71% of Americans say the US should spend more on "assistance to the poor". But if you use the word "welfare" that number drops to 30%
71% of Americans say the US should spend more on "assistance to the poor". But if you use the word "welfare" that number drops to 30%
Words matter.
Always use simple direct language.
- Help the poor
- Healthcare for everyone
- Good treatment at work.
Don't use complex words.
Reminds me of how many people were really against Obamacare, but loved the Affordable Care Act.
As someone that works with the general public.
People are fucking dumb. Like not I'm not even kidding, there's a skill gap to even get to a site like this...and not everyone has the ability to do it...I'm not even kidding. People are just stupid.
Reagan's smear campaign on welfare is still paying dividends
Yep. Never use a ten dollar word when a 50 cent one does the job better. The left wing needs to dump it's highbrow (and cringe celebrity endorsements) and use the language of the common people in simple terms that cannot be demonised (or would sound insane to try).
Also, this is a prime example of how demonising words, especially buzzwords, is the strategy they use to make it lose all rationality with the public... the notion of being "woke" originally a good thing, welfare a good thing, etc...
The issue is entirely a media problem. Can you tell yet?
Assistance implies that it is temporary, that it is help to help themselves.
Welfare implies that it is continuous.
If you have to continually support a part of the population then you have a systemic problem. The correct solution would be to change the system. People who support the continuation of the current system either profit from it or don't see an advantage in a change.
IIRC "ACA" and "Obamacare" had similar divides. Propaganda is a helluva drug.
One of the main reasons why USAID was the first part of the government targeted was because of things like this.
If you frame their work as "Assistance to disasters" or other variations, plus the context of it being under 1% of the Federal budget, Americans were find with it. If you call it "giving taxpayer money to foreigners" then it's wildly unpopular.
Which is to say that the lesson is that most people are idiots and have no idea what's going on in the world. Framing a narrative can get the same individual to simultaneously support and hate literally the same thing. It can get people to support policies and actions that directly harm them.
FREEDOM DIVIDEND 🦅🇺🇸
The timeline is this. The 1950s boomed and created the middle class. Why? FDR decided subsidizing the American people, instead of the robber Baron class, was the way. This subsidy approach to the working class had never happened before in American history.
A middle class cannot happen organically in a capitalist society. It requires government subsidy.
The 50s were built on the backs of women, forcibly ejecting them from workplaces to be housewives, and excluded people who were not white. But the American middle class was born due to these subsidies.
And so it went.
Then, in the 80s. The concept of the evil welfare queen was touted on the national level, and our government decided subsidizing corporate instead of a middle class was the way.
This doesn’t happen overnight, but they begin chipping away at subsidies for Middle Class America and flip those subsidies to corporate America. The belief is, or at least the sales pitch is, subsidizing corporate America is more fiscally efficient than subsidizing the middle class and will ultimately benefit everyone to create a booming, thriving nation.
And so it goes for 40 yrs. Both parties, in tandem.
The chipping away to go back to the subsidizing of a middle class started in the oddest of places. 2020. After the massive destruction of the middle class, and abject proof of how disastrous to the working class subsidizing corporate America is, absolutely squeezing everyone making less than $300k/yr, by the numbers, it was that old man’s admin that tried to shift back on the disaster. Infrastructure, junk fees, internet as an essential utility, student loan forgiveness, etc
The breadth of the problem cannot be fixed in 4 yrs. Or even 8 yrs. Consider how long it took from the 80s to truly feel the oppressive shift of the subsidy change. (I’m old. I mark ~2012-2014 when things started to feel squeezed.)
Also note that you can’t mention Reagan or trickle down economics in this or you lose people.
I get the critical comments here, but I think there's a basic association of the word "welfare" with the CURRENT system of assistance which leaves too many people out. Democrats have made the current apparati too hard to qualify for with their means-testing. If they were sincere in working for the masses, they would push more universal programs, but at least on the national level, they are bought out by the same corporations as the Republicans.
Did the study define the kinds of assistance at all or was it simply the choice of terms?
“Welfare” is defined and had a lot of baggage with it. Opinion about welfare can be wildly different individually and demographically.
“Assistance” isn’t defined, people can place their own restrictions on what that hypothetical assistance is, who gets it based on their own prejudices, needs, and ideology.
Having briefed a number of senior American bureaucrats and military officers I find it best to use:
- words of one syllable or less.
- no more than three primary colours.
- no numbers larger than 5.
Americans, what a bunch of morons
- Help the poor
- Healthcare for everyone
- Good treatment at work.
I like the idea, but I don't think those are very well phrased.
Take "help the poor". When you say "the poor" it sounds like you're talking about a certain group of people who are born poor and die poor. Often the characterization is "the poor" are that way because of personal failings, like that they're lazy. Nobody wants to think of themselves as poor, and they definitely don't want to consider themselves part of "the poor". So, even poor people are going to have a bad reaction to being told that we should "help the poor".
IMO, a better slogan would be something like "Help people who fall on hard times." because it makes it more clear it's temporary help, and that it's not their fault. I think poverty should be eliminated, and billionaires should be, ahem "eliminated", but I think the average American would be much more likely to accept a social safety net rather than expected to continuously help "the poor".
For "healthcare for everyone", I think the issue is that it sounds like people are imagining high-end luxury healthcare for everyone at no cost. Something like "basic healthcare for everyone" is something more Americans would accept, and is more likely the kind of improvement you could actually get from American voters. Those of us who live in developed countries are used to the idea of "equal healthcare for everyone", but I don't think you could get that past the average American voter.
As for "good treatment at work", what American actually thinks that they'll get good treatment from their employer? Americans are used to thinking that it's a doggy dog world out there, and don't expect loyalty or love from an employer. What's reasonable is fairness, so why not "fair treatment at work" or "fair treatment for workers"?
Godamnnnnn we are fucking monkey smooth brain fucks
Meanwhile EU saying fuck all the disabled to appease a convicted rapist/felon. Sickening.
“Death tax” energy.
I'm a little bit concerned about the colors of each line on this graph.
I would hope this kind of study would be apolitical attempt to discover where we have agreement as opposed to disagreement. And if vernacular is the core difference let's not use color choices that could be interpreted as means something else.