6 ms·

Ideology gets in the way of truth on this one. One side doesn't want to admit that a lot of poor people have a good bit of free time available to them, particu

Ideology gets in the way of truth on this one. One side doesn't want to admit that a lot of poor people have a good bit of free time available to them, particularly those who receive social services. The other side doesn't want to admit that middle class and up folks have been working long hours at a cost to their personal lives and development, that isn't new, but now both mom and dad are doing it and households aren't really any better off. This results in poor people with the time to make and raise children, doing so and receiving government subsidies to provide for them. The problem is the government can't give you time or your youth back so the well off just stopped having kids.

sbf501 4y ago
You get the award for most subtle attempt at rephrasing the "welfare queen" myth I've heard in a few years.
- doliveira 4y ago
  I mean, it wasn't that subtle, but yeah, subtle enough just for distraction. I don't know how the situation is in the USA, but in Brazil we have the myth of mothers having 10 children just to get more money for each child.
  - sbf501 4y ago
    Similar. It is very common to hear the right side of US politics claim poor minority women have multiple children just to get "free stuff" from the government, yet the same folks also want to make abortion illegal. Some people even claim the government will pay for your child if you are completely poor. The lies are astonishing, but the racism is necessary for their populist political message to work.
    - giantg2 4y ago
      "Some people even claim the government will pay for your child if you are completely poor." Is this not mostly true? It seems government does pick up the tab for impoverished children. School, school lunch, Medicaid, SNAP/WIC, and easier to get housing as a woman with kids (both through charities and HUD housing and grants).
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      I once had a man try to sell me his food stamps at a grocery store while his little kid was running up and down the aisle. He was the second person that day who tried to sell me his stamps (both offered roughly $100 worth for $80 cash, iirc). I'm not against food stamps at all, and at one point came close to being on them myself. I don't judge people for needing assistance. When you see such flagrant abuses of the system, however, it tends to burn a little empathy out of you.
      - dfxm12 4y ago
        If you were on SNAP, you might have had some understanding around how much of a hassle it is. The list of things you can't buy is mystifying. $100 in raw chicken vs $80 to go towards hot meals, Advil and dog food might be a valid trade off when you have to watch over a kid who runs around a lot.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        zdragnar 4y ago
        And if he had asked me to buy specific things for him, I might have actually done so. My grandfather (a poor farmer) regularly told a story about how a man asked him for money, and he turned the man down but bought him lunch instead. Just handing a man $80 in cash and taking his food stamps means potentially enabling behaviors- alcoholism, drug abuse, etc.- that I don't want to enable. Maybe he just though that less hassle would have been worth having $20 less to spend, I dunno. I've been around enough alcoholics, drug addicts and con artists that I'm not going to just hand money out to people.
        doliveira 4y ago
        Putting in SRE terms, do you know the whole thing that at scale you will inevitably get errors and it can be counterproductive to try to eliminate them instead of setting an error budget? I think the same applies here. Is it productive to try to control every penny people in welfare spend? And that's a question that should be answered statistically: do the benefits outweigh the bad consequences? Statistics guarantee that there will be a lot of anecdotes like the ones you've told. The question is: how representative they truly are? Again, I can only talk about my own country, but I hear the same speech here as well. Statistically speaking, though, just giving people money was the right way to go: most will spend in what they need and yeah, that's way more than just painstakingly-controlled government-allowed list of items. Birth rates actually dropped even more amongst welfare recipients, etc...
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Some other people making claims shouldn't impact mine. At no point did I say that this was some sort of welfare scam. In fact my view elevates poor people from people who couldn't make it work within our society to people who may have looked at the options available to them and made a choice that has some logic behind it.
randomdata 4y ago
The well-off in North America stopped having kids because it has become socially unacceptable do so; at least in youth. The young "rural hick" mother is the canonical image young women are told they must not become. We even air TV shows (e.g. Teen Mom) meant to portray the ostracization young mothers face in an effort to not let others realize the same fate. Having children is something well-off people have come to fear, believing it will leave them to become failures in the eye of society. The narrative changes when people grow older, nearing the end of a woman's viable productive years. All of a sudden it is "Why don't you have kids yet? You're not getting any younger. The clock is ticking." Once one overcomes dealing with the conflicting messaging and the emotional toil in that, this leaves time for one, occasionally two in the best case, children and no more. For others it is simply too late.
- anon291 4y ago
  > For others it is simply too late. Yup... you need to start very young to have a high chance of having more than two kids.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    I'm not sure. Is this sarcasm?
    - nxm 4y ago
      A woman’s biological reproductive system starts declining after around 30 if I recall correctly
      - giantg2 4y ago
        Yeah, but in general it's not enough to impact having 2 kids. If getting pregnant for the first time at 30, you could wait the recommended 18 months between kids and still have two without it being a geriatric pregnancy. You don't need to start at 18 to have 2 kids.
        4y ago
kstenerud 4y ago
This is just the natural progression of the gutting of the middle class. A middle class job in the 50s and 60s was MUCH easier on the home and social life. Unions were common and life was pretty civilized on the whole. Since then we've been on a steady regression to the industrial revolution, where employers hold all the power and can use people as they see fit (i.e. forget working only 40 hours a week), and only the aristocracy can afford leisure and child care.
- Axien 4y ago
  I 100% disagree. With the insanely low unemployment, workers hold more power than any time in human history. Unions were a symptom of an abusive employer. As that abuse subsided, union representation waned.
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    We've just had 60 years of employer propaganda outspending unions. The WFH aspect of COVID was the first positive pushback for employees in decades. There are two reasons why managers are so scared about this development. First, middle managers get promoted by being noticed by their superiors. Hard to do when nobody is in the office. Secondly, in a world where a manager can dictate whether your retirement is funded and whether you will be able to have your medical bills covered next month, suddenly we have a sense of power arising from the lowly hourly and salaried employees who once again learned that they have the power to say "no."
- nxm 4y ago
  Those union jobs are not coming back. Globalization destroyed that. The rest of the world became richer (good thing) while in large parts of the US because poverty areas
- treis 4y ago
  There's some truth to this. There's also some truth to this generation not being willing to make the sacrifices their parents did. Like those super expensive tiny home in LA were the American Dream that their forebearers moved across the country for. For whatever reason this generation is much less likely to do the same and move to cheap places with decent jobs. Yes they have a point that it shouldn't be so hard and they shouldn't have to move across the country to scratch out a living. But I don't see how living in your parents basement is better. You can play the hand you're dealt while fighting to make it better for the next generation.
jjoonathan 4y ago
The government could grow a spine and start enforcing 40 hour work weeks. In fact, they could go further: 3 day work week. "What? 3? 4 was nuts, 3 is insane!" Before you balk, note that before bringing women into the workforce a typical couple contributed 5 out of 14 days to the workforce. 3*2 is 6, and 6/14 is more than 5/14. Also, 6/14 is less than 7/14 meaning parents are allowed to raise their children again. Wouldn't that be nice? Perhaps even nice enough to fix this stupid problem we made for ourselves? Obviously it's not the 50s, and there is the matter of international competition to consider. Just remember: China has the same problem, but worse. Cooperation may be possible. I don't have high hopes. Capital controls the world. Policy will continue to be "labor get rekt" for the foreseeable future, and in the most shortsighted and cynical way possible, with no allowance for the possibility that healthy balances might wind up being a win for everyone. With AI... it's going to get worse before it gets better. A lot worse.
tmay 4y ago
It’s also security. If you are born middle class and get middle class income but are worse off than your parents were, and have no housing or job security, you won’t start a family unless you’re irresponsible. You are falling behind relative your status quo. People want to provide at least as much for their children as their own parents could provide: stable housing situation, safe neighborhoods, etc.
fomine3 4y ago
> One side doesn't want to admit that a lot of poor people have a good bit of free time available to them, particularly those who receive social services. I don't know for Japan. People work long even for lower salary.

sbf501 4y ago

You get the award for most subtle attempt at rephrasing the "welfare queen" myth I've heard in a few years.

doliveira 4y ago
I mean, it wasn't that subtle, but yeah, subtle enough just for distraction. I don't know how the situation is in the USA, but in Brazil we have the myth of mothers having 10 children just to get more money for each child.
- sbf501 4y ago
  Similar. It is very common to hear the right side of US politics claim poor minority women have multiple children just to get "free stuff" from the government, yet the same folks also want to make abortion illegal. Some people even claim the government will pay for your child if you are completely poor. The lies are astonishing, but the racism is necessary for their populist political message to work.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "Some people even claim the government will pay for your child if you are completely poor." Is this not mostly true? It seems government does pick up the tab for impoverished children. School, school lunch, Medicaid, SNAP/WIC, and easier to get housing as a woman with kids (both through charities and HUD housing and grants).
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    I once had a man try to sell me his food stamps at a grocery store while his little kid was running up and down the aisle. He was the second person that day who tried to sell me his stamps (both offered roughly $100 worth for $80 cash, iirc). I'm not against food stamps at all, and at one point came close to being on them myself. I don't judge people for needing assistance. When you see such flagrant abuses of the system, however, it tends to burn a little empathy out of you.
    - dfxm12 4y ago
      If you were on SNAP, you might have had some understanding around how much of a hassle it is. The list of things you can't buy is mystifying. $100 in raw chicken vs $80 to go towards hot meals, Advil and dog food might be a valid trade off when you have to watch over a kid who runs around a lot.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - zdragnar 4y ago
        And if he had asked me to buy specific things for him, I might have actually done so. My grandfather (a poor farmer) regularly told a story about how a man asked him for money, and he turned the man down but bought him lunch instead. Just handing a man $80 in cash and taking his food stamps means potentially enabling behaviors- alcoholism, drug abuse, etc.- that I don't want to enable. Maybe he just though that less hassle would have been worth having $20 less to spend, I dunno. I've been around enough alcoholics, drug addicts and con artists that I'm not going to just hand money out to people.
        doliveira 4y ago
        Putting in SRE terms, do you know the whole thing that at scale you will inevitably get errors and it can be counterproductive to try to eliminate them instead of setting an error budget? I think the same applies here. Is it productive to try to control every penny people in welfare spend? And that's a question that should be answered statistically: do the benefits outweigh the bad consequences? Statistics guarantee that there will be a lot of anecdotes like the ones you've told. The question is: how representative they truly are? Again, I can only talk about my own country, but I hear the same speech here as well. Statistically speaking, though, just giving people money was the right way to go: most will spend in what they need and yeah, that's way more than just painstakingly-controlled government-allowed list of items. Birth rates actually dropped even more amongst welfare recipients, etc...
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Some other people making claims shouldn't impact mine. At no point did I say that this was some sort of welfare scam. In fact my view elevates poor people from people who couldn't make it work within our society to people who may have looked at the options available to them and made a choice that has some logic behind it.

randomdata 4y ago

The well-off in North America stopped having kids because it has become socially unacceptable do so; at least in youth. The young "rural hick" mother is the canonical image young women are told they must not become. We even air TV shows (e.g. Teen Mom) meant to portray the ostracization young mothers face in an effort to not let others realize the same fate. Having children is something well-off people have come to fear, believing it will leave them to become failures in the eye of society. The narrative changes when people grow older, nearing the end of a woman's viable productive years. All of a sudden it is "Why don't you have kids yet? You're not getting any younger. The clock is ticking." Once one overcomes dealing with the conflicting messaging and the emotional toil in that, this leaves time for one, occasionally two in the best case, children and no more. For others it is simply too late.

anon291 4y ago
> For others it is simply too late. Yup... you need to start very young to have a high chance of having more than two kids.
- giantg2 4y ago
  I'm not sure. Is this sarcasm?
  - nxm 4y ago
    A woman’s biological reproductive system starts declining after around 30 if I recall correctly
    - giantg2 4y ago
      Yeah, but in general it's not enough to impact having 2 kids. If getting pregnant for the first time at 30, you could wait the recommended 18 months between kids and still have two without it being a geriatric pregnancy. You don't need to start at 18 to have 2 kids.
      - 4y ago

kstenerud 4y ago

This is just the natural progression of the gutting of the middle class. A middle class job in the 50s and 60s was MUCH easier on the home and social life. Unions were common and life was pretty civilized on the whole. Since then we've been on a steady regression to the industrial revolution, where employers hold all the power and can use people as they see fit (i.e. forget working only 40 hours a week), and only the aristocracy can afford leisure and child care.

Axien 4y ago
I 100% disagree. With the insanely low unemployment, workers hold more power than any time in human history. Unions were a symptom of an abusive employer. As that abuse subsided, union representation waned.
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  We've just had 60 years of employer propaganda outspending unions. The WFH aspect of COVID was the first positive pushback for employees in decades. There are two reasons why managers are so scared about this development. First, middle managers get promoted by being noticed by their superiors. Hard to do when nobody is in the office. Secondly, in a world where a manager can dictate whether your retirement is funded and whether you will be able to have your medical bills covered next month, suddenly we have a sense of power arising from the lowly hourly and salaried employees who once again learned that they have the power to say "no."
nxm 4y ago
Those union jobs are not coming back. Globalization destroyed that. The rest of the world became richer (good thing) while in large parts of the US because poverty areas
treis 4y ago
There's some truth to this. There's also some truth to this generation not being willing to make the sacrifices their parents did. Like those super expensive tiny home in LA were the American Dream that their forebearers moved across the country for. For whatever reason this generation is much less likely to do the same and move to cheap places with decent jobs. Yes they have a point that it shouldn't be so hard and they shouldn't have to move across the country to scratch out a living. But I don't see how living in your parents basement is better. You can play the hand you're dealt while fighting to make it better for the next generation.

jjoonathan 4y ago

The government could grow a spine and start enforcing 40 hour work weeks. In fact, they could go further: 3 day work week. "What? 3? 4 was nuts, 3 is insane!" Before you balk, note that before bringing women into the workforce a typical couple contributed 5 out of 14 days to the workforce. 3*2 is 6, and 6/14 is more than 5/14. Also, 6/14 is less than 7/14 meaning parents are allowed to raise their children again. Wouldn't that be nice? Perhaps even nice enough to fix this stupid problem we made for ourselves? Obviously it's not the 50s, and there is the matter of international competition to consider. Just remember: China has the same problem, but worse. Cooperation may be possible. I don't have high hopes. Capital controls the world. Policy will continue to be "labor get rekt" for the foreseeable future, and in the most shortsighted and cynical way possible, with no allowance for the possibility that healthy balances might wind up being a win for everyone. With AI... it's going to get worse before it gets better. A lot worse.

tmay 4y ago

It’s also security. If you are born middle class and get middle class income but are worse off than your parents were, and have no housing or job security, you won’t start a family unless you’re irresponsible. You are falling behind relative your status quo. People want to provide at least as much for their children as their own parents could provide: stable housing situation, safe neighborhoods, etc.

fomine3 4y ago

> One side doesn't want to admit that a lot of poor people have a good bit of free time available to them, particularly those who receive social services. I don't know for Japan. People work long even for lower salary.