“My long passed away grandfather used to tell me about the Great Depression.
It sounded like they all made due and toughed it out and didn’t sit around and wait for the government to help them.”
I questioned my parents who lived through the ‘30’s. The things they and their parents did can’t be done today. Everything my grandfather did to put food on the table has been rendered unworkable. He’d sell his labor by the job; just negotiate with somebody and get cash. He built buildings, moved pianos to second floors with block and tackle, etc. Each thing he did would require government partnership, HR forms, taxes, licenses, fees, zoning changes…Oh, and INSURANCE!
Minimum wages, mandatory reporting, mandated benefits and a host of laws prevent us from even having the child next door mow our lawn. (He can sue is he’s injured.) I don’t know how we get away from it all this paternal government “help.”
You’re correct that today’s government regulations and requirements have made most self-help survival measures our great-grandparents used to survive the Great Depression impossible.
My granny remodeled her small house to turn a bedroom into a room that she could rent to a single gentleman. She had a door cut so he could enter from the entry way and another door cut so he had a pass through to the one and only bath. Now days many cities have zoning against non-family members in homes and against rentals. My granny baked bread and pies and sold them to neighbors or others that heard about her. Now days food sellers are regulated and have to have commercial kitchens. She bought a vacant lot and turned it into a garden for her and for others that rented space in her garden. She ran on cash and the income tax rate was so low, who cared. Now, she would get audited and fined for any tax non payment.