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[GlyphGryph]

Sorry to hear about that situation, Nadaka. Welfare traps are nasty, and is why I pretty much explicitly support an actual base income approach rather than a welfare approach. My own family never had things that bed for basic living conditions, but we're all to aware of the way things work - both my parents had to quite their jobs in order for them to be able to afford my brothers medical care - if they worked, their government assistance wouldn't cover the whole thing, and there was no way they could pay the bits it didn't cover with the little they'd make. Thank the gods I've never really been hungry - even when I was homeless I was well fed - but that's not hard when you've got no bills and a small but steady income, and you've only got to feed yourself. And with the medical bills, we either had nothing and my brother died or we had more than enough to keep us comfortable, no real inbetween.

I suppose I can see your point about parents abusing a cash system be not buying for for their children... but I've got to be honest, the families I've seen that would do that usually don't buy food for their children anyways, they'd simply sell the food stamps at less than their value or something to that extent. I tend to think the governments role there is to relocate those children when possible.

Of course, having been involved with the foster care system for a while, I know that isn't really terribly easy either. :/

There are no easy answers.

[Mr. Palau]

Yeah, I think we can all agree that taking away the children of Drug addicts, alcholics, or prostitutes is a good idea. However, I don't see why for the average family a cash based welfare system would be better than a stamps based welfare system. One is equivlent to everything, and the other is equivlent to the necessities, which is all welfare is supposed to cover anyway.

There's also language in the Senate which would cut the food stamp program some by targeting abuse. The GOP-controlled House wants to restrict eligibility to save money. Working out a compromise bill will be difficult to say the least.

It's impressive how the cost of means testing almost always exceeds the money saved from people not getting help.  If the GOP actually were against bureaucracy it'd be a good place to start.

And that is one of the reasons why I think that EVERYONE should receive welfare. You can significantly reduce the bureaucratic overhead.

Yeah since with increasing taxes to pay for welfare for everyone it would just be "Taxes (this isn't even a layer of bureaucracy since you sned them in)- Bureaucrat (Bureaucrat takes money from state funds and transers to debit card)- Person (goes and buys food to eat)", whereas if there was means testing there would be another buereaucrat in the midle asking "Does this man really need the money?". Which would likely add a lot to the overall costs of the program.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yeah, I think we can all agree that taking away the children of Drug addicts, alcholics, or prostitutes is a good idea.

I do not agree. Children should be removed from the homes of abusive parents. While the possibility for abuse is increased if a parent is a drug addict or alcoholic, that is not a certainty by any means. Rather, we should try to help those with addictions become healthy again.

I'm not really sure why you included prostitutes on there though.

[Glyndŵr]

If someone is a competent parent and loves their children very much, it is nobody's business to take their children away from them.

[Nadaka]

I cant necessarily agree with your first assertion Mr. Palau. One of these things is not like the other. Prostitution is an income source, not an income sink. It isn't a particularly healthy income source, but then neither is coal mining. Besides that, you wouldn't be taking away children from functional addicts/alcoholics, just the the ones who abuse/neglect their children.

[Leafsnail]

And that is one of the reasons why I think that EVERYONE should receive welfare. You can significantly reduce the bureaucratic overhead.

That's one reason.  The other reason for me is something else you mentioned:

Any and all "income" counted more or less double against welfare. If you documented 20 dollars earned, you lost 40 dollars of support.

It's the true reason why poorly implemented welfare systems cause people to not get jobs - because they're basically trapped on the welfare.  If getting a job would allow you to earn more money rather than less or the same amount then it'd be a lot more attractive to someone on welfare.

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah, I thought we came to the realization that most people here support some sort of guaranteed income thing. I know I do. Something like an Negative Income Tax.

Its significantly more efficient at getting money towards where it's going, non-abusable (though it does nothing to help neglect, which food stamps might be able to), and more fair to everyone involved, which putting a significant upward push on labour market wages near the bottom of the pyramid, which I'm sure most of us think is something that needs to happen.

All while completely avoiding the welfare trap.

[Glyndŵr]

Yeah, I thought we came to the realization that most people here support some sort of guaranteed income thing. I know I do. Something like an Negative Income Tax.

Its significantly more efficient at getting money towards where it's going, non-abusable (though it does nothing to help neglect, which food stamps might be able to), and more fair to everyone involved, which putting a significant upward push on labour market wages near the bottom of the pyramid, which I'm sure most of us think is something that needs to happen.

All while completely avoiding the welfare trap.

Our welfare system in the UK is pretty decent. I wouldn't consider us to be in a welfare trap.

[kaijyuu]

Weren't the riots some time ago pretty much completely about the welfare trap?

[penguinofhonor]

Considering the UK is the western country with the lowest class mobility, I'm inclined to think their welfare system isn't that good.

[Glyndŵr]

Weren't the riots some time ago pretty much completely about the welfare trap?

I'm not an Englishman, but my understanding of the riots in England was it was just a sort of general outburst of frustration with the incompetence of the police force, the unemployment, the government cuts to deal with the recession, the social exclusion (which is not necessarily a direct result of our welfare system, more a cultural issue), but also there was a nasty bit of opportunism in there. The riots took place in cities with a strong gang culture too, and we also don't have much respect at all for politicians, so there's some dissatisfaction with the government here too.

[Glyndŵr]

Considering the UK is the western country with the lowest class mobility, I'm inclined to think their welfare system isn't that good.

Again, I'd say that's a cultural issue more than anything else. We don't really have a working class in this country (because most of our industry is gone), so our class system will usually appear as "underclass, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class, upper class". I suppose you could call some people working class, like a labourer or something, but even then they tend to live reasonably well. We don't really care about class distinctions as much as we used to (at least not where I live). Underclass people can live quite well on the Welfare system, but their lack of mobility is more a result of the mass unemployment in this country. There's also a lot of very, very complicated cultural problems in England (and the rest of the UK) that must be taken into account.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

from my admittedly limited knowledge of the subject, higher education in the uk is also significantly more expensive than the rest of europe, which further encourages the low class mobility observed

[GlyphGryph]

Our welfare system in the UK is pretty decent. I wouldn't consider us to be in a welfare trap.

I've heard the UK has quite a few welfare traps in its system. I'm not sure what you mean by "us" (i assume people in the UK) not being in a welfare trap, since I don't get the feeling your on welfare. Obviously it doesn't trap the people not trapped by it. Have you been on the welfare system? Looked into how it worked? Because I've heard the UK is actually particularly bad about it. I don't know for sure, but I've never heard anything about it being particularly good at avoiding the welfare trap.

Also, that reminds me,

If someone is a competent parent and loves their children very much, it is nobody's business to take their children away from them.

No one was talking about taking the children of competent and loving parents away, only the children of neglectful and abusive ones.

[Sheb]

Glyndîr: in this context, "Class mobility" is just an indication of how much of your income is determined by your parents'. It mostly mean that the children of poor/rich people are much more likely to end up poor/rich in Britain that in said, France, the Netherland or Italy.

The United States are close second, which really make me wonder: wasn't there a thing called the "American Dream"?