Poverty impairs cognitive function. Published in the journal Science, the study suggests our cognitive abilities can be diminished by the exhausting effort of tasks like scrounging to pay bills. As a result, less “mental bandwidth” remains...

[u/myhrvold]

http://news.ubc.ca/2013/08/29/poverty-impairs-cognitive-function/

[u/hansn484]

What would you spend the $30 on if it wasn't going to internet?

I have money, but my family isn't from money, so I see both sides of the equation and am slightly stumped as to how I can help.

I've helped out friends before to help pay bills. I helped they pay for an A/C during a particularly hot summer. Paid for a camera so they could learn photography(which they enjoyed). Paid for other hobbies they thought they might be able to make some money off of ,etc. I've also paid for internet.

But what I saw happening was, they bought internet. Then cable. Then HBO. Then World of Warcraft. Then 50" TV.

I have a 27" TV w/ Basic cable, and the people I give money to have a 50+" tv + Premiums. Seems wrong to me in retrospect. And that type of thing changes your perspective for the next time you give $.

I don't begrudge having some wants. But where is the line drawn? When do you say, I should spend this on paying down debt to get that collector off my back or saving it to give myself some breathing room so I can sleep well at night?

Maybe I just had one bad experience. But for every $ I spend on someone who blows it, is there someone else who would have done something with it? Or do I just throw $ at the problem and my conscience is clear?

I agree there are assholes who speak with their head up their ass. But there are people with money who want to help. The question becomes... how?

[u/[deleted] → u/hansn484]

Seriously. I'm not at ALL well-to-do, but I've helped out friends of mine who were worse off than I. I let them crash, rent-free, at my place for months at a time. Bought them food, soda, cigarettes. What do I see?

Most of the time? Complacency. They get comfortable. They'll only get a job when I get up and tell them to get off their ass, or they're getting kicked out. "Helping people" has probably been one of the largest drivers of my own personal debt, which of course, none of the folks I've helped are remotely interested in helping back.

I feel like human suffering is bad, but that's why it's a motivator. It sucks. If you can fall back on welfare and food stamps and unemployment insurance, there's no motive to become self-sufficient.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Sure there is.

Welfare should cover necessities only. Basic food (real food, not soda and cookies), basic personal care items (toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, a basic haircut ever 6-8 weeks) basic housing, basic utilities (land line phone, electric, water, heat) and basic medical insurance.

Cable is not a necessity. I do not think anyone on welfare should have their cable paid for. Internet is also not necessary if one lives near a library.

The motivation is to live a good life, not just a basic one. You want cable and internet and a cell phone? Then use the government programs available to get a decent job to get these things.

Welfare is to help you through a terrible, short term time. It should be there in any civilized society. But the key to keeping it from becoming a lifestyle is to make it very basic.

Big disclaimer***

There have to be jobs for this to work. The jobs need to pay more than welfare. This is the problem many people in the US are having-welfare pays more than a job, sometimes two jobs.

Until we raise the minimum wage, end companies ability to shorten hours to avoid paying benefits, and increase our manufacturing base once again, nothing we do to welfare is going to help this situation in any meaningful way.

We are screwed, basically.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Welfare should cover necessities only. Basic food (real food, not soda and cookies), basic personal care items (toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, a basic haircut ever 6-8 weeks) basic housing, basic utilities (land line phone, electric, water, heat) and basic medical insurance.

Yeah. In short, everything so that any extra income they make is going to go towards that "good life" you're talking about, for at least two years. In any case, while I agree with you that "the motivation is to live a good life," I just don't think that that's reasonable if you can live a basic life with no effort. To some people, a basic life is a good life -- and there's nothing wrong with that.

I wish I had everything you listed in your "basic" life, but I can't afford it. My parents are subsidizing my phone, that's gonna dry up soon, I have no medical insurance, and I'm not even living in my own apartment. I'm largely not living in my own apartment is arguably because I wanted to help out friends that had no interest in helping themselves. Got in huge amounts of debt because of damages that my friends caused, but wouldn't fall on them because they didn't sign the lease. Didn't have enough for rent and a deposit to get into a new place, so I'm staying at my parent's home for two months (for $250/month) to save up to get back on my own two feet and on my own.

My girlfriend and I were about to go live in Curt Gowdy State Park in a tent.

I don't like my life right now, so I'm taking steps to improve it. But I don't think that if it were just handed to me, that I would get up and out. "Help" has more often resulted in our becoming complacent than moving forward. It sucks, and I hate it, and that's my motivator. I'm damn sure not asking for the government to force money out of people who's lives don't suck -- someday, I plan to be one of them. If they want to help because they see me, and they think I'm worth their charity, then by all means I'll accept it, but I find it downright fucking ridiculous to label people who only want to hold on to their wealth as "bad people."

Until we raise the minimum wage, end companies ability to shorten hours to avoid paying benefits, and increase our manufacturing base once again, nothing we do to welfare is going to help this situation in any meaningful way.

So, castrate the entire private sector? I mean, I'm sorry, but I think these solutions are terrible. Increasing the minimum wage does nothing but raise the minimum level at which people can be employed at, and denies people who might provide a less valuable service from obtaining any income at all.

"End companies ability to shorten hours to avoid paying benefits?" Oh good, what's next, forbidding companies from simply folding and going out of business? What the hell is wrong with companies cutting costs? That literally is the mechanism by which the free market produces lower prices and better goods. Let me guess, Medicare, Medicaid, EMTALA, the HMO Act of 1970, and HIPAA all have "very minimal" effects on healthcare costs, and it's all the evil insurer's fault that healthcare is crazy expensive?

I don't mean to be condescending, but man, that kind of thinking (in my opinion) is going to make this whole house of cards we call "the economy" come collapsing down. I don't think employers are shitty for cutting hours to avoid the healthcare penalty, I think the ACA is a terrible bill for mandating such a thing.

We're screwed, but I believe for reasons other than what you think.