Trump Leadership: If You Want Welfare and Can Work, You Must

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/opinion/trump-welfare-medicaid-requirements.html

7•mitchbob•8mo ago

Comments

mitchbob•8mo ago

techpineapple•8mo ago

I actually have to say I don't entirely understand the underlying facts on this issue. I'm not against the idea, but like all policies they are blunt instruments. Is there a real problem that has to be solved here, or will too many needy folks get caught up in the beurocracy? Do these jobs even exist?

toomuchtodo•8mo ago

It’s to create indentured servants for the capital class, due to structural labor shortages that will persist into the future due to compressing working age populations and a rapidly falling total fertility rate. Reducing social service spending also reduces federal expenditures that can lead to a reduction in federal income tax demand from the wealthy (this makes room for wealthy tax cuts). Roughly speaking, the top 40% of income earners have a federal tax liability and the bottom 60% don’t.

Where do profits and growth come from? Workers, in the aggregate.

https://usafacts.org/government-spending/

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/dependency-and-dep...

https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/spring/summer-2018/demogra...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-born-per-woman

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

mitchbob•8mo ago

Structural unemployment is real and built into the USA's economic system. Controlling inflation is a higher priority than full employment. There are more people than jobs, and advances in automation, AI, and robotics will only make this worse. We need a plan that recognizes this and that provides the essentials of life for those who no longer have a place in the economy.

MentatOnMelange•8mo ago

My issue with this is its essentially public subsidies for businesses. I don't want my tax dollars going towards programs that allow employers to pay such low wages people need government help. See things like walmart having food drives asking employees to donate their own food/money to eachother, because they aren't being paid enough to be food secure.

A lot of people with disabilities are on the lowest rung of the ladder in terms of opportunities. Some businesses are livid they can't ignore employee well-being by relying on fear of death, homelessness or starvation to keep people in line.

Bottom line is if people can be gainfully employed but still need to rely on government, that isn't a problem with the programs or the policy. Its a problem with our economic system.

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