71% of Americans say the US should spend more on "assistance to the poor". But if you use the word "welfare" that number drops to 30%
Words matter.
Always use simple direct language.
Don't use complex words.
Don't use the buzzwords Republicans have spent decades poisoning.
yup, including entitlements, Woke,,,,etc.
Entitlements is a weird one. A person who wrongly believes they are entitled to money/power/respect is "entitled" in a derogatory sense. A person who has paid into the Social Security and Medicare programs for three or four decades is truly, genuinely, entitled to the payout of those programs.
And Republicans believing entitlement programs are bad, when so many of them are dependent on these programs to maintain a basic standard of living, is an astounding level of doublethink.
Reminds me of how many people were really against Obamacare, but loved the Affordable Care Act.
Reagan's smear campaign on welfare is still paying dividends
Psychological damage is present.
Nobody is immune to propaganda
Yup, I consider myself better than most at critical thinking, playing devil's advocate, and identifying sources of propaganda. I'll still find myself getting overly agitated and upset when I read five articles and posts within thirty minutes that all tell me why to be upset and who to be upset with.
Why US americans are against welfare ? In europe most nations are pro welfare and pay appropriate taxes. Why are US americans against helping each other ?
Why are US americans against helping each other ?
For many people "freedom" only occurs when you don't (think you) depend on others.
And, maybe it's just a me issue, but I think a lot of Americans dislike receiving help because in their experience it always costs, and often costs more when the person giving it make it seem free.
But, mostly it's Capitalist / Protestant propaganda that anyone that receives assistance is a moral failure due to the "sin" of laziness.
Why are US americans against helping each other?
There is no simple answer to your question. Generally speaking, the US ethic is largely built on a foundation of rogue settlers who were encouraged to take what they wanted by force and duplicity. Whether it was the attempted (and ongoing) ethnic cleansing of the tribes, or total destruction of the environment, or massacring fauna to extinction, or the brutal subjugation of African people, early americans operated at a level of entitlement, ignorance, and the absolute belief in a zero-sum competition.
This mindset has been useful to the people in power, and it has been frequently stoked to manipulate a large minority of the population into a fearful and angry existence, effectively preventing a cultural shift that embraces social enlightenment. Even the US education system is designed to perpetuate the propaganda while preventing critical thinking skills and empathy.
Interestingly, even the most virulent USers, on an individual basis, exhibit selective social welfare tendencies, while still maintaining their cultural bigotries. To be fair, most US americans are in favor of social welfare. The rich in the US, who are in control, will always fight reform, because it isn’t profitable to them.
I'd bet if we started calling them "societal subscription fees" people would be much cooler with taxes.
Nah, gotta go all in with that Battle Pass. Unlock perks like drivers license skins, use of the HOV lane, etc. really gameify the system and get those hardcore competitive type-A executives working on high scores.
That's just associations' war.
Complex words have more specific associations. Except specific associations are easier to change via propaganda than generic associations. And people love to pretend to be smart like I do, so use complex words when they can.
This rule shouldn't be limited to outsiders. It should be used when talking to your own as well. Using compound concepts of simpler ones in discussion helps preserve understanding (and filter the kind of people not better than tankies).
Welfare isn't assistance to the poor. Welfare in the US is those efforts specifically designed to denigrate and humiliate the poor.
Means testing increases costs and decreases effectiveness and should not be included in these programs. But it always is.
We need to start thinking of ourselves as "shareholders". We invest our individual political authority in out government, who uses that authority to provide essential services to business and individual customer, while charging for those services via taxation. Without the political authority of the citizenry, they would have no ability to provide those services.
We are each individually owed a return on our investment, separate and apart from any of the services we receive from the government. UBI should be thought of as a citizenship dividend, owed to the "shareholders" of government. It is not "charity".
One of many lasting “gifts” of Reagan.
Wym? Just a few more decades, and the trickling down will surely start. I can already taste it on their boots
We’ve got to get all those welfare queens 25 year old males playing video games back to work! They’re getting a free ride that they don’t deserve. People only have value when they are working!
Propaganda works
I’ve always said that if you really wanted communism or socialism to take off in the states you’re gonna have to call it something else
I also don’t use cis because the machine has already made that a thing people don’t want to be called
I don’t mind being called a cis male, but I’m secure in my sexuality and manhood. Conservatives not so much.
Yeah, straight/heterosexual people didn’t want to be called that, either. They want being cis and heterosexual to just be “normal” and any variation to be abnormal. Fuck that, they’ll do the same thing to whatever euphemism you pick instead.
Oh bullshit. No one in the history of ever has been offended by "straight/heterosexual".
It might have something to do with the word 'cis' being used as a slur and a form of othering early on
What's wrong with the Commonwealth of Independent States?
Hello fellow old person.
"Cis" is fucking silly, that's why I don't like it. We already had "hetero". It's like "they/them" for an individual. Try reading a novel where one charter is "they/them". It's needlessly confusing, and bring the hate, it's a stupid fad. Seen this kinda thing come and go, 20-years, no one will be using it.
Cis is just the opposite of trans, but it has nothing to do with orientation. You can be cis and heterosexual, you can be cis and homosexual.
"Blue" is fucking silly, that's why I don't like it. We already had "tall".
Those are two different things. Please look up what these terms means.
Try reading a novel where one charter is "they/them". It's needlessly confusing, and bring the hate, it's a stupid fad.
It's literally been used in the singular for hundreds of years for any individual where the gender is not known, and has never in my life been confusing. For example:
"The suspect entered the store, then they exited through the back."
English is my first and nearly only language and has been for 42 years, and there has never been a time that a singular "they" was not used. It is not a fad, the fad is taking issue with it. And hopefully in 20 years we won't have to deal with this fake "all of a sudden" bullshit, whether it's "they/them," vaccines, or any other nonsense that people suddenly take issue with because some talking head told them to and acted like it was new.
Hetero means straight, but was needlessly confusing (it's literally Greek), right? So in the future, English will have a different pronoun that means the same as singular they.
They got me! I have to admit, "welfare" leaves a bad taste in my mouth where "helping the poor" sounds fair enough. I grew up under Reagan, heard the bullshit, know it's bullshit, I get it.
And you know damned well what those words really mean. Welfare = black, poor people = whites. (That's from a GenX perspective.)
Welfare = black, poor people = whites.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner.
To me the negative connotation of "welfare" is, Kafkaesque bureaucracy used to gate access. Actually being on it feels more like you are playing a fucked up game than receiving assistance.
People acting like gaming welfare is easy. Fuck me, it's a full-time job getting anything at all.
For example: Been thinking about trying to get some food stamps. Wife works, I'm unemployed, maybe get a little of the tax money back from when I was making bank? Maybe get a pittance of unemployment? I can scarcely imagine navigating all the bullshit if I wasn't technically capable. Kafkaesque bureaucracy indeed.
I hear this, and also some flavor of people gaming the system.
I don't like that I hear these things. But something definitely weaseled its way in.
So weird. As a Scandinavian, "welfare" to me means schools, healthcare, elderly care, sick pay, paid parental leave etc., paid for by the shared burden of taxes for the benefit of everyone.
It is a word with entirely positive connotations for me.
Our famous and revered constitution actually says in its thesis statement that one of the purposes of our government is to provide for the general welfare
"Think of how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin
I heard a working theory that we have too many humans on the planet. Some of them were supposed to be reincarnated as ferrets or insects but came back as humans instead. These are the people who are now in charge.
because welfare has been propagandized as used by "lazy and homeless, and poors, and blacks" its usually based on racism as well, the true welfare queens are Conservative voters.
Oh the TRUE welfare queens are billionaires, corporations get more assistance than people
Oh this definitely
Ah, ~40% of Americans are complete fucking morons, that sounds about right.
~40% of Americans also read and write at an elementary school level or worse, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
... I think we've found the mythical 'independent, median voter'.
Ah, 40% of Americans are complete fucking morons, that sounds about right.
You're leaving out the 29% who are against it no matter what you call it.
Those are evil people, who do not want to help other people. But this 40% are the people who would do the correct thing but they are convinced it's bad and vote against their interest
thevoidzero basically captured my response, but yeah.
A total fucking moron is a person who is literally too stupid to understand anything going on around them at anything but the most basic level of abstraction.
They have no ability for critical analysis, very little independent thought going on beyond what immediately and directly affects them, personally.
That isn't to say they can't learn. Its just that they can't really 'think'.
'The mark of an educated man is the ability to honestly entertain a thought they do not believe in.'
They can't do that, that would be very difficult snd confusing for them, cause them immense discomfort.
Functionally too stupid to be responsible members of a modern democracy, easily tricked by propoganda... essentially amoral, because they cannot formulate nor adhere to any kind of consistent, intentional moral framework.
...
The 29% below... well, they may or may not be relatively stupid, but they at least have a consistent belief, albeit an evil one... this shows they have an above elementary capability for abstraction and consistentcy.
Which unfortunately also means that only about 30% of people are, at worst, well intentioned, but could also possibly be stupid, though not as stupid as our glorious 40% in the middle that is easily swayed by rhetoric, phrasing, emotional manipulation, "vibes", etc.
Those are seniors on social security and medicare
54% of Americans read at below a grade 6 level.
Welfare is may litterally just mean 'moocher' to an American who has been drowned in propaganda their whole life.
I read about that and i'm not sure what to make of it. My nephew is in second grade soon, and he can read pretty well. He doesn't like it, because it's still hard for him. But i'm sure in 2 or 3 years he can read well enough to become president of the united states and not be a nazi. So i'm not sure if the reading level is the problem.
As someone that works with the general public.
People are fucking dumb. Like not I'm not even kidding, there's a skill gap to even get to a site like this...and not everyone has the ability to do it...I'm not even kidding. People are just stupid.
The timeline is this. The 1950s boomed and created the middle class. Why? FDR decided subsidizing the American people, instead of the robber Baron class, was the way. This subsidy approach to the working class had never happened before in American history.
A middle class cannot happen organically in a capitalist society. It requires government subsidy.
The 50s were built on the backs of women, forcibly ejecting them from workplaces to be housewives, and excluded people who were not white. But the American middle class was born due to these subsidies.
And so it went.
Then, in the 80s. The concept of the evil welfare queen was touted on the national level, and our government decided subsidizing corporate instead of a middle class was the way.
This doesn’t happen overnight, but they begin chipping away at subsidies for Middle Class America and flip those subsidies to corporate America. The belief is, or at least the sales pitch is, subsidizing corporate America is more fiscally efficient than subsidizing the middle class and will ultimately benefit everyone to create a booming, thriving nation.
And so it goes for 40 yrs. Both parties, in tandem.
The chipping away to go back to the subsidizing of a middle class started in the oddest of places. 2020. After the massive destruction of the middle class, and abject proof of how disastrous to the working class subsidizing corporate America is, absolutely squeezing everyone making less than $300k/yr, by the numbers, it was that old man’s admin that tried to shift back on the disaster. Infrastructure, junk fees, internet as an essential utility, student loan forgiveness, etc
The breadth of the problem cannot be fixed in 4 yrs. Or even 8 yrs. Consider how long it took from the 80s to truly feel the oppressive shift of the subsidy change. (I’m old. I mark ~2012-2014 when things started to feel squeezed.)
Also note that you can’t mention Reagan or trickle down economics in this or you lose people.
Could FDR have done what he did without what Theodire Roosevelt did? Teddy has his faults but I feel he built the groundwork that FDR could build on. Granted it had diminished between them, but he faught for the inheritance tax and income tax to become a thing rather than just Tariffs. Tariffs were what were used at the time and created the "Robber Barons" that the Heritage foundation is trying to re-establish.
People are emotional creatures.
Someone was joking in another thread, but maybe we should seriously consider just taking socialism and calling it, like, americanism.
"Freedomism"
Yeah if you want to pitch socialism to people who don't know what it is, just describe its parts as individual policies. Don't actually use the word "socialism" - that makes the rednecks scurred >_>
american dreamism
Yep. Never use a ten dollar word when a 50 cent one does the job better. The left wing needs to dump it's highbrow (and cringe celebrity endorsements) and use the language of the common people in simple terms that cannot be demonised (or would sound insane to try).
Also, this is a prime example of how demonising words, especially buzzwords, is the strategy they use to make it lose all rationality with the public... the notion of being "woke" originally a good thing, welfare a good thing, etc...
They managed to make DEI a divisive word, I presume because they always used the abbreviation, because how else can you poison these words.
Sadly, more than 50% of Americans a grade school vocabulary. Imagine trying to convince a kid in grade 6 that helping the poor is not bad.
Ngl but most of the kids have no problems with helping other people.
Doesn't work, they take the cheap words too. "Fake news" was originally used for right-wing propaganda. The only solution is education so that future generations are more aware of and resistant to dog whistles and doublespeak.
Kinda like ACA/Obamacare.
I'm of the opinion Americans want help and want to help others, but get lost in political rhetoric and a culture war designed to ensure no one gets anything.
Our old babysitter lost her insurance and was suffering. Ex-wife suggested the ACA, showed her how to apply.
"Thank you so much! At least it isn't that damned Obamacare!"
These people exist, millions of them. And most Americans can't fucking read and understand a novel.
As an old friend of mine once had a habit of saying in a sing song voice:
Read a book, read a book, read a motherfucking book!
Nah. A lot of people are stupid and selfish. You should look into the new evangelical mantra that “empathy is a sin”.
IIRC "ACA" and "Obamacare" had similar divides. Propaganda is a helluva drug.
One of the main reasons why USAID was the first part of the government targeted was because of things like this.
If you frame their work as "Assistance to disasters" or other variations, plus the context of it being under 1% of the Federal budget, Americans were find with it. If you call it "giving taxpayer money to foreigners" then it's wildly unpopular.
Which is to say that the lesson is that most people are idiots and have no idea what's going on in the world. Framing a narrative can get the same individual to simultaneously support and hate literally the same thing. It can get people to support policies and actions that directly harm them.
Which is to say that the lesson is that most people are idiots and have no idea what's going on in the world.
Not that the information channels that inform them blast high-octane corporate-friendly propaganda since childhood, leaving no attention for any other perspectives?
I wonder what the general opinion of USAID would have been if it had been described as "feeding poor people so their rulers can buy US weapons instead".
Having briefed a number of senior American bureaucrats and military officers I find it best to use:
The issue is entirely a media problem. Can you tell yet?
Assistance implies that it is temporary, that it is help to help themselves.
Welfare implies that it is continuous.
If you have to continually support a part of the population then you have a systemic problem. The correct solution would be to change the system. People who support the continuation of the current system either profit from it or don't see an advantage in a change.
Assistance implies that it is temporary,
Not it does not. Ever heard of "aim assist"? "Assisted living"? "assistive touch" (the iOS feature)? I don't see how any of these are temporary.
But yeah the correct solution is indeed to change the system. There will always be naysayers who argue that "no one system can suit everybody" so I guess we'll need a system of systems.
But it doesn't have to be the same group in the population. Probably a portion is the same but the larger picture is all those you help up again so they can help support the community/country/state, and the price is helping the group that otherwise make the community unsafe so they in large can ... act decently to others and live a life without violence
Also, "assistance" is something that is given out of the kindness of your (or the government's) heart and that the recipient should feel gratitude (and/or have to grovel) for. "Welfare" is seen as something the recipient is entitled to as a right. FWIW I support a UBI that is adequate for food and shelter and the necessities of life - as an entitlement for everybody.
41% of the population would object, together with 29% who don't support assistance at all. If you want UBI in a democratic society you have to sell it differently.
Hey, a UBI supporter! Just curious, how can UBI be implemented in a way that doesn't result in hyperinflation? If a society was to ration out food/shelter/necessities directly, I understand how that would work. But if it's done through the intermediary of money, what would prevent the economy from entering an arms race where the producers raise prices to adapt to the new purchasing power of the population, and the government raises the UBI to keep up with the rising prices?
If you have to continually support a part of the population then you have a systemic problem.
To a point, maybe, but populations are always going to have disabled persons or people with chronic illnesses that require continual assistance to live a dignified life. Be careful not to write those people off with sweeping generalizations like this.
You are right.
Just want to point out that this negative association is based on racist dog whistles like the, "welfare queen," which were propagated by right-wingers to convince low-income whites to hate the programs designed to help them.
And I think theres a place to break that association, but .aybe candidates that are running to change our system dont need to be the ones to do it.
I would actually say that would he a great strategy in building working-class solidarity. Making poor whites realize that their declining standard of living isn't caused by minorities accessing social programs but the ruling-class gutting the those programs is key to building a progressive coalition.
FREEDOM DIVIDEND 🦅🇺🇸
UBI is pretty naive unless there are checks in place to prevent landlords and consumer goods from increasing costs by the same amount.
increasing penalties for predatory loans and banning shit like klarna would probably do a decent job at preventing that
- Does UBI increase inflation?
The impact of UBI on inflation depends on various factors, including the funding mechanism, the level of the UBI payment, and broader macroeconomic conditions. Some studies suggest that modest UBI programs are unlikely to significantly impact inflation.
-- https://ubiadvocates.org/universal-basic-income-faq-all-about-ubi/
Americans are one of the most gullible populations on Earth. Russians are worse...but Americans are not far behind.
Russians may actually be less gullible. Read an interesting article on the subject of Russian propaganda. They know it's bullshit, always have. The government lies, and that's life. Twist is, they view Western media as exactly the same level of propaganda.
tl;dr: Most Americans can't seem to apply critical thinking. Russians don't bother.
Yes, we should all be highly critical of our governments, especially our politicians and the military (paid puppets of the oligarchy).
Building up an independent working-class movement should be our priority.
You should check out Kshama Sawant and Workers Strike Back.
Nah the usa is worse. Russia is a dictatorship, it is risky for your life and family to oppose putin
Could you share the source for the graph please?
Its listed, UChicago NORC. I can only find raw data from NORC from 1973 to 2014 when I search though.
Excel
Americans, what a bunch of morons
Fox News: "Write that down. WRITE THAT DOWN!"
They knew.
The probably caused it. The Murdoch news organization has been using it as a slur for many decades.
Soon there will be a critical mass of people who have nothing left to lose
Good. If anything is to change, they must fear for their lives and/or lose their lives.
And cheetolini will instruct the military to fire upon them to the cheers of his constituents
Related Links:
I get the critical comments here, but I think there's a basic association of the word "welfare" with the CURRENT system of assistance which leaves too many people out. Democrats have made the current apparati too hard to qualify for with their means-testing. If they were sincere in working for the masses, they would push more universal programs, but at least on the national level, they are bought out by the same corporations as the Republicans.
Democrats have made the current apparati too hard to qualify for with their means-testing.
I kind of doubt that democrats are the ones who MADE it too hard, but they definitely are the ones that preserve it's difficulty.
One of Clinton's major accomplishments was working with Republicans to "reform" welfare.
Republicans wrote the bill, but a Democrat signed it.
- Help the poor
- Healthcare for everyone
- Good treatment at work.
I like the idea, but I don't think those are very well phrased.
Take "help the poor". When you say "the poor" it sounds like you're talking about a certain group of people who are born poor and die poor. Often the characterization is "the poor" are that way because of personal failings, like that they're lazy. Nobody wants to think of themselves as poor, and they definitely don't want to consider themselves part of "the poor". So, even poor people are going to have a bad reaction to being told that we should "help the poor".
IMO, a better slogan would be something like "Help people who fall on hard times." because it makes it more clear it's temporary help, and that it's not their fault. I think poverty should be eliminated, and billionaires should be, ahem "eliminated", but I think the average American would be much more likely to accept a social safety net rather than expected to continuously help "the poor".
For "healthcare for everyone", I think the issue is that it sounds like people are imagining high-end luxury healthcare for everyone at no cost. Something like "basic healthcare for everyone" is something more Americans would accept, and is more likely the kind of improvement you could actually get from American voters. Those of us who live in developed countries are used to the idea of "equal healthcare for everyone", but I don't think you could get that past the average American voter.
As for "good treatment at work", what American actually thinks that they'll get good treatment from their employer? Americans are used to thinking that it's a doggy dog world out there, and don't expect loyalty or love from an employer. What's reasonable is fairness, so why not "fair treatment at work" or "fair treatment for workers"?
Ok but most Americans want us to help the poor. They just wish we'd find a way to give the poor money that wasn't that evil welfare
Did the study define the kinds of assistance at all or was it simply the choice of terms?
“Welfare” is defined and had a lot of baggage with it. Opinion about welfare can be wildly different individually and demographically.
“Assistance” isn’t defined, people can place their own restrictions on what that hypothetical assistance is, who gets it based on their own prejudices, needs, and ideology.
Nah, see, you're falling into the trap. "Welfare" has baggage only because conservatives have attached baggage to it via their relentless propaganda campaigns. In practice, welfare is literally just assistance. In practice, the two words are synonymous. The fact that you perceive a difference in them is evidence that the conservative propaganda is working.
Meanwhile EU saying fuck all the disabled to appease a convicted rapist/felon. Sickening.
“Death tax” energy.
Godamnnnnn we are fucking monkey smooth brain fucks
I'm a little bit concerned about the colors of each line on this graph.
I would hope this kind of study would be apolitical attempt to discover where we have agreement as opposed to disagreement. And if vernacular is the core difference let's not use color choices that could be interpreted as means something else.
Nothing is apolitical anymore, deal with it
If it's the particular words that are the issue you have a bigger problem than just helping the poor, which is a laudable goal. Hups, I just used an obscure word and alienated the dummies.
A favourite cognitive bias is the role of emotions in persuasion and decision making. Arguments are much more persuasive if they make us feel good, regardless of the evidence.
It's interesting to watch an AI reason these issues because we're reasonably sure it doesn't have feelings and should be immune to the pitfalls of having an ego.
It's interesting to watch an AI reason these issues
AI doesn't reason shit lol
You don't reason lol
AI reason
Any researcher will tell you that these programs do not reason
Hell I'm not even a researcher and I can tell you that
I’m not voting for no “laudable” BS. Let’s just talk about goals that are worthy
Anyone can be poor, but only they are on welfare.
Publishers note: They usually refers to African Americans, but can be used for any suspicious minorities.
its almost always used as negative connation against blacks, or unsavory demographics. while the people, white conservatives railing on these people are the biggest welfare queens.
don't forget wall street and corporations. if you fuck up, congratulations now you're homeless. if they fuck up, congratulations you're gonna bail them out.