Most of America’s rich think the poor have it easy | Hacker News Reader

Most of America’s rich think the poor have it easy

washingtonpost.com

32 pointssmacktoward38 comments

I think the article presents a false scenario. Leaving aside the notorious ease with which some of these "polls" manipulate results by virtue of changing the wording of the questions.

I mean, if you really ask yourself what does it mean: "Do you think the poor have it easy?" It's vague, and already has a pre-implied bias associated with it. There's no "yes, but". There's "no" and there's "yes, I'm a selfish rich bastard because my privilege blinds me of the plight of the poor" (if you believe the tone of the article". Most people when answering yes probably do so because they have "some" notion or reason that the poor have it easy in some way. Perhaps they simply believe that the poor should work for the benefits, etc. It all get's clumped under "yes" in their mind, but the interpreter and subsequent reporter blows it out of proportion.

What, I personally believe, it boils down to is that the "rich" are not comparing the poors' situation to their own. They're mostly comparing it to the hypothetical situation of the poor having to work hard (I assume via manual labor) to be comfortable or the receive the benefits mentioned.

It seems very difficult for one group to empathize with a less fortunate or more marginalized group. Whether it's rich vs poor, white people vs non-white, men vs women, each thinks the others "don't have it that bad," or at least not as bad as they claim. As a straight guy, I found this chart quite jarring: http://cdn.okcimg.com/blog/mofo_mysteries/Suicide-Three.png (from the end of http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/mofo-and-other-mysteries/ ); I just cannot contemplate how isolating and anguish-inducing having an atypical sexual orientation is. To feel badly for marginalized groups is a tacit admission of privilege and unfairness in the world, which makes us feel bad about ourselves.

It seems very difficult for some people to empathize and understand that certain other groups have different ideals and different definitions of "fairness". Once you realize that, then you'll realize why these things occur, and why some perceive others as not empathizing to the supposed plight of others.

E.g. The big differing views on "fairness" are: One side believes that fairness is determined by end-results, others that it is determined by fairness of opportunity (irrespective of end-results). If you're so inclined (to judge and examine your own ideas), then I'd recommend this hefty book to you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Conflict_of_Visions

This is on my mind a lot. While I have no illusions that I am good at empathizing with those in 'other' groups, I do think my particular upbringing has shown me up close how different groups can be (whether on a country-level or crazy-religious-subgroup-level). And I feel it made me a better, more empathic person as a result.

I've also participated in initiatives that would bring together opposing groups. The primary approach would be talking about the differences or inter-group problems, but the biggest effect came from simply spending a lot of time together doing 'normal' things. And while the effects were not as amazing as one would hope, they seemed to be significant in helping these two groups get along.

I can't help but wonder if this is perhaps the best approach to encourage different groups in society to work together or support each other: get rich (young) people to spend significant periods of time with poor people, and vice versa. Get people from different nationalities to truly experience, over a longer period of time, each other's cultures and lifestyles.

But perhaps this is already very common, or perhaps most people are just not interested in such a thing.

Hmm. If you think women are less fortunate and more marginalized than men, and you think suicide charts are valid evidence about such things in general, then maybe you should look at a men vs women suicide chart. Men kill themselves 3x-10x more than women. Privilege is not one dimensional.

Part of why I find HN so refreshing is that the majority of people here, while probably having above average wealth, also seem to have above average empathy. One example is stories about basic income; they tend to get a generally positive reception, even though a basic income would not be likely to benefit most HN contributors. Similarly, the (largely male) community seems to be very much behind making the tech sector more welcoming to women. Those are just a couple of examples of many.

What would you say would happen to a budding startup if the founder or key-members acted and felt opposite to the way you describe most HN contributors as being?

Is there even a word for a virtual lynch-mob and subsequent media trial? These are very delicate topics, and individuals that are ambitious can not afford to misstep in that regard.

Of course, you could be right, and these individuals are simply unusually kind compared to how kind (or not) we perceive the general public to be.

A couple years ago, I was complaining about how I don't do feelings or nice gestures because they're "fake"; it felt dishonest to do things just to make other people feel better so they'd have a higher opinion of me.

One of my friends replied with a story about a contractor that he occasionally did business with. The contractor had sent him a nice brief note wishing him a happy birthday (or some other special occasion; my memory is hazy). My friend's first thought was "Oh, wow, that was nice of him to remember." His second thought was "Wait, he probably has a calendar with the birthdates of all of his clients on it and software to send out a form letter on their birthday. He wants our business, after all." His third thought was "Well, it was nice of him to setup that software."

As separate, individual human beings without the luxury of mind-reading, we can't actually know why anyone does something. That's why people usually judge themselves by their intentions, but they judge others by their actions. If your actions demonstrate empathy to other people, is that any different from actually having that empathy?

(As a side note, this is one reason why market economies are so fascinating. It's a system built on the assumption that everyone is naturally self-interested and doesn't care about others that nevertheless manages to make its participants - even the most selfish and sociopathic of them - act in ways that benefit others.)

Actually basic income will benefit HN visitors. And everyone else. What you earn at your job is on top of the basic income. Or even better - basic consumption allowance.

Also we are engineers - we love to solve problems and try to not moralize much the solutions. We approach a time in which laborless production of material goods will be solved problem, so we need basic demand for the economy to chug along.

I agree with that reasoning, but I would word it differently. The economy would probably chug along regardless. The 1% of rich folks would happily colonize the solar system with nanomachines or whatever. The big problem is what happens to the other 99% who only have their labor to sell, if machines depress the price of labor below the minimal cost of sustaining a human body. That's why we need basic income.

People might also get psychological problems due to being idle and irrelevant, I have no idea how to solve those.

And in the long run, we need Friendly AI anyway :-)

One problem I have with the basic income whenever I see it mentioned, or discussed in the context you noted. It's always phrased as "we need basic income because bad scenario X will happen". It's never phrased as "if scenario X ever happens, we will have to institute basic income".

The reason I think the distinction is important is because such proponents are yet to conclusively prove/argue that scenario X will ever happen. And as I don't believe such a scenario will happen anywhere remotely in our lifetimes, we can't and shouldn't use such a wild hypothetical as a valid reason for a huge program. To use it as a reason, and claim it as valid, would be quite disingenuous.

Granted, you do phrase it as "[...]what happens[...]if[...]. That's why we need basic income." But you're yet to prove conclusively that the "if" will ever happen.

To be fair, many people think that technological unemployment is already happening, so basic income would be a good idea even today. Many others disagree and call it the "luddite fallacy".

Personally, I think technological unemployment is not a fallacy and we'll see much more of it in our lifetimes. For example, self-driving cars might put a 50-year-old truck driver out of a job. What would you advise him to do, retrain as a neurosurgeon? What if by the time he's finished retraining, neurosurgery is also automated? Even if theoretically there was an endless supply of jobs for humans, the job market always takes nonzero time to react. When technological change becomes quicker than that, we're in trouble.

I tend to agree that it would indirectly benefit everyone, but I expect that even with cost savings, tax increases would be required such that those in the highest tax brackets would see a reduction in net income. Of course tthat's just a guess.

This really hits on the main point I was trying for though: "we love to solve problems and try to not moralize much the solutions"

No. We print money and create steady 1-2% inflation (which we sorely need now anyway)

Once upon a time, HN was "Startup News" and most folks here dreamed of making their own startups. Basic income would be a huge benefit to such folks, because it would make failure much less frightening. "The welfare state is the Randian's secret dream" ;-)

I come from a family of 4 that had a combined gross income of about $45k, if that. We never had Government assistance. I saw my Father struggling at times, but it worked out great. He made it happen.

When I left the "comfort" ($26k/yr) of the military, I went from being in what was considered by the Navy as a "Highly advanced electronics technical field" to being unemployed. That was scary. I couldn't find a job. I was eligible for unemployment benefits for up to 24 months!!! I netted $800 every 2 weeks.

I quickly got a job as an Office Manager for a business my Father worked for making $17/hr which was a very high wage for the area. A friend of mine boasted at the time about how his Father was now making $23/hr with 20 years in a certain company (for relation purposes). My weekly take home was about $100 more than unemployment. Essentially, at that point I worked my ass off for $100 a week, at what was considered a fairly high wage.

There are less than 50 jobs in the area that pay $20 or above, and individuals sitting on their ass are getting paid $17/hr. There is no motivation to get a job. That is a problem that adds to the deficit, and needs to be fixed!

Unemployment is not welfare, it is insurance. Your employer, including the military, pays into a pool. People who lose their jobs are entitled to draw from that pool. As you realized, the payments from that pool end after a certain period of time. Finally, benefits and that length of time vary wildly by state. For example, Texas unemployment insurance pays a maximum of $465 per week for a maximum of 52 weeks. The "motivation to get a job" is that benefits will end after a certain time and that time is almost never able to be extended.

After unemployment benefits end, you are at the mercy of whatever local social services exist for you. In virtually all cases, as a result of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, if you are not totally disabled you must be doing something defined as "work," be it looking for work, going to school, or volunteering at an assigned location. That only lasts for so long, provided you are not disabled. At some point, usually between 6 and 9 months, benefits for people who are looking for work and who don't qualify for unemployment end.

Then there is what is known as the benefits cliff. Almost all benefit programs have a bright line limit between "qualified" and "not qualified." It is some multiple of the federal poverty line based on household size. If a person or household earns even $1 more than that line, benefits are stopped on that date, even if that is a net loss for the person. A common example: A single parent can receive a $400 child care subsidy provided total household income is less than $19,000 per year. The parent makes $18,500 per year ($9.25/hour) and can pay for rent, food, and transportation out of the rest, but the child care subsidy is a definite need. If the parent works full time and receives a raise of $0.25 per hour, or $500 per year, the child care benefit is immediately forfeit, resulting in a new net expense of $4,300 to the parent. What incentive is there to then take the raise and for the parent to work to improve?

> Unemployment is not welfare, it is insurance.

isn't that true of all welfare programs (i.e. healthcare, pension, disability)? (I might be struggling among a cultural gap between US and europe)

In the US, you are only eligible for unemployment if you had a job for a prolonged period before collecting it. Thus people who are permanently not working are not eligible for unemployment. A student, for example, who has just graduated and never held a job CANNOT receive unemployment. It is intended to be a temporary benefit to compensate for losing a job so you can survive until you find your next job. Furthermore, generally your unemployment payments are proportional to the income you received from your job - the more highly paid your job was, the higher the unemployment payment (since the unemployment insurance tax would also have been proportionally higher).

Welfare is different. Welfare is considered an entitlement - you do not ever have to work to receive it. Americans justify unemployment insurance as "not being lazy" because the people who receive it had at some point held a job.

Minor nit: Welfare isn't an entitlement, it's a "benefit." Entitlements are programs paid for through taxes--like Social Security and Medicare--with the expectation that they'll eventually be paid back to the taxpayer. That's why phrases like "entitlement reform" mean cuts or changes to Social Security and the old-age medical system.

In the United States, it's not the same.

Social welfare programs here are paid out of general budget allocations. This is for things like food stamps, disability payments (one exception, dealt with in a moment), housing assistance, Medicaid, and similar.

Unemployment payouts, Social Security ("Old age pension"), Social Security Disability, and Medicare are paid for through dedicated taxes and charges on employers (in the case of unemployment). That's why we usually call them insurance or entitlements. Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, is paid as part of Social Security itself.

"Unemployment payouts, Social Security ("Old age pension"), Social Security Disability, and Medicare are paid for through dedicated taxes and charges on employers (in the case of unemployment). That's why we usually call them insurance or entitlements. Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, is paid as part of Social Security itself."

And are you able to choose not to pay into such a scheme? If not, then it might as well be a plain tax that happens to be labelled as separate.

I would distinguish insurance vs. welfare by whether you can collect them without having paid into them first. That would make Social Security, SSDI and unemployment insurance programs while food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid are welfare programs. Whether they are paid with a special tax or from the general fund is orthogonal to whether they are insurance or welfare.

> individuals sitting on their ass are getting paid $17/hr. There is no motivation to get a job.

The legal maximum is around 60% of your average weekly wage over the last year you worked. Whatever someone is getting in unemployment, they were making 66% more at their last job. That seems like enough motivation.

I suspect your numbers are skewed because you didn't subtract federal taxes from your unemployment check or add SS and Medicare to your wages. Once you take that into account, the difference is more like $210.

Yep. I had to draw unemployment years ago. It sucked. I was young and relatively inexperienced and my employer had to lay off a bunch of us. The area I was living in at the time was very affordable but only because there were very few jobs and the local economy was terrible.

While barely enough to cover rent and expenses in the meantime (along with help from a very generous friend who let me couch-surf temporarily) I somehow managed to move out of the area and drag my dying car to a different town where prospects were a bit better. Eventually was able to put myself back into college and work my way into a more productive career in a larger city.

If not for unemployment insurance I would have been stuck in that original crap town with no reliable transportation, no real prospects, and no real way out. It sucked living on such a massive pay cut when I needed to be making even more than usual to fund the relocation and continued education but it was the only thing that made it possible.

On some level I think that experience is what made me more supportive of similar social programs because even with their inefficiencies and some percentage of people who may abuse them, for most people, they can be the only thing that even gives them a chance at working their way back to productivity.

Would you say that now that you've had that "experience" you're more aware of what can go wrong? i.e. You lose your job and suddenly there is not enough money for basics, etc.

Following from that... What would your take-home lesson (and subsequent action) be from that experience if there were no social programs? Assume for the sake of argument that the system of government in place would not allow them to exist at all.

Sorry if the tone is a little condescending, it's not intended as such.

This is one reason I approve of Basic Income - rather than withdrawing all benefits when someone gets a job, the earnings come _on top of_ the basic income, albeit with higher taxes.

This effectively gives you a taper rate on the benefits of, say, 40%. Rather than the 100% cliff we currently have.

I once had a conversation with someone who described themselves as "rich." They claimed the poor had it easy. I asked him: "If the poor have it so easy, would you switch places?"

There was silence.

Do the poor not have to pay for things that the rich have to pay for? Yes. Is their life ultimately easier as a result? I don't think so. Coming from a poor background and now having experience with the average software engineer's salary, I'd rather have the latter, 100%.

Your question seems to me to be a false equivalence. The word "easy" is perceived as coming from this: A "rich" person sees him or herself as putting a lot into the economic system and, therefore, receiving much from it but he or she also sees a "poor" person as putting very little into the economic system yet still receiving an amount sufficient for survival and some luxuries from it (and, since social welfare is paid for through taxes, also reducing the amount that the "rich" person receive back from his or her economic input).

In other words, "those people have food, a refrigerator, a car and an iPhone, how bad can it really be?"

"Poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without doing anything in return" vs "Poor people today have hard lives because government benefits don't go far enough to help them live decently".

If you focus on the latter part of the sentences, I can see how it's easy to be a bit confused about which is the correct answer.

It bothers me that the entire premise of this poll seems to be that someone ought to be able to live comfortably on government benefits. Living at somebody else's expense* should be uncomfortable.

* Note - in the case of private charities, where the funds to provide benefits are not collected by force/with threat of imprisonment, I'm perfectly OK with providing higher levels of support.

"Living at somebody else's expense* should be uncomfortable"

Better stop automating things than.

I think that the proliferation of the service industry is a natural response to (and possibly a solution to) the increased automation of manual labor. If I thought it were possible I'd say that the solution was for an increase in knowledge workers (since the automated factories still need them), but many people do not want and/or can't do that type of work.

>"Better stop automating things than."

Well, then stop preferring cheaper products/services.

>"a bit confused about which is the correct answer."

Correct answer to what question? I'm a bit confused as to what you're trying to say.

FTFY:

"Poor people today have it easy because they can get government benefits without having the possiblities to do anything in return"

I can't help noticing their survey didn't include the option "Poor people have hard lives because government does TOO MUCH that harms them."

Licensing restrictions make it illegal for people with few resources to do many jobs they might otherwise enjoy, zoning laws make it illegal to work from home, minimum wage laws and employer mandates make it hard to get early job experience, price supports increase the price of food, building standards make it illegal to build cheap housing...

What does "most secure" and "least secure" mean? Without knowing this, this poll is meaningless.

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