Commenter Thread

Comments on Am I missing something? by Hartmut

cleek, that was the point. No work requirements though. The anona was not sufficient for a full family anyway. And rents in Rome were extremely high too (worse than NY City).
Well, full time work in several jobs and still in need of food assistance is indeed a parallel. A major difference is that any politician proposing cutting the anona would have quickly met a sticky end. And actually cutting it almost killed an emperor or two. The threat level is not yet as high in the US.

Btw, 'deserving poor' almost required "...". The main criteria were not necessarily actual need (again one could see parallels).

cleek, but the Roman anona was only for the deserving poor and their number was limited by law (and excluded migrants).