Why poor people make bad decisions

[das_nut]

Find where I've said EVERYONE on the public dole can work and/or is a scammer. I do think we should take care of the truly disabled and anyone who needs a helping hand (kids or not). However, breeding like an unaltered feral cat is not a disability. There's no reason for the waste in the system the way it is today and able-bodied people should not be able to make it a way of life by staying on it for years, then their kids have kids and stay on for years, etc.

I don't think most abled bodied people stay on welfare for a very long time. It looks like most people stay on AFDC for less than two years. (The same site points out that typical welfare household receives more than a full time $8/hr job in 39 states. *sigh* Maybe it's time to raise the minimum wage?)

There's a few leeches, but I wouldn't say that the single mother with many children who is on welfare for most of her life, and whose children repeat the system is anywhere near representative of the population.

Stop making me like Clueless Git's posts. It frightens me.

Isn't it fun?

 

[Clueless Git]

Well, it does require knowledge of what's out there.

The required knowledge changes quite frequently. A network that shares what it learns as things change is a big part of benefit culture too.

But it's a pretty sad situation, at least in my country, which has a rather tattered social safety net.

It's pretty much a 'pyramid marketing scam' culture in the USA is the impression I get from a lot of what I read here, Das.

 

[das_nut]

It's pretty much a 'pyramid marketing scam' culture in the USA is the impression I get from a lot of what I read here, Das.

What do you mean by that?

 

[kazyeeqen]

Be more specific.

 

[das_nut]

Hipsters on foodstamps. The hate is strong with this one.

 

[ledboots]

The required knowledge changes quite frequently. A network that shares what it learns as things change is a big part of benefit culture too.



It's pretty much a 'pyramid marketing scam' culture in the USA is the impression I get from a lot of what I read here, Das.

Can you explain this in more detail?

 

[SummerRain]

Mod Post:
I have deleted posts that attack people, as opposed to ideas, from this thread. There was quite a lot of conversation that followed on that therefore got deleted also, so that everything made sense. If anybody is keen to continue the theme from that discussion, please start a new thread (in the debate forum).

I want to remind people that this is the debate forum, and it's for debating ideas. Also, if somebody breaks a rule, please report it and ignore it, rather than responding to it.

 

[Clueless Git]

What do you mean by that?

Can you explain this in more detail?

I was simply musing that everyone seems to believe they will become rich in a system that is more likely to make them poor.

Was something Das said that triggered the musing. Something about the poor in America seeing themselves as 'temporarily inconvenienced millionaires'.

 

[das_nut]

I was simply musing that everyone seems to believe they will become rich in a system that is more likely to make them poor.

Was something Das said that triggered the musing. Something about the poor in America seeing themselves as 'temporarily inconvenienced millionaires'.

Yep. Which is probably why our safety net sucks, because no "good" people really need it. "Good" people will reach the American dream.

One thing I find rather funny (in a tragic way) is in my state, if you work, you get more food stamps than if you don't work. Must suck for the really poor.

 

[Spang]

From Matt Bors:

 

[beancounter]

That comic irks me because it's exactly how some idiots think. When I was unemployed, I "pounded the pavement" 6 days a week, and scoured the internet 7 days a week. I was not sitting around and waiting for the unemployment check...and I certainly wasn't using the money to purchase luxuries.

From Matt Bors:

 

[Clueless Git]

That comic irks me because it's exactly how some idiots think.

I read it as parodying the way some idiots think.

I could have been wrong reading it as such though.

 

[beancounter]

I read it as parodying the way some idiots think.

I could have been wrong reading it as such though.

An American politician actually stated that when people receive unemployment checks, it creates a disincentive to find a job.

Getting a check reduced my panic level, but it didn't make me less inclined to find a job ASAP.

 

[Wolfie]

Unemployment isn't enough to live on. And caviar is disgusting, vegan or not. But in some states, anyway, certain demographics can live better if they don't find work and they'll tell people as much in the welfare office. That needs to stop.

 

[das_nut]

I can live on unemployment in my state. I don't even have to tell folks at my welfare office, I can just collect unemployment online. And, since I'd have no other income, I'd even qualify for free healthcare.

I suppose my "certain demographic" is people who live very frugal lives in a state where the social safety net isn't totally gutted.

 

[Clueless Git]

And caviar is disgusting, vegan or not.

You need to buy better quality crackers.

Vegan caviar tastes like rancid cheese scraped from under Beelzebub's own 'fireman's helmet' on cheap ones.

 

[Ann Chovie]

Unemployment isn't enough to live on. And caviar is disgusting, vegan or not. But in some states, anyway, certain demographics can live better if they don't find work and they'll tell people as much in the welfare office. That needs to stop.

Yes, same applies in UK Wolfie. Makes our job as welfare benefits officer a difficult one. The majority of the unemployed are decent , honest genuine job seekers struggling to cope on a low benefit allowance which allows them only to live a fugal and miserable existence until they find work.

But SOME play the system to perfection if they are prepared to cheat their way through and spend their unemployed time working out which forms to fill and how. These people present themselves regularly at the CAB I am employed. They completely dismiss the concept of seeking working telling you with great pride that they earn more on benefits than they could ever get employed. They are actually derisive a out those working in minimum wage jobs in a kind if " I wouldn't get out of bed for that" way.

They clog up appointment times at the bureau and serve only to discredit genuine claimants and make their journey through benefits more and more humiliating and difficult as the government feverishly assess and over assess claimants in an abortive attempt to flush the cheats out.

The fault lies not with these people but a government which despite huge injections of funds have not conquered the problem only made it worse for everyone else.

 

[SummerRain]

Yes, same applies in UK Wolfie. Makes our job as welfare benefits officer a difficult one. The majority of the unemployed are decent , honest genuine job seekers struggling to cope on a low benefit allowance which allows them only to live a fugal and miserable existence until they find work.

But SOME play the system to perfection if they are prepared to cheat their way through and spend their unemployed time working out which forms to fill and how. These people present themselves regularly at the CAB I am employed. They completely dismiss the concept of seeking working telling you with great pride that they earn more on benefits than they could ever get employed. They are actually derisive a out those working in minimum wage jobs in a kind if " I wouldn't get out of bed for that" way.

They clog up appointment times at the bureau and serve only to discredit genuine claimants and make their journey through benefits more and more humiliating and difficult as the government feverishly assess and over assess claimants in an abortive attempt to flush the cheats out.

The fault lies not with these people but a government which despite huge injections of funds have not conquered the problem only made it worse for everyone else.

I agree with this. Unfortunately, people are quick to blame the people rather than the system/government. I think a big part of the problem though, that the media/etc, make it sound as though the problem of people cheating the system/etc is far bigger than it actually is, and demonise it to the point that society looks down upon anybody on "benefits" (as though there was only one type...). I know a fair few hard working people who looked really hard for jobs, volunteered to try to get experience, etc, and for a variety of genuine reasons (lack of experience, no recent employment, disability) it took them a good couple of years to find jobs, and even then they took jobs they didn't really want to do, that were far less than ideal, and in one case actually caused them to loose money (because the job was part-time, and the travel involved), in order to get a foot on the employment ladder.

I do also know a couple people (well in the minority of my experience) who will try to get as much from the system as possible, but it makes me angry when people dismiss and demonise everybody on "benefits", as if finding a job was easy, and everybody who recieves benefits is a "scrounger"/etc.

 

[Ann Chovie]

I do also know a couple people (well in the minority of my experience) who will try to get as much from the system as possible, but it makes me angry when people dismiss and demonise everybody on "benefits", as if finding a job was easy, and everybody who recieves benefits is a "scrounger"/etc.

This is the problem Summer Rain.. we are swamped daily at my CAB with geniune clients desperate to know what benefits to claim and but the system gets clogged up and slowed down by 'Scroungers' trying it on. This makes us angry but these people have to been seen and presumed geninune until proved otherwise. Worse still even when you do know they are bogus they have covered their tracks so well that they cannot be brought to book.

They give the rest of claimants a bad name and of course the media have a field day when they unearth a scrounger . It makes good copy but it also leads the general publice to the assumption that all claimants are thus.

Many of my geniune clients are then put off applying for benefits they desperately need and are eligible for simply because they will be perceived as 'scroungers'. If they then do go forward to claim they are humilated and degraded by an assessment process that presumes them guilty until proved otherwise.

The media will have you believe that the new benefit changes and assessment procedures will 'flush out the scroungers' and indeed that was the governments intention. But in practice , scroungers will be working behind the scenes examining the new criteria and developing new ways to appear to fit it. And genuine clients will be the ones treated like criminals when all they are doing is applying for benefits they are legally entitled for.

It doesnt work.

 

[das_nut]

I'd really like to see a basic income scheme tried, instead of the current means-tested welfare system we have in place.