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This just isn't reasonable for a whole lot of people on benefits. They're poor, and therefore far more likely to also be rather stupid and not able to contribute as much no matter how much you want to "lead" them to anything.
I have a great uncle with a developmental disability who no matter how much we try to explain can't understand basic elementary school level concepts about how the seasons work or how to read beyond the alphabet. He could do some physical labor back when the demand for simple tasks was more common and he was younger, but now he's basically useless and lives off his wife's survivor benefits after she died and my parents watch him.
The average poor person isn't nearly as dumb as he is, but they are still pretty damn dumb. Just like the leftist mistake over thinking that corporations are "subsidized" by benefits to workers, the idea that benefits are preventing people en masse from getting better assumes that they aren't already demanding max value for what they have to offer. Now they're dumb, so they might not be that great at the negotiating process but the amount left you can wean out of them just isn't much. (Of course it's also not just stupid, physical disabilities and other forms of mental impairments can cause this too but stupid is the main reason.). The only thing that really blocks improvement here is welfare cliffs and poor scaling down of the benefits, otherwise there's just no reason for a person to not be maximizing their pay already.
Thus we're left with the choice to not care and let them live in squalor or take pity on them being born with less functional brains and/or bodies and share with them a little. Maybe someday we'll be able to fix stupid the same way we're increasingly fixing other issues, but until then "they'll get better" isn't happening.
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