Your living standards

So, basically you want an unemployed person to be your bitch...

It's curious that in one of the wealthiest countries in the world with one of the highest standards of living in the world 43 million people live in poverty... that's the same as the combined population of Texas and Florida, or the entire population of Argentina. 

Not that I'd single-out the USA alone here, several European countries have a similar percentage of their population as living below the poverty line, though most are significantly better. In the UK, where we sit pretty much in the middle between the best and the worst in the EU, that's still 13 million people, or more than the populations of Scotland, Wales and Ireland (north & south) added together. Japan, with the third largest economy in the world, has 20 million living in poverty but because it is a pride/shame-culture poverty isn't quite as obviously visible as it is in other countries. Of course poverty is a relative value based on national average income so someone in the USA earning the Japanese average wage would be regarded as living in poverty. 

The disparity between the ultra-rich and the dirt-poor is, as we all know, phenomenal in the USA but the inequality between average wage ($24/hr) and minimum wage ($7.25/hr) is just as mind-boggling such that 50% of the population earn 75% of the total national income which is why that top half of the population pay 97% of the net income taxes. Unfortunately the notion that for the top 50% to play less tax can only happen if the bottom 50% are paid higher wages is also seen as full-blown communism. 

So, first option.

As strange as it may seem I take the similar view to you but not quite from the same angle. The problem of long-term unemployment and the "professional unemployed" needs to be addressed but do not see how your solution is of any practical value. 

 

The long-term unemployed, the benefit scroungers, fraudulent claimers and the "professional unemployed" are a small percentage of those who are entitled to social support. In fiscal terms the cost of benefit payments to that small group of people in the UK is around £1.2billion which sound like a phenomenal amount of money but that is only 0.7% of the total benefit budget and is actually comparable to the amount of money the government fails to pay-out through clerical error and people not claiming all they are entitled to. If we could sort out both sides of the equation then the net result would be for all intents and purposes zero. As a percentage, actual benefit fraud equates to less than 2% of total fraud (including tax evasion and identity theft, but excluding systematic corporate accounting creativity of the likes of Starbucks and Amazon) across the whole UK economy (so the figures are probably not that dissimilar anywhere else in Europe), tax fraud accounts for 30 times more than benefit fraud. You don't see the tabloid press shouting too loudly about that for some reason (he said sarcastically).

Those who abuse the welfare system are an easy diversionary tactic for journalists and politicians who want to dismantle it because people are willing to believe the problem is far worse than it actually is, they can use it to demonise all who make use of the system and justify punitive and draconian measures that arbitrarily and indiscriminately punishes all of them. There is shame enough in having to claim benefits to stay alive without suffering the scorn of those who ought to know better.

The reality is unemployment can only get worse, it can never get better and it will never get better. The inescapable consequence of this is the number of long-term unemployed will continue to increase, not just in the developed countries of Europe, but as this century progresses, in the developing countries too. That isn't a cynically pessimistic prediction, that is a logical consequence of progress, automation and increasing populations - the concept of full employment has never been a reality (ever, in the history of the World) and the idea of full-time employment is fast becoming untenable. 

The bottom line is we cannot simply retrain those who were previously employed in defunct occupations to do completely different jobs because there just isn't enough of those jobs for the people who are currently doing them, let alone take on more employees swapping over from diminishing professions. The idea that the unemployed could be re-skilled for modern professions has always been a convenient but unrealistic expectation.

Which basically means that for menial unskilled jobs the employers can employ whoever will take the minimum wage (and rely on the government paying out supplementary benefits to make-up the difference); for semi-skilled jobs the employers can shop around for anyone who will accept zero-hour contracts; and skilled and/or professional people will be convinced that self-employed contract working is the only viable option, which then favours the more experienced and those skilled at self-marketing over the better qualified.

The long-term solution is something that no one wants to consider because it means a radical volte face on everything we've been led to believe as normal for the past 150 years. And that's the other reality that we have to learn to accept - the modern idea of work, full-time employment and the working week is only 150 years old, and it certainly isn't "normal".

Ah right. So you're one of those "gravity deniers" then eh? Okay, if the earth sucks how come birds can fly and elephants can't eh? Hmm? Answer me than then... 

I prefer to give money directly to a non-profit that helps people in need. Not giving to some big "corporation" like United Way, I keep my donations local so I can actually see my money working......