PBS Blames Jim Crow for Lack of ‘Universal, Simple Benefit Systems’
3rd September 2026
As they do for everything that happens that they don’t like.
The Atlantic staff writer Annie Lowrey joined PBS’s Amanpour and Company on Tuesday to allege that the reason why the United States does not have “universal, simple benefit systems” like universal basic income or single-payer health care is because of the legacy of Jim Crow.
Jim Crow had a legacy? Boy, I’d like to read that Will….
Lowrey was to promote her book, The Time Tax: How the Government Wastes Our Time and How to Fix, which naturally argues that it costs too much time and money in order to receive benefits in this country due to excessive bureaucracy. While attacking unnecessary bureaucracy may sound nice, Lowrey’s attempt to identify a source was way off track, “Part of the reason that we do not have universal, simple benefit systems in this country, like some of our peer countries have, is because we were creating those programs often during Jim Crow. And we wanted to have ways to get benefits to some people, but not others.”
Yeah, the difference is between ‘people who deserve help’ and ‘lazy feckless parasites’. This distinction is not one that proglodytes make. (Of course, these are the people who think that government is the perfect vehicle for telling everybody how to run their lives. Ironic.)