alt Hacker NewsThe system in its current insane state serves the purposes of multiple groups of people:
1. The bureaucrats administering the system because the more complex and insan the system is, the more bureaucrats you need.
2. The politicians who can promise $X of benefits to N people while knowing all along that due to the complexity of the system the actual cost of the program will be well under X*N due to failure to claim the benefits.
3. Companies that can now hire workers for less than their cost of living because they know they can just make it up out of government benefits.
And it hurts, of course, the poor people who depend on these programs. But that doesn't matter politically, because these people are mostly not smart enough to even figure out how they are being screwed. Whereas the people in 1-3 above are absolutely smart enough to figure out how they benefit from the current system and they vote and donate accordingly.
3. has always bothered me - if you run a McDonalds, you have to pay market price for the building, kitchen equipment, both when buying and maintaining it. If you don't pay enough to maintain the fridge, it won't unionize - it will break down.
The idea proposed by these 'free market types', that somehow people working there below sustenance salaries 'deserve it' - that the cost of labor needs to be essentially subsidized just doesn't make sense to me.
Practice what you preach - either pay the wages people need to get by, or close down.