(cont'd from yesterday's post)
America does not ignore the poor who can't afford housing, food, medical care, etc. A huge 51% of our annual federal spending goes to entitlements. But those benefits are not counted in the poverty statistics you saw yesterday for some reason.
That's the first important point of yesterday's video: the actual percentage of people in the US who lack basic needs is about 3%, not 10-18%. (That means 23 million to 60 million fewer people in the US live that way.) Though their earned income is under the poverty point, government payments lift their lifestyle out of poverty.
We don't want millions of our fellow citizens to lack the necessities, so we're happy to help. That's the motivation behind the American "safety net."
Unfortunately, there's an unintended consequence of the welfare system, explained very well in yesterday's video. A significant number of people content themselves with dependence rather than using their lives productively. Surprisingly, that includes about 7 million men of working age. Not good for America--devastating for those men.
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