Welfare: what's the answer?

Great Debates
21

You probably should dig up some quotes or statistics before you post something like this. If you would have done so, you would see that it’s completely wrong.

For one, Bush has had nothing to do with how welfare is run. The original Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) bill was passed by Clinton, and it set up the system that gave states much more leeway on how to run their system. And West Virginia has both a Democratic Governor and state legislature, so it’s hard to see how any of the cuts made by the state in payments to the poor (which they have authority to do under the TANF law) was a result of those dastardly Republicans.

States get a lot of their funds from the federal government, true, but that money is entitlement money, meaning that it is not appropriated year-to-year by Congress. Federal TANF payments to the states have not been reduced, therefore the actions in WV were not the result of any actions by Bush. The WV cuts were purely state cuts due to the way the TANF program is set up.

22

There are minumum wage jobs out there of course. Many of the service jobs require availablity pretty much any time on the clock while the business is open. Walmart punishes or won’t hire people that wont float their schedule. This makes it child care difficult and expensive. Add to this the fact that fewer and fewer jobs carry health insurance. One kid with strep throat can be the end of the job and the balancing act. ( It was for me in grad school as a single parent)

I like the idea of education for welfare recipients, I would rather they become productive tax paying members of society. I want their kids to grow up in a household that respects the benifits of education. I want them to have sustaining jobs. I want them to have safe child care available. I don’t want to support them forever, and my feeling is if we don’t find a way to fix the system I will be supporting their children for far longer and much greater expense in the prison system.

23

You already mentioned health care for children.

The site I linked to earlier mentions:
[ul][li]A one-time payment of up to three months benefits for certain demonstrated needs[/li][li]Medicaid[/li][li]School clothing allowances[/li][li]the Transportation Remuneration Incentive Program (TRIP)[/li][li]Non-emergency Medical Transportation[/li][li]Low-income Energy Assistance[/li][li]Adult pre-employment vision and dental services[/ul][/li]
And some others. Non-cash benefits make up a significant portion of what welfare recipients receive in support, although not all beneficiaries receive all the above.

This does not equate to a statement that welfare recipients are living in the lap of luxury. Responses to this post based on an assumption that it does will be ignored.

Regards,
Shodan

24

I’ve always thought the answer was Negative Income Tax. When it was tested, it wasn’t tested very thoroughly, and usually the break-even point is what gets argued over the most. It has always seemed like an ideal welfare system, though, if supplemented by existing disability benefits and so on.

25

This hits on two of the key points of the debate on welfare “reform” in this country. The time limits and other restrictions make it far less likely for welfare recepients to get quality education, instead limiting them to training for jobs which very rarely develop into careers because they are low-paying, non-advancing and/or physically strenuous positions which no one with any ambition or desire (or need) to get ahead stays in for very long. As much as we need service sector workers, the entirety of our retail and hospitality (i.e. hotel housekeeping) work pools cannot continue to come from welfare-to-work rolls. And it isn’t going to be too long before there are no manufacturing jobs left in this country, at least none that don’t require high-tech experience/education to control the automated systems that are doing the actual manufacturing work.

Moreover, kids living in poverty, with parents who are working constantly and aren’t able to give them a lot of attention? That’s a recipe for the perpetuating cycles that we’ve seen time and time again. More poverty. More illegitimate kids causing more poverty problems and welfare reliance and postponed education and so on. More crime. More drain on our tax dollars to feed and house these kids when they grow up and do something truly nasty because there was no one around to give them guidance as kids because mom (and dad, if he’s around) are off working two minimum wage jobs each just to keep a roof over everyone’s heads because welfare was cut off before they could get a real education that might help them do something better.

We’re being short-sighted about this problem. Taking money away from families for no reason other than “we’re changing our formula for how much you’re entitled to” is not the way to humanely deal with the poor. Glibly stating “well, they could get a job” is nice, but people, especially people with children, do not ever get ahead with an endless string of low-paying jobs. They need opportunities that cannot happen on $340 a month and don’t get too uppity or we’ll take your medical card away.

26

I’d say that a solution would be a large offering of public daycare at very low cost. That’s what we have over here, beginning at age 2, and it works quite well. Of course, it doesn’t solve the issue for the first two years…

27

Somewhat tangentially, I was looking through an Employment Development Department (EDD) handbook and noticing that some of the questions on the claim form practically encourage the recipient to fib if they want to collect benefits regularly. For just one example: Were you too sick or injured to look for work? You must be well enough to work every day of the week to receive full benefits…You must report the number of days that you could not work…Benefits are reduced one seventh for each day that you cannot work.

Hmmm. Well, once somebody figures out that telling the truth about being ill or injured will prevent them from collecting benefits for that day, why not just fib and say they were perfectly well?
Other situations that can cause the aforementioned fibbing: lack of child care, lack of transportation, personal business (which I assume could also include funerals).

It seems to me that if people are penalized for telling the truth, lying would become second nature very quickly.

28

Why can’t welfare recipients get a “quality education” in five years?

And I hope you aren’t suggesting that welfare reform has failed if everyone doesn’t go to medical school or something.

And therefore, AFAICT, they damn well better get an education.

This is an absurd contention.

I said before and I will repeat - saying that in West Virginia, welfare recipients have to live on $340 a month is just not true.

Why do opponents of welfare reform need to debate so dishonestly? There is a genuine discussion to be had here, but we are never going to have it with this kind of exaggeration.

Regards,
Shodan

29

I can’t speak for your area, but here in West Virginia I call bullshit. I can show you at least a dozen houses within 5 minutes of where I sit that contain 3 or 4 generations of healthy, able people all on relief. Why? Because they draw enough to keep a roof over their head, get a few cases of Bud Lite, and have a nice Tee-Vee to watch NASCAR on.

And that’s the truth, despite whatever stereotypes you can make up about poor, hardworking folks being kept down by the system.

30

But from my point of view, this is exactly how the system is keeping poor people down. I’d be willing to bet you any amount of money, that if the people you are talking about were cut loose, some of them would carve out successful lives for themselves. I’d even be willing to bet that the vast majority of the rest would survive quite nicely. I’m not saying they would all become rich. But necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, and out of a group of a thousand or so of the sorts of people you describe, I’d bet 1 did become rich. At least for a time.

31

Actually, I agree with you.

The problem is, how do you do it?

There are people who for physical or mental reasons can’t fend for themselves. There are others who for various reasons need temporary help to get back on thier feet. These people need all the assistance we can give them and I personally don’t begrudge them one cent of what they receive.

How do you separate the abusers from the program without taking the deserving down with them? Medical exams won’t work…West Virginia has plenty of “Doctors” who will sign any disability application. The caseworkers can’t do it…they have their hands full just trying to keep the assistance programs functioning. Charleston isn’t going to do anything…candidates have all the answers to the problem but once elected it’s business as usual, Republicans and Democrats alike.

Let me elaborate a bit on that last sentence. WV has a massive debt in the Workers Compensation program. There are no good guys in the situation; the big coal and timber companies didn’t pay their premiums and there is massive fraud on the recipient end. Workers Comp was acknowledged as the biggest problem facing the state going into the last legislative session. So, what did the legislature spend the first week on? Passing an all-terrain vehicle helmet law. Don’t want to do anything controversial, you know. The coal companies might quit contributing to one side and the unions to the other. Can’t have that.

The saddest part of the whole situation is that if we could somehow get the loafers out of the programs we could do a lot more for the truly needy.

Dad blames it all on the Roosevelt administration. :smiley:

32

Again, I’m not at all saying that it’s easy. But what exactly makes welfare recipients different from the people who are presently working at Walmart or other service jobs, raising children and attending school ? They do exist, and I don’t think it’s right to essentially punish the person working at Walmart for working instead of going on welfare.

33

I feel like I should have something constructive to add here, since I work for a Canadian Welfare office, but all I can think to say is how we do it. The bare minumum here is $264 a month. That’s for a single, able bodied person with no determined reason to be out of the workforce. Throw a medical form on top of that, and it jumps to $485. Add children and the rate goes up considerably, past $700. This is with medical card (for prescriptions, since we all get basic healthcare for free up here) and daycare if needed.

Training and worksearch programs are included in all of this, and often required if the client doesn’t have a medical reason to be out of the workforce. If you work, the first $200 is exempt, and after that they cut it from your cheque. Many people have daycare only coverage, or health card only coverage, so you don’t have to be completely reliant on the province to be getting help from the province.

It’s alot more than the system described in the OP, but I know from experience that it’s still not enough sometimes. The “job search” programs can sometimes do very little to help some one who already knows how to write a resume and look online. And fraud’s difficult to stop and harms those who really need help (as some one mentioned earlier, it’s very easy to get a medical signed, whether you’re really unfit or not). Plus, it can be of very little use to transients and the homeless . You need an address to get on welfare in the first place, and finding one without money to start with is difficult at best. We’re fortunate in my city since there’s an unrelated charity that works to help people find homes with alot less red tape than gov’t help.

Even so, it often helps. The daycare program and HC in particular, because when some one with kids wants to trade in a monthly cheque that’s just a little under minumum wage for a bi-monthly pay cheque that’s a little over but gives them a chance to be more self-reliant and start on the path to better pay, they can do so with help to take care of their kids and pay for medication. We just reformed the requirments to focus more on families with children, so any household with an income of 20,000 or less can get help with daycare. It seems to be a sensible focus.

Oh, and I dunno about down there, but here the ‘Welfare Queen’ is almost entirely a myth in my experience. Many, many women with kids in the system are working and would be off if they could just make ends meet. The ‘Able Bodied Single Male in search of Medical Exemption’ is alot more likely to contribute to making things more difficult for the truly needy. I’ve seen some ridiculous abuses of the system (trying to hide a substantial lottery win to stay on welfare probably takes the cake), but I still come away with a strong impression that the vast majority of people we help need help and are working to get to a point where they won’t have to jump through our hoops to take care of their families anymore. They just don’t stand out like those who abuse the system.

34

Yes, because we know that poor people were surviving quite nicely before there was welfare.

:rolleyes:

I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Take away welfare, and 1 out of 1000 poor people would become rich? Poor kids should starve and be homeless because that they have a 1/1000 chance of becoming rich if we give them time?

I don’t care about irresponsible adults. But poor kids shouldn’t have to suffer because their parents have lowered expectations for themselves.

35

I know. That’s how I took your post.

There are only 2 ways. As you hint, one way is to drop everyone from the safety net. I agree with your assessment here, also. There are, in fact, many people who genuinly need help. I don’t begrude them any of it either. In fact, I’d like to give them more. I’d add veterans to that list as well. There are a goodly number of them who need help and are not getting it.

The problem, as I see it, is that we have turned the safety net into a right as opposed to a hand out. Additionally, we’ve expanded it to a governmental program which is much too closely tied to power for politicians. That is, the safety net is too broad and too centralized.

You assign the handout power to more local officials. You provide them with funds, and some basic rules, but you allow them to make the call. You want people who know the applicants preferably.

Agreed.

Well, so do I, but on the first one, not the second. :wink: I tend to look at the New Deal as the culmination of the populist movement.

To be honest, I don’t know exactly how you structure a more private safety net. I think that mutual aid societies are a good place to start looking. Personally, I agree with the welfare reform we’ve been doing lately. However, it is a baby step on the road to the other side of the world.

36

First of all, who says a part-time student necessarily needs all that much financial aid? My city university charges $120/credit for part-time state residents. Second, where did you get the idea that part-time students are not eligible for financial aid- according to http://studentaid.ed.gov/students/publications/student_guide/2003_2004/english/types-campusbased.htm, part time students are eligible for Pell grants, Stafford loans, Perkins loans, and possibly supplemental grants . That’s just Federal Aid. Some states (NY is one) also have aid for part-time students.

37

Do you have evidence to the contrary? Most people were poor before welfare. The population boom happened at least 100 years before welfare. What measure are you using to send rolleyes at the idea that poor people survived in the millenia before welfare?

No, if you read more carefully, I did not say that anyone should starve.

Should my kids have to suffer because you were irresponsible enough to have kids you cannot support?

I know, I know, you did not say that.

Look, I want to help the poor also. But I sincerely believe that the best way is to encourage them to fend for themselves. Take the brake which is the welfare state off of the economy, and allow people to compete for pieces of an ever increasing pie. I understand that the details of such plan are far more complicated than this. However, I don’t think that more money for the welfare system is going to fix its problems either.

38

As I said, I was speaking of my experience with people with disabilities. Sorry if you misunderstood that.

39

If you don’t mind, how would you weed out the fraud?

40

Well, there is the problem. Weeding out fraud takes a lot of bureacracy, which is expensive. Examinations and re-examinations. Constant doctors reports. Interviews. Second, third, fourth opinions. Government doctors to examine recipients. I’m afraid that answer is the best that can be done, and it isn’t much.

If we had socialized medicare, it would be easier.

But as it is, the system is already overcrowded.