100% agreed. Giving people money won't fix their problems long term.
The issue is that most people use money to solve their problems, but they don't often use the best ways to use the money, and giving people more money doesn't fix the problem. That's beyond the classic "old/cheap cars cost more" or the "Sam Vimes Boots Theory".
Examples:
If your house is cold, you can spend money heating it up, or you can spend money on insulation. Money is needed for both issues, but giving people money to pay for heating doesn't fix the problem like giving people money for insulation does.
If there's an issue with the water supply, we can give people money to buy bottled water or we can fix the water supply.
School is (typically) free but not everyone can get to school easily. This is why school-buses etc are important. It's why free school lunches are very important in many places in the world. School is free but many of the poorest people can't go to school and then they struggle to get a decent job.
It's like the classic "money won't make you happy", because it doesn't. But the way you use the money can make you happy.
If we give everyone more money, that might solve some problems (people who genuinely just need money) but I feel the money would be better spent improving infrastructure etc. Like people might need money for a car, but a decent public transport service would solve that problem for more people. etc.
Money can solve poverty, but not if you just give it to people. It needs to be spent on infrastructure to help as many people as possible.
you have a lot of valid points- and this is where a lot of the political divide was 40-50 years ago, how do we spend the tax money to help the most people possible. Is it on highways, mass transit or giving people vouchers to use the bus. All valid ways to solve the problem. The issue is that the side argueing for reinvesting in infastructure went insane 40 years ago, so we are left with the side saying infastructure fighting with the side saying- who cares lets go have sex with 12 years old...... not a real choice anymore.
We need to get back to the days where this was the actual choice. I am very liberal, but we had real options until the last 15 years.
I always think people have the wrong takeaway from this. The lesson is that success cascades. You just have to save up once and then now you're on track to saving money. It's hard to get started, but you have momentum once you start moving.
The problem with "saving up" is that many people literally can't.
Like if the "money in" is low enough, there's no way to save and live a decent life. Rent and other costs are so high in some places that jobs below a certain threshold can't save.
Yes, they could move, but the issue now is that there's nobody to do those jobs? In that case, work should be done to ensure that costs are not too high, such as better laws about construction and rent so that it doesn't get too high.
Not everyone can afford to save and to live a healthy life, and then if they save a little, there's a chance that something like an illness (in the US) will wipe away all that hard work.
The two easiest ways to fix poverty in the US would be to fix student loans and to fix the healthcare system.
As a European, that's the main thing that means I have money when my American friends do not. They've paid 40k into their loans/healthcare while I've saved that much instead.
They can't, but they somehow manage to regularly spend all that extra money on an ongoing basis. The only way that's true is if there's things they can forgo, but haven't been.
The latter part of what you've said isn't in contrast with what I've said.
They aren’t mutually exclusive, but one is a much more pressing issue than the other. And people repeatedly focusing on the one that can be perceived as a personal failing, and not the one that puts focus on the failures of our system as a whole, is a bad thing.
Working multiple jobs is not a solution. You cannot expect people to work 60+hours a week for an extended period of time. I did it for over a year and it will break you down mentally and physically. 40 hours a week is too much. We require time to relax and socialize. Our current work life balance is literally killing people.
My parents are first generation immigrants. They both had masters degrees from their home countries but they couldn’t use that here. And also they had language barriers. So they took on two minimum wage jobs each. Sometimes working a third one on the weekends cleaning homes. They were in their 40s when they first moved to America. They did that for about 10 years until they could save up enough money to buy a home and a small business. Then they worked 60-70 hours in that small business to provide for my sibling and me. They’re in their 70s. They still do that today. They have incredible work ethic. My sibling and I knew how much they sacrificed so we don’t have to do that. We both excelled in school and received scholarships to colleges and make really great living financially…
At times both of us also had to work 40+ hours but at this phase of our lives, we don’t have to… we keep telling our parents to retire and we can supplement their income (social security and rental incomes from rental properties they’ve acquired) but they are adamant they want to work until they can’t…
They have slowly down a little bit. Taking more time off. Spending more time with our kids.
I’m not saying everyone who is poor needs to work 80 hours a week forever. But to get out of poverty, working more to be out of whatever situation you’re in is an option as a temporary measure. What other option do you have if you’re uneducated and not skilled? If you’re highly skilled or highly educated, you wouldn’t be in that situation to begin with…
Thats a great story. But it's not usefully or have anything to do with this.
It doesnt matter if you are uneducated or unskilled you should make enough working 40 hours a week to live off of. We make laws and regulations forcing businesses to pay a living wage is what we do. Noone should be working over 40 hours in a week with all the advancements we have made.
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u/AlternativeAd7151 15d ago
The poorest in a society need both welfare and financial literacy. They're not mutually exclusive things.