Isn't success in the United States better explained by hard work and intelligence?
You can lower the cost of being unsuccessful by expanding the availability of health care for the poor, increasing long-term unemployment benefits or raising the minimum wage, but the middle class doesn't rely on these programs for its success.
>You can lower the cost of being unsuccessful by expanding the availability of health care for the poor, increasing long-term unemployment benefits or raising the minimum wage, but the middle class doesn't rely on these programs for their success.
If you are trying to pitch a safety net as a tool to help people create private-sector success, the angle that you would take is that without a safety net, a single failure can take a long time to recover from. Like being able to crash in mom's basement. If you have a place to sleep, shower, and get career advice and/or interview leads, your periods of unemployment are going to be easier to recover from.
I know after 2001, I made a bad choice; I quit a job when so many of my compatriots were getting fired. I ended up crashing at my parent's place for a while, and pretty quickly got an interview (and a job) through one of my dad's contacts. Imagine how much longer it would have taken me to get back on my feet if instead I became homeless.
Of course, I don't have any good ideas on how the government could replicate that sort of thing for people with parents that are unable or unwilling to contribute spare bedrooms and industry contacts- I'm just giving an example of how a safety net can contribute to long-term success and not just make failure less painful.
Health care, I think, is actually easier to sell on these grounds. It's going to be way more difficult to be successful if you are sick, and especially if you have only an average earning potential, a big medical bill early on can pretty easily take that average income and, say, prevent you from buying a house or otherwise throw up a big obstacle to living your average life.
There is a lot of legitimate controversy about how much is genetic vs. environmental, but I think it's well-established that your intelligence is pretty much fixed by the time you are old enough to really be held responsible for your own actions.
Many times people whose family were poor don't have access to the opportunities when they are young to make a better a better life for themselves when they are older.
You can lower the cost of being unsuccessful by expanding the availability of health care for the poor, increasing long-term unemployment benefits or raising the minimum wage, but the middle class doesn't rely on these programs for its success.