Why are some non-poor folks so SURE the poor COUlD get jobs "but they just don't WANT to"?

[Ken Burch]

How can people who have never BEEN poor, never lived in an area where times were hard at all, never experienced any of the roadblocks that poor people face when they try to get out of poverty(as pretty much all of them do, for God's sakes)feel so absolutely certain that they know, that they just freaking KNOW, that "the jobs are out there"?

How can anybody feel that comfortable judging those they know nothing about?

And why would anybody feel that obsessed with judging and dismissing people they know nothing about?

What do the poor-bashers think they gain from doing this?

[devils chaplain]

1. A smug sense of superiority. Absolution from guilt. N/T

[Ken Burch]

3. And here I was thinking that absolution came from God, not your own ego.

What WAS I thinking?

[IronLionZion]

23. God can't be expected to take care of everything

so sometimes people have to cast judgment down on each other...

[progressoid]

8. Yup. n/t

[mythology]

2. People who do that gain distance from poverty in their own minds

It's those "other" people, the "lazy" ones who are poor. It makes it so that there's a difference between those who are poor and those who aren't that isn't primarily about starting socio-economic conditions or the barriers to access to education, to connections, and all the other levers of power.

[Taitertots]

4. I'm not poor and I don't think that

The people who do...
They have the right wing echo chamber repeatedly telling them that poor people are poor because they don't want to work hard. If you think that you are rich and they are poor solely based on merit, you have no moral obligation to help them.


The sick thing about it is that the people who are unemployed/out of labor force had jobs before conservative economic policies depressed the economy. Most of the welfare programs conservatives blame were around for decades before the economic collapse. It is like saying food lines caused the great depression.

[Skittles]

5. it is easier to think that

than to acknowledge they are assholes

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. they dont want to consider the possibility that they could ever be poor

Blaming poverty on the victim is a self protection mechanism

[treestar]

12. +1

They are merely trying to convince themselves they will never be poor themselves.

[Precisely]

7. Fear

[Kablooie]

9. It's easy to say and protects the rich's riches for themselves.

Doesn't have to be true.
Just has to be effective.

[Bay Boy]

10. Are we talking a job or a good job?

I should think most any healthy person could get a job at McDonalds.
Or do I have a false idea of getting a job in fast food?

[Squinch]

11. Yes. You do.

[Bay Boy]

13. What kind of people are

turned down for jobs at fast food?

[Squinch]

14. People in areas with high unemployment in which the fast food jobs are staffed.

That kind of people.

You're buying into the welfare queen myth, aren't you?

[jmowreader]

16. People who don't have homes, for one thing

Homes have showers and places to wash clothes - even if it's in the sink, there's a place in any house that meets code to wash clothes. Foodservice places won't hire people who can't come to work clean every day.

A lot of places have homeless-service agencies that have bathing and clothes-washing facilities, but a lot more places DON'T.

[Brickbat]

18. People who have been laid off from higher skilled jobs.

[killbotfactory]

15. Because if they believed otherwise their concience might compell them to do something about it

And that might punt a slight dent in their pocketbooks and feelings of superiority.

[madville]

17. It can be hard to find good workers

I've been a manager at times and it can be very trying to find and keep people that want to work and keep a job, decent 50k+ a year jobs in my experience. I remember in 2009 I had to fire three people for stupid reasons: porn on a work computer, filling up personal vehicles with the company credit card, and showing up to work drunk.

I think back 20 years ago when I was entering the work force though. Many of the jobs and opportunities I had are gone now, it would certainly be tougher starting out with no experience and just a high school diploma these days.

[Hydra]

19. The employers want superpeople

On no pay. My current company needs to hire people, we're grossly understaffed...but the bosses won't pay a decent wage for what they're asking for and in fact mostly double and triple up workloads on us and don't staff at all.

Funny how the shoe is on the other foot- I've heard what you did before this recession/depression. Employers said they would put up a position and 4 people would apply: 2 people in their pajamas, one with nothing on their resume and one who just barely would do. Now? 40+ people willing to bend over backwards.

[Nevernose]

25. When I managed a business there were a few rules I discovered

90% of any job is reliability. Better the slacker who shows up every day than the prodigy that's not dependable.

Don't come in drunk. Hungover is acceptable.

Don't be mean to the customers, and be willing to apologize to them if you fuck up.

Don't steal.

If you can't meet those criteria, you probably don't deserve a job.

[jeff47]

20. They're saving their egos

The people who believe that tend to consider themselves superior to others due to their job. And they believe that is because they are special people.

The thing is it took a ton of good luck to reach their position. Perhaps they won the genetic lottery like the Kochs and Romney. Perhaps they entered the workforce in a good year (as I did). In either case, it took a lot of good luck to reach the position that is critically important to their ego.

Claiming the poor could do it too if they just worked harder is a double-whammy - it makes them feel superior to those "lazy poor people", and minimizes the luck it took to reach their position.

[Adrahil]

21. It's complicated.

In some places, there are no jobs to be had. But in others, not so much. My company needs machinists. We will hire fresh, inexperienced machinists, and they'll start at $15/hr plus benefits (everyone at my company gets access to the same bennies). We have a VERY hard time finding them, and when we do find them, they frequently have terrible work habits.... arriving late (or not at all), arriving hung over, etc. We've lost more than one to drug arrests.

We have some deep cultural problems as well as economic structural problems.

[xfundy]

22. I used to be one who had (some) money

I was never rich, nor did I try to be. I wanted to be comfortable, like anyone, but to get rich you have to be an asshole, and I couldn't do that, to my detriment, although a certain sibling has no compunction against it. WHAT an asshole! I wish there was a hell just so that **** could go burn in it.

Today, I have no money, have no job, but desperately want one. I came back home, across the country, to a place I absolutely hate, to take care of my parents in their last years. It was impossible to keep up with technology, which was vital to my career. I even went back to school for six months but found my capacity to learn was impaired by clinical depression, impacted by my stupid fucking decision to trust my sibling, who I thought I could trust but who stole from and abused my parents even as I tried to protect them.

[Duer 157099]

24. Because for them, the world is binary

Either it is within their own experience or it isn't. If it isn't, then they deny that it may be true for others. If it is, they change their opinion about whether it is bad.

In other words, until it happens to them directly, it is impossible. Then it happens. But it has to happen to them.

[kelliekat44]

26. They know they (the corporate wealthy) are sitting on their money as long as Obama is President.

They will unleash their wealth in investment in our economy as soon as Obama is out of office. They want him to be a failed President and they don't give a damn what happens to the country in the meantime. They are still doing very, very well.

[BlueJazz]

27. The psychological term is "They are Rectums"

[cbdo2007]

28. Because we've gone out and gotten jobs?

The jobs aren't going to come to them.

[SamReynolds]

31. LMAO!!!

Right... and how did you get that job? How did you hear about it? Where did you find it? How did you get there?

Your utter lack of imagination is evident here as you obviously can't picture more difficult circumstances than your own.

[SamReynolds]

29. Peace of Mind.

So long as they can believe they are morally or ethically 'better' than poor people, those just getting by can ignore the specter of destitution that looms over all of us. Also, by convincing themselves that poor people are 'lazy', they avoid any sense of social responsibility ENTIRELY.

That's your answer.

[reformist2]

30. How do they explain changes in the unemployment rate? Do people suddenly get lazy all at once?

[polichick]

32. They want to believe things are fair, and that they earned their comforts.