Welfare

[Thurisaz]

...The dead-beats are more sensational to write about. That it unjustly stereotypes the lowest and most vulnerable classes of our society does not matter to the newsmakers.

 

Summed it up nicely.

[Thurisaz]

The welfare system screws honest people. And it makes no secret of the fact that it would rather see the poor in brothels and prisons.

 

Word brother. Once, not too long ago, things were somewhat better over here in Germany (not as drastical as you describe it), but with the latest "reforms" of the welfare system our fuckfaces politicians have in effect created a new, modern slave caste. To imagine you live on "Hartz IV" (that's how it's called over here) and hear the debates on how to spend the recipients (of course they call it "use" but in effect it's much more like "spend")...

 

...a friend of mine got hired by my own employer recently and said about his payment "it's not significantly more than Hartz IV, but you know what? At least here, as an employed person, I have some dignity". Dig this.

[R. S. Martin]

Come to think of it. I did encounter a woman last winter who seemed to think it's her right to abuse the system. Immigrant lady. Bitch is the word I'd like to use. I tried telling her how she was feeding the stereotype of lazy immigrants who come in here and steal our jobs and abuse our systems. I tried telling her that the systems were in place to help the truly needy. All to no avail. I was so mad I was barely seeing straight. Yes, the bastards and bitches do exist. And they spoil it for the honest folks.

[R. S. Martin]

As for Wendy's question: Does the welfare system help people achieve their potential. I don't see why she is asking the question after all the stories about people using it to tide them over through a crisis. People who die of starvation or other preventable causes just because they ran out of money and food and healthcare definitely cannot achieve their potential.

[Grandpa Harley]

I apply the same rules I apply for justice. Better for 10 to rip me off than one real one starves... Pride makes it hard to swallow, but hell, I'm not going to see someone on the street for money I never see...

[Vigile]

Is it not possible to criticize the welfare system without criticizing those who actually need some help? From those numbers I posted above it seems there is some terrible abuse taking place, and I doubt the abuse is being perpetrated by the users. Rather, there seems to be a huge amount of inefficiency. Is it really necessary in one of the wealthiest societies in the world for the average working family to have to fork out 18,000 hard earned dollars a year to support the less fortunate? Are there really that many? Sally Struthers says that I can feed a poor child for pennies a day. Why does it cost so much more to feed an American? Is it really that expensive? Here in Russia, a country that is now just getting back on its feet, I see less true poverty than I've seen in the US. Almost no one here is one paycheck away from the street. Health care is free or virtually free. The handful that are actually homeless are so because they are raging alcoholics whose families put them on the street, or they traded their already free and clear flat for booze. And virtually the only taxes anyone pays here is a hidden 10% sales tax.

 

In other words, I can make $100k a year here and keep nearly all of it and I don't have to watch my neighbors starve, live on the street, or go without medical care. Something stinks about the European and US models.

 

*Edit*

 

Just wanted to add, that it seems, in the US anyway, that the choices voters get to make on this issue are unacceptable from either side. Conservatives just want to gut the system and improve the bottom line for the corporations they serve. They don't look at the current programs and search out bureaucratic graft, but instead stick it to the recipients. The liberals then offer only to create more programs, which are bound to just increase the graft, raise taxes, and ultimately lead to a loss the next election when voters buy the conservative tax cut spin again. Everyone gets screwed but the bureaucrats and big business. Whoo hoo!

[Wendybabe]

Thanks. I have really learned a lot but I guess I have really offended a few people. Sorry? I felt I was just taking an honest inquisitor position. Next time I will post in the third person, " I know someone who read this article...."

[KenneyVTX]

Once again, all this information is being filtered through the lense of the popular media. Dog bites man, doesn't sell copy. Man bites dog, does.

I have a close friend that has made use of public assistance, and mine for that matter. She's a married woman with two children. An articulate white married couple that is struggling to make ends meet is uninteresting. It's not sensational in fact it's all to common.

However, you take an inarticulate black woman with more than one child that is unmarried and it's sensational. Those that think the fight against racisim is over are sorely mistaken. Just watch any news broadcast from the south.

[Dianka]

Here in Russia, a country that is now just getting back on its feet, I see less true poverty than I've seen in the US. Almost no one here is one paycheck away from the street. Health care is free or virtually free. The handful that are actually homeless are so because they are raging alcoholics whose families put them on the street, or they traded their already free and clear flat for booze. And virtually the only taxes anyone pays here is a hidden 10% sales tax.

 

V, Russia is a big country, and you live in one of the wealthiest regions. It's ridiculous for you to say that almost no one is a foot away from poverty in ALL of Russia. I think your opinion is based on your experience in St. Petersburg, not all of Russia.

 

I bet anyone who still wears a babuska would tell a different story.

[Dianka]

I apply the same rules I apply for justice. Better for 10 to rip me off than one real one starves... Pride makes it hard to swallow, but hell, I'm not going to see someone on the street for money I never see...

 

 

[Grandpa Harley]

and that means?

[Dianka]

The word justice made my mind wander.

[R. S. Martin]

Thanks. I have really learned a lot but I guess I have really offended a few people. Sorry? I felt I was just taking an honest inquisitor position. Next time I will post in the third person, " I know someone who read this article...."

 

No you were not taking an "honest inquisitor" position. Here is what you said:

 

The L.A. Times ran an article on subsidized housing last week. It revealed that the crime rate went up in proportion to the increased population of families receiving free rent money from the State. (I for one would really be pissed off if I spent my life savings to live in a nice neighborhood only to find a bunch of hoods hanging around because the government was giving-them a free ride.) Does welfare really work? Does it just make problems worse? "Give a mouse a cookie..." Maybe I am wrong? Maybe there are people out there who really have turned their lives into decent responsible working people because the government gave them welfare?

 

 

You didn't have to make derogatory comments about "free riders" and "hoods."

 

The following would have been sufficient for you to ask your question:

 

The L.A. Times ran an article on subsidized housing last week. It revealed that the crime rate went up in proportion to the increased population of families receiving free rent money from the State. Does welfare really work? Does it just make problems worse?

 

********************

 

Here is the original answer I started writing up, then discarded:

 

One morning a farmer left the house to milk his cow. The instant he stepped outside the house, the sun peaked over the horizon. Does the farmer cause the sun to rise by leaving the house to milk his cow?

 

Compare that to this:

 

One day the government decided to make money available to people who could not pay their rent. Over the next little while the crime rate went up by the same amount as the free rent was available. Does this mean that free rent causes crime?

 

**********

Just so you know, there is just as much relationship between a man milking his cow in the morning and sunrise as there is between a community taking care of its own (providing welfare) and crime.

 

The sun rises in the morning. Cows must be milked in the morning. It can happen that the two coincide. This does not prove that milking the cow causes the sun to rise.

 

Communities have poor people. Communities have people who are less than honest. It makes sense that the proportion of poor people corresponds with the proportion of less than honest people. This does not say that it is the poor people who are dishonest. The proportion of dirt poor people probably also corresponds with the proportion of filthy rich people. Does this prove that the rich grew wealthy at the expense of the poor?

[Vigile]

Here in Russia, a country that is now just getting back on its feet, I see less true poverty than I've seen in the US. Almost no one here is one paycheck away from the street. Health care is free or virtually free. The handful that are actually homeless are so because they are raging alcoholics whose families put them on the street, or they traded their already free and clear flat for booze. And virtually the only taxes anyone pays here is a hidden 10% sales tax.

 

V, Russia is a big country, and you live in one of the wealthiest regions. It's ridiculous for you to say that almost no one is a foot away from poverty in ALL of Russia. I think your opinion is based on your experience in St. Petersburg, not all of Russia.

 

I bet anyone who still wears a babuska would tell a different story.

 

SPB and Moscow are certainly different countries than the provinces, to be sure. However, free health care is national. Free housing is national. Russians in the provinces grow their own food at their datchas, make their own moonshine, share the same sense of community. Comparing these people to many Americans who are one paycheck away from being kicked to the street is comparing apples to oranges. Thus my point, that there is something wrong with the American welfare model and perhaps more.

 

At a minimum, would you not agree that for the average family to pay $18,000 a year to support the American welfare system, a system which still has not improved the lives of those on it to the level that a poor country like Russia enjoys, is somehow inefficient?

 

It's fine and dandy to want to support the idea of welfare. I have no problem with that. But the solutions being offered seem to be to just throw more money at a broken system. That just seems stupid to me, not empathetic.

[Unknowing1]

While I agree that the system has some issues, I can't say that it doesn't help at least some people.

 

I am one who has benefited from the system. My parents went on welfare when I was a child due to my father losing his job. Mom wasn't working at the time and while they both scrambled to find jobs nothing came along right away so they applied for welfare. I am grateful that welfare was there. I developed a cavity while we were on welfare and thankfully the taxpayers paid to have it filled. I can tell you that even though we received food stamps and some assistance with housing, it wasn't a picnic. We didn't eat high off the hog, instant milk, hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, bologna were our main food sources because it was cheapest and would go farthest in feeding us, there were no in between meal snacks either.

 

 

I also have a very dear friend who has benefited from the system. Divorced, father of her son stopped paying child support so in order to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table she dropped her son's health care coverage. Our state offers free or almost free health insurance to children of low income families. I told her to check with them. Even figuring in the child support as if it had been paid she qualified for free insurance for him. She had to provide financial information every 6 months. When she started working a second job she was able to afford to pay for health insurance for him so she dropped the state coverage.

 

There really are people who go on welfare or receive public assistance in one shape or form that really need it and do not abuse the system.

[Casey]

At a minimum, would you not agree that for the average family to pay $18,000 a year to support the American welfare system, a system which still has not improved the lives of those on it to the level that a poor country like Russia enjoys, is somehow inefficient?

 

It's fine and dandy to want to support the idea of welfare. I have no problem with that. But the solutions being offered seem to be to just throw more money at a broken system. That just seems stupid to me, not empathetic.

 

Agreed. American welfare seems to have started with FDR who, when confronted with the Great Depression, went through a whole alphabet soup of nostrums, none of which worked. He had inherited most of these from Hoover, his predecessor. I don't think any President after FDR tried to make welfare more efficient or reduce it. Its history has been one of contiual expansion. What is more, the Grand Daddy of all the welfare programs is of course Social Security which is now so far in the hole that the system will most likely have to renege on its promises to the Baby Boomers when they retire, as they soon will. Not only that, but the funds earmarked for it have been looted over the years by successive Administrations.

 

Now when you add in the cost of Medicare and Medicaid and you see the huge hole in the US financial system caused by these three failed programs, you have to wonder how long the system can continue.

Casey

[Carolyn the Red]

Yes I did assume welfare and section 8 were the same thing. To be honest I really don't know a lot about the system. At one time I was faced with having to get a job and support myself. I was 18 and had no where to go. I had no idea all of the programs I could have applied for. I found a minimum wage job and went to community college until I could get a better job. After saving my money I went to a University and now have a career job. So here I am, proud that I didn't get help to get where I am at. O.K. I am NOT critisizing people who do get help but I wonder if we keep people from acheiving their true potential by giving them help they may not really need?

 

Warning! Warning! Rant ahead! And I'm not talking about the American welfare system or the article! Read at own peril!

 

I'm not trying to pick on you, but I get an impression you're missing part of the picture. Just reading this paragraph, I can see you're literate. At 18 it's likely you were smart, hard-working, without dependents, and not too ill or disabled. You weren't over 50 with only experience in a dead industry. You probably weren't coming out of prison, or being aged out of the foster care system. Chances are you had a few friends or family members who might lend you a bit of money for a few days to make rent, or let you couch surf for a little while. It's unlikely you were coming out of a job where you didn't receive your last month of pay because the company went bankrupt. Chances are your education wasn't disrupted due to war or natural disaster. You probably didn't have a severely disabled child. Or maybe you just had the unusual mental toughness, mental resources, and just plain intelligence and luck to beat the odds, I don't know. You could compete successfully for a job which paid enough to live, and you could successfully learn skills and gain qualifications which let you move into a better line of work. Some people can't. There's always someone at the back of the line.

 

The economies of the developed world depend on there not being a shortage of workers, which means that there's always a level of unemployment, say 5%. Sometimes circumstances lead to a much higher level, locally or not. Somebody has to be out of work. Some of these people become chronically out of work, for whatever reason. Some are generally unemployable, some just can't physically work anymore, and some are just less qualified than the other people competing for minimum wage work.

 

Some of them would do fine without social assistance...they have family or friends who they can depend on, like my friend stayed in my spare room for four months while he looked for work, or my sister-in-law who moved back in with her parents, or my friend who I give the occasional interest-free payday loan. But if someone's friends and family can't, for whatever reason, manage to help a bit, and they can't get enough of a job to pay their basic expenses, I think it's fair that all of us, as a society, pitch in to let them survive. Maybe they just need to ride through a rough patch, but maybe they just aren't equipped to do better in this world. Yes, it's good to give opportunities and education, but how do you do that for everyone? Is the world really looking to employ a 55 year old with 35 years in construction, who's been injured and can't do that anymore? Or a mentally ill young man or woman, who has trouble with basic social interaction? Or even just that person who's a little less quick, a little less charming, a little less well connected and experienced than their competition...

 

After all, none of us is a self-made man. You probably didn't pay anything near the cost of providing a community college education (same as I didn't pay anything near what my university education cost to provide). I didn't create a society in which I could get an education which would allow me to live comfortably doing something which suits my talents all on my own. I took the tax credits to which I was entitled, and I didn't insist on paying tax at the highest bracket level. Though I've paid my own rent since I was nineteen, it's not fair to say that I've done everything on my own.

 

I think people should take it upon themselves to contribute, and I don't like people who seem to think they're owned what other people have had to work for. But I don't think that "entitled" people are uniquely poor. And I don't want to be the one who has to judge. How best to arrange this assistance is a whole other question, but I don't think we need to take a "parental" role towards people who need help. How insulting to think we know best what someone who has very different challenges and skills needs.

 

OK, I think I started to get lecture-y. Sorry, but I've been pondering things lately. I've been working around a lot of people who don't make great money and who have to physically work hard for it, and have started to wonder how anyone who does mental work (myself included, I'm a grad student damnit) thinks they know what hard work is, and about how easily some of these people suggest the poor should take on this kind of work gladly. That's enough, though.

[Carolyn the Red]

Is it really necessary in one of the wealthiest societies in the world for the average working family to have to fork out 18,000 hard earned dollars a year to support the less fortunate?

 

The median family income in Canada is something like $46K. My understanding is that in the US, the median in US dollars is not higher. If your family, in the US, is making $100K, you are not average, you are quite privileged.

[R. S. Martin]

Great post, Carolyn.

[Vigile]

The median family income in Canada is something like $46K. My understanding is that in the US, the median in US dollars is not higher. If your family, in the US, is making $100K, you are not average, you are quite privileged.

 

I see it's a bit lower than my guestimate: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/medi...zeandstate.html

 

That just slightly misses the point I was making though. In a short sentence, if I'm paying nearly 20% of my income toward public assistance, I would hope that this investment would pay off a little better. Adding to that sentence, if I'm already paying 20% for public assistance, isn't it asking a bit much to ask me for more come next election?

 

btw, I'm not sure I like the word privledged. I came from a middle income family, worked my ass off to get through college and built my own business. This is not a slam on those who are underprivledged, just a comment on the fact that I worked hard for everything I ever got; harder than a lot of people around me.

[Grandpa Harley]

Well, how exactly are the people likely to get off welfare while ever big business farms it out to China or some other third world hell... it's economics... I don't remember whether it was Keyens or Friedman who posited that an economy could still grow with rising unemployment while ever foreign labour could be leveraged... India, China, former Soviet Union, Latin america... Africa seems to be the next logical place... meanwhile 20% isn't bad... unless you want an expanding populous to starve... which is messy. One good way to fund an Empire is War... but ATM, the war without end that they've tried to sell is no longer seen as a 'just' war...

[Vigile]

You touched on the major issue that is going to complicate this question in a huge way over the next few decades I think Gramps. It's almost as if it is going to be a losing battle.

 

Regarding the 20%, my point is that it doesn't appear that I'm getting a good return on my investment. I would rather be poor in Russia than poor in America. If I'm poor in America, say for example, I'm working a hard 40- 50-hour work week for low pay and still barely making ends meet, it's always in the back of my mind that if I get injured or sick or laid off for any reason, that I virtually have no saftey net to fall back on. I very well could be looking at living in my car next month, assuming the bank doesn't also take my car. This is a reality for a lot of people in the US.

 

In Russia, this fear isn't present because if you are a Russian, the government has already giving you a house to live in (many are buying new places now, but during the soviet era housing was free and residents now hold titles - today, if your apartment is condemned, the government will move you to a new apartment for free). Your gas will never be turned off. Your electricity will never be turned off. You most likely have a datcha where you grow your own food and need very little to buy a bit of cheap meat. If not, you have friends and/or family that will give you a helping hand. Worst case scenario, you can't afford the luxury of going to the kiosk and buying a cheap beer. A very different worst case scenario than the average American faces. There are a few babushki who slip through the cracks, but very few; usually those with alcoholic children.

 

So, what I'm saying is, I would hope for a 20% investment there would be a safety net that is at least equal to the ones the Russians, a poorer country enjoy on a much smaller investment. And, since I'm getting a really poor return on my investment, I am very hesitant to give an even larger chunk of my money to the same people who are already mispending my money now. This is tantamount to throwing good money after bad, and as I said, this just seems stupid.

 

Unfortunately, as you pointed out, globalization is sure to lead to an even wider seperation of wealth. I'm not even sure how American competes now as it is. Recent job creation seems to be of the service kind. Tech and manufacturing are being farmed out to cheaper territories.

[Grandpa Harley]

The poor return is more to do with politics and (deliberate) mismanagement by Government. The right wing of the Democrats and pretty much all of Republican party want to dismantle what little safety net there is in the United Theocracy. One of the best ways to get popular support is to make the system a mix of inefficient, unfair, and humiliating, while stacking the media with tales of welfare cheats (using the kind of grotesques one only usually sees on the Jerry Springer or Maury Povich shows...) At the risk of invoking Godwin's law, the methods of making the Jews look bad used by Goebels are used since they are effective.

[Vigile]

I absolutely agree. The problem facing US voters, is they are offered no other option. When you have two bad choices to make, it's pretty difficult to make a decision. Those who are empathetic can vote to throw more money at the problem, but they are in effect not making any change. This in turn causes a backlash at the next election where the next party comes in, guts the already ineffective programs created and shuffles the money to big business. Voters take it in the rear on both counts. Ignoring this, or not understanding this, they end up in heated, rhetorical debates with one another about theory that has nothing to do with the true effect of their votes.

[Carolyn the Red]

The median family income in Canada is something like $46K. My understanding is that in the US, the median in US dollars is not higher. If your family, in the US, is making $100K, you are not average, you are quite privileged.

 

I see it's a bit lower than my guestimate: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/medi...zeandstate.html

 

That just slightly misses the point I was making though. In a short sentence, if I'm paying nearly 20% of my income toward public assistance, I would hope that this investment would pay off a little better. Adding to that sentence, if I'm already paying 20% for public assistance, isn't it asking a bit much to ask me for more come next election?

 

btw, I'm not sure I like the word privledged. I came from a middle income family, worked my ass off to get through college and built my own business. This is not a slam on those who are underprivledged, just a comment on the fact that I worked hard for everything I ever got; harder than a lot of people around me.

 

I'm a bit skeptical at how 20% of the income of someone goes to public assistance, but, well, I'm not american, and I have no dog in that fight. I'm quite sure that if this isn't an inflated figure, including things like the government part of tuition at public universities and tax credits for lower income families, that you're not getting anything close to good value. It probably includes the government health care programs, where you certainly don't get good value, and spend a lot of money.

 

I'm not wedded to the word privileged. All I mean is that there are people working very hard, making far less than that. After the first message with the $18K from a family making $100K, some messages used "average" as the word for families making $100K. I think the average value you get depends on how you count (say, is a 25 year old living at home because she can't afford her own place working full time counted as part of the household? How do you count people living in retirement homes?). Still a family making $100K is doing well (speaking as a member of such a family).

 

I don't think the average person who I'd call privileged doesn't work hard, but there's a lot of unpleasant, at least reasonably skilled, physically hard, and often absolutely necessary jobs, that make far less than $50K. I've recently been commissioning a machine in a dairy, and what struck me was just how hard the relatively good general labour jobs in there are. No sitting, night shifts, continuous noise, enough hand washing to make your hands bleed, and the need for what some might find a surprising amount of continuous mental attention and decision making. People who don't work hard just don't last long.

 

Meh, hope that makes some sense, I'm home with a fever. Who gets the flu in the summer?