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In summary: lower & middle class people don't like it when those living in poverty are recipients of social welfare because it makes them feel as if they are so
by rbranson 15y ago
In summary: lower & middle class people don't like it when those living in poverty are recipients of social welfare because it makes them feel as if they are socially equal to those welfare recipients.
This is an interesting hypothesis. I suppose this also goes along the lines of people getting mad when they had to work for something, but someone else didn't.
- dantheman 15y agoI think the second point is that normally when people receive benefits, they are extracted by force from someone else.
- tomjen3 15y agoThere is a another point to that though: because the money has been taken from those people they are essentially being forced to pay to lower their own standard of living and to upgrade others to get closer to them. No wonder they are pissed at this tripple whammy.
- _delirium 15y agoThe money isn't really coming from them, though. Only 50% of U.S. households pay net taxes at all, so most of the lower-middle-class isn't paying anything, not even enough to cover their own use of government services, let alone anyone else's. I believe the top 1/3 pay virtually all taxes (>90%).
- aranazo 15y agoThat's Federal Income tax they aren't paying, which is only one tax of many.
- Hoff 15y agoThink through the implications of those numbers you've posted, and particularly think about what that might imply about the distribution of wealth in the US. The bottom 60% of the US population has around 5% of the aggregate wealth. That's the majority of the population. The top 20% of the US population possess 84% of the wealth. And the curve is very steep, too; the top tenth of a percent holds a whole lot of that wealth, and it's increasing rapidly. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec11/makingsense_08-16.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec11/makingsen...