What of welfare? Who should benefit from benefits?

Society is malformed. The breadth of humanity and the full variance of the human condition was not what society and culture's advancement benefited with equal measure.

The maladaption created false disadvantages. These false disadvantages are sort of what disability is about.

The system which rectfied this illness in society which means certain types of people do less well or do not reach their full capability (flourishing)...bugger...benefits never sorted the latter.

Benefits keep people alive but they're a shit solution. Getting people off them enmasse during a recession is a shit solution too.

Benefits are a shit solution because they don't help an individual flourish. The system contributes to negative life course. It also contributes to the exclusion of the disabled.

I've been on state medical benefits for suicide and alcohol and drug abuse. The latter wasn't that bad. Just towards an extreme. I know people hate the idea of addicts getting support though their social disability is equivalent to other people with other mental illnesses.

I have worked fucking hard to stay off them. Its because work gives me more.

But good work. Not just any work. Work which brings job satisfaction.

There's a sizeable systematic review which shows job satisfaction kicks arse on physical and mental health. Though the authors didn't do a funnel plot to check for publication bias the effect sizes were so large that even with a third knocked off they're still bigger than seen in large reviews of lesser quality trials in psychological therapies.

The added benefit to physical health is obviously a bonus to other mental health treatment.

So if I was so bold as to question who should benefit from benefits then i'd turn the question around.

I'd say how dare you? Society's illness cost people's health and long life. It makes life shitter for them too.

The smallest bit more society can do for the less well off is a step forward in progress.

This is what we should be spending our time considering. Not how to divy up a small pot of money but how to come up with better solutions.

Why not a job creation program? Why not use psychometric testing and motivational interviewing to help people off benefits and back into society in a way which is healthy.

Instead smart people who ask questions like who should benefit come up with shitty answers to shitty questions. The current solution to the governments longstanding desire to get people of medical benefits is a shit one which will kill a few directly and make many more more ill.

Who should benefit from better jobs and better job satisfaction?

Everyone. But in this current crisis the experimental group is those who are worse off.

Help people on benefits into the right kind of work and the health economics argument makes this a total fucking bargain.