Poverty, Food Stamps, and Cultural Dogma

It's amazing the things that stick with you, forever burnt into your mind's hard drive. They serve as a humble reminder to continue to simply expose yourself to as much as possible. i have all these life changing bits of information that have stuck with me from often the least likely of places. Places like an economics class taken decades ago.

i remember, with incredible clarity, the day my economics teacher stated that the ideal unemployment rate was 4%. i was drawing in my notebook as i took notes and was totally snapped to attention by my idealist-senses (not unlike Spidey-senses but with stories of MLK and Ceasar Chavez instead of a radioactive spider bite). Why not 0%? Why can't everyone have a job? Why not aim for that? Why aim for 4%?

Working multiple jobs while in school, banking 2/3 of my income to pay for college so that i could get away from my parents and the shit town i grew up in, i just couldn't quite place this information. Even with a very patient and intelligent teacher, i still think it took some more life experience to truly get me to the point of comprehending this statistic better. i had to think beyond cultural ideas i was raised with, i had to think beyond my own sense of right and wrong concepts, and i had to think beyond the class that i was born into and living in.

There are a great many reasons for this 4% number.  It includes things like people being in transition, people not having the skills for available jobs, and some people just being unable to work for a multitude of reason from intelligence levels to health reasons (physical and mental) to just some people refusing to work - to touch on a very few reasons (you could take a whole class on all the information and causes behind the 4%).

For political purposes there is a strong motivation to use this as a divisive tactic to keep the voting bases oppositional and distracted from much larger issues. People typically get divided into two cultural segments: the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" and the "care for your brother" camps. In order to get us all looking at the issue more factually and pragmatically i feel the need to dismantle the thinking within both these camps so that you all can just be mad at me instead of each other and finally, maybe, get beyond cultural thought training.

First the "bootstrap" believers.  Hard day's work for a hard day's wage is a concept interwoven into the fabric of culture to keep people doing their jobs and working no matter what. There's a reason almost every religion includes the concept of PRIDE as one of their sins. It's a powerful emotion and can be used to powerful ends. i've worked hard my whole life. i will continue to work hard my whole life. But i hold no delusions about that being something i deserve respect over. This PRIDE of "I provide for my family", "I get the job done", "I get my hands dirty" is just a construct to keep people doing their jobs and doing what they're told. A fool and his pride.  The reality is that we are all born into a class, and all but an incredibly infinitesimal number of people ever move out of that class, up or down. Much like with the lottery, that unrealistic hope keeps everyone playing along.

Next the "caretakers".  It's much easier to work on other people's problems than our own. Taking care of others is a great way to make yourself feel better (and unfortunately sometimes feel like you're better than others). Again, to reference religion (although it is one of the most significant players in cultures around the world) this idea of "doing unto others" and "tending to your brother" is found in most religions. These concepts help people feel better about themselves and helps to take care of social issues, a social 2-for which is why it has become such a successfully adopted part of society across our little rock floating through space. Again a means of keeping everyone doing what is deemed "needs to be done".

But what if you move beyond these cultural teachings, whichever you subscribe to? What if instead of handing Bibles, insults, or the change from your car's cup holder to that person in the road's median holding up a cardboard sign we looked more largely at that 4%? No emotion, no feelings, just numbers and logic. i realize it may seen cold and even seem like i'm asking you to not look at them as people but instead i'm trying to show you that if we play it by the numbers we actually will treat them more like people.

We pay taxes. Go ahead, go off on your rant... i'll just wait right here for you to return when you're done... OK.... done? Welcome back. Yes, we pay taxes. Approximately 4% of what you pay goes to "Food and Nutrition Assistance".  As a bit of a frame of reference around 9% goes to paying interest on our debt and about 24% goes to "National Defense" (which does not include Veteran's Benefits). We pay taxes so that we have money as a country to help stabilize our society. Sure we can argue forever about how much should go to what and who should be paying how much, but for now just appreciate the actual functional purpose of why taxes exist.

Again, continue to maintain your suspension of feelings, emotions, and beliefs and continue on with this thought experiment. If we know that no matter what, we'll have about 4% of the population without work, no matter what we do - what if we just agreed to keep them fed and under shelter? Maybe not their own apartments and stocked kitchens but enough to make sure they had the calories to be healthy and protection from the elements. Without hypothesizing the effect it would have on them or even their personal futures, what effect would that have on our society?

If there was a low level safety net of nutrition, what would that do to our crime rates? Our jails? Our hospitals? What if there is a low level safety net of shelter? Again, how would that impact our health institutions? How would that effect our crime rates? Our jails? Our public spaces? Our overall sense of security?

We know that there is a percentage of people who will not be employed. We know we have taxes to work as funds for stabilizing our society. From a non-judgmental nor moral point of view, doesn't it seem logical to invest in the most basic of resources for these individuals if not for their own benefit for that of our society? As the richest country in the world, for a small investment we could (if even only for selfish reasons) enter into a new level of society free from some of our most limiting factors.

It would be far less risky an investment than many other things our nation has done, and the only down side is maybe you took take of some people for a period of time.