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The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

nytimes.com

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Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#161

Post by lostcolony »

tsotha wrote: post #153
lostcolony wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit tangential, but I'd also argue that the military as recourse is, itself, an unfair burden on poor people. Rich kids don't feel compelled to enlist just to make financial ends meet. Even I (single parent household, parent was a teacher), when faced with an inability to find a job when out of high school, had the grades and support to 'fall back' onto college instead. I wasn't forced to risk my life just to stay…

>A bit tangential, but I'd also argue that the military as recourse is, itself, an unfair burden on poor people. Not borne out by the statistics. The average recruit comes from a family that's better educated and wealthier than the average American. The real problem with poor people using the military to lift themselves out of poverty is so many of them can't enlist as a consequence of obesity or a criminal record.

'Rich kids don't feel compelled to enlist just to make financial ends meet.'

Statistics only tell you the demographics of enlisting, not -why- they're enlisting. Plenty of people enlist because of reasons other than "I have no other options available to me". My point was that "I have no other options available to me" is only ever true for poor people.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#162

Post by JupiterMoon »

oldmanjay wrote: post #125
JupiterMoon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I enquire why you censored me? I've noticed you doing this more and more with posts that don't agree with what I can only assume must be your point of view.

you've redefined "censored" there. HN is pretty clear about discouraging unhelpful comments, and your comment was definitely not useful. you can assume HN readers are relatively intelligent and understand that a conservative think tank promotes conservative opinions. you can't assume we all accept that as normatively evil.

Sorry this took a while to post. (Dang has already censored me in another way after a regrettable spat some months ago -- I can only submit about 5 posts a day.)

From wikipedia:

> Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication or other information which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions.

So no I used the word with it's correct meaning.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#163

Post by JupiterMoon »

dang wrote: post #157
JupiterMoon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I enquire why you censored me? I've noticed you doing this more and more with posts that don't agree with what I can only assume must be your point of view.

It's not a question of your comment alone but of the whole subthread. Surprising digressions are often ok on HN, but predictable digressions are tedious and not in the spirit of the site. They are non-intellectual-curiosity-gratifying. Of these, predictable ideological digressions are certainly the worst and usually go downhill the fastest. All this holds regardless of the view being advocated.

So the OP I replied to should have been the one you censored. That post was ideological. I highlighted it true but that doesn't change anything.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#164

Post by jazzyk »

XorNot wrote: post #158
zo1 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TV's are completely different to fridges in this discussion, I'd say. One is pure entertainment, the other has functional uses that help reduce costs, as well as improve health by preventing food from going off.

That's practically irrelevant, and also stunningly blind to how humans actually function. Entertainment is important - its sufficiently important that we've dedicated considerable resources to it throughout the sum of human history, to the point that we ship giant entertainment venues to warzones . But more to economic point: TVs are cheap. The TVs people complain about are maybe ~$500, and you can do very well if yo…

You are missing the point of welfare: it is supposed to help people get back on their feet, not keep them dependent on taxpayer's money for the rest of their lives. So training/education, not TVs and computer games.

That $500 could perhaps buy supplies to study at a local community college (tuition waivers/scholarships are available).

Poor != stupid.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#165

Post by jazzyk »

jazzyk wrote: post #135
Frondo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it doesn't mean that. It means that when you have $300 in the bank instead of buying a cheap TV set, and suddenly your car needs $500 in repairs, you're still going to a payday loan place, except you're on the hook for $200 instead of $500. Still paying the fees, still stuck in the let's-rip-off-the-poor cycle, except you also don't have a tv set. I know, I know, now you'll say "well you're poor, what do you n…

Except that sitting all day watching TV is CERTAIN to keep them on welfare for the rest of their lives. Perhaps buying them books instead would work better? Community colleges are very inexpensive, there are state grants available to the poor. Why not create incentives to learn a skill/trade, perhaps a degree? "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"

Instead of down-voting a relevant, on-topic comment, please provide a counter argument.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#166

Post by ChrisLomont »

rictic wrote: post #108
ChrisLomont wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So instead of trying to allocate limited resources to those who most need it we should instead blindly split those resources equally among everyone? And this will help the poor how?

The wealthy will, in effect, receive nothing, as their taxes will increase more than they will receive from UBI. Two of the strongest arguments for UBI are: 1) we waste a lot of money administering welfare services. UBI is designed to be inexpensive to administer, which directs more money to the poor. 2) research is beginning to suggest that direct cash transfers have better long term impact per dollar spent than jus…

>1) we waste a lot of money administering welfare services. UBI is designed to be inexpensive to administer, which directs more money to the poor.

I find it hard to believe we waste more money administering welfare than we will transfer to those who really don't need it under the need-blind UBI.

Under UBI we'll be giving money to many, many people who need it less than the current welfare recipients, and even UBI will require administration.

A solution (UBI) that claims to help a group (the actual needy) that is not tailored to administer to that group is unlikely to benefit them, especially since it's now going to split the fixed amount of benefits to others not in the group.

>see, e.g. research on GiveDirectly's impact

What works in Kenya does not necessarily work at every location and economy. It's not like we have not studied this question in the US for nearly a century, and recent research on foreign third world cases does not overturn a century of research on first world economic aid.

And this is not an argument for UBI. At best it would be an argument to change current welfare programs to give cash aid to those already eligible for welfare.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#167

Post by eimai134 »

rdtsc wrote: post #46
projectileboy wrote: post #35

Getting average citizens worked up over welfare is a standard way for the extremely wealthy and powerful to distract those same average citizens from noticing where their tax money gets squandered the most - large corporate subsidies, infrastructure projects that benefit the richest neighborhoods, and so on, and so on. The largest welfare programs I know of are unneeded weapons systems, which very intentionally subco…

At the end of the day it boils down to that fact that the poor as a class, are easily abused and manipulated -- by governments, private entities, even the poor themselves. One of the most perverted ways they are abused is they are convinced to vote against their own interests. For example thinking back at Obama's healthcare reform and the fate of the single payer option vis-a-vis the "get your socialist government ou…

I live in a small town and most of my poor friends voted for Obama. Now they are all furious because they're getting fined for not having health insurance. They don't make enough (or don't manage their money well enough) to pay for Obamacare every month. It doesn't provide great plans either - one person I know pays $130/month for a plan with a deductible of several thousand.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#168

Post by eimai134 »

err4nt wrote: post #4

I grew up in Canada and went to school with rural kids, military kids, and french kids. My family wasnt in poverty but we didnt have many of the nice things others had. Around grade 5 I began to notice how we never had money for a TV, but all the welfare kids I knew had TVs in their rooms. i noticed how I had to do chores, work, save, and help neighbours to afford to buy a game console and video games, and all my fri…

I can attest to this in the U.S. as well. I hang out with a pagan community that has a high percentage of people on food and cash assistance. They get so much money that they purchase holiday gifts with EBT (food stamps) and live almost solely on expensive branded snack food. Every person I've known on EBT has been gaming the system in some way - everything from getting roommates to sign off that rent is higher so they get more money and doing work under the table for cash and not reporting it, to wanting to get married but deciding not to because it would eliminate their benefits and turning down higher paying jobs because they know they need to keep low-wage, part-time jobs to keep benefits. Withdraw cash from a cash card to buy earrings, concert tickets and other luxuries - no problem! Until a couple years ago I didn't even know people were given debit cards with money on them from the government.

I had always thought that poor people bought generic products, had old TVs, couldn't afford cable, had old flip phones, etc. But it's the exact opposite. The poor people I know on welfare/assistance have much nicer things than the middle class people I know.

I believe that the system needs to be revised so only certain products can be purchased with government funds. It would help to keep the people using these services healthier as well.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#169

Post by JupiterMoon »

zo1 wrote: post #146
JupiterMoon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't mind the downvotes. Obviously libertarians would downvote. I did mind the bit where dang decided for whatever reason to move the whole thread from it's correct position.

I did so not because I'm a libertarian or an anarcho-capitalist to be more precise. I did so because you're flat out not adding anything to the conversation, as well as seemingly dismissing valid points because you dislike the political ideology that the publication is associated with. Either the ideas/points are valid, backed-up by evidence, etc. Or they're not.

Actually the OP had two points (and an agenda). Let's break them down.

1. I did well therefore why can't everyone be like me?

This is rather tired argument that I have seen dismissed 3 times last week on HN alone. Refuting this is a waste of everyone's time hence I ignored it.

2. Here is a think tank publishing sponsored pseudo-science with a political agenda.

This is what I commented on. In science, especially in controversial fields, the source of funding and acknowledgement of conflicting interests is almost as important as the findings for any given study. Not mentioning funding or conflicting interest is a viable grounds for withdrawal of peer reviewed publication.

Your point: > Either the ideas/points are valid, backed-up by evidence, etc. Or they're not.

Refer to my comment on the OP's point 2. To expand. Evidence can be selectively gathered and selectively presented. This is what peer review attempts to mitigate. A publication funded by a libertarian think-tank would (like a publication by a socialist think tank) face severe questions during peer review to try to determine whether there is bias. Neither TFA nor the stuff refereed to by the OP are (yet) citable research sources.

Re: The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

#170

Post by dang »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #163
dang wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a question of your comment alone but of the whole subthread. Surprising digressions are often ok on HN, but predictable digressions are tedious and not in the spirit of the site. They are non-intellectual-curiosity-gratifying. Of these, predictable ideological digressions are certainly the worst and usually go downhill the fastest. All this holds regardless of the view being advocated.

So the OP I replied to should have been the one you censored. That post was ideological. I highlighted it true but that doesn't change anything.

I don't agree. The commenter's description of personal experience made it a valuable contribution. It did not come across as primarily ideological, whereas yours did, plus was snarky—a particularly unwanted combination.
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