Someone choosing to be on welfare when they can handle themselves should be ashamed.
This sort of rhetoric needs to stop as well. Public funding of someone's basic needs of food and shelter isn't a lifestyle.
And anyway, a person receiving such funds probably paid for it already in taxes - usually, they're just taking out a bit from what they've already contributed to.
I’ve stayed in one of these low income housing communities in the outskirts of Zurich. These were Italian immigrants that had trouble finding a job. The wife couldn’t speak German and had no education. Decided to fuck it and go along with raising kids anyways.
If this is not lifestyle, I don’t know what is.
Though sadly, as your comment demonstrates, it's a form of labour that is very often undervalued.
Seems like a very different situation, as Somalia is still recovering from civil war and genocide, and due to this, much of the economic support for its people is being provided by Somali diaspora around the world who send funds back home. Productivity potentially being squandered is the least of their problems really.
It sounds like a big chunk of a lifestyle, something like 30% of my lifestyle is food and shelter. What do you want to call it?
And that isn't really germane to the debate. If someone is relying on the government for basic food and shelter they aren't going to be able to hold a candle to someone who is economically independent. One of those two is just more important and respectable than the other.
> usually, they're just taking out a bit from what they've already contributed to
If you see taxes as some sort of savings program then fair enough, but then would you have objections if people like me opt out of paying into that part? Because I reckon I could set up an insurance program that would cost a fraction as much. Pretty sure I'm paying for a lot of people who haven't contributed as much as they are taking out (and I'm pretty sure most people think that is the point).
Relying on an employer for food and shelter makes one no more economically independent than reliance on a government. Unless you're wealthy, you're left begging to one system or another.
But on closer examination, there seem to be plenty of people who rely on the government for their lifestyle, have higher status than most people, yet do not contribute. There's a huge number of boondoggles that "employ" hordes of people who pretend to do useful things.
To me this is a bigger problem than your usual chronically unemployed person, because mom and pop have already spent plenty of time warning the kids against this situation. People who end up there are probably not there voluntarily, and it doesn't offend my notion of fairness as much as the above group.
The people who don't contribute to the country and have a lifestyle to speak of have, in fact, a higher status because they're rich as hell and often pay less taxes than the average person.
You don't want people living on welfare? Give them better alternatives. And no, minimum wage that effectively pays less than being unemployed is not what I mean.