Originally posted on 05/28/2019:

I met Cottam in London last week and she made the point that welfare systems are often designed to manage needs, but they are not designed to build capabilities so that families can stand on their own.
Moreover, most Western systems were not designed to confront the kind of poverty prevalent today. When these systems were put in place in the 1950s and ’60s, unemployment was more often a temporary thing that happened between the time you got laid off from a big employer and the time you got hired by a new one. Now, economic insecurity is often a permanent state, as people patch together different jobs to make ends meet. Health issues for people in the welfare system are often chronic — obesity, diabetes, many forms of mental illness.



this might be the key, not limiting help but changing the type of help these people receive. I heard some farmers speaking the other day concerning the massive amount of aid they are now receiving because of this trade fck up. they don't want it, they want the problem solved, they want to work. I think most people want to work, first you must understand their situation and meet their needs whatever those needs are then they might produce. Just giving them resources and then leaving, that isn't going to work any longer.