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0 pointshnal94312y ago0 comments

If that were true, welfare would work.

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6 comments · 4 top-level

smileysteve12y ago· 2 in thread

Not necessarily - one issue facing poor USA is the Financial Cliff of coming off of welfare. In some tax and unemployment environments, working that 2nd job actually nets less cash, because at a magic number ~27k, unemployment benefits kick out , and a little bit higher and income tax burdens raise ( there was one deduction in particular the last few years)

So, to make working a second job "worth the jump" it needed to bring in $5k+ more, which very few jobs do on the outset.

digikata12y ago

It's not only the cliff itself, but threat of the cliff and qualification hysteresis. For some benefits, if it's determined that your categorization changes, then getting accepted into the former level of benefit can take a long time. E.g. if you're told that more than X dollars in your checking account will result in a reduction of benefits, and getting your old status back might take a year, then it's logical to be risk averse and stay well clear of any jobs that could take you over the limit even for a day.

VLM12y ago

The actual numbers are far worse with children, between $20K and $60K there's a no (wo)mans land for single moms where they'll make more money off .gov at $20K than off .com at $60K. Its pretty sick.

potatolicious12y ago

Not necessarily. Efficiency of delivery matters - the homeless are very time-poor because every basic necessity of life costs a huge amount of time to acquire, even if they are free monetarily.

Every meal involves a multi-hour line. Every shelter bed too. Every free clinic, etc etc, you get the point.

The net effect is, despite having well-funded charities providing for their basic needs, they have neither the time nor the bandwidth to make any substantial improvement in the long run.

Contrast this situation to transitional homes, where once admitted people are guaranteed shelter, clothing, and food for a period of time, where (basically) the same services are provided but without the daily time sink, and the success rates are much higher (this of course, should account for the fact that transitional homes mostly exclude those who still have major mental health or substance abuse problems).

Both institutions are a source of "free money", but one works a hell of a lot better, largely because it frees them up for higher-order goals.

beat12y ago

One of the points of the article is that our welfare system is very expensive for the poor in terms of time, cognitive bandwidth, and opportunity cost.

It would be cheaper to just give everyone free money. In fact, that's the basis of the the various Guaranteed Minimum Income ideas that have been floating around for the past 45 years or so.

dannypgh12y ago

Curious, but what by metric are you judging welfare to not work?

I'm pretty sure fewer people die of malnutrition and more people can eat better food as a result of welfare. I'm pretty sure more people have the ability to keep a roof over their heads because of welfare, too.

Given the current unemployment rates it also seems odd that we'd want to predicate the "success" of welfare on whether it is able to make even more people join the workforce.

There are, of course, many flaws with the system. But asserting that it doesn't work doesn't advance discourse in any meaningful way.

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