The issue speaks to the crux of social programming in general. In a purely capitalistic meritocracy, social programming wouldn’t exist. Now if the compromise between the right and the left to allow certain social programs is a means of facilitating greater future financial stability, then there would be a long list of people who wouldn’t qualify and wold be left to their own devices, i.e. to completely fend for themselves. I don’t know how anyone could morally allow such a thing to happen, be the people Yidden or not. The other impetus behind social programming would be to simply help the poor manage in their daily lives, i.e. it’s more about keeping them alive then ensuring they have future stability.
In a general sense, Israel is more socialist then America is, and so the tendency would seem to lean towards the latter framework and not the former.
To me, the more astounding social phenomenon is that the very same people who generally argue for the broadening of social programming in the US (among us Yidden, the more left-leaning of us) are the very same ones who argue that it should not be applicable to Chareidim. This is a position I find to be highly hypocritical, and probably does reveal, at least to an extent, a deeper bias driving the conversation….
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