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this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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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.)
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
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 got fired from a job, rather unjustly, and attempted to file for unemployment.
It made no sense, I could not navigate my states website (which didn’t want to play well with Linux anyway), so I gave up. Which is the point.
One time an employer fired me and refused to pay me after discovering I was trans, and it literally took 6 months to get that check. The system is designed to fuck people.
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.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner.