I don't know about other countries - but in Germany we have PC shops where you can walk in and get on the internet. It used to cost 1 Euro per hour - that is appr. 1 Dollar. There anybody had access to the internet for small money.
These days there are a lot of public WiFis. If you have a mobile device, you can connect there - e.g. at your public library. So I do not think it is a matter of money to get on the internet.
If I add up all the times I lived and worked in the US, it is appr. 20 years. Now it is 6 months per year - since the last 18 years. My wife is American and she likes to be a certain time in her home country. And I like the Florida weather in the winter.
At least Wolfgang lives here for a significant portion of the year every year
and has been doing so for some time
I don't "go do something" because I don't need to; I busted my backside all my working life preparing for retirement so I wouldn't have to work when I was older (I hadn't anticipated getting handicapped but that just meant I retired a couple of years earlier) working physically demanding jobs (which, along with stress, probably contributed to my handicaps or, at least, hastened the arrival of the more physical ones).
You misunderstood what I meant about most people on welfare could do something. Almost everyone on welfare can do some kind of work, be it answering phones, shuffling paper in an office, working a concierge desk, doing light assembly line work that can be done sitting down, doing physical labor (such as picking up roadside trash) that doesn't require mental abilities, etc. It wouldn't even have to be fulltime. If, instead of just handing out money and benefits to people, they would have to do some kind of work for those benefits, the kind and amount of work based on their abilities and by making these jobs less profitable and desirable than working in the private sector, the people who are leeching off the system now (and I'm not saying all welfare recipients are leeches) would be more likely to have the incentive to get off welfare.
Training people who are otherwise unemployable does work; I've seen it happen. A neighbor of mine was downsized back in 2009. When she was unable to find work she was qualified to do and was facing bankruptcy, the State provided her with a bare bones computer and classes on how to use it and basic office productivity programs (and she had to take those classes to get the computer and keep it). Within six months, she was off welfare and working again and has since been able to buy a better home. I have no issues with my tax dollars being used that way.
I do have issues with, when I was supporting a family, seeing people drive better cars than I did and wearing better than clothes than my family could ever afford, filling up grocery carts with the best cuts of meat when my family had to make do with helping Hamburger Helper with additional noodles, then watch them pay for all that good food with food stamps. Small wonder people don't want to work for a living when they can live better on the dole.
