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Hey Joe, This Is Life in an Entitlement Society
What it actually looks like to be born in a society where people are entitled to a future.
Senator Joe Manchin, in the negotiations on passing President Biden’s infrastructure bill (backed by progressives and, well, everybody else in the Democratic party) spoke about not wanting the United States to turn into an entitlement society. The expression sounded as typically and cynically out-of-touch as one would expect from a rich man who made a fortune off coal while trying to stop any climate change legislation.
But it’s also funny to me, as an entitled Finnish person, to read about just how scary people in the US think a society with a basic social safety net is.
Why do I even know who Joe Manchin is? I wish I didn’t.
But here’s a true horror story about a life of entitlement, inspired by the senator from West Virginia.
Setting up a life of entitlement
I was born in a public hospital, the second of three daughters, in 1985. My parents didn’t have health insurance, but they didn’t have to pay a dime for my mother’s hospital stay.
As soon as I was born, the monthly child benefit the government pays parents until the child is 17 was increased. When my little sister came along, this monthly amount was increased even further. In Finland today, the benefit is worth about €95 for your first child, €105 for your second, and €134 for your third, increasing gradually until the fifth. Apart from this benefit, there’s also a housing allowance available for low-income families.
Oh, and my parents of course also received the famous Finnish baby boxes and had all the periodic check-ups, for free, at a local clinic. And free healthcare for the child and mother is not just for the first years of life but, you know, forever.
Normally, parents can take 11 months of leave to stay at home with their child, and this time can be split between the two parents. My parents were small business owners and my father wasn’t around as much as my mother would have needed him to be, so my mother had to keep me with her at work for the first months. At six months old, I was sent to a public…
