Right now the way it is set up the best most common people can hope is to land a government job and leave the public sector. Those jobs have the reputation of stability, and clearly better pay than in the private sector. Over taxation of productive people and companies is what makes this possible.

It seems to me that this whole thing can be reversed. I would terminate all unemployment, welfare, foodstamps, and reconfigure government jobs. A person with no education or practical experience could get a government job making minimum wage. We could also help them with technical training. They could then work their way into the private sector and become productive.

Would we do this out of guilt? Not at all. It is serves us all to get the dead weight in our society retrained to become productive members of society, and to discontinue all these entitlement programs.

Just an opinion mind you.

Thanks for posting on this topic, Rozar. I work with young people daily, and you are correct, the prospects for them are not what they were in past times. Pretty much the same story for my friends over 50 as well.

You know I totally agree with you, as long as not a single person is taxed in the process.

As much as I wish I was not in poverty, I am at least one who enjoys it. It's hard to be rich in this environment. I've had a lot of opportunities to excel in life, but failed to leap in favor of enjoyments I could have while still young. I may not prefer poverty, but I prefer it to struggling to succeed in this climate.

I rather doubt that anyone prefers poverty. It's a matter of resources diverted from the private sector which was creating opportunities and jobs to the government sector which skims a healthy cut off the top before redistributing the rest. Perhaps an even larger factor is that the welfare laws created an economic incentive for single-parenthood. The destruction of the family unit has caused enormous damage, particularly to father-less males. I don't have the stats handy, but it would be interesting to superimpose a chart of the incarceration rate upon the poverty graph.

I don’t know as I would agree that no one prefers poverty. I have seen more than one person who falls into that group make the most obviously self-destructive decisions that keep them in that position, things like passing up job offers or skipping out on interviews. I am not so sure that there is not a new group of people who see a virtue in being in that situation. As the era of being reliant on self continues to pass I think we will see a lot more people place a virtue on the “poverty stricken” masses. It feeds directly into the entitlement due to need philosophy imo.

^^^ This.

Proof that it was never about ending poverty, just redistribution of wealth.