Alternately, we could just stop paying people to sit around being lazy. Here in India people fill these jobs and earn far less than what most western activists consider a "living wage".
Why do you believe that the non-working Trump voters should be able to mooch off of the rest of society? Why do you believe social obligations go only one way?
I've honestly never understood why government believes they should make it illegal to pay someone a mutually-agreed-upon wage, or why anything thinks doing so is a good thing.
However, the subsidies are to the worker, not the company. To see this, imagine a hypothetical world without the subsidies, and try to figure out if the employer would be richer or poorer. (Hint: richer, since they don't need to compete with the "stay home and watch TV while collecting welfare" option.)
Better to let the government pay the full $X, rather than keeping companies around that only succeed because they depend on the government to keep their employees alive. And think of a company like WalMart—by paying its employees very little, and depending on the government to take over things it doesn't want to pay for (like security, leaving it to the police instead, at enormous cost to them, but no cost to WalMart), they can undercut other companies that cost the government far less, leaving the whole economy less healthy.
> However, the subsidies are to the worker, not the company
The subsidies are to the worker, yes. GP was asking why the government has any say in a business relationship between a worker and a company, and the answer is: because they're involved as well, through the need to subsidize whatever the company doesn't pay. They're automatically part of the equation, and thus have a say in what the worker & company can settle for.
> To see this, imagine a hypothetical world without the subsidies, and try to figure out if the employer would be richer or poorer. (Hint: richer, since they don't need to compete with the "stay home and watch TV while collecting welfare" option.)
You mean, if companies were unable to pay less than a living wage? They would have to pay the worker more money, so they would be poorer. However, since all companies were paying more, everyone would probably do better in the end.
Or do you mean, if they could pay people as little as they wanted? They'd be richer, but less and less money would end up moving around in the economy, and everything would slowly grind to a halt. And lots of people would starve.
How is wasting more money and having less productive output better?
Or do you mean, if they could pay people as little as they wanted?
Of course. In this world, companies don't need to compete with the "stay home and watch TV and get free money" option, so they can pay less. Your "subsidy" is actually directly harmful to the people you claim it benefits.
...keep their employees alive....They'd be richer, but less and less money would end up mving around in the economy, and everything would slowly grind to a halt. And lots of people would starve.
Yet somehow I'm surrounded by about 1 billion living people with a GDP growth rate double that of the United States. Your theory doesn't fit any of the facts.
So if companies can pay people less, that will then lead them to... pay people more?
> Yet somehow I'm surrounded by about 1 billion living people with a GDP growth rate double that of the United States.
When your per capita GDP catches up to the US's, tell me again about your growth rate.
That's nice. I prefer living in a first world country with a first world economy, myself.
"Why do you believe that the non-working Trump voters should be able to mooch off of the rest of society?"
Do you have any evidence that "Trump voters" are more likely to be on welfare than non-Trump voters? I will be quite surprised if you do (in fact, I'll be shocked).
80% of those in public housing are Democrats. 74% of those receiving Medicaid are Democrats. 67% of those receiving food stamps are Democrats.
"Trump voters"? Really?
I think skewing 80% Democrat is more than enough to show that the OP's characterization of welfare recipients as "Trump voters" is ridiculous.
From the raw data, 4.95% of democrats are on welfare compared to 3.48% of republicans (Total number of people on welfare in the poll is 54, so the margin of error is large).
You get the 65% number only if you don't account for the fact that there are more democrats in the poll (almost twice as many). The same goes for the 22% republican number in appendix.
This is propaganda.
Why do you think caring for the elderly, providing child care to working women and making Ubers more available would make the economy third world?
Do you believe India would suddenly become more prosperous if people refused to work? Will people sitting at home watching TV somehow build toilets for everyone?
I don't. I think expecting people to do those things in exchange for a crust of bread and pile of straw to sleep on makes an economy third world.