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I kind of think that as a whole people have gotten more stupid, lazy and unskilled. instead of really trying to learn something, we are supposed to pick a narrow field and know everything there is to know about it, or as they call it: to "specialize". But realy this hinders people from knowing a wide scope of anything which is not a step in a good direction. And as far as skilled goes, I am starting to notice that there are more adults in school in persuit of degrees and certificates. Problem with this is that the college degree is about to become the new GED. As in it's about to be the norm for any kind of work that Americans would be willing to do. This trend is starting to show, everyone has to have some kind of furthered education of certificate to do anything worthwhile. And as far as lazy goes, compared to how things were done back in the day, even many of the hardest of today's workers have it easy. People think they work hard because they go to their call center job, or their thimble factory job all day every day; but could anyone here imagone plowing 100 acres by driving the plow behind a horse? Or building a house from raw lumber and material, having to make each cut with a hand saw? Even the hard workers of today are relitively lazy compared to what those before us had to do, so I'm not really all that sympathetic to all of today's "hard workers".
I will agree that many of the people on the dole probably are dumb, uneducated and lazy, but I think they are just the reflection of the trend. But I think that a lot of people are throwing in the towel on work because it's not even hardly worth it any more. Work used to stand for something and mean something, now it's just a streamlined system of how to get more crap. Jobs are a joke anymore; it's not even worth starting to climb the ladder. And finally, I think that there are those who see it as "why invest in a sinking ship?"
You make some good points here. I have often wondered why parents have a party for their child's high school graduation, because in this day and age , that means NOTHING.
Any way you shake it, there are always going to be people who are willing to try harder, work harder, be smarter, be more disciplined, etc. These people will tend to make more money.
So there will always be a poorer subset of people, as well. It's all relative. We just keep raising the bar on what it means to be poor. The lifestyle of the poor in the U.S. is considered middle class in a lot of countries...
Someone who works in social services is likely to see a particular subset of poor people, including mental illness, substance abuse, disability, anything involving the social worker/services system.
The working poor or those who fall off the edge from layoffs, illness, misfortune- they aren't as likely to be seen by a social services worker.
That said, I work in mental health. I have no issue with people with disabling mental illnesses being on disability, but it does seem there are a lot of people on disability for life, starting young, for substance abuse or a go-round of depression. And that's for life- there doesn't seem to be much of a reassessment process. I think all of us know people who have a terrible injury or illness who cannot get SSDI no matter what.
Any way you shake it, there are always going to be people who are willing to try harder, work harder, be smarter, be more disciplined, etc. These people will tend to make more money.
So there will always be a poorer subset of people, as well. It's all relative. We just keep raising the bar on what it means to be poor. The lifestyle of the poor in the U.S. is considered middle class in a lot of countries...
Even the homeless poor? Who have trouble GETTING services because they don't have a physical address?
Even the homeless poor? Who have trouble GETTING services because they don't have a physical address?
TKramer, have you ever heard of someone who is homeless, poor, actually working their way out of being poor, and homeless and worked hard enough to see their entire life change?
Some friends were over at the house the other day and we were talking about the underclass (poor people). One of them works for social services and has got harsher in her tone about the disadvantaged as she has experienced more of the so called real people. She says, "it almost makes you want to vote republican"
The general feeling of our group was that 90% of the underclass (poor people) are a combination of lazy, stupid or unskilled. It was mostly their fault not society or business (employers). 20-30 years ago one could be a lazy uneducated person and do alright because there were plenty of jobs for everyone in manufacturing and strong unions, today, if you have no skills you will be poor forever. Agree?
I don't think there has ever been a time when lazy, uneducated people could do alright. Uneducated, YES. Lazy, NO.
Lazy falls right underneath drugs and alcohol for ruining lives.
Also keep in mind that uneducated and stupid are 2 totally different things. An uneducated person isn't nescesarilly stupid and a stupid person isn't nescesarilly uneducated.
Look at politics. Some of the stupidist things ever done come from some of the most educated people in the country.
Someone who works in social services is likely to see a particular subset of poor people, including mental illness, substance abuse, disability, anything involving the social worker/services system.
The working poor or those who fall off the edge from layoffs, illness, misfortune- they aren't as likely to be seen by a social services worker.
That said, I work in mental health. I have no issue with people with disabling mental illnesses being on disability, but it does seem there are a lot of people on disability for life, starting young, for substance abuse or a go-round of depression. And that's for life- there doesn't seem to be much of a reassessment process. I think all of us know people who have a terrible injury or illness who cannot get SSDI no matter what.
My hats off to you for working in the field you do.
I totally agree that most of the working poor and those that fall off from layoffs...etc....will not be seen by a social worker. When my mother was alive she had lots of medical related problems toward the end of her life. It was a struggle to get any help at all for her. It would burn me up when we'd go to her appointments with a social worker and there were young people there that's only disability seemed to the 4 kids that were running crazy through the waiting room......
Some friends were over at the house the other day and we were talking about the underclass (poor people). One of them works for social services and has got harsher in her tone about the disadvantaged as she has experienced more of the so called real people. She says, "it almost makes you want to vote republican"
The general feeling of our group was that 90% of the underclass (poor people) are a combination of lazy, stupid or unskilled. It was mostly their fault not society or business (employers). 20-30 years ago one could be a lazy uneducated person and do alright because there were plenty of jobs for everyone in manufacturing and strong unions, today, if you have no skills you will be poor forever. Agree?
There are alot of reasons why people are Poor today in the U.S. Many are due to laziness, being uneducated, while more and more are poor and homeless because they lost thier job/home/money due to bad economic times and have nothing left . I generally feel sorry for the Poor and Homeless , but I often wonder how many of them have ended up that way because of irresponsibility and utter stupidity IE: Alchohol, drug, gambling addictions ...., blowing all their money on pleasure-seeking, feeling entitled by buying an exotic house on a shoestring salary , having more children because they WANT to...yet cant afford, and/or investing in get rich quick schemes out of greed. I know we have to take each case individually, but, Ill bet a good percentage fall into the illustrated example list above.
Even the homeless poor? Who have trouble GETTING services because they don't have a physical address?
Many (if not most) of the homeless poor have mental illness. These are not the able-bodied people we are generally talking about.
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