The Permanent Under Class In America

The poverty rate is up in America as a result of Socialist President Obama economic policy.   15% of Americans are officially living in poverty, higher than when Bush II was President.   47 million Americans are on Food Stamps, up 20 million since Obama took office.   23 million Americans are either unemployed, under employed working part time, or they have just given up looking for work altogether.  Millions of Americans are on Welfare and Medicaid.  9 million Americans are collecting Disability benefits, many fraudulently, up 1 million since Obama took office.  Is it any wonder that Obama was reelected.  Whose bread you eat, whose song you sing. 

Years ago, it was considered shameful to go on Welfare and Food Stamps.  Today,  both the federal government and states like California actually advertise these benefits on the Internet and radio to encourage more dependency.   There is a Poverty Industry run by government employees, usually in Public Employee Unions, that have a vested interest in creating a permanent under class in America.   The reality is that the more Americans on Food Stamps, Welfare, Disability and Medicaid, the more government employees there are paying union dues, there to support them.   This has become a vicious circle of dependency. 

This is the reality we face; but the truth is that there is a permanent under class in America that is composed of people that are under educated, with no marketable job skills that cannot compete in a global business environment.   Many jobs that have gone overseas are never coming back.   The notion that someone can earn Middle Class wages in a job that requires little education, or job skills in a union job, except in government, is over.   That is why in the last 30 years, union membership in the private sector has gone from 35% of workers to just 7%.   This has occurred because manufacturing jobs have gone to lower cost countries like China.  

In addition, in the last 15 years, a lot of back office jobs have been off shored to India and other countries, at about a third the cost in the US.   Technology has also replaced many lower level employees as a result of ATM's, the Internet and Robotics.   There is even a company working on a robot to flip hamburgers to eliminate those jobs too.  This trend is going to increase, not go away.   As such, many people in industrialized countries have no jobs to go to, unless and until they acquire marketable job skills.  It is what it is. 

Those people that refuse to take advantage of job training programs to learn a skill are destined to be part of the under class in America.   The problem with all of this is that the Makers in society are then expected to support the Takers.   As long as entitlement programs like Disability benefits provided people that are neither physically or mentally handicapped, Welfare, Medicaid and Food Stamps are open ended,  there is no reason, or motivation for these people to do anything to help themselves.   And, this will not change as long was we continue to have a Poverty Industry in America. 

These entitlements are bankrupting our country.  As such, we must change our thinking related to providing benefits to people that can work; but refuse to.   We need Workfare not Welfare.   Anyone getting Welfare  should be required to go to a vocational school to learn a trade, or work cleaning up city streets, or parks in their neighborhoods.    Only those that are physically or mentally handicapped should be receiving Disability benefits.   We have to stop all the fraud related to Disability benefits because these monies are coming out of the Social Security Trust Fund that is headed toward insolvency. 

We have to change the paradigm to deal with the Permanent Under Class in America.   We can't afford them.   But more importantly, we can't have millions of unproductive Americans, living off the fat of the land.   It is time for tough love.