SeekingSolace[dot]Net

I’ve finally figured out the argument between government help (aka hand-holding) and individualism (aka abandonment). I took a survey a few weeks ago about retirement. It was sent from the College of Business to all business and education majors. One of the questions read, “During employment, it is my responsibility to learn about how to fund my retirement.” You were supposed to rate somewhere on a scale of five choices from agree to do not agree. The next question said, “It is my employer’s responsibility to tell me how to fund my retirement.” And then I thought to myself, “Shouldn’t we all be doing something about it?”

Theoretically, most people will be in one camp vs. the other. It’s either our job to figure it out (abandonment/individualism) or our boss’ job to tell us (hand-holding/help). Obviously, I don’t know the results of the survey, and maybe that’s not true. Also, those questions were embedded in a lot of other ones, but none of the other ones really had the tone of “whose responsibility it is” like those two did.

I guess, ultimately, my response to this is, why aren’t we all working together to make sure no one gets left out in the cold during retirement? Why aren’t we as individuals doing our own research and figuring out how to save for retirement, and why aren’t our employers doing everything they can to make sure their employees are provided for? It oughtn’t be one or the other. Shouldn’t this be something we all solve, instead of pointing fingers and deciding whose job it really is to do it? Isn’t it everybody’s job?

I mean, look at welfare. People in group A, who see welfare as hand-holding, typically feel that people who don’t work hard come with their pockets inside-out looking for handouts so they don’t have to work for it. People in group B, who see welfare as a way to help people, typically feel that these people are generally hard-working, but are in a bad way and need some help. To abolish welfare, according to group A, would lead to greater personal responsibility and individualism, and people learning to take care of themselves rather than depending on anyone. According to group B, it’s abandonment.

Well, what about when people on welfare can’t get jobs because of discrimination or a downturn in the economy or lack of job opportunities? So no matter how hard they work at getting a job, they can only get a few hours, or can only get a poorly-paying job? I know these are old arguments given by the left for keeping welfare…bear with me.

Shouldn’t it be everybody’s job to make sure that everyone in our country is taken care of? No, I’m not advocating “handouts,” as they’re called disparagingly. I’m advocating government programs that make it possible for those on the lowest socioeconomic rung of the American ladder to get steady employment at a fair and reasonable wage, and welfare to support them until they get that job and can take care of themselves. I’m advocating better, more complicated answers to the complicated problems of today. It’s not binary. It’s not a handout vs. abandonment.

Political issues need to be looked at as a continuum. Life is not black and white (or blue and red, as the party system would lead you to believe). There are answers in the middle. There are answers that provide for our citizens through hard times or retirement or poor health, without making the entire country dependent on handouts from the government. And it’s everyone’s responsibility to fix these problems, so that everyone is entitled to reap the rewards of the solutions.

I don’t know if this has made a lot of sense, but I’d be really interested to hear everyone’s opinions.