It is "gaming", in the same sense that every decision you make to optimize toward a desirable outcome is "gaming".
40 years he had a choice; go work at the mill for $25/hr, and come home tired and dirty, or stay home and be unemployed, and face the scorn of his peers.
Now he has a choice, either go to "retraining" that is run by for-profit corporations hungry to suck up government funds, and whose "graduates" are still unemployable, or go on disability. Given the world he lives in, he made the best choice.
Now his choice involved some meaure of dishonesty. But while I'd love to live in a world that rewarded honesty and integrity, that's not the world we live in. We live in a world that has no place for a unskilled but hard-working individual, so those people have to take welfare to survive, welfare that they would likely refuse if there were better options.
It is "gaming", in the same sense that every decision you make to optimize toward a desirable outcome is "gaming".
40 years he had a choice; go work at the mill for $25/hr, and come home tired and dirty, or stay home and be unemployed, and face the scorn of his peers.
Now he has a choice, either go to "retraining" that is run by for-profit corporations hungry to suck up government funds, and whose "graduates" are still unemployable, or go on disability. Given the world he lives in, he made the best choice.
Now his choice involved some meaure of dishonesty. But while I'd love to live in a world that rewarded honesty and integrity, that's not the world we live in. We live in a world that has no place for a unskilled but hard-working individual, so those people have to take welfare to survive, welfare that they would likely refuse if there were better options.