But getting away from anecdotes the reality is that most studies out there point at Welfare to be more helpful than harmful.
[Bold added]
http://www.sagepub.com/walshstudy/articles/section11/Burek.pdf
There is a slight increase in type 2 crimes, but the papers I have seen make the point that they are more related on how welfare is given, instead of a monthly payment the distribution of it by making it a weekly payment and by debit card has merit.
One word of caution, some conservative studies that claim how wasteful welfare is or how inefficient is to deal with crime do not have the straight dope.
Poor education contributes to potential criminality, poor housing contributes to potential criminality, poor social services/family support contributes to potential criminality, absurd, politically motivated laws (war on drugs, three strikes) targetting poor people contributes to potential criminality, etc.
Welfare reduces potential criminality.
Evidence? Europe - comprehensive ‘welfare’, 1/10 of the prison population of the USA. Num bers approx.
The folks running Cabrini Green really wanted to make sure that men of working age weren’t just hanging around. They worked hard to make sure that no “deadbeat” men were working there including interviewing mothers and their children to learn whether or not dad or some other man was still around. So fathers either had to hide among their own family or they had to find somewhere else to stay. You can Google Cabrini Green fatherless children and find some interviews about the subject.
Of course Cabrini Green doesn’t constitute all of welfare it just represents Cabrini Green. I am skeptical of any general arguments that blame welfare for the breakup of black families. The lack of fathers seems to be a problem with lower income people across the board.
If they’re black, male and in the USA, one third will wind up in prison - which may explain their absence but doesn’t explain why it’s acceptable to pay out all that money to the prison industrial complex but not if it’s ‘welfare’.
There are entire communities out there where the ratio of black adult male to black adult female is like 0.7 to 1
I don’t think that’s right. Look at school spending pre pupil in places like Washington DC. Look at The Kansas City Experiment, where the students were given best education system imaginable. After kids and gone through the system, zero change.
Now while I think inner city schools are largely a moral failing for the country, the main problem is the learning and attitude the kids come to school with. Abigail Thernstrom has written numerous books on the subject of education, particularly in inner-city communities. I saw her on same talk show about a year ago stating that she can tell you with a high-degree of certainty how a kid will do in school by just looking at one thing: she goes to the home and counts the number of books there. So the parents’ attitude toward education is of paramount importance. Raising a child alone makes the whole thing infinitely more difficult. Particularly when the children are boys and there is no father around.
If welfare causes crime, what do you think happened before we had welfare? When the poor people were just left to rot in the streets? Do you think we didn’t have crime then? Do you think people looked at their neighbors and thought “Ah, well, they earned it, so I won’t just break in and take it?” Do you think crime was just born with welfare?
Yeah, let’s call them ethnic slurs while we’re about it…
*“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
[…]
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
[…]
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
*How delightfully Victorian…Bah! Humbug!
This is supposition, but I’m of the belief he regards all poor people as born criminals, in a Social Darwinist sense, so why throw good money after bad.
Union workhouses, treadmills and the poor laws were all attempts by the British government to address poverty by providing make work for the poor. They were forms of welfare.
In the the quoted scene Scrooge is being solicited for a donation to fund a private charity for the poor. His reply is that it is the government’s job to provide for the poor and he pays his taxes. The point of the scene is the opposite of what you are trying to portray it.
Look at the rate of poverty before welfare. Most of the welfare at the federal level started with the Great Society in the 1960s. The 1960s was also a time of tremendous economic growth and the poverty rate was cut in half during that time. It was also a time of a huge spike in criminality. The crime rate almost doubled during the 1960s.
During the great recession poverty went back up to where it was in 1992 but the crime rate was about half what it was in 1992 and one big difference was welfare reform.
Correlation does not equal causation, yadda yadda yadda.
I note you accidentally dropped the reference to “prisons” in the list of “attempts by the British government to address poverty by providing make work for the poor”. However, you do include treadmills which in Victorian England were a punishment, not a form of “welfare” despite your attempts to characterize it as such.
But thanks for nailing your flag to the same mast as Construct.
Yeah, it annoys me as well. I wish people were more willing to state their actual goals, instead of having pointless meta-debates and proxy wars about issues that don’t matter. It’s time to accept that despite massive income redistribution and decades of effort by charities and government, the majority of poor people aren’t really able to make it into the middle class. Those that do generally succeed as a consequence of their willpower and agency, not because of government help. Once we accept this fact, we can begin to devise solutions that help both working people and poor people alike.
This is how politics works in the West, especially in the United States. One side establishes that a term is bad and then applies the term to their enemies. Republicans call democrats anti-Americans, crypto-marxists, traitors and bleeding hearts. Liberals call their enemies racists, bigots, and troglodytes. Libertarians call their opponents statists and corporate shills.
If welfare prevents crime by alleviating poverty then since poverty causes crime there should be a correlation between poverty and crime. There is not which suggests that poverty does not cause crime and welfare does not prevent crime. Unless you can think of a way a cause and effect are not correlated.
