[isoskeles]

I hear people bring up this example to scoff at every now and then, but it’s always some unstated rationale. The progression of technology mostly allows us to live like royalty compared to people 300 years ago, minus the terrible indignity of having to work.

I’ve yet to hear an explicitly stated argument for why I’m supposed to think someone who has access to a refrigerator, internet, food, etc. is impoverished, except for, “Somesuch CEO earns 100000000x more than they do.”

That said, sure, “welfare royalty” seems like a misnomer. I assume they typically live like regular, “middle-class” people without the job part.

[ineedasername]

I'm a little surprised: Do you honestly believe that having a refrigerator, internet, and food makes a person middle class? For refrigerator & food it's hard to have one without the other unless you spend a heck of a lot more money on takeout etc. As for internet, that's pretty much a bare minimum of communicating these days, and in many cases of poverty the way people get their internet is through their cell phones, which absent home internet (which many don't have) is both the gateway to the internet and absolutely necessary to function in today's society.

Maybe we are talking about "welfare" in different ways? In the US, welfare is a constellation of programs, not just one single program that gives $$ each week/month. Everything from subsidized school lunches, medicaid (CHIP for additional care for children), SNAP... your comment about "without the job part" indicates that you might not be aware that a very large number of people are on one or more of these programs and work fulltime+ jobs. Where I live it was a real crisis during COVID school closures because the poorest children had parents with jobs that could not be done remotely and parents could not find or afford alternatives, at the same time that any internet they had was through cell phones (usually the parents phones) so the school district needed to send out wifi hotspots & chromebooks so that students at least had the basic tools to learn... but had to be left alone (if they were old enough) or parents quit their already low-paying jobs to watch over their kids.

None of the above sounds like middle-class without the job part. As you began your comment: I hear people bring up your sort of argument to scoff at the idea that significant % of the population may fall through the cracks or just get left behind. I don't understand the point of view except as lack of direct experience with people living in these not-middle-class positions of poverty on the brink of collapse.

[Schroedingersat]

The impoverishment is in terms of the same things the lower class have always lacked.

A lack of agency and security. Often their situation is such that they cannot change it. For the employed, there is no time or energy to improve life. For the unemployed, employment often has a negative net income (once accounting for transport costs, reduction in benefits and costs they can currently pay with time such as food prep which would have to be paid in money).

There are no spare resources for education or entrepreneurship. No resources for fulfilling hobbies or self development.

Even if you accept the negatives for long term growth, getting an entry level job from that position requires grovelling and outright lying to your 'betters' about how you want to dedicate your life to breaking your back stacking shelves for $8/hr on a split shift 100% availability basis (that doesn't give you enough time to get home in your 3hr 'break') because you love it so much.

Then there's the precarity that poverty brings. Not knowing how you'll afford an emergency, and constantly weighing eating vs. paying the power is mentally draining and incredibly harmful to your mental health. Not conceding to your landlord's insane demands could leave you permanently homeless, and now debt collectors are calling you for a bill you have receipts of paying every 3 hours.

A car is unaffordable, public transit is underfunded, demeaning and unreliable, and pedestrian or cycling infrastructure is unaffordable.

No level of government will listen to your concerns, in fact their decisions are actually anticorrelated with public support.

On top of that you are constantly told that everything wrong is your fault, and you just have to drink fewer lattes and vote with your wallet more.

Public space is stolen and turned into space for cars or privately owned malls.

Anything your community does build for mutual benefit is torn down and rebuild to be extractive.

This is not the life of nobility. It's basically just the same as a peasant with easier access to propaganda, protein, calories, and mentally destructive dopamine buttons.

In many ways it is worse because it is so isolating, and the source of the harm is so nebulous.