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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

#31

Post by [deleted] »

lazyant wrote: post #28
xacaxulu wrote: post #13

I was born into a single parent family in a trailer park. I worked my way out of that situation including serving in the US Marines in order to pay for college. Even coming from a background that should have led my family to use welfare (mom was too proud and cleaned houses instead) I tend to lean more towards the idea that welfare and the nanny state in general hurt more than they help. The CATO Institute does a lot…

Some may argue that the US military is a big provider of welfare, handing out "fictitious" jobs to almost anybody in a "socialist" way.

[deleted]

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

#32

Post by eli_gottlieb »

websocketpuppet wrote: post #26
xacaxulu wrote: post #13

I was born into a single parent family in a trailer park. I worked my way out of that situation including serving in the US Marines in order to pay for college. Even coming from a background that should have led my family to use welfare (mom was too proud and cleaned houses instead) I tend to lean more towards the idea that welfare and the nanny state in general hurt more than they help. The CATO Institute does a lot…

This shows the gaming of the US Welfare system and the inherent disincentives to work. http://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/hipsters_food_stamps_pinched...

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/01/hipsters-food-stamps-and-...

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

#33

Post by msbarnett »

merpnderp wrote: post #10
chongli wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, aren't most of the people in this country poor because of mental illness or addiction? No! They're poor because their parents were poor or because they grew up in a poor neighbourhood and lacked access to a proper education. This article highlights one egregious myth but far more pernicious is the one you just highlighted: that poverty is a personal or moral failing rather than a lack of opportunity. It's rea…

"lacked access to a proper education". How does that explain Washington DC with the highest levels of funding per child in the country? Every kid has access to a well funded school with well paid teachers. I think it's easier to defend the claim that the kids lacked guidance and support to take advantage of the education provided for them. In the US a single mom who homeschools, with only a high school education, wil…

> lacked access to a proper education". How does that explain Washington DC with the highest levels of funding per child in the country? Every kid has access to a well funded school with well paid teachers.

Education funding in the US is wildly uneven. Spend some time visiting inner-city schools. They are not even remotely "well-funded".

Property-tax driven school funding formulas ensure that richer areas have much, much better funded schools than poor areas.

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

#34

Post by baobabaobab »

merpnderp wrote: post #10
chongli wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, aren't most of the people in this country poor because of mental illness or addiction? No! They're poor because their parents were poor or because they grew up in a poor neighbourhood and lacked access to a proper education. This article highlights one egregious myth but far more pernicious is the one you just highlighted: that poverty is a personal or moral failing rather than a lack of opportunity. It's rea…

"lacked access to a proper education". How does that explain Washington DC with the highest levels of funding per child in the country? Every kid has access to a well funded school with well paid teachers. I think it's easier to defend the claim that the kids lacked guidance and support to take advantage of the education provided for them. In the US a single mom who homeschools, with only a high school education, wil…

>I think it's easier to defend the claim that the kids lacked guidance and support to take advantage of the education provided for them.

That guidance is a critical part of a "good" education. Unfortunately, we leave it up to parents and don't have a way to teach them how to raise a successful kid.

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

#35

Post by projectileboy »

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 subcontract work out to nearly every congressional district in the land (see the B-2 as an example).

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

#36

Post by rdtsc »

bigforbritches wrote: post #23
JupiterMoon wrote: post #17

> The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. So no agenda there then.

Agenda or not, data-driven or not, thoroughly studied or not, authoritative-backers or not it all boils down to how people feel about welfare. All else is largely pencil-pushing. If you want to shape economic policy that is sustainable & impactful, it has to make a large allowance for how people feel about welfare. Let me elaborate. You can make well-reasoned arguments and appeal to the sound nature of people and hop…

Except it is not that simple. People have opinions about welfare without even interacting with individuals taking advantage of it.

Have you directly stopped and talked to those people buying rugs? Or at a restaurant? Are you sure they are not just hipster kids wearing second-hand clothes but who might work at Google or have a rich daddy with a trust fund?. Maybe you did, but I doubt it.

So a lot of opinions and "feels" people have about welfare is what they are _told_ to have. By their parents, teacher, media, friends, TV, magazines, movies, etc.

I lived with a conservative family for many years, and I was of firm opionion that welfare queens are everywhere wasting pulblic's money and that's where all out taxes were. It was a very sincere and string opionion. But it was put in not head not my socializing with "welfare queens" but by White Middle Class Americans, who also didn't really socialize much with welfare recipients, but instead listened to Fox News all day every day.

So to make story short, it is about the "feels" but the feels are often easily updated/manipulated/used by whomever you let control your thought processes.

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

#37

Post by AC__ »

bigforbritches wrote: post #23
JupiterMoon wrote: post #17

> The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. So no agenda there then.

Agenda or not, data-driven or not, thoroughly studied or not, authoritative-backers or not it all boils down to how people feel about welfare. All else is largely pencil-pushing. If you want to shape economic policy that is sustainable & impactful, it has to make a large allowance for how people feel about welfare. Let me elaborate. You can make well-reasoned arguments and appeal to the sound nature of people and hop…

The nice white guy never wins(trust me I know)

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

#38

Post by delinka »

AC__ wrote: post #15
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 guess since we can't all openly stereotype people based on race and religion any longer we'll have to make do with stereotyping the poor. I'd love for you to show me these iPod toting welfare recipients. I'm Canadian, and can assure you that welfare recipients are not living high-on-the-hog. Due to the extremely high cost of living in Canada they are, in fact, quite impoverished http://www.ccsd.ca/factsheets/fs_ncw…

And all you'll ever get is anecdote if you look in the U.S. The "welfare professionals" (let's define this term to mean those that know precisely the minimum of effort to maintain the illusion of 'seeking gainful employment' in order to keep their handouts) keep a low-profile and compartmentalize well. Going to the welfare office today? Don't wear new/"in" clothing, don't take the iDevice with. Out and about socially? Maintain the appearance of not actually being on welfare of any sort: wear the nicer clothing, expose the iDevice prominently. And they can't have their children mocked and ridiculed at school for not fitting in as well, so they need their own iDevice as well.

It's anecdote because there's no data. There's no data because who'd admit to cheating the system? There's no cause for investigation due to compartmentalization-- none of their intended social circle knows they're on welfare; any that do are also on welfare and doing the same thing.

How would I, a "technocrat" making about six figures know this? Because a couple times in my life I've had to take advantage of this safety net. And I was always irritated at how people I'd seen entering and leaving the welfare office had so much material crap that I couldn't afford when I'd see them again out in public. There were several occasions where some of these welfare recipients were running businesses and hired me to perform computer repair, then in the offices I'd here them on the phone discussing with others how to game a particular part of the system. Disheartening.

You want /data/ on this? Good luck.

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

#39

Post by snarfy »

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…

The amount paid to corporate subsidies is pretty obscene:

http://imgur.com/ttNcwHA

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

#40

Post by abalone »

tonomics wrote: post #16

>Many governments have economic advisers with degrees from the United States who share the same ideology He's right, but the ideology is social democracy, not free market capitalism

Hey guess what? Silicon Valley is a product of massive amounts of government funding too.

DARPA's budget is about $3B this year alone. You can thank Uncle Sam for autonomous vehicles, Siri and the Internet, to pick just three.

So if investing taxes in people isn't "free market capitalism" then neither is the tech industry.

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