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What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#91

Post by 1stop »

vectorsys wrote: post #85
vectorsys wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The healthcare isn't free no matter how many times you people say that. But you're also wrong about Australia being "a very similar society to the US". Maybe at one time, but Australia has some very authoritarian laws these days - from gun control to internet filters, etc..

Only in the distorted, leftist mindset are things free because they just happened to be paid with taxes.

I hate that I'm falling for this[0]

For the poor, (i.e those that earn For those that earn > 28k, they pay tax, which a portion of goes to healthcare. So from 28k to probably (random guess) about 70-100k, healthcare is heavily subsidised. For 100k - 200k healthcare costs probably about as much as it would if they just paid for it themselves (given the wealthier tend to be healthier). The 200k+ they are probably paying more for it than they use.

But those who need it most (i.e the poor/poorer) get it free/subsidised.

This is called a progressive tax system. If your care about the majority of your society (keeping in mind, in australia the mean wage is around the 50k mark), then it is without a doubt a better (utilitarian) solution.

[0] http://xkcd.com/386/

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#92

Post by vl »

icelancer wrote: post #39
protomyth wrote: post #2

I should point out that not all state compacts with tribes that enable casinos allow for direct payments to tribal members. This is generally done to "allow the money to go into social programs", but it generally increases corruption to some amazing levels.

Correct. In WA state they force the tribes to spend it "within the community," which ends up as huge hotels and other ridiculous expenses that don't help the poor members of the tribe.

I live in WA and I don't understand why local city casinos are choked, but we allow some specific groups to run casinos 30 minutes away by different rules. How is it making any sense? Lets run casinos on the same enabling rules and get taxes back to communities. The situation now is that members of all communities play, 3 communities pocket the profits.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#93

Post by protomyth »

1stop wrote: post #36
vinceguidry wrote: post #14

The problem with this, I think, is that people will quickly forget about the bad conditions that created the need for the stipend and only see the people using it for drugs. Politically, this works out to 'unfeasible'. After all, isn't this almost exactly what food stamps are? Technically not a stipend, but they're pretty readily converted to cash on the secondary market.

Australia has the equivalent of a "stipend" for poor, unemployed, students, single parents, etc. Plus free healthcare for everyone. It is a hugely successful program with a very low percentage of exploitation (i.e using the money for drugs, or contributing to unemployment rate). It has been constantly tweaked for the last 20 years. You don't need to look at obscure tribal examples within America, you can just look at…

"You don't need to look at obscure tribal examples within America, you can just look at Australia"

Since the tribe is paying a dividend from a successful business to the owners of the business and Australia is transferring money from tax payers to "poor, unemployed, students, single parents, etc.", I do not see how they are equivalent in the first place.

The tribal members are being paid for something they own.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#94

Post by protomyth »

vl wrote: post #92
icelancer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. In WA state they force the tribes to spend it "within the community," which ends up as huge hotels and other ridiculous expenses that don't help the poor members of the tribe.

I live in WA and I don't understand why local city casinos are choked, but we allow some specific groups to run casinos 30 minutes away by different rules. How is it making any sense? Lets run casinos on the same enabling rules and get taxes back to communities. The situation now is that members of all communities play, 3 communities pocket the profits.

Because your ancestors signed a treaty taking all the other land but that spot that gets to run differently. It probably still is a good trade.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#95

Post by randall »

As a weird startup parallel: As a bootstrapped company, you make very very different decisions than you would as a company who has even the tiniest bit of runway. I imagine (not to trivialize poverty) things would be similar. Instead of seeing bigger picture, you're trying to figure out how to pay the bills already owed, etc.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#96

Post by frogpelt »

danudey wrote: post #45
bluedevil2k wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welfare, food stamps, Social Security disability

Those three programs are, in most cases, barely enough to live on, especially not to live comfortably. Even if you make good choices, being on welfare and food stamps still provides you almost no opportunities other than getting as many minimum-wage jobs as you can. You're talking about programs designed essentially to keep people alive and nothing more; to prolong life for its own sake. Minimum income is a way of en…

Food: The SNAP program spent $76.4 billion in 2013. The maximum amount that a family of 4 can receive is $632/month.

Other: The TANF program spent $33.3 billion in 2013. Maximum benefit for family of 3 in California is $702/month.

Housing: Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program spends somewhere around $17 billion per year to provide housing. The maximum voucher that can be received is $2,200/month.

Education: K-12 Public schools are free with free lunches for the poor. Depends on the neighborhood how good the education is.

Pell Grant: The program was appropriated ~$36 billion to award in 2011. Most recent maximum benefit per year was $5,645. Max number of years is six. 6 x $5,645 = $33,870.

In addition, to these benefits if a family does earn an income low enough to qualify for these benefits another benefit is not having to pay taxes. There is a 10% tax on the lowest bracket but it is returned in credits and deductions thus moving the effective tax rate to zero and if the W-4 is adjusted the taxes that will be taken out are almost nil.

If a family received half of the max for each of the items above they could for five years receive ~$1700/month plus Pell Grant money to go to college. After 5 years, TANF is no longer available.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#97

Post by quinnchr »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #88
quinnchr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't really refute my point at all. Catholic charities devoted to human services are counted under human services. I'm not sure where I said religious charities don't help people. They most certainly help members of their respective congregations. But they also can do a lot of harm, like you know, oppressing people by opposing same sex marriage, or pretty much anyone who doesn't share their religious beliefs.…

Wow - I don't even know where to start. . . >>>>> They most certainly help members of their respective congregations. You missed this part of the article: "In 2010, Catholic Charities USA reported expenditures of between $4.2 billion and $4.4 billion, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which publishes an annual list of the 400 biggest charities in the United States," I'm pretty sure NONE of that is going dir…

No I didn't miss that part. Like I said religious charities devoted to human services are counted towards human services in the source I posted. My source counts charities as religious if they identify their cause as being for "Religious Activities" or "Religous Media and Broadcasting"

I'm not trolling. I think religous charities do a lot of good, but I think they also can do a lot of harm. I think it's ridiculous to suggest that private charity will solve everything when the majority of that charity goes to religious Charities who have a track record of oppressing those with different beliefs.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#98

Post by programminggeek »

I'm not exactly sure where the meme of giving a minimal guaranteed income came from (and I only mention it because this seems to be along the similar lines). However, it is worth noting that income inequality has as much to do with the middle class as it does the poor.

I'm not exactly pro-union as they tend to outlive their usefulness, but in the absence of something similar, the average employee basically gave up their bargaining rights probably decades ago and since then the people at the top who know how to bargain are getting ahead faster than anyone else.

I don't know if a guaranteed income for the poor would help out a lot and I don't know how you would even pay for such a program. What I do know is in a consumer driven economy, more money is made by all if people are spending it, and the people at the top who get paid the most just don't spend enough to keep things moving up and to the right forever.

I do agree with the idea that somehow people lower on the economic ladder need to get paid more and that would benefit society as a whole. Heck, even Henry Ford seemed to understand that point. Somehow, that notion has been lost on modern society and I find that to be somewhat sad.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#99

Post by tjmc »

1stop wrote: post #36
vinceguidry wrote: post #14

The problem with this, I think, is that people will quickly forget about the bad conditions that created the need for the stipend and only see the people using it for drugs. Politically, this works out to 'unfeasible'. After all, isn't this almost exactly what food stamps are? Technically not a stipend, but they're pretty readily converted to cash on the secondary market.

Australia has the equivalent of a "stipend" for poor, unemployed, students, single parents, etc. Plus free healthcare for everyone. It is a hugely successful program with a very low percentage of exploitation (i.e using the money for drugs, or contributing to unemployment rate). It has been constantly tweaked for the last 20 years. You don't need to look at obscure tribal examples within America, you can just look at…

As Australians I think we should acknowledge that life is still pretty grim in many remote aboriginal communities here. Massive rates of preventable disease, low life expectancy, illiteracy, high domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse etc etc.

Lots of reasons for this of course and I don't know how services could ever be made as accessible to remote communities as they are in our cities. But I think it shows that the availability of a "stipend" clearly isn't enough.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#100

Post by michaeldhopkins »

anigbrowl wrote: post #42
joelrunyon wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always surprised people yell about the U.S. not wanting to help those in poverty. I think that's pretty well refuted by noting that the U.S. is #1 in charitable giving [1]. The bigger problem seems to be people trusting government imposed redistribution schemes rather than the rejection of them altogether. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/19/world-giving-index-...

The US is #1 in charitable giving because it's so easy to get a tax deduction for doing so. If people had to give out of their after-tax income I suspect you'd see a quite different picture.

That's not true. I have the experiences of having prepared taxes professionally and counting and reporting donations at a church. By combining those I can observe that the majority of donations are proportional to income, not whether the donator can fill out a Schedule A. (The ability to fill out a Schedule A and deduct donations essentially depends on whether the taxpayer has a mortgage, for middle class.)
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