"Rich voters continue to trend Republican, rich states trend Democratic."

[Xiahou]

I don't really understand. Are you saying that the GOP are the champions of the working class?

One of their better arguments is that you should be able to work hard and get ahead- that resonates with many working class voters. In my office you regularly hear people grumbling about how they should quit their jobs and just go on welfare, or how their unemployed neighbor has everything they do without having to work, ect.

[Ironside]

One of their better arguments is that you should be able to work hard and get ahead- that resonates with many working class voters. In my office you regularly hear people grumbling about how they should quit their jobs and just go on welfare, or how their unemployed neighbor has everything they do without having to work, ect.

The American dream gives another perspective perhaps? The reason social democracy got the worker support is the realisation that the deck is stacked. The welfare neightbour is disliked, but he's worth it if he's the price of restacking the deck.

Personally I've found "the slave and the president" (or Daifugō since by some reason it never got an English name) to be an excellent illustration of the stacked deck in society. The distrinct rule is that the loser(s) (slave) of the last round gives their best card(s) to the winner(s) (president) while getting the worst in return. After that you play normally. So the odds of going from last place to the first in one round is possible, but in practice it's very hard to move more than 1-2 places in any direction. View one round as a generation and you'll see the establishment of an upper class (the winners) and a lover class (the losers) that's quite rigid.

So no matter how good player you are, that biased card trade will entrench you towards you current position.

[Fisherking]

I don’t see an American Political Party that represents the interests of the people, particularly the working class.

Both try, at least to an extent, of presenting them selves as such but they always do what is mainly in the interest of corporations. Even when they throw the people a bone, there are corporate benefits involved.

[Papewaio]

The American dream gives another perspective perhaps? The reason social democracy got the worker support is the realisation that the deck is stacked. The welfare neightbour is disliked, but he's worth it if he's the price of restacking the deck.

Personally I've found "the slave and the president" (or Daifugō since by some reason it never got an English name) to be an excellent illustration of the stacked deck in society. The distrinct rule is that the loser(s) (slave) of the last round gives their best card(s) to the winner(s) (president) while getting the worst in return. After that you play normally. So the odds of going from last place to the first in one round is possible, but in practice it's very hard to move more than 1-2 places in any direction. View one round as a generation and you'll see the establishment of an upper class (the winners) and a lover class (the losers) that's quite rigid.

So no matter how good player you are, that biased card trade will entrench you towards you current position.

There is an English, at least an Aussie name. Presidents and Arseholes.

[Noncommunist]

Someone who's never been on welfare would say that. Smart people like you should be given ten lashes every time you suggest that people on welfare have it easier.

Probably depends on which workers welfare check receivers are being compared to. Obviously, they're doing far more poorly compared to most. However, they might be better off materially compared to someone making minimum wage for a lot less effort. Somewhat analogously, I know a mother on disability that has discouraged her daughter from working because the money the daughter would bring in is too little to make up for the loss in disability money. In the short term, that thinking seems to make sense but in the long run, the gap in the resume and years of lost experience seem like a bad idea.

[Husar]

If people on welfare make more than people with jobs, then the problem are usually those with jobs who make less.
You cannot trust everyone to accept a job because that's economically feasible, not everyone is a homo oeconomicus.

I've heard of people who wanted to accept a job far away, gardening for 3€ an hour, even though the cost of driving there and back would've been more than the wage...
Some people accept horrible jobs just to escape the stigma of being unemployed and so on. To say that welfare is too much just because some people who don't calculate earn even less is not a solid argument in the real world.
It's just too concenient that some are even forced to accept such jobs to lower the unemployment statistics. I think here you still get the difference between your wage and welfare as welfare though to ensure you have the minimum living standard, which is whatever you get as welfare.

[Lemur]

In my office you regularly hear people grumbling about how they should quit their jobs and just go on welfare, or how their unemployed neighbor has everything they do without having to work, ect.

There are four possible explanations for this phenomenon:

1. Your co-workers don't actually know anyone on welfare. (The one person I know taking public assistance is poorer than poor, and has a hell of a time meeting her minimum rent and food budget for the month.)
2. Your co-workers all happen to know outstanding scammers. Unlikely. Also, if you have a criminal bent of mind, there are far more lucrative scams than disability and/or welfare.
3. Your co-workers listen to a lot of rightwing AM radio and/or subscribe to Glenn Beck. In which case empirical reality is a non-issue.
4. Last and least likely, Pennsylvannia may be the only state in the Union that hands out a middle class income to people on welfare. Pretty sure this is not true.

[Goofball]

To further Lemur's point, here is my welfare story that I have direct experience with: I have a family member who is currently on social assistance (what Canadians call welfare). She is on social assistance because she is elderly and has severe health problems, so she is unable to work. She is not quite old enough yet to start receiving her Canada Pension Plan (I think you call it Social Security in the US) benefits yet. She receives $650/month from social assistance, which is the maximum payable to a single (no dependents) person in my province. Her rent is $800/month, and it is a pretty shitty apartment. I and some other family members have been giving her money every month so she can pay her rent and feed herself. We have to give her the money in cash, because our system considers family help to be "income" and if they knew she was getting it they would claw back her social assistance payments dollar for dollar based on the amount we were giving her. She has been receiving social assistance for a little over one year now, and has been audited twice by social workers, who forced her to provide her bank statements to see if she was receiving any other income. So, Xiahou, if you have coworkers who think they would be better off on welfare, believe me: you can safely tell them that they don't know what the hell they are talking about.

[Rhyfelwyr]

From my experience (family members, and though past employment) I've seen a fair bit of how the welfare system works and how people live off it. It is true that some people 'play the system', and can live relatively comfortably on benefits. But these are a minority. Not a tiny minority, but a pretty small one. Once you are settled and have secured decent accomodation, you can do OK on benefits. But not everybody will get that - those who do are mostly families. But even that is no guarantee.

And for most people, living on benefits is extremely tough - especially for the young and single. It is nigh on impossible to get accomodation beyond emergency measures, and you simply don't get enough to live on. Chances are you will have to rely on food banks and the like.