OT. U.S. vs. the World. Dollarwise

Because the government provides much to the 'dirt poor'.

The old story goes a liberal was telling the story to some foreigners that some poor people in the US have to live in their cars and the answer was "poor people in the US have cars"? We basically define a certain percentile of people poor, no matter how well off they really are. That is how they set the poverty line. "Dirt poor" in the US is "middle class" in much of the world. That is why there were 15,000 Haitians crashing our border in Texas for the last weeks.

Treating the poor in the USA like s*it because they're better off than someone much poorer in the heart of Africa isn't a valid justification.

Giving them $50k a year for sitting home and watching TV is far from being treated like s*it. Even in the worst states, public assistance is $30k a year or so. More if you consider the subsidized health care and housing.

Some seem to do well living off the government. When you factor in they get free medical care, subsidized housing, "food stamps", and probably lots of other 'free'things.

You lost me. A valid justification for? There's a difference between a hand up and a hand out. Some people can't work because of physical or mental problems. We should help them out as much as practical. It seems others won't work. Life shouldn't be a cakewalk for them. There's dignity in earning an honest living. It doesn't matter at what. People who clean motel rooms and bathrooms at businesses are doing important work probably preventing a lot of disease, covid or not. A Chinese proverb comes to mind. It's something like this. "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him to fish, feed him for life". "There has never been but one question in all civilization-how to keep a few men from saying to many men: You work and earn bread and we will eat it" Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865) "A human being must have occupation if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world." Dorothy L. Sayers (1893 - 1957) The Lincoln and Sayers quotes are from.

I have no problem with helping the people that truely can not work.

What really gripes me is the ones that play the system.

I worked at a plant as an electrician and instrument person. Another worker in the same shop and with in a year of my age found out how to play the system. He was in the military during the Vietnam era. He never left the states. Somehow he convinced the VA hospital he had a mental problem that he worried too much about having to go to Vietnam.

He kept the job at the plant but got about 50 % disiability from the military. It was about 30 years after he got out of the military that he found out how to game the sysem.

I know of a few other people that seem to be able to do most anything a person of their age can do. They have found a way to play the system.

That has been updated. Give a man some information and he will ask for more. Teach him to use the internet and you may never be bothered again.

This current unemployment boondoggle was paying some people (like the black sheep niece of ours) $50k a year not to work in Md. Why even go looking for a job if you can make $25 an hour staying home?