"Homeless and poor people are so lazy and irresponsible with their money, they can't save it and invest it like smart and noble rich people. But also they save

"Homeless and poor people are so lazy and irresponsible with their money, they can't save it and invest it like smart and noble rich people. But also they save too much money and are cheating the system when they need assistance despite basic necessities being made as difficult and expensive to obtain as possible!" /s This reminds me that I actually had a conversation with my soon to be former boss arguing that we shouldn't have a minimum wage because of its relation to the poverty level. His thinking was that upping the minimum wage means the government has to spend more on benefits, so we shouldn't have one and let the magical free market figure it out. I asked him point blank whether these things should be tied to inflation and the cost of consumer goods, but unfortunately I can't remember what his exact response was since I was a few beers in. I do remember though that it was a weaselly cop-out of wilfull ignorance and wishful thinking. I really wanted to pick apart how stupid that was, but it wasn't worh it. I'm still shocked that an otherwise intelligent person could think that's a sound policy, but I think that same thinking underpins terrible laws like this. No one actually wants to look at the numbers of what things actually cost (food, housing, healthcare, etc.), wages, inflation, or how expensive it is to be poor, compared with wages and public assistance. Nope, instead we'd rather just use arbitrary numbers and emotionally abuse people by telling them it's their personal failure when the system exploits them as designed. The current system of applying for public benefits in the US is what Kafka would've dreamed of, had he been a sadist.