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When Work Is Punished: The Ongoing Tragedy Of America's Welfare State
Wage growth - or a persistent lack thereof - has become something of a hot topic in America.
Thanks to the nationwide push for a higher pay floor (personified by mobs of angry fry cooks demanding $15/hour and Democrats on Capitol Hill who are pushing hard for "$12 by ‘20") and wage growth’s role as an input in Janet Yellen’s mental "liftoff" model, everyone from Main Street to Wall Street feels compelled to weigh in.
The standard criticism of hiking the minimum wage is that forcing employers to pay more will simply result in layoffs and/or a reduced propensity to hire, but as we saw with Dan Price and Gravity Payments, there are a whole lot of other things that can go wrong. For instance, higher paid employees may not understand why everyone under them in the corporate structure suddenly makes more money and if people who are higher up on the corporate ladder don’t receive raises that keep the hierarchy proportional they may simply quit.
But while politicians, pundits, and economists run in circles perpetuating a debate that’s better suited for an undergrad introductory economics course than it is for the national stage (it’s really quite simple, as New York Burger King franchisee David Sutz made clear when he told CBS that "businesses are not going to pay $15 dollars an hour [because] the economics don't work in this industry [given that] there is a limit to what you're going to pay for a hamburger"), there’s a far more troubling situation unfolding behind the scenes and it harkens back to an issue we discussed at length almost three years ago.
In short, the welfare system punishes work and incentivizes dependency. More concretely, the structure is such that rational actors will eschew hard work, because the more they earn, the poorer they will effectively be in terms of total resources (calculated as welfare benefits plus earnings).
In the simplest possible terms: for many Americans, wage growth is a very, very bad thing.
We encourage readers to go back and read "When Work Is Punished: The Tragedy Of America's Welfare State," and not only because it serves as a helpful primer, but because it also underscores the degree to which exactly nothing has changed in the 30 or so months since it was written. At issue is the so-called "welfare cliff" beyond which families will literally become poorer the higher their wages, as the drop off in entitlements more than offsets the increase in earnings.
A study by the Illinois Policy Institute shows just how dramatic the effect of "falling off the cliff" (so to speak) can be. In one of the most startling findings for instance, if a single mother raising two children were to accept a pay raise from $12 to $18 per hour, her total resources would fall by nearly 33%. Here's more:
From: "Making work pay in Illinois: how welfare cliffs can trap families in poverty"
For single-and two-parent households in Illinois, there is a significant welfare "cliff" where the household may become worse off financially as they work more hours or as their wages increase. That is because the available welfare benefits decline by a greater amount than the increase in earned income.
This study analyzed a potential welfare benefits package for single- and two-parent households, both with two young children, in Cook, Lake and St. Clair counties. The potential means-tested benefits included tax credits, cash assistance, food assistance, housing assistance, child-care subsidies and health care.
The study’s findings for Cook County include:
- A wide range of benefits provides a large magnitude of support. The potential sum of welfare benefits can reach $47,894 annually for single-parent households and $41,237 for two-parent households. Welfare benefits will be available to some households earning as much as $74,880 annually.
- Welfare cliffs are significant and can trap families. A single mom has the most resources available to her family when she works full time at a wage of $8.25 to $12 an hour. Disturbingly, taking a pay increase to $18 an hour can leave her with about one-third fewer total resources (net income and government benefits). In order to make work "pay" again, she would need an hourly wage of $38 to mitigate the impact of lost benefits and higher taxes.
- The system is inequitable. A minimum wage increase to $10 an hour would push a household where both parents work for minimum wage over the welfare cliff. They would suffer a net loss in household resources of about $9,000 as reduced government benefits more than cancel out the higher wages.
As bad as this sounds on paper, it's even more stunning visually. The following graphic for Cook County shows just how financially destructive it can be for low-paid workers to try and break free of their dependence on the public purse:
There are several things to note here. First, as mentioned above, for a single mother of two, going from $12/hour to $18/hour would be a disaster, economically speaking. Her total resources (net income plus benefits) would collapse $24,840 from a peak of $63,597 to just $38,757. But perhaps the most distrubing part of the entire equation is that in this case, the single parent would have to make $38/hour before "recovering" from the welfare cliff.
And this isn't confined to Cook County:
In all cases, net earned income and welfare benefits climb quickly from no income through part-time work at minimum wage until full-time at minimum wage ($8.25 per hour). Net earned income and benefits then plateau until a peak of $12 per hour, which is only slight greater — and probably unnoticeable — than at minimum wage. Thereafter, net earned income and benefits begin to decline until they reach a trough at $18 per hour. The drop from peak to trough is highly significant, reducing disposable income resources by more than one-third. Table 6 provides the values for each locality for the drop. For Cook County, net earned income and benefits drop $24,840, from a peak of $63,597 to a trough of $38,757. The values are nearly identical for the city of Chicago: a drop of $24,830 from a peak of $63,586 to a trough of $38,757. Although the values are lower for Lake County and St. Clair County, the drop is relatively the same, i.e., more than one-third. For Lake County, the drop is $23,396, from a peak of $61,655 to a trough of $38,259. For St Clair County, the drop is $19,408, from a peak of $58,473 to a trough of $39,065.
For Cook County and the city of Chicago, the parent would have to earn $38 per hour before she would make up for loss of benefits when she earned only $12 per hour.
In other words: in Illinois, a rising minimum wage is actually negative (and severely so) unless it's hiked enough to make total compensation around $80,000!
For the purpose of simplification, here is a generalized illustration of welfare cliff dynamic:
The full report is below and you're encouraged to have a look as it goes into quite a bit of detail on the perverse incentives that emanate from the current system. For our part, we'll close with what we said on the subject in November of 2012:
We realize that this is a painful topic in a country in which the issue of welfare benefits and cutting (or not) the spending side of the fiscal cliff have become the two most sensitive social topics. Alas, none of that changes the matrix of incentives for Americans who find themselves facing a comparable dilemma: either remain on the left side of minimum US wage and rely on benefits, or move to the right side at far greater personal investment of work, and energy, and... have the same (or much lower) disposable income at the end of the day.
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Slavery is the only solution.
http://youtu.be/7tGuJ34062s
If those numbers are correct (and I think they are- they look similar to PA's welfare "curve") I should divorce my wife, give her custody of the kids, have her quit her job and pay her a nominal amount of rent to let me live in my own house.
You can see Pennsylvania's welfare cliff chart in this article:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/11/it-doesnt-pay-to-work.php
Let's all go to the dairy Queen
We gots nuffin' else to do
But steal shit and scream
Just you all wait until the robots take over, genetic engineers create the Waterless Wave and there are but a few kindred souls left who been put there in some volcano by Tom Cruse's buddies let alone the Annanuki.
Arbeit macht nicht frei (German grammar police in 3 2 1).
It seems that a nation as great as ours should be able to come up with some creative alternatives to help
liberate these folks from poverty and dependency. Maybe some jobs programs, for instance we could teach
them to roll turds in gold foil, stamp a triple-a insignia on them and sell them to municipal pension
administrators for hefty margins. OR make a trip to Home Depot buy $100.00 worth of fasteners then get
a contract with the Defense Dept and mark the goods up 1000% and pocket the windfall. This is the Land
of Opportunity, you just gotta get creative. It doesn't hurt being born on second base either.
the article complains because people in need are being given help.
instead of fretting over the "unfairness" of reduced assistance for those with incomes over 50k, we should be focusing on how to provide *more* assistance to those whose incomes are on the left-most end of the scale.
that way they can engage more fully in society.
and that benefits all of us.
The land of opportunity, where a spineneless homosexual can become POTUS after only a little bankster cock. Booyah!
Safely, did you forget the sarcasm tags? Do I understand you correctly that you're saying we need to increase welfare checks? Seriously? Do you want those recipients to ever go back to work? Are you personally going to pay more in fed taxes to support your plan?
+1
good catch.
dang it. left off the /s
how did that happen
maybe the result of hanging out with MDB again
it was a long flight, but we worked out a lot of issues.
probably will be in the news in a week or two
something about 'policy objectives' and 'new directions' and 're-layering the syrian position' and crap.
btw, asma says she never puts a sarc tag in her posts
How's this for a creative alternative?
The best book on Free Markets evar! "The Market for Liberty"
PDF or EPub format
audio book
After reading this article, how many of you plan on quitting your jobs, and go get a $11 an hour job so you can qualify for these welfare programs?
I'm not one of the 62% of the country that in some form receives government money, so I guess you're right nobody does that...oh wait.
Does ths mean we can finally start offshoring our governmental political jobs? And, will we get a tax subsidy, like corps do when they offshore US jobs?
We seem to be stuck in a mobious loop, either that or the diebold's are continually rehypothocating the same white shoe bit actors on CSPAN, over ... an over ... an over ... infinity.
Chrono, synclastic, infinidibulum.
...Dr. Who?
@ Nodebt, you want to divorce your wife, when she quits her job she will qualify for all kinds if section 8 subsidies, and can pay you rent that will probably exceed your mortgage. You just have to (officially, on paper) move out of the house after your divorce. She will also qualify for all sorts of TANF and EBT type benefits as well. Hard to imagine it wouldn't be more than what she makes when you factor everything in.
And that, my friends, is but a small part of how our beloved govt has destroyed the black family by incentivizing people to never marry, which of course makes it much easier for the man to abandon his family.
The word of the day;
Perversion
Wow, Eirik Marx-Leninsson is right, socialism "works"! But does this seem like a utopia to you?
Believe me we have seriously looked at this option. 10 years ago we calculated we paid 5k more a year in taxes for just being married. Make me laugh to think how the gays think marriage is the best thing. Ok here's your stupid " legitimacy" you dumb fucks. You get the same benefits as domestic partners.
There are some problems in our situation that has caused us to not go down the path just yet. However it is not off the table. I don't need a piece of paper to be married to my husband. We'd gladly give each other the assets to make it work. This is what the obtrusive State has done to us.
Miffed
You referred to the gays as "dumb fucks." It's official MM. You are the most bitchin' chick I almost know.
Yup, Miffed rocks.
I would marry you miffed, I don't care what the cost in taxes would be!
Ccanuck
You make me smile. And experiencing that in these times is always a gift. There is one thing I'm quite sure about. If I ever am single and ever crawl out from the grief, it is mostly likely I will be with someone from ZH. Someone out of the matrix. Rich or poor I don't care at all. And I must say, Canada is a very beautiful place.
Miffed;-)
...
Maybe the beginning of that "Health, Wealth & Prosperity" gospel????
"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools"
English philosopher Herbert Spencer 1899
Nice quote. Hadn't heard that one before.
An intelligent person learns more from one strong correction than a fool learns from being beaten a hundred times.
No wonder Cubs fans are so stupid.
HEY! No dissin' the CUBS or BEARS yo!
Outstanding quotes:
Shaggy: Who's your best buddy?
Scooby Doo: Raggy.
Shaggy: That's right. And who's my best buddy in the whole wide world?
Scooby Doo: Rooby Doo.
Oh, woe is me! Save the single mom!
"More concretely, the structure is such that rational actors will eschew hard work..."
Single moms are not families. Single and married men(and their real families) are supporting these state-contrived families.
"Arbeit macht frei"
Phase out medicaid and section 8 housing (really free housing, utilities, cell phone, cable, etc.).
No one will starve, but the self identified "poor" will figure out what to do.
Such insightful analysis...let them eat cake ("figure out what to do")
The medicaid portion of aid doesn't have a big impact, since Obamacare subsidies are phased in as income rises. The childcare subsidy drops off suddenly, and is a major factor in allowing parents to work. What are the alternatives? The housing is a big chunk; with rents being so high, losing that subsidy makes it harder for a family to make ends meet. The conclusion in the report is that benefits need to taper off in a more reasonable manner.
"Illinois will need to seek opportunities to streamline duplicative and overlapping programs, re-examine the eligibility limits of each program and ensure that benefits taper off in a more reasonable manner as earned income rises. In particular, the steep cutoff points for housing benefits, child-care assistance and health-care assistance will need to be addressed."
Most of the welfare class came from the rural south, where housing is dirt cheap, and they could produce most of their own food. That option still exists.
I bet money that a envy driven snotlicker like you doesn't pay federal income taxes. You shitty little scumsnappers should be dragged into the street for a 'Haitian bestowal.'
@spooz
It's me. It's Pinky? What are we going to do tonight?
Oh, probably an act of 'luv' at a I-95 rest stop.
If $12 per hour wages plus gov't benefits equals $38 per hour wages without benefits, then the benefits are worth $26 per hour. Ask yourself, can the US economy really afford that kind of benevolence?
You better run down and get all that free money. Sounds legit.
Where do I sign ?!
The Communist nations envy our welfare system. They wish for the day when they too can have a Community Organizer in charge.
Just imagine what the Free Shit Generals haul in. We'll never get them off the tit.
If we could get all these hood rats jobs on Wall Street then they could knock over the muppets instead of liquor stores.
The short answer is no, but I've seen many of these studies. About half of that "value" is the imputed cost of "free" health care, which no one in his or her right mind would pay that much for, given a choice.
Layer upon layers on madness.
We already know the ansawer to that question...
$1 Trillion deficits say 'not for long'.
Work isn't punished. There are no goddamn jobs.
"US jobs post solid gains; unemployment flat"
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/07/us-created-215000-jobs-in-july-vs-223000-...
There are lots of jobs in my area. Just none worth having, unless you work in health care, or for the government.
Everything else is a demeaning, part time, joke job, which barely compensates for the cost of getting to and from work.
Maybe other locales are different, but factor in housing cost..., and probably not.
You can betchurass not a single strawberry picker in California is an American citizen.
http://freebeacon.com/issues/report-100-of-female-employment-gains-since...
Entitlements ARE the minimum wage for American citizens, and this article explains WHY Americans won't do this kind of work....they don't have to.
Ever pick strawberries in 95 degree heat? I have and I admit I was toast after 4 hours and my back was in a world of hurt. I was 16 and 130lbs and in good shape. I don't think the average American no matter what the will of the individual is will be able to do this. But it may solve another problem facing us.
Miffed
Yorp. Is dastardly work.
And BTW, not well known, but there is a veritable pandemic of heroin addiction amongst field workers. Largest "class" of users'
Because its the cheapest pain killer available.
Heroin is also expanding rapidly with veterans, etc., as access to opioids has been severely restricted
Fact very well recognized in medical community, BTW
Another case of the Law of Unintended Consequences coming back to Bite
I have worked in construction my entire life, now 62. Our shop was 105 degrees this afternoon...inside, in the shade.
My father worked construction until in his sixties.
Pasty white Germans. No habla Espanol.
Thank you! we sometimes get a bad rap, the pasty white germans. I learned how to drive (carss, trucks, manual, automatic, tractors, tractors with bailers, tractors with bailers with wagons with steerable front axels!) at 13 because there were only so many of us and we had to move equipment from field to field when we were bailing hay. That's a shitty job too, especially when you get the occassional wet bail that was 80lbs instead of 50. And the sun beats on you, so you sweat, and the chaff/dust sticks to you and you're in jeans. After a while, you don't even need to wear gloves anymore because the twine turns you hands into leather. Shit work, but usually a pond/pool, a dinner, a look the other way when you snag a beer out of the cooler, and if you're lucky, there's a farmer's daughter hanging out somewhere close by. Something to be said about hard, manual labor, even if the pay ain't the best; you reap in many other areas besides fiat...
I don't have the German genes but did grow up on a dairy with a hay field next to yours. So I know what hard work was. I have gotten softer at a desk job so I doubt I could completely keep up now. I did do a round of construction on the side five years back and was able to keep up then. I did some nice reaping mysel back then and married the farmers daughter. Miffed comes from more of a hobby farmer background. She does have an assortment of hens and turkeys.
I admit that even when young, I probably couldn't have handled such a working condition, and it should be my tough nookies to fail, adjust, or create an alternative to such work. Abled bodied doesn't mean I'm superior in mental or physical abilities, just able, unlike the disabilities nation we've allowed to fester.
Over 30 years, soon after Reagan went into office, 60 minutes or some such show did a story on welfare and interviewed a black guy living on welfare in Detoilet, Mich. He said he'd have to be foolish to get a job bagging groceries when he could make more money, tax free, on welfare. Millions of illegal Mexicans (who come here for crappy jobs) later, we have to bag our own groceries in some stores while still feeding the freeloaders. The US was only about $1.5 Trillion in debt back then. Now, over $18.25 Trillion.
who could have seen that coming?
The solution:
"People queuing up for goods that have probably run out earn more than professors"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2912175/Empty-shelves-Venezuela-...
That's nohting. In some places train drivers make more then heart surgeons:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-10-06/when-train-drivers-are-paid-mor...
But honestly, I'd hate for the train driver to replace my heart valve!
I would hate for a heart surgeon to be more valued than a train driver or a train driver more valued than a janitor.
I'm tearing up at the thought of such magnificent equality.
We all should get participation certificates.
The inner city youth would stop rioting
Chicago youth participation trophy?
http://americanshootingjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/PHOTO-3-Sc...
http://heyjackass.com/
At the heart of Leninism and all the lesser evils leading to this.
Lets all be equal! We can call the movement .....
The Great Leap Forward!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
How many more millions are going to die for "equality?" I hope I'm dead before seeing it.
We work for advancement
We stand in line for equality
The great leap forward...off of the cliff.
Lemmings for Marxism
I could master janitorial work in 8 days. Driving a train, 8 weeks. Performing open heart surgery, eight years (actually I shake, so never).
Why do you feel a janitor should earn as much as a heart surgeon? I'm curious as to your reasoning.
I thought the post was being sarcastic...my bad for assuming such things when all too many have murdered and even here now advocate murder for such a belief system.
You're probably correct and I missed the sarcasm.
Actually, try 4 years undergrad (with stellar grades), 4 years med school (near the top of your class), six years of residency (basically underpaid sleep deprivation), all told at least a quarter million debt. And don't forget, avoid making any human mistakes like getting pulled over after two beers . . .say goodbye to the DEA license, which will render you essentially worthless.
Yeah, I think a surgeon is of more value than a janitor.
In the ole USSR, Doctors were literally paid less than a factory worker.
That's caus' everyone wanted to be a doctor......and factory work not so much.
That's what it takes to actually become a licensed heart surgeon under today's medical system. I contend that if a clear-minded individual with steady hands studied heart surgery by observing it being done, getting tutelage from performing surgeons, and practicing on cadavers for eight years they could perform the surgery beautifully.
Train driving is a racket. Google could much more easily have designed a self-driving train than a self-driving car. Trains run on rails and are a perfect candidate for automation. A Google self-driving train would be proven much safer than a human driver, I'm positive. Google didn't pursue self-driving trains because they'd be fought tooth & nail by the train drivers' lobby. So they developed the 1000X more complex self-driving passenger car.
Train drivers UNION.
The monopoly for "progress" without advancement.
My father was an railroad engineer and I actually worked up to brakeman on a tourist train as a hobby thing. You might be able to learn to move cars around in a switching yard in a month or two but there is actually some skill involved in the larger trains that cross the country. I'll completely agree that automating a railroad is substantially easier than an automobile.
You know, never before in my life have I heard a reasonably effective argument in favor of hiking the minimum wage, but this has to be it.
By being good socialists and agreeing to a steep rise in the minimum wage, we can kick practically everyone off of welfare and seem like decent, caring people at the same time.
Hallelujah, Brothers and Sisters, sign me up!!!!
Raising the minimum wage will be immediately followed by raising the poverty line.
reverse psychology!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CLlRUB5UAAAjH8m.jpg
Obamacare can have the same "cliff" affect by design. Wait till the emploers offer healtcare to the employee only. Then the rest of the family would have to go to the exchange and there would be two sets of premiums and two sets of high-deductibles; that is coming and by design. Glad to be part of the family of Christ; doesn't matter what happens for this life is like a vapor; here today and gone tomorrow...the eternal state is what will matter at the end.
Two years welfare per person per lifetime then no more. Single mothers are no more deserving than single fathers or single anyone.
Throw 'em under the bus. Who needs em? Lets figure out more ways to disenfranchise the poor and make sure money keeps its rightful position in our political system.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/income-gap-at-the-polls-1...
I don't need them. You need em? Then you feed them faggotpieceofshit.
I'm quite in favor of stripping the franchise from wards of the State. No representation without taxation.
Right. The leaches should not be allowed to vote. Since that probably won't change anytime soon, the best thing we can do is keep our savings outside of the dollar-based banking system. That way, the gov. can't steal from us to pay the freeloaders via inflation, zirp and taxes.
Incentives and effort are meaningless. All that matters is our willingness to sacrifice to the collective. A collective that we all eventually find does not include us.
This is not a "government of, by and for the people",
it is a government that owns the people, and everything we are willing and capable of producing.
We are allowed to vote for our yard foreman from a list provided, but never to resist. we are told that to resist is illegal and unpatriotic,and if our words are taken to action, a threat to be dealt with.
Even less so. They are ultimately responsible for being the sperm vessels and tax eaters devolving society.
Single Mothers are whores just see them and you can tell regardless of race or color
Of course many many of them are "whores."
Oh! I get it, fat slimy Merika whores with tats and piercings are victims of bible thumpers who dare believe in any measure of morality, since morality is but a patriarchal oppressive artificial construct...just like gender identity. Let's have a scat party...Lean Forward!
Whores by design. Uncle Sugar's da pimp.
Moar babies, moar money - something needs to be done about that or perhaps it is too late; America is so deep in the hole, the sun can't even make it down that far....
You're given two options in this country. Work 40+ hours per week and be poor, or don't work and be poor. It's not a welfare problem, but more a problem with people cannot make a living working honestly. Cost of living has far outpaced wages, even for those with a bachelor's. But why use logic and reasoning when you can blame something that is a result of failed capitalism
Working people do earn enough to live on
BUT NOT
with government at every level confiscating what they earn to subsidize the politician's empire and the entitlement vote buying programs -
60% of gummint spending is ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS -
end the entitlement vote buying programs AND taxes that fund them and then working people will have enough of their own earnings to live on.
You are surely willing to recognize that welfare is redistribution from earners to non-earners, even when considering government debt. Or jobs suck...our pay sucks, because the high cost of government and ALL its relevant costs are borne by producers, but as importantly, we have substituted our reduced earnings with cheap foreign made goods and cheap illegal labor, which has created even more down pressure on our wages, all while easy credit for individuals, corporations and government have anesthetized us to these ultimate effects until such time as our means of recovery have been eliminated.
In Texas, where cheap illegal labor is prevalent, construction workers wages are virtually the same, in dollars, not REAL dollars, as they were thirty years ago,and virtually everyone who now works in this industry speaks Spanish to the exclusion of English. It is doubtful that you could even get a job at immigrant wages unless you spoke fluent Spanish. It is my industry of the past 45 years.
We have enabled this...unwittingly, by simply doing what is easy...and cheap. This is what they have always relied on and always will. If we are so stupid as to really believe that we can buy all of these imports and hire all of these illegals and borrow all of this money and NOT have it all blow up in our face, then we deserve everything we have got.
To be rich, one only needs to be content with their own posessions.
Very similar thing with Social Security. Earn some extra money is fine, but go over that and Social Security reduces your check. Most seniors are not in high paying jobs and many are part time. So work 20 hours and you are fine - work another 10 and you basically get little or nothing of your $10 an hour pay - especially when you combine the Social Security cut with the need to pay income taxes on your Social Security if you earn too much. Thus we did-incentivize able bodied workers from accumulating enough to cover their very expensive health care and long term care costs.
What does welfare have to do with it----anyone working more hrs gets less take home-- most on here know that-- Its all about you getting less and making you less capable of self sufficiency. The more you work the more they skim---so https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPrSVkTRb24
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zE1-48AAYc
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ynBUIjzPpI
The real incentive is to make $12 an hour legally, and as much un-reported income as possible!
The real incentive is to accept corruption willingly....participate. Once we accept corruption in our lives it makes it damned hard to demand it from others, especially those responsible for signing our checks.
Principles exist for a reason. Its called survival of society.
Popping Kids and Being on Welfare is the Future of Amerika.
School Bonds
Welfare
EBT
WIC
and much more, why bother just sleep around get fucked pop the kid and let the taxpayers and state raise em. So backward
i really question why we are subsidizing baby production in an overpopulated world in the first place. I really think we need to gradually phase out all governmental baby production subsidies and tax breaks. We need to drop the population as fast as possible over the next 20 years or Mother Earth will do it for us.
The problem is not population per se. The problem is those that procreate in the most prodigious numbers happen to be in the welfare demographic.
Make no mistake, kids are a financial asset to the single parent. A single female with no children is pretty much on her own (as it should be). A single female with three kids and one in the hopper, well the whole welfare system is her oyster.
For most of us, having children is a huge financial commitment. This is not a concern for the 47%.
All governments, especially those who are most concerned about "the children" must above all other things, turn a profit. Corruption is not cheap. It's very inefficient, like trying to fly a plane made of bricks, but with enough theft and intimidation it can be one...for a while.
Colleges need a new major...BS in Welfare Dependence. Great paying career move and 100% chance of placement.
They do, it's called a Social Services(worker) Degree. I know of one who adopted a child and trained it to play the welfare system. The kid gets a Social Security Disability check for mental illness. Would work for anything, it's against their religion(the state).
Sometimes it's sad to think how almost impossible it is to change the system.
The only effective ways to control "poverty", ie failure are:
1. don't import it or allow it to invade
2. don't allow the already failed (ie poor) to breed (ie replicate their failure)
3. recycle all failures
working instead of getting welfare is not a punishment. scum accept welfare. honest people work. the person that is punished is the tax payer. there is a super simple solution...end the welfare state. but that isnt going to jappen....
this whole article is bent. if i can get 'a better deal' by cheating my fellow americans i should do that or feel cheated...? we have completely lost all moral direction.
The only way to END the welfare state is to overload it.
Stack, quit, and file for welfare.
Within a year the whole house of cards comes crashing down.
"Why work? Obama will take care of me!" ~most of the people on welfare
This treachery is very good for workers in foreign countries who will have more jerbs, and for aliens sending money home. If there was no minimum wage all these jobs would come back, the niche market for non-criminal illegal aliens would close, and there would be righteous price corrections and trade balancing.
It's done. Stick a fork in it. All that can be done is watch this ball of string unravel. May take a long while. Or it might happen tomorrow.
Such articles are politically correct among the right wing, and therefore easy to promote. However, the always-ignored black hole of wasted money is the bloated bully machine, the US military. Actual annual cost exceeds a trillion dollars, and all I get is a world that hates me. Not even a nice Tee Shirt, much less a can of spam.
Right Wing? Feck off drooler. L, R, L, R...to the rear March!
2.3 trillion can fall down the rabbit hole and hardly make a ripple in the media, well I guess 9-11 happening the next day would have a tendency to do that.
Makes you wonder if that same money had been spent on infrastructure projects putting young people to work and learning trades, if it may have been a
better investment.
The military does indeed live high on the hog, but 'entitlement' spending is more that double military spending. Try again.
Not only do these social justice warriors not deserve civility, they neither rate civil rights or even human rights. They are eating us alive and it looks like we'll wait and see if we'll actually get eaten. Governor Kasich or Al Sharpton, Jeb Bush or Barack, Obamaphone Wildebeast or Michael Brown/Trayvon actually believe they have a right to rip out your guts out to feed their desires. The only reason that I don't advocate a mass funeral pyre for them is the stench they'll create with their maggot infused souls. ;)
They only get away with what we allow them to get awaay with.
No mention of how this system maintains downward pressure on blue collar jobs while simultaneously subsidizing wages paid by corporations and satisfying the governments desire to prevent inflation?
The government can print and grow all it wants if there is constant downward pressure on wage growth for the masses. You can't have out of control inflation if all of the growth in debt money is concentrated in very few hands.
The ever growing government and ever consolidating corporations are never benevolent actors. Everything they do is self centered. It is a huge mistake to think the welfare system was implemented out of benevolence for the low income masses.
TRUMP 2016
Trump the Bush 2016!
Welfare was never intended to help get people better lives. It was meant to keep them dependent on the system. Taking out the political angle (LBJ's infamous quote of having blacks voting Democratic for centuries), welfare providers have an incentive to keep people on welfare perpetually to keep their kingdoms growing and to keep their personal power and salaries growing. The so- called War on Poverty will never be won because the generals are throwing the battles.
In San Francisco, there are welfare and assistance program providers for every conceivable group. For example, each ethnicity has to have a separate provider and within some ethnicities, gays have to have a separate provider from straights. And, of course, the "differently abled" require yet another provider. All of these programs have admin costs and overhead, so the overall effect is to bloat the budget beyond belief. But just try to consolidate the providers and you get howls of protest basically orchestrated by the providers who see their free lunch threatened.
And that's why the War on Poverty will never be won.
Agree with the overall point, but what is left unsaid is that each recipient is going to have a different subjective utility for any benefits they may receive. What good is a section 8 voucher if they don't want to live in section 8 housing? What if someone is low paid but has good healthcare and is consequently ineligible for medicaid? In other words the subjective value of the benefits are not the same as the maximal imputed cash value. And while the welfare cliff might still remain, it may not be as steep as is being made out.
The left hand side of the bell curve will always be with us. "The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its goy animals are treated." - Mahatma Gandhi
The only reason anyone ever heard of Gandhi was due to a British measure of classical liberalism that overcame their mercantile empire elements. Otherwise Gandhi in the USSR, Third Reich, Jacobite French Revolution, Mexico...anywhere else (sans maybe the US) would have been just another dead prole.
Maybe you missed something in that passage.
No, I'm ranting and thought about how Ghandi made it into a historical reference...sorry I was off topic cause I've been ranting.
I'm merely playing devil's advocate above. Our monetary system has been corrupted and any amount of tweaking isn't going to fix the underlying problem, it just pushes the system along some continuum of the absurd.
I'm just feeling particularly desolate today about our ability to survive (thrive) this ugly reality.
Yes, work is punished. Being a "parasite" on the system is a reward in of itself.
First up, the liberal/socalist agenda is not doing anything new except trying to violate the laws of natural selection or survival of the fittest. They (the liberals/socalists) ar just prempting the inevitable and when it hits, it will hit hard. Charity is one thing, the Welfare/Entitlement state is something else entirely as it is compulsary, not voluntary. When the free ride is over for everybody, the ones on welfare/disability will be screaming "What about me!?". Then the fun begins.
Secondly, the Welfare/Entitlement system is the ONLY thing keeping the peasants from taking to the streets today. They are being fed and being given a little scratch money for whatever. The peasants are being fed and that is keeping them placated for the time being. Bread and Circuses. Disability and Welfare is the bread and television and the other distractions are the circuses.
If the circuses go away, the peasants will look around and they just may begin to think and then come to the conclusion that things are bad then demand real change while holding pitchforks and torches. If the bread stops, the peasants will take to the streets. and take everything they can eat or sell for food.
Believe it or not, people are predictable. The inevitable outcome is predictable. Now go buy a case of food. A hungry peasant will trade anything for a mouthfull. Then go buy another box of bullets.
Agreed. In terms of survival of the fittest, the police force and judicial system are also artificial constructs that prevent Darwinian
theory to extrapolate effeciently. If the criminal poor didn't fear repurcussions, they might go "shopping" in other neighborhoods.
So in a way the monies spent keeping the legal artifice in place are welfare benefits of a sort.
Yes, work is punished. Being a "parasite" on the system is a reward in of itself.
First up, the liberal/socalist agenda is not doing anything new except trying to violate the laws of natural selection or survival of the fittest. They (the liberals/socalists) ar just prempting the inevitable and when it hits, it will hit hard. Charity is one thing, the Welfare/Entitlement state is something else entirely as it is compulsary, not voluntary. When the free ride is over for everybody, the ones on welfare/disability will be screaming "What about me!?". Then the fun begins.
Secondly, the Welfare/Entitlement system is the ONLY thing keeping the peasants from taking to the streets today. They are being fed and being given a little scratch money for whatever. The peasants are being fed and that is keeping them placated for the time being. Bread and Circuses. Disability and Welfare is the bread and television and the other distractions are the circuses.
If the circuses go away, the peasants will look around and they just may begin to think and then come to the conclusion that things are bad then demand real change while holding pitchforks and torches. If the bread stops, the peasants will take to the streets. and take everything they can eat or sell for food.
Believe it or not, people are predictable. The inevitable outcome is predictable. Now go buy a case of food. A hungry peasant will trade anything for a mouthfull. Then go buy another box of bullets.
Ah, Illinois. Between the welfare crowd and the cadres at the city/state/county/school district level, who the fuck is left over to pay?
Not me, I left 4 years ago.
When there are no jobs, what is the point of worrying about welfare?
If you want to worry about welfare, how about all those Social Security Welfare Queens that are sucking your paycheck dry?
only fools and horses work...., 7am to 9pm 6 days a week working for some prick of a boss...for a shitty rate that is taxed to death.... fuck that shit!!
you can make more money sitting on your lap top drinking 18 yr old scotch on a saturday night that most make in a week...
www.teamramgold.com take a chance for once and live a better way
Why don't you chance eating the corn outta my dookie.
The work being punished is not that of the fence sitting would-be worker / welfare recipient.
The work being punished is the work being stolen from to support the recipients.
If you repeatedly feed a wild animal, it will forget how to fend for itself and return to your obligatory feeding.
Stop the feeding, please, in conjunction with the monopoly on counterfeiting and the debt slavery (it is all interconnected).
There was quite a few assclowns shot dead in the late 1700's over less government tyranny than is suffered now. Not gonna be long before law abiding "folks" just say no to lawless tyranny with force.
Grimaldus
End all welfare. Problem solved.
Rename it Farewell!
Argentina declares victory over vulture hedge funds.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10207646526468168&set=gm.4088233...
End the Fed, and then end Welfare. Now that's a fair, free-market fight. Until the former happens, Welfare-bashers can go fuck themselves.
Maybe if we end welfare, they'll take it out on Fed employees?