If people are getting free food and shelter during a crisis, it's one thing. But if they are getting it 24/7/365 year after year, it's a red flag that they aren't self-reliant.
The solution is not to pour more money into ensuring their needs are met but to examine why they are not able to sustain themselves. Maybe they have no skills because they dropped out of high school. Maybe they are in and out of prison and can't find a job so they keep turning back to illegal activities to make money. Maybe they are truly have a physical disability and cannot help themselves.
But there are a LOT of people that would benefit from being paid to work and learn some new skills (even if it's janitorial work at government facilities or indexing/archiving work at museums, etc.) vs. a check in the mail. Of course, a check in the mail is much easier to implement than evaluating an individual's circumstances and helping build them up in a way that will make them more self-reliant in the future.
The way our welfare system is structured in the United States, maintaining access to food and shelter is a huge amount of work and stress. Developing skills and gaining employment is difficult in the best of times—yet we insist on making it even harder.
Well then we may need to restructure in order to create a more effective system. Society does not benefit from people who are completely reliant on the government to meet basic needs.
That's an untested assertion. It's possible that society actually would benefit from every person being freed up from the stress and distraction of worrying about how to pay for basic necessities. Imagine how much creativity is being squandered by people being forced to work whatever job they can find just to make ends meet.
It's being tested right now. How many people are using their newfound quarantine free time to do creative work vs. watching trendy documentaries on Netflix? I have friends collecting unemployment benefits complaining on facebook how bored they are and playing WoW all day.
This is hardly normal times. Everyone is stressed, unable to access many resources (regardless of whether they can afford them), and dealing with unfamiliar situations. My work situation hasn't changed at all—I always work from home, and have a really good setup for avoiding distraction—and I'm at 50% productivity at best.
I don’t think meeting people’s needs and helping them to develop are mutually exclusive.
It’s perfectly fair we say that we should provide everyone with their basic needs as a safety net that prevents people from starving. Then building on top of that to give people the support they need to better themselves and reduce the need to rely on outside support.
Sure some people will abuse the system. But condemning the majority just to punish the minority feels a little petty.
The solution is not to pour more money into ensuring their needs are met but to examine why they are not able to sustain themselves. Maybe they have no skills because they dropped out of high school. Maybe they are in and out of prison and can't find a job so they keep turning back to illegal activities to make money. Maybe they are truly have a physical disability and cannot help themselves.
But there are a LOT of people that would benefit from being paid to work and learn some new skills (even if it's janitorial work at government facilities or indexing/archiving work at museums, etc.) vs. a check in the mail. Of course, a check in the mail is much easier to implement than evaluating an individual's circumstances and helping build them up in a way that will make them more self-reliant in the future.