DaasYochid – you do bring up a great point, a person’s contribution to society isn’t limited to finances. The problem is that MorahRach was asking for clarification about Kiryas Yoelite’s statement that chareidim are contributing to the economy. She was not disparaging chareidim but asking for specifics. Your comment asking about the soldiers’ financial contribution rubbed me wrong because it doesn’t answer the original question and (seemed like) a dig at the soldiers who give significantly more than money.
Having said that, I do think the soldiers give financially in many ways. They do their jobs for the country for a very small salary. They don’t just fight but many of them also work in medicine, dentistry, engineering, hi-tech, food, etc – all while in the army. What’s interesting is that they often take those skills with them into the market place when they’ve finished their army service. All of those jobs – both inside & outside of the army – contribute financially to the system. There are other ways that the soldiers contribute financially but that’s for another time.
Now, while I’m on the topic let me take us on a tangent – I’ve read comments multiple times claiming that the university students are given all kinds of stipends & funding but this isn’t fair to the chareidim who are learning in yeshiva but get less money. I’ve repeatedly read here that to be fair, the government must give the chareidim the same. So, this argument is wrong for several reasons. Firstly, the chareidim get funding for much longer than univ. students. Secondly, the avreichim get lots of money from the government in many different ways besides just the stipends – the yeshivot are given money to use for itself, they wheel & deal to get cheaper housing (I’m seeing it 1st hand), they get huge arnona tax breaks, etc, etc, etc. This funding is not available to univ. students and continues for yrs & yrs. Thirdly (& possibly most importantly), the univ. students take their education & start working to improve the economy – that’s the only reason it makes sense for a government to get involved with giving people stipends!!! The avreichim are much less likely to return financially to the economy as the univ students do.
That means – you have to take into consideration the huge kiddush Hashem that the government has been financially supporting Torah learning for 60+ yrs with no expectation of financial return! Had the chareidi movement expressed their thanks in a kavodic way over the past 60+ yrs, I can’t imagine where we would be now as the Jewish people in our Homeland!