Is Your Income High Enough To Receive Government Aid?
How soon will they abandon you?
The wealthier you are, the more influence you have, and the more you can count on all of the organs of government — from the tax man to the senate — to treat you with kid gloves, bail you out, do you favours, or do your bidding. We can all see that. Descending the economic ladder, we find there’s a cutoff point where your government basically stops being invested in your well being. They don’t care what you think, they don’t care about your quality of life, and they’re not going to protect you. Become poor enough, and you become disposable.
Simply giving the homeless places to live is cheaper than the interactions with police and hospitals that arise from their homelessness. As a society, we consistently choose the crueler more expensive option. We’d rather lose money to keep them homeless than save money by housing them.
When pandemic lockdowns became a thing, and citizens were suddenly stuck at home without a paycheck, governments scrambled to provide assistance. There’s no way they could invoke the disruption of letting millions just run out of groceries and seeing what they did about it. In Canada, help for individuals came in the form of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, or CERB. This program offered $500 a week in benefits to help…
