to win votes and support those afflicted by the disaster until we could come up with a good way to get life back to normal. The current course America has now is to pretend things are normal during an ongoing disaster. It hasn’t been working. People working low wage jobs during this just because they’re struggling to pay rent are quite miserable—more so than before.
watertom 6y ago
If we didn’t have social security the country would be a dumpster fire right now. Employer provided healthcare is the dumbest idea ever, it should be outlawed. I don’t care what it’s replaced with just as long as it’s gone.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  It’s not even employer provided healthcare. It’s employer subsidized health insurance with pre tax money with deductibles of $3k+ and out of pocket maximums of $7k to $13k. For employer chosen in network providers. For medicines from employer chosen formularies.
  - birdyrooster 6y ago
    And if you want mental health that will be $600/mo out of pocket even when you are in network with your expensive PPO plan.
- RhysU 6y ago
  Social Security was created in 1935. How would you characterize the 159 American years preceding its creation ?
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    For 86 of those years, ownership of another human being was the law of the land and for all of it rampant discrimination against any not of English Protestant ancestry was pervasive, so for a start there was that. From 1862 to 1934, over 1.6 million homesteads were created through the Federal Government. For a filing fee of $18 (~$200--$500 in 2020), and five years sweat equity, a 21 year old male could claim 5-640 acres by building on and working it. Homesteading continued as a vastly reduced practice, though remaining an option, until 1976 in the lower 48 and Alaska until 1986. Open range provided for additional livilihood based on unowned acreage for ranchers, and mining stakes were prospected throughout the West. But by 1890, the notion that there was unsettled land for the taking had passed; the frontier was closed. Not that this access was available to all; blacks, Native Americans (this was originally their land), Mexicans, Chinese, Catholics, and other non-Anglo groups were routinely denied rights to land. Prior to 1860, unorganised squatting was common. A Free Soil movement, based in part of free or cheap land grants to white farmers also emerged. Too at the time, wage labour was relatively uncommon -- many households were effectively their own businesses, most farmsteads, others practicing trades or professions. The rise of factories, railroads, steel mills, and coal mines gradually shifted this balance. But exposure to the money economy was often lower than now. Less upside perhaps, but also less systemic risk for most households. Life expectencies were far lower than today: 49.3 years in 1901, 60.2 in 1934, 78.8 today. Pensions tended to be private, often failing, or support offered through multigenerational households (an idea whose time may be returning). Those living to old age often found themselves with no means of subsistence. Social Security had a solid basis in real lived pain. There were frequent economic crises and panics. You may have heard of the Joads. There's a truth behind that fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath
kiba 6y ago
Cheaper and more plentiful housing would make social net easier to support.
- robertlagrant 6y ago
  Cheaper and more plentiful energy, food, cars, everything would make it unnecessary. "Waving a magic wand" statements aren't very helpful.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
imtringued 6y ago
I think you are underestimating how large this problem is. It's one thing to not have a social security net when there are a "handful" (still too many) people whose luck betrayed them are on the streets. It's another when you have 11 million. The problem is systemic. We are getting really close to the economic events that have happened during the Weimar Republic. We are going to see a huge increase in radicalization and instability if the article is correct. It won't end in a world war but it could get very violent. People will start squatting in vacant buildings together. Groups that live together will create their own "pet" system of governance that will appear to solve these problems and then there will be rivalrous behavior among them like gangs fighting each other. The best thing you can do is keep them busy with a job.
- jacobush 6y ago
  Anything could end in world war, it's basically a constant struggle to avoid world war.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- namdnay 6y ago
  Why are they underestimating? If I understand their point, they are saying that the social security net in the USA needs to be reinforced, and band-aid measures like trying to find gig jobs for the homeless are not the real solution
  - kennyadam 6y ago
    Thank you, yes, this was exactly my point.
dutch3000 6y ago
totally agreed. the disparity is obscene.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

A third of Americans not paying their rent or mortgage is not about sick and homeless people not working. It's about people not working due to lockdown. A lot of those people not working are lower class. A lot of professional jobs just shifted to work from home. We need that one third of Americans working. They need opportunity. They aren't getting it.

fiblye 6y ago
I think the point of the person you responded to is it's not really reasonable to tell the poor and homeless to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to work some low wage job during a pandemic. The problem is until the world manages to find a safe way through this problem, we should have a social safety net for those who can't work--and the thing standing in the way of getting there is a few people who have enough wealth to wholesale purchase a medium sized country if they wanted to. Yes, there are some jobs that we do need done and are safe to do, but the labor bubble probably isn't big enough to accommodate all of those currently suffering.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  I spent nearly six years homeless. I don't qualify for disability, though I am disabled. If I hadn't tried to establish an earned income, suicide would have been my only way out of my predicament. No one was going to rescue me. With a third of people not working, we don't have the means to rescue everyone. The only way to fix this mess is to find ways to get people working again. There is no other real solution. I get really tired of hearing pie in the sky talk of how people in lousy circumstances "shouldn't have to" do x, y or z. In practice, it winds up being a means to trap them there and give them no way out.
  - eirini1 6y ago
    your imagination is non-existent.
  - namdnay 6y ago
    > With a third of people not working, we don't have the means to rescue everyone Other countries seem to manage it. Bigger income taxes and use the money to help those who are out of work I know it may seem like your actions are being criticised, I really don't think that's the case, we're all grateful for the efforts that you're making. But as someone else pointed out, you're walking through the trenches distributing band-aids. At the same time we need to ask ourselves why there are so many people in the trenches in the first place, whilst others are living in mansions 200 miles behind the front lines.
    - kennyadam 6y ago
      Exactly. Arguing that there's no possible way to help everyone, while the top 1% are hoarding more and more is exactly how that same 1% want it. Don't tax the job creators! Those billionaires earned every penny and didn't exploit anyone! We need to cut Amazon's taxes or they might not build another distribution center here that pays less than a living wage!
    - noelherrick 6y ago
      Just note that a lot of more socialist countries do not have clearly higher taxes, and they look much better financially when you factor in the ridiculously high price US folks pay for healthcare
  - zaarn 6y ago
    In other countries, people would have come to rescue you, the government would have been able to provide you with housing and enough money to live. Not everyone can work and those people deserve social net to be able to live comfortably.
  - fiblye 6y ago
    While your circumstances are unfortunate, this is about the government maintaining stability during a widespread disaster. If a fire burned down half the country, nobody would be saying “well those people should get back to work.” We’d have politicians rushing to win votes and support those afflicted by the disaster until we could come up with a good way to get life back to normal. The current course America has now is to pretend things are normal during an ongoing disaster. It hasn’t been working. People working low wage jobs during this just because they’re struggling to pay rent are quite miserable—more so than before.

watertom 6y ago

If we didn’t have social security the country would be a dumpster fire right now. Employer provided healthcare is the dumbest idea ever, it should be outlawed. I don’t care what it’s replaced with just as long as it’s gone.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
It’s not even employer provided healthcare. It’s employer subsidized health insurance with pre tax money with deductibles of $3k+ and out of pocket maximums of $7k to $13k. For employer chosen in network providers. For medicines from employer chosen formularies.
- birdyrooster 6y ago
  And if you want mental health that will be $600/mo out of pocket even when you are in network with your expensive PPO plan.
RhysU 6y ago
Social Security was created in 1935. How would you characterize the 159 American years preceding its creation ?
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  For 86 of those years, ownership of another human being was the law of the land and for all of it rampant discrimination against any not of English Protestant ancestry was pervasive, so for a start there was that. From 1862 to 1934, over 1.6 million homesteads were created through the Federal Government. For a filing fee of $18 (~$200--$500 in 2020), and five years sweat equity, a 21 year old male could claim 5-640 acres by building on and working it. Homesteading continued as a vastly reduced practice, though remaining an option, until 1976 in the lower 48 and Alaska until 1986. Open range provided for additional livilihood based on unowned acreage for ranchers, and mining stakes were prospected throughout the West. But by 1890, the notion that there was unsettled land for the taking had passed; the frontier was closed. Not that this access was available to all; blacks, Native Americans (this was originally their land), Mexicans, Chinese, Catholics, and other non-Anglo groups were routinely denied rights to land. Prior to 1860, unorganised squatting was common. A Free Soil movement, based in part of free or cheap land grants to white farmers also emerged. Too at the time, wage labour was relatively uncommon -- many households were effectively their own businesses, most farmsteads, others practicing trades or professions. The rise of factories, railroads, steel mills, and coal mines gradually shifted this balance. But exposure to the money economy was often lower than now. Less upside perhaps, but also less systemic risk for most households. Life expectencies were far lower than today: 49.3 years in 1901, 60.2 in 1934, 78.8 today. Pensions tended to be private, often failing, or support offered through multigenerational households (an idea whose time may be returning). Those living to old age often found themselves with no means of subsistence. Social Security had a solid basis in real lived pain. There were frequent economic crises and panics. You may have heard of the Joads. There's a truth behind that fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath

kiba 6y ago

Cheaper and more plentiful housing would make social net easier to support.

robertlagrant 6y ago
Cheaper and more plentiful energy, food, cars, everything would make it unnecessary. "Waving a magic wand" statements aren't very helpful.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

imtringued 6y ago

I think you are underestimating how large this problem is. It's one thing to not have a social security net when there are a "handful" (still too many) people whose luck betrayed them are on the streets. It's another when you have 11 million. The problem is systemic. We are getting really close to the economic events that have happened during the Weimar Republic. We are going to see a huge increase in radicalization and instability if the article is correct. It won't end in a world war but it could get very violent. People will start squatting in vacant buildings together. Groups that live together will create their own "pet" system of governance that will appear to solve these problems and then there will be rivalrous behavior among them like gangs fighting each other. The best thing you can do is keep them busy with a job.

jacobush 6y ago
Anything could end in world war, it's basically a constant struggle to avoid world war.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
namdnay 6y ago
Why are they underestimating? If I understand their point, they are saying that the social security net in the USA needs to be reinforced, and band-aid measures like trying to find gig jobs for the homeless are not the real solution
- kennyadam 6y ago
  Thank you, yes, this was exactly my point.

dutch3000 6y ago

totally agreed. the disparity is obscene.