American youth views on welfare/unemployment benefits...

[Aspiring Humanist]

The youth in America are very critical of welfare and unemployment benefits. They want to abolish them because of the people who abuse it, and they think the vast majority of people on welfare are just abusers and aren't actually in need.
I've tried telling them about what would happen if social services for the poor like that were abolished, but they don't seem to listen. What should I tell them to refute their claim that everyone who depends on welfare/unemployment benefits are leeches?

[Die Rote Fahne]

The youth in America are very critical of welfare and unemployment benefits. They want to abolish them because of the people who abuse it, and they think the vast majority of people on welfare are just abusers and aren't actually in need.
I've tried telling them about what would happen if social services for the poor like that were abolished, but they don't seem to listen. What should I tell them to refute their claim that everyone who depends on welfare/unemployment benefits are leeches?
That's because they are victims of the American educational system.

[Dunk]

There are a lot of people who simply don't want to listen. When you're able to get that rare person who's willing to consider something which challenges their way of thinking about the world, here's a few things you could say.

Mention that there is only one job for every four or five officially unemployed people, and that the BLS cooks the books to make all their figures look like a polished turd. Mention that the one job available is overwhelmingly a low wage, entry level position a la McDonald's National Hiring Day. Explain that welfare programs exist at all because they're isn't enough sustainable work, and that the nature of welfare programs incentivizes the abuses some workers take issue with - the most popular right wing gripe here in Ohio being "popping out babies to sit on your ass and get a welfare check". Explain that if or when social welfare programs are abolished or strictly reformed that the real consequences are going to be for the most vulnerable members of society - abandoned children, rise in homelessness, rise in crime, hunger. Tell them that the problem isn't people - and I find this resentment of welfare is almost always tinged with racism - it's capitalism.

[jake williams]

The youth in America are very critical of welfare and unemployment benefits. They want to abolish them because of the people who abuse it, and they think the vast majority of people on welfare are just abusers and aren't actually in need.
Do you have anything other than anecdotal evidence for this? YouTube comments don't count.


I've tried telling them about what would happen if social services for the poor like that were abolished, but they don't seem to listen. What should I tell them to refute their claim that everyone who depends on welfare/unemployment benefits are leeches?
If working class people are actually against welfare and unemployment benefits, it's because of heavy, heavy propaganda - and possibly with youth especially, lack of life experience. You can't counteract this easily on your own. Raising class consciousness is a class project, and the right wing's successes in scapegoating welfare beneficiaries haven't been something the working class has had an easy time fighting. It's been going on in its modern form for decades, and liberals and social democrats generally are either unwilling or unable to fight it.

The importance of these things to the working class, however, has been long established. Capitalism systemically creates unemployment. Almost the entire economics profession, from bankers to government officials, define "full employment" by an official unemployment rate of 6-8%. If unemployment gets to close to about 6%, central bankers and other policy makers try to weaken the economy to throw people out of work. Given that it's official policy to keep 6% of the working population - the population defined as those actively trying to find work - out of work, it would be totally sadistic to argue that those forced out should have no welfare or unemployment benefits. In fact, put in these terms, the only bourgeois professional economists you'll find who won't support some form of unemployment benefits are those willing to openly advocate that part of the working class should suffer through no fault of their own, which is relatively few.