Forum Post: Possible solution? Welfare.
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 11, 2011, 12:07 a.m. EST by MASTERdBATER
(15)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The following consists of poorly worded abstract thought regarding an issue that I see as a major one. I would hope to get feedback as well as possible suggestions. This in no way is a complete or final solution.
Welfare spending equated to 682.8 billion dollars for the 2011 fiscal year. In comparison with things like the national debt this may just seem like another drop in the bucket. When I consider what this money is being spent on, it made me realize that isolating this could make drastic steps in improving many aspects of our nation.
I am not writing this merely to point out the many flaws, loopholes and general abuse that has overwhelmed the system. I am writing this to hopefully start some critical thinking in regards to possible solution as well as present some of my own ideas.
My opinions are driven with the mindset that a large percentage of current welfare recipients have no intention self improvement to rise up and provide and produce for themselves. It is also becoming very common for welfare to become a family legacy for many households, where children of welfare recipients have no further aspirations than to settle into the welfare system themselves.
Essentially I believe that if you are unable or unwilling to produce for yourself and your community and you require the assistance of the state to meet your basic survival needs than your rights and assets should be signed over and you will become a ward of said state. The system would be run very much like a prison without as much of the criminal element. Housing facilities will be constructed locally that will provide all of the basic necessities for survival without creating an opportunity for corruption or abuse of the system. This would not at all be based on force, similar to our current system where you would still have to request these services.
The goal here would be to legitimately track spending, reduce abuse and fraud, and hopefully show the youth affected by this situation that a successful future is obtainable. This is the first of many drafts, but I feel like this is one single issue that could gain support from the majority of American citizens. This could be used as a tool to unite and accomplish an initial goal which would lead to future success with other issues facing our nation.
Discuss.
I would say that that's hardly a good idea, and nor would I say that most of the people on welfare are attempting to skate by on that and nothing else. Further, I would claim that there is such an incredible stigma attached to welfare that there is a selection bias against the people who need and deserve it most. I would also say that making the poor wards of the state in the manner in which you suggest will essentially create modern-day debtors' prisons for the poor, and that very quickly these facilities will degenerate into prisons or worse because they're being used to house a socioeconomic group that everyone wishes would disappear anyway so nobody will care if there are abuses.
What I'd rather do is start pushing for national infrastructure programs that by nature and definition require a mix of skilled and unskilled labor and pay a minimum of $15-$20 per hour (in essence, the WPA and the CCC all over again) so that the very vast majority of people receiving government assistance checks would be the elderly and those on disability who are physically incapable of working.
The best part is that if you do it that way then there should be no real need to force people to work or cut off aid to the unemployed, because $15-20 per hour is $600-800 per week per person working, which comes out to a minimum of $30-40K per year per employed household member. That's enough to maintain a single-income household firmly in the working class and a double-income household in the middle class, and way more than current government assistance benefits offer. Even the greediest bastard out there would see the value in this and go to work.
As far as your original complaint is concerned, I'd rather begin looking at enforcement and prosecution of welfare fraud cases rather than simply adding additional hoops to the process of obtaining benefits; if you just make it harder to get then what's going to happen is that you'll drive off those who actually need the money. Hell, I'd rather spend my nights on the sidewalk and beg for change during the day than make myself a ward of the state, and I doubt I'm alone there.
Before you accuse me of naivete, I come from a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx bordering a fairly tough inner city area. The vibe I got from a lot of the people there wasn't so much entitlement or laziness as it was despair; they figured that society had given up on them and thus there was no point in trying to get ahead because they'd be looked down on and rebuffed no matter what they did. If you change that mentality by offering jobs like this then you change the culture of despair and failure.
Personally speaking, I do feel like the dignity of a job has an attraction all its own; my father had (and still has) issues in the way he deals with other people, and he's not exactly a stellar worker, but he held down a job when it was made easy for him to get. Once he lost that job and that mentality of despair set in, he became a much moodier, angrier, less predictable, and more volatile version of himself; he may have been unable to force himself off the couch to look for a job, but not having the dignity accorded to someone with a job was tearing him apart from the inside out. We got him an assembly-line job that's somewhat unionized, and he couldn't be happier.
Essentially, all you really need if you want to fix welfare is better staffing, less stigma, and a jobs initiative to shrink the number of people on the rolls by giving them jobs they can take pride in.
I thank you very much for taking the time to make this response. My experience with the current system is very bias i admit. My mother abused the welfare system and in the neighborhood I grew up, many of the families I came to know were very similar.
My plan WAS based of debtor prisons, because it just seems logical. Dignity was one thing that really stuck out for me in your writing, because that is what I think this design would create. The idea is to make it survivable, but not overly comfortable to be in this situation in hopes to motivate the individual.
I am not a social worker and am not overly sensitive to many of these cases. I do believe in more of a sink or swim mentality. All statement exclude the elderly and permanently disabled of course.
There's a reason we don't have debtors' prisons: they're utterly inhumane places, and I feel like converting welfare into debtors' prisons is a really bad idea. I, too, have had experience with welfare: when my dad went on strike and eventually lost his job my mom had to go down to the welfare office to get us Food Stamps to make ends meet. We were only on them for a few months, and we've been off them since March 2011, but for those few months Food Stamps made the difference between maintaining my sister at Bronx Science and prepping me for MIT versus winding up on the street and having it all come apart in the home stretch. Your plan would not have given us that last leg up and it would have been over for my family and I.
Even that aside, the problem we have with our poor as it is is that they're demoralized and beaten down to the point where they don't see a way up. Formally treating them as little better than imbeciles or criminals won't motivate them to get ahead or better themselves; it'll just strip away what little resolve they have to break free of the system, and those that try will be rewarded for their efforts with a freezing sidewalk for a bed and the contents of a Dumpster for their meals. Acutally offering them a way up and out is the only way to really make a dent in the welfare rolls.
BUT WE DO and more coming soon if the money mongers have their likely way with DC.......... except they will never apply to those who cannot pay their very politically determined property tax rates, for what should be very obvious reasons
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/return-debtors-prisons-collection-agencies-now-want-deadbeats-172417607.html?l=1l
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-22/news/30427838_1_collection-agencies-big-house-debts
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203710704577052373900992432.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet
I may have been misunderstood. The purpose of the facilities WAS to assist these people everyday until they are self sufficient. The help and support would be never ending. They may be viewed and feel lower class, but the point is to show them they don't have to be by providing them the help in a structured and controlled environment. I do understand this may seem extreme, but I think that this issue needs some drastic changes.
Here's the thing; providing support, retraining, etc. for the poor is essential to getting them off the welfare rolls and back into the working class or better, and to some degree that component is missing. However, the sheer upheaval and stigma associated with doing it in a managed-care or residential setting makes it an unworkable idea; the people who would respond best to help will most likely avoid it and move out onto the street while the people who would be willing to surrender their rights would most likely be the ones who are the most demoralized and having the hardest time getting themselves together.
Incidentally, the more we discuss this the more we move away from a debtor's prison as a model and the closer we get toward a model of integrated rehabilitation that I could get on board with. What I'd rather do then is look at "outpatient" assistance for people on the border who are keeping their head above water but barely, in the form of rent and food subsidies alongside a GED program and a grant for college or vocational training once the GED is completed. Tie the two together so that the education comes part and parcel with the rent and food coverage, and look at programs like Head Start for preschool and then either busing or vouchers to ensure that their children get a leg up.
As far as residential care is concerned, what I would do is integrate drug treatment programs, job retraining, GED and college or vocational-technical training money/services into the homeless shelter and then simply allow them to continue staying there until they're on their feet again and can leave. I feel like doing something like that would be the best way to ensure high turnover and fairly short stays in the system.
I agree my method may be too abrasive, but I feel yours is not abrasive enough. Your ideas are very similar to the current practices.
I agree about different levels of this program that would not necessarily have to start with being in a facility. Things like time limits and the amount of "benefits" required could help gauge that. I agree that someone who has had a bad turn of luck with the full intention of turning it around on their own could be allot short term assistance, or "emergency" assistance for a very brief period in which if there was no improvement they would then come to the facility and other similar examples.
So you do want to be abrasive and humiliate and punish the poor for their poverty by controlling and manipulating them. Why don;t you go after the corporations and consumers who create the poverty in the first place. Sounds like you feel right at home in your "better than: chauvinism. At least have the decency to be honest about your real intent.
Actually, the argument that my method isn't abrasive enough because it's too similar to what we have now isn't completely correct; the problem with what we have now is that it's incomplete. You're providing enough money for people to make it from welfare check to welfare check, giving them just enough to scrape by but not really enough to get up and out. If you provide a full and complete package specifically designed to get people off the dole, and then you make it a package deal, you'll start to see improvement: you want your rent check? Fine; then you'll go to school, you'll take care of your kids, you'll hunt for a job, you'll make a real honest effort to bootstrap yourself up the socioeconomic ladder. You don't want to do those things? Fine. There's a sidewalk to sleep on, a Dumpster to eat out of, and your kids are coming with us so they can have a better life than you're willing to give them.
Perfectly put. These are my sentiment exactly, but what would the method to monitor their progress?
Just fully staff the offices responsible for keeping track of and providing for these people. Assign people and families receiving aid a social worker, with no more than three to five households per caseworker. Essentially partially integrate the caseworkers into the households such that the caseworker can keep track of the home lives, educational situations, etc. of welfare recipients, and then if there are issues the caseworker can flag the family as coming off track. If a family exhibits consistent issues, then the caseworker would have the authority to make continued receipt of benefits contingent on major changes in how the family does things. As a last resort, if you have one or two people that are really off the rails, then present them with the option of inpatient care at a treatment facility or shelter, leaving and going on the street, or the whole family loses benefits.
Using threat, punishing and humiliating people has never ever brought about a positive change. All that get accomplished is further vilification and degradation. A broke being requires tending to. People's healing takes time. Would you apply your program to the greedy consumers and corporations to cure them of their greed?
I was talking more specifically about things like substance abuse or a gambling problem where leaving that person in the family as it stands is not safe or healthy for the other members. At that point we should be able to require that that person goes somewhere to get help. By "consistent issues" I'm talking about things like domestic violence, child abuse, etc. in which once again it truly would be unsafe and poor judgement to stand by and watch things come apart. I'm not talking about trying to "treat" a culture here, I'm talking about addressing specific behaviors where treatment, counseling, or even separation would be necessary.
Any individual regardless of income or status that demonstrates a mental illness that threatens the well being of those around them needs to be removed from their home and given treatment instead of imprisonment or put out on the street or denied care or the members of this persons household being threatened with the withholding of assistance. Threat, coersion and punishment have never rehabilitated anyone! That goes for a rich individual or a poor individual.
You're right about that; the only reason the other options were mentioned is because there are households that are seriously affected by domestic violence and substance abuse but have a tendency to excuse the behavior to the point of protecting and shielding the abuser. In those cases it may be necessary to force the family to choose to either allow the person in question to be sent to a clinic for treatment (or jailed in the event of spousal or child abuse) or losing benefits.
Stop looking for ways to control the poor. The latest statistic is that we currently have 46.5 million people living below the Federal poverty line. I suggest you focus your energy on creating a just economic system instead of looking for a way to micromanage the aid given to the poor. Poverty breeds enough shame and degradation. We don't need to further humiliate the poor. The Federal Reserve loaned at next to 0% $29 trillion of unsecured capital to the biggest Bank holding Corporations who use it to invest for profit. These are tax dollars. Focus where it matters. We are bleeding tax revenue to the 1% and all it does is exponentially grow poverty in our country.
I don't want to control the poor, and any reforms I'm advocating for in here would be in addition to a massive infrastructure renewal program that would be the successor the CCC and the WPA, providing skilled and unskilled jobs alike that started at $15-$20 per hour. Something like that, if it were spread across a large enough portion of the country, would provide real working- and middle-class jobs for damn near everyone so that as few people would stay poor as possible.
On top of this, I've been pushing for serious taxation and regulatory reform that would bring jobs back to the US, keep the financial services industry well in check, increase our revenue in a manner that doesn't hit the poor or the middle class, and begin the process of rebuilding a robust public sector in our economy to prevent the development and perpetuation of oligopolies and monopolies so that everyone can have a fair chance. I'd be happy to link or repost my earlier comments on those factors, if you wish; they didn't come up here because MasterDebater was only talking about welfare and thus I tended to limit my replies to that topic.
Incidentally, those ideas that I assume you're taking offense to are remedies I would resort to regardless of the income level of the person involved. If someone has a serious drug problem (to the point that he's a danger to himself or others) the way things stand he'd be subject to arrest for possession and anybody who tried to shelter him would get nailed for aiding and abetting. As far as domestic violence is concerned, again, I don't care about your income level: if I catch you doing it I'll beat you into a bloody pulp and explain to the arresting officer that you, too fell down the stairs. Offering the opportunity for treatment in lieu of imprisonment in the former case and not coming down on the family in the latter case would actually apply a slightly more lenient policy to those on welfare than to the rest of us.
A wife, a husband, a son or daughter do not have the legal authority to force a member of their family to be placed in treatment. To commit an individual to a treatment program involves a legal process. So threatening a family with the suspension of their benefits remains a punitive threat.
I wasn't aware of that, but what I was thinking of is that this would only come up if you have a case of "But Johnny just fell down the stairs!" or "What the fuck do you mean you wanna clean him up?" I wouldn't make benefits contingent on being able to do something beyond the family's legal ability; it would only come up in cases where the family decides to actively shield an abuser from prosecution or decides to use force to prevent anyone from getting near the druggie uncle.
how do you feel about drug testing?
You shouldn't need to test everyone in a formalized manner if you implement the system I've described; having someone in the family means that you'll be able to tell if someone has a serious substance abuse problem. However, in the event that such a problem is apparent, the caseworker would have the authority to offer that person inpatient or outpatient treatment for their problem and simultaneously make benefits contingent on that person going to treatment and getting clean, and part of treatment would be regular drug testing.
I like where this is going. I think this topic could unite a lot of otherwise opposing views and help focus energy into actual action.
I seriously hope so; the welfare system as it stands doesn't function even half as well as it's supposed to, and thus far we've responded by purging the rolls and adding hoops and humiliation to the application process rather than actually looking to restructure the program to get people off the dole more quickly and more permanently. I don't like that remedy and neither do you, and even though we started off on opposite ends of the spectrum we seem to have wound up agreeing on most things.
So where do we go from here? And I still haven't thrown away the Idea of the facilities, but I do agree they should be reserved for the most extreme cases.
Essentially we get a new Congress that's willing to raise taxes on the very wealthy and cut some military spending, and we have them do those things such that budgeting is out of the question. Then we start looking at an integrated rehabilitation and support program, where the checks are enough to raise a family on and grants are included for things like college, vocational and technical programs, on-the-job retraining programs, etc. Tie those things together such that a person receiving food and rent assistance must also either be hunting for jobs or satisfactorily completing the requirements of whatever degree program he chose to use his education money to pay for, and integrate these same services into homeless shelters and battered women's shelters to ease the transition. Reserve clinics and inpatient facilities for the mentally ill and those with serious substance abuse issues, and handle fraud and other crap the way I suggested and then you should see a change.
We surely are socially awkward wouldn't you say? Do we strive to make this country or this world a place that people from all sociology-economical backgrounds desire to be productive for ourselves and each other? Do we get up in the morning with the idea of what can I do to make my fellow brothers and sisters in this world a little happier by what I do for them?
America is not known for our ability to understand one another. For our social intelligence per say.....Why not? Because we rush to put band aids or lashes on the folks who don't behave like we do.
People who are so disillusioned in life they don't have any desire to be of any help for themselves or others could be a soul problem. In other words perhaps their very soul is saddened by the state of affairs in this world but don't feel they have the power to make a change for the better. They are looking for a large change in society as a whole.....hmmmmm?
I'm not trying to tell people how to live their lives. Do what you want, just don't request tax funded money then. Welfare should be an investment in an individuals future made by the taxpayers, not a method to sustain drug addictions and lack of ambition.
Why don't you go and tell that to the Federal Reserve, a private corporation, who since the financial crisis has loaned out @ next to 0% interest more than 29 trillion dollars to the Big Banking Corporations i.e. Citi,Wells Fargo, Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs etc.. These are our Tax dollars that are handed out without any capital requirement to banks who use it for making profitable investments for their corporate profits. Instead you put your focus on micromanaging the aid that is given to the poor that enables them to have a roof over their head and a meal on the table. When an individual has lost all ambition it is because they see no real possibility for success. They are not the robbers, They are broken people. The robbers are the the Banksters, and their Wall street. Latest figure on the number of Americans living below the Federal poverty line is 46.5 million individuals. Clearly they cannot all be drug addicts and bums!
I have read ALL of your replies on this subject, instead o responding to each one I will try to cover them here. The one thing that remains consistent in your posts and to most of OWS is the have no concept of personal accountability. Always reflecting outward as if you have no control over your own actions. You would always see a victim of unfortunate circumstance, which in my opinion is the MAIN reason we are failing. Thank you for your replies, but I feel we have no common ground here.
Personal accountability is just that: personal and each by their own ability. Stop playing god and sitting in judgement of those whose shoes you do not occupy!
We can ignore the root of this problem with our own ignorance but for how long and who will that serve?
BOTS not welcome.
Typical
The foundation of your assumption is not based on facts. When it come to determining a policy of a resolution of a social issue it needs to be based in facts not personal opinions. America has a longstanding history of vilifying and criminalizing the poor, the disenfranchised/homeless, and the mentally ill. Your assumptions about people on welfare are full of derision. White collar crime in our country far outpaces any kind of welfare system gaming. When welfare is multigenerational it is because poverty in our country is multigenerational. The need for meaningful work and the right to the means with which to provide for oneself and ones family is a fundamental need. When people are paid a living wage rather than a subsistence wage then poverty and it's degradation spread by people like you will disappear on it's own. The position and approach you suggest was undertaken by the Nazis in Germany. You don't trust the poor and your solution to your own mistrust is to control the poor.
You are right, I don't have the facts. I did not claim to, and made it clear that this was an OPINION open for discussion. This plan was not spawned from mistrust, but was developed to ensure that the people who want better can achieve it and the ones who don't would literally freeze to death and no longer be a burden on tax payers and the economy.
If Walmart and others paid their workforce a living wage and benefits the local counties and government would not need to grant these underpaid employees MedicAid and food Assistance because their current wages keep them within the Federal poverty category. Poverty is the result of an unjust economic system no matter what country in the world you are living in. It is not the poor who create poverty. It is the greedy who create poverty. Everybody wants to work. Bill Moyers tracked 10 working families for a period of 5 years during the boom years in our economy. The adults in these families each worked two to three low wage jobs just to make ends meet. Each family disintegrated from the chronic stress and drug abuse problems developed in their children who had to be left without sufficient parental supervision. All this could have been avoided had each wage earner earned a living wage. The biggest burden on taxpayers are corporations whose government benefits are allocated 67% of our Federal revenue. The Hedge fund Executives who make millions per pay check and if we are fortunate pay 15 %. Our IRS has facilitated for years the offshoring into tax havens of the earnings of the 1%; They made it legal. So stop blaming the poor they have never been a burden on society. They were the price we as consumers were willing to pay to get our good deals and bargains and the CEOs earning 500 times what the regular wage earner is paid. We have a taxpayer subsidized corporate monopolies. The free market in America died long ago.
The KMA's specific and now fulfilled agenda was to break up the family nucleus. A 'traditional' family unit can be having hard financial times and play hell getting any assistance because a mother and father live under the same roof with children. It used to not be that way, prior to say 1993.
You are correct that this was a real agenda to destroy the family. What does KMA stand for?
KissMyAss. I know well connected people who are card carrying members and have what appears to be absolute immunity. Search Youtube.
There will always be abuse in every system and while some of these issues can be addressed, it will be hard to control since so many more people will be on welfare in the near future. If the government does not get their act together and start coming up with some creative ideas of how to get us all employed again it will collapse under the weight of money having to be spend for the welfare system. Our government is going to lose all credibility to other nations if our masses are starving and poor and our monetary system will collapse due to it.
I agree with the idea. Although, your extremity is actually a little too scary even for me. I agree that the system is flawed. However, aid is just fine. People get knocked down on their asses and sometimes need a little help to get back up. That is how the system was set up to work. Obviously the one we have now pays too much for too many people who have more children to get more money from Welfare. Obviously not every mother does this but it does happen.
When I lved on the north side of Minneapolis, I saw welfare abuse from my neighbors that changed me from a bleeding heart to one who said, welfare is a major enabler for people to sponge off the system. I mostly saw abuse of the system, and although some were trying to use the system to make a better life for themselves and their family, most were not. I could not tell you that such and such a percentage were scammers, and such and were not. I only can say, that, over time, I started to have major resentment toward a number in the neighborhood. The ones in particular, bragged about how easy the system was to scam. I moved way out of the city and never want to go back.
My favorite story of welfare abuse is the time I was behind 2 women paying in the grocery store with food stamps and then getting into thier Mercedes . No it isn't everyone who collects welfare monies who is scamming, but there are enough stories just like this ,out there.
I know. When we were first married, living in mpls, probably, 1984, we had a great woman, that we took in that needed a break. We did not want to let her live with us completely for free, so we charged a minimal rent, like 50 bucks. My wife was shocked when she paid her with food stamps! That was all this woman new, and she was shocked that we balked at that kind of a payment. We were so young at the time and naive, so we accepted the payment that way.
lol, that is where I grew up and all of my opinions are based from. Camden neighborhood. What a small world.
So can you see the danger in taking your micro experience and extrapolating it into a macro system? I am no bleeding heart. No human being in a society is a burden on society. We are all first and foremost spritual beings who come together to live and grow and learn from one another. To judge others when you have not walked in their shoes is cruel and unjust.
That is funny! My dads family grew up on 35th and Queen, and we raised our boys at 33rd and Emerson.
An old neighbor lady i used to know recieved welfare in the form of foodstamps, cash bennifits, medicare, and section 8. She filed while she was pregnant with her first child and had not been paid for one hour of work over the 13yrs that I knew her. Each additional child she would have would bring additional benefits. This woman was severely addicted to crack cocaine and the majority of the cash benefits and food stamps (back when they were actual stamps) were used to pursue her addiction. She would sell her medications (paid by medicare) also. All the while allowing these 5 kids to run the neighborhood with no supervision breaking and entering at the age of 9 and with morals that could only be picked up from outside the household. I do not know what became of this woman as we moved away, but I could only assume that if she was not already dead she probably is in the same situation today just with a few additional children.
What you describe is a broken human being who is incapable of caring for herself and her children. Drug addiction is a mental health issue and this woman was receiving insufficient care. She was not gaming the system she was doing what she figured would get her through the next day, week or month. Like any mentally ill person who looses their ability to discriminate between right and wrong, needs supervision for her own protection and the safety of those around her. Clearly the system failed her. Our country has literally abandoned the mentally ill. She is not your typical welfare recipient.
Did you call child protective services? If you did, did they do anything?
I was a child myself at the time.
Oh, OK.
Who is the vast majority on welfare?
I am not sure what you are asking. The vast majority of people on welfare are the people who receive welfare...
How about we just ship everyone who doesn't pull their weight to some island and let them all figure out a way to survive? We should do the same with prisoners. Why give them the chance to re offend? If they choose crime then ship them to an island with all the other criminals and let them fend for themselves too......easy...done....solved!!!!NO more expense.
wow this one was almost in context.
You'd be surprised.