The Moynihan Report explored this in the 1960’s and has predicted where we are today. And although it was related to black Americans at the time it is very easily generalized to everyone.
Just giving people money forever will only cause destruction.
I really have to disagree there. We have simply never tried to give people money in ways that, like UBI or the Negative Income Tax, carefully preserve good incentives and thus good overall outcomes while avoiding costly 'red tape' that only lets people fall through the cracks. What little research has been done on more effective arrangements for income redistribution in developed countries has actually shown remarkably positive results. And the evidence in lower-income countries is even more remarkable.
The idea that when doing something harmful we should have done it bigger is absurd. People need meaningful lives. Giving them a bag of money doesn’t do that and it makes them dependent.
Give people skills and self empowerment. Not free money.
It's kind of silly that there is so much discussion of giving away money when we can't even bother to structure healthcare provision in a way that makes sense (It shouldn't be hard to get Medicaid and there shouldn't be a cliff...).
Bad luck = Lack of moral character to so many people who haven't experienced need.
It's the same Victorian England "just world" garbage that the fortunate have always embraced to prop up their own personal mythos.
It's funny that many self identifying christians treat the poor the worst from a public policy perspective, when the whole point of old testament law around land ownership and jubilee years was to protect children from suffering as a result of unlucky/stupid parents and to generationally guarantee access to capital and production.
The lack of a party equivalent to "christian socialists" (pro markets, pro capitalism, pro safety nets) in the USA really betrays the cruelty of americas faux christianity.
We seem very eager to punish unlucky and low leverage individuals... and their children.
Better solutions involve getting kids out of these homes for as much of the day as possible and surrounding them with positive role models from extremely early ages.
Would you agree that this is equally true for someone who comes from a wealthy family and has a trust fund that essentially guarantees that they will be "given money", usually in the form of capital gains, forever?
In the end, people need to be meaningful participants in their own lives.
It's more like giving them even less money than Bill Gates gives his kids, so they still have to work, but they "don’t have to do anything for money but that they do have to do something" as you put it.
It seems to conflate changes in family structure with prosperity and is based on shaky assumptions about the relationship between them. It remains controversial.
I don't see why it would generalize well.
The Moynihan Scissors is real.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/was-the-moynihan-report...
In fact, welfare works great, both in the US, where Social Security has saved millions from poverty, and in many other countries.
You'll find that in all of these countries, families continue to exist, so take your conservative talking points about destruction of the family are pure ideological nonsense.
The data and facts are simply not on your side.