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I was born into a single parent family in a trailer park. I worked my way out of that situation including serving in the US Marines in order to pay for college.

I was born into a single parent family in a trailer park. I worked my way out of that situation including serving in the US Marines in order to pay for college. Even coming from a background that should have led my family to use welfare (mom was too proud and cleaned houses instead) I tend to lean more towards the idea that welfare and the nanny state in general hurt more than they help. The CATO Institute does a lot of research into this. http://www.cato.org/blog/how-welfare-state-traps-poor-dependency-british-version http://www.cato.org/blog/how-welfare-state-traps-poor-depend...

JupiterMoon 11y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10446982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10446982
websocketpuppet 11y ago
This shows the gaming of the US Welfare system and the inherent disincentives to work. http://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/hipsters_food_stamps_pinched/ http://www.salon.com/2010/03/16/hipsters_food_stamps_pinched...
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/01/hipsters-food-stamps-and-the-politics-of-resentment/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/01/hipsters-food-stamps-and-...
  - thatusertwo 11y ago
    Here in Ontario, Canada, whenever the teacher go on strike everyone else gets up in arms, the reality is that the teachers are one of the few areas of employment that still have good wages and benefits. Instead of saying we need to bring everyone down to the lowest level we should be asking for everyone to be pulled up to the level of teachers. Note: Unlike other places, teaching is a great job in Ontario.
- lostcolony 11y ago
  No it doesn't. It shows that people who qualify for food stamps (they're still unemployed or low income) don't just have to get crappy food that is terrible for them, and that they are autonomous adults who, though qualifying for aid, are still able to decide how to best spend it based upon the various resources they have available to them. They aren't forced to spend it on just ramen while looking ashamed and embarrassed in the store just to placate those not in the same situation.
lazyant 11y ago
Some may argue that the US military is a big provider of welfare, handing out "fictitious" jobs to almost anybody in a "socialist" way.
- xacaxulu 11y ago
  I'm very aware of this argument and even agree with it in some cases. I will say that it's still 'work' in a very real sense. In my case, it was the most respectable ways for me to earn my way out of poverty and eventually have enough money for college.
  - justifier 11y ago
    but do you see the subjectivity of your opinion? > was too proud > the idea that welfare and the nanny state in general hurt more than they help > the most respectable ways you are placing your own morality on other peoples' choices with definitive and hostile rhetoric you speak of pride, respect, and hurt, but have you examined these ideas for yourself? perhaps someone on welfare is more proud that they stayed out of the military, an entity often acting as a machine of violence used to enable politicians' often dubious goals perhaps someone on welfare thinks it is more respectable to accept aide from others than support military effort perhaps someone on welfare thinks it is less hurtful to accept aide from others than to accept work supporting goals that often lead to direct hurt being inflicted on others so, by your own criteria those accepting welfare are in the right as well because they are: too proud to join the military, think it is more respectable to stay out of the military, and think the military causes hurt more than welfare i think it's dangerous to question a person's character lest you be prepared to have your own questioned
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ISL 11y ago
  Military jobs are anything but fictitious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt...
Matumio 11y ago
That's actually one of the arguments for UBI (unconditional basic income) - it would reduce the problem that welfare can't reach many of the people who are supposed to benefit from it but too proud to ask for help. (UBI would also reduce the welfare trap mentioned in the Cato article.)
- ChrisLomont 11y ago
  So instead of trying to allocate limited resources to those who most need it we should instead blindly split those resources equally among everyone? And this will help the poor how?
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    The argument behind the U in UBI (universal) is that it removes incentives against work (cases where working harder yields less money), costs less because there's no effort to keep people out, and is repaid as taxes by those with larger incomes. I'd need to see numbers again, but it's raw numbers we should use to decide how to run an economy, not rhetoric about "helping the poor how?"
  - rictic 11y ago
    The wealthy will, in effect, receive nothing, as their taxes will increase more than they will receive from UBI. Two of the strongest arguments for UBI are: 1) we waste a lot of money administering welfare services. UBI is designed to be inexpensive to administer, which directs more money to the poor. 2) research is beginning to suggest that direct cash transfers have better long term impact per dollar spent than just about any other intervention. see, e.g. research on GiveDirectly's impact
    - icebraining 11y ago
      The wealthy will, in effect, receive nothing, as their taxes will increase more than they will receive from UBI. Yes, but what about the working/low-middle class who currently mostly doesn't pay for nor receive welfare? That's money that could be allocated for the actual poor.
readme 11y ago
I'm in the Army. What do you think about people who don't qualify to join the military? What should they do? The military is a life saver for a lot of people, but not everyone can do it.
abalone 11y ago
Every Cato Institute loving Silicon Valley Libertarian should learn this one word: DARPA $3 Billion / year of taxpayer funds invested in the tech industry. Plus, lots of other government agencies and procurement involved in nurturing tech. I mean literally Siri was invented by DARPA.[1] And you can thank it for your next autonomous car.[2] Also a thing called the Internet. So tell us again how investing in people is a corrupting influence but investing in tech companies is critical early-stage support? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALO [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge
- michaelkeenan 11y ago
  When we see someone say something disagreeable, it's tempting to hope that they also hold another view inconsistent with that. Then we can point out the inconsistency. But if we assume that they hold this other view, we will say irrelevant, nonsensical things. You ask xacaxulu to "tell us again" something they never said in the first place.
- icebraining 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure Cato knows about DARPA, as many of its contributors regularly criticize it. I'm not sure why you're assuming they're for it. http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2015/9/cj-v35n3-7.pdf http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/ca...
lostcolony 11y ago
A bit tangential, but I'd also argue that the military as recourse is, itself, an unfair burden on poor people. Rich kids don't feel compelled to enlist just to make financial ends meet. Even I (single parent household, parent was a teacher), when faced with an inability to find a job when out of high school, had the grades and support to 'fall back' onto college instead. I wasn't forced to risk my life just to stay solvent. More on point, though, I think a lot of people with this view conflate the particular implementation of welfare (itself a cause of compromise between right and left wing), with the nature of welfare itself. That is, because there is such a wide gap between "welfare, not working", and "fully self supported" that unless you can land in a job that pays well it doesn't make sense from a total utility perspective for many to find a low wage job and work that in lieu of (or alongside partial) welfare, we dismiss the idea of welfare completely. Or by example, the person on disability who is unable to work full time, but who, if they try to work above X amount of hours, ends up -losing- money, due to loss of disability benefits, as well as (obviously) losing on free time, and so ends up not working as much as they could. Due to cases like that, many people end up blaming welfare itself, rather than a flawed implementation of it. Per another commenter, I too think a UBI would address this (as well as the basic issue that with more automation we have less need of people working, and I'd prefer someone trying to figure out what useful work they could do that would result in them getting paid for the real utility they provide, rather than just taking an unnecessary job just to make ends meet. Wage slavery in jobs that could be automated is an even more flawed form of welfare than government handouts).
- xacaxulu 11y ago
  I agree with this. Among 1st world nations, the US is the only country that has this sort of pipeline into military service. It's generally referred to as the economic draft.
- tsotha 11y ago
  >A bit tangential, but I'd also argue that the military as recourse is, itself, an unfair burden on poor people. Not borne out by the statistics. The average recruit comes from a family that's better educated and wealthier than the average American. The real problem with poor people using the military to lift themselves out of poverty is so many of them can't enlist as a consequence of obesity or a criminal record.
felipellrocha 11y ago
Wait... So you're saying a government program that pays well allowed you and your family to move out of poverty?
atmosx 11y ago
Congratulations, you've been through a lot and came out nicely. I believe that people take for granted situations that are not... Granted. A a 5-year old who lives in Bronx and his mother sells drugs for a living, doesn't have a choice. By the time he is 15, his future is already seriously broken 99 out of 100 times. Of course there are exceptions, but it's like startups... For every team that succeeds there are 1.000 smart, interesting, extremely hard-working team that fails for a huge variety of reasons. IMHO having a parent that will teach you how to face problems, life, etc. is more valuable than money per-se. You had your mother who was too proud, so she fought. Now you seem to have the same stance towards difficulties. Other children do not have mother like yours. Maybe we owe more to the society than we like to reckon[1]. [1] http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/10/clash-of-autonomy-and-interdependence.html http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/10/cla...
te_chris 11y ago
You're pretty lucky you had a massive govt welfare program to fall back on.
turar 11y ago
You should read/listen to this: http://www.npr.org/2015/10/20/450175865/do-we-have-less-sympathy-for-people-facing-things-weve-overcome http://www.npr.org/2015/10/20/450175865/do-we-have-less-symp...
giardini 11y ago
My understanding is that the CATO Institute is paid for largely by the right-winger Charles Koch (a former member of the John Birch Society) and is an organization that shills right-wing thought. The CATO institute isn't an "independent think tank" - it's been set up to promote a right-wing agenda. Paul Krugman histories the development of an entire network of such entities by wealthy arch-conservatives and small-business organizations (who supported right-wing ideas because they reduce taxes and empower employers vis-a-vis employees and especially unions) in his book "The Conscience of a Liberal": http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393333132?keywords=conscience%20of%20a%20liberal&qid=1445792170&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393333132?keywords=conscie... This network of organizations, which took decades to build, does indeed compose a "vast right-wing conspiracy" in the sense that they coordinate with and cross-reference each other to deliver right-wing political views and to promote the hiring of lobbyists and aides in Washington, D.C. who share their political views. Luckily, according to Krugman, their persuasive power is diminishing with time. My take-away: don't equate one of these right-wing "think tanks" with a real think-tank, e.g., RAND corporation.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  They provide some pretty straightforward calculations to back up their point. Are the calculations wrong? If so, where is the first mistake?
  - lostcolony 11y ago
    The calculations aren't wrong (well, they might be, but it's immaterial). What is wrong is the belief that this is the way things have to be, and that the choice is a binary "keep the status quo" or "eliminate welfare". Why do we cut the amount of welfare people get as their income increases? Well, there's the obvious reason, that their income should supplant welfare. Is that what happens? No. Their income ends up paying less than welfare, until they earn sufficiently high amounts. Why is that? Because the system is broken. As a cynic, I would even say that the pressure to cut it off earlier, rather than later, largely stems from conservative pressures ("if they're able to work that minimum wage job for 30 hours, then they certainly should be able to work 40! Stop their governmental handout at 30 hours!" "Okay, then we'll just work 20" "If they can work 20, they can work 30! Stop their governmental handout at 20 hours!" Etc). That is, this broken system that they're speaking out against is -exactly the broken one they caused-. What would actually make sense? Well, tailoring off welfare payments at some percentage of earned income. Let's say 50%. That is, someone on welfare earns $50 one month from a job, their welfare payout reduces by $25. Take into account additional costs as deductibles; things like "Driving to the job took an extra $10 from me" - okay, fine, then your welfare payout is reduced only $15. The tax payer has saved $15 (as only $35 was paid to the welfare recipient), the welfare recipient came out ahead by $25 ($50 earned + ($25 welfare + $10 gas refund/deductible) - $10 gas cost; they walk away with $75, $50 of which they earned), -and- they're working toward rejoining the workforce. Welfare effectively stops once they've reached wages of 2x welfare + cost of incidentals, and until they reach that point, every extra dollar they earn is a net gain to them; there is no valley where their purchasing power actually drops because they chose to work. While we're at it, if we're really concerned about people working, let's also fund more job training centers, more disability rehab and job placement centers, etc. Why don't we do all of that? Because there is no political pressure to do that; conservatives would rather completely dismantle welfare, and liberals either aren't that concerned by the status quo, or are tired of trying to work with conservatives over the issue (and so it's become a shouting match where both parties have drawn lines in the sand and refused to compromise).

JupiterMoon 11y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10446982 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10446982

websocketpuppet 11y ago

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

eli_gottlieb 11y ago
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/01/hipsters-food-stamps-and-the-politics-of-resentment/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/01/hipsters-food-stamps-and-...
- thatusertwo 11y ago
  Here in Ontario, Canada, whenever the teacher go on strike everyone else gets up in arms, the reality is that the teachers are one of the few areas of employment that still have good wages and benefits. Instead of saying we need to bring everyone down to the lowest level we should be asking for everyone to be pulled up to the level of teachers. Note: Unlike other places, teaching is a great job in Ontario.
lostcolony 11y ago
No it doesn't. It shows that people who qualify for food stamps (they're still unemployed or low income) don't just have to get crappy food that is terrible for them, and that they are autonomous adults who, though qualifying for aid, are still able to decide how to best spend it based upon the various resources they have available to them. They aren't forced to spend it on just ramen while looking ashamed and embarrassed in the store just to placate those not in the same situation.

lazyant 11y ago

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

xacaxulu 11y ago
I'm very aware of this argument and even agree with it in some cases. I will say that it's still 'work' in a very real sense. In my case, it was the most respectable ways for me to earn my way out of poverty and eventually have enough money for college.
- justifier 11y ago
  but do you see the subjectivity of your opinion? > was too proud > the idea that welfare and the nanny state in general hurt more than they help > the most respectable ways you are placing your own morality on other peoples' choices with definitive and hostile rhetoric you speak of pride, respect, and hurt, but have you examined these ideas for yourself? perhaps someone on welfare is more proud that they stayed out of the military, an entity often acting as a machine of violence used to enable politicians' often dubious goals perhaps someone on welfare thinks it is more respectable to accept aide from others than support military effort perhaps someone on welfare thinks it is less hurtful to accept aide from others than to accept work supporting goals that often lead to direct hurt being inflicted on others so, by your own criteria those accepting welfare are in the right as well because they are: too proud to join the military, think it is more respectable to stay out of the military, and think the military causes hurt more than welfare i think it's dangerous to question a person's character lest you be prepared to have your own questioned
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ISL 11y ago
Military jobs are anything but fictitious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt...

Matumio 11y ago

That's actually one of the arguments for UBI (unconditional basic income) - it would reduce the problem that welfare can't reach many of the people who are supposed to benefit from it but too proud to ask for help. (UBI would also reduce the welfare trap mentioned in the Cato article.)

ChrisLomont 11y ago
So instead of trying to allocate limited resources to those who most need it we should instead blindly split those resources equally among everyone? And this will help the poor how?
- nitrogen 11y ago
  The argument behind the U in UBI (universal) is that it removes incentives against work (cases where working harder yields less money), costs less because there's no effort to keep people out, and is repaid as taxes by those with larger incomes. I'd need to see numbers again, but it's raw numbers we should use to decide how to run an economy, not rhetoric about "helping the poor how?"
- rictic 11y ago
  The wealthy will, in effect, receive nothing, as their taxes will increase more than they will receive from UBI. Two of the strongest arguments for UBI are: 1) we waste a lot of money administering welfare services. UBI is designed to be inexpensive to administer, which directs more money to the poor. 2) research is beginning to suggest that direct cash transfers have better long term impact per dollar spent than just about any other intervention. see, e.g. research on GiveDirectly's impact
  - icebraining 11y ago
    The wealthy will, in effect, receive nothing, as their taxes will increase more than they will receive from UBI. Yes, but what about the working/low-middle class who currently mostly doesn't pay for nor receive welfare? That's money that could be allocated for the actual poor.

readme 11y ago

I'm in the Army. What do you think about people who don't qualify to join the military? What should they do? The military is a life saver for a lot of people, but not everyone can do it.

abalone 11y ago

Every Cato Institute loving Silicon Valley Libertarian should learn this one word: DARPA $3 Billion / year of taxpayer funds invested in the tech industry. Plus, lots of other government agencies and procurement involved in nurturing tech. I mean literally Siri was invented by DARPA.[1] And you can thank it for your next autonomous car.[2] Also a thing called the Internet. So tell us again how investing in people is a corrupting influence but investing in tech companies is critical early-stage support? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALO [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge

michaelkeenan 11y ago
When we see someone say something disagreeable, it's tempting to hope that they also hold another view inconsistent with that. Then we can point out the inconsistency. But if we assume that they hold this other view, we will say irrelevant, nonsensical things. You ask xacaxulu to "tell us again" something they never said in the first place.
icebraining 11y ago
I'm pretty sure Cato knows about DARPA, as many of its contributors regularly criticize it. I'm not sure why you're assuming they're for it. http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2015/9/cj-v35n3-7.pdf http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/ca...

lostcolony 11y ago

A bit tangential, but I'd also argue that the military as recourse is, itself, an unfair burden on poor people. Rich kids don't feel compelled to enlist just to make financial ends meet. Even I (single parent household, parent was a teacher), when faced with an inability to find a job when out of high school, had the grades and support to 'fall back' onto college instead. I wasn't forced to risk my life just to stay solvent. More on point, though, I think a lot of people with this view conflate the particular implementation of welfare (itself a cause of compromise between right and left wing), with the nature of welfare itself. That is, because there is such a wide gap between "welfare, not working", and "fully self supported" that unless you can land in a job that pays well it doesn't make sense from a total utility perspective for many to find a low wage job and work that in lieu of (or alongside partial) welfare, we dismiss the idea of welfare completely. Or by example, the person on disability who is unable to work full time, but who, if they try to work above X amount of hours, ends up -losing- money, due to loss of disability benefits, as well as (obviously) losing on free time, and so ends up not working as much as they could. Due to cases like that, many people end up blaming welfare itself, rather than a flawed implementation of it. Per another commenter, I too think a UBI would address this (as well as the basic issue that with more automation we have less need of people working, and I'd prefer someone trying to figure out what useful work they could do that would result in them getting paid for the real utility they provide, rather than just taking an unnecessary job just to make ends meet. Wage slavery in jobs that could be automated is an even more flawed form of welfare than government handouts).

xacaxulu 11y ago
I agree with this. Among 1st world nations, the US is the only country that has this sort of pipeline into military service. It's generally referred to as the economic draft.
tsotha 11y ago
>A bit tangential, but I'd also argue that the military as recourse is, itself, an unfair burden on poor people. Not borne out by the statistics. The average recruit comes from a family that's better educated and wealthier than the average American. The real problem with poor people using the military to lift themselves out of poverty is so many of them can't enlist as a consequence of obesity or a criminal record.

felipellrocha 11y ago

Wait... So you're saying a government program that pays well allowed you and your family to move out of poverty?

atmosx 11y ago

Congratulations, you've been through a lot and came out nicely. I believe that people take for granted situations that are not... Granted. A a 5-year old who lives in Bronx and his mother sells drugs for a living, doesn't have a choice. By the time he is 15, his future is already seriously broken 99 out of 100 times. Of course there are exceptions, but it's like startups... For every team that succeeds there are 1.000 smart, interesting, extremely hard-working team that fails for a huge variety of reasons. IMHO having a parent that will teach you how to face problems, life, etc. is more valuable than money per-se. You had your mother who was too proud, so she fought. Now you seem to have the same stance towards difficulties. Other children do not have mother like yours. Maybe we owe more to the society than we like to reckon[1]. [1] http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/10/clash-of-autonomy-and-interdependence.html http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/10/cla...

te_chris 11y ago

You're pretty lucky you had a massive govt welfare program to fall back on.

turar 11y ago

You should read/listen to this: http://www.npr.org/2015/10/20/450175865/do-we-have-less-sympathy-for-people-facing-things-weve-overcome http://www.npr.org/2015/10/20/450175865/do-we-have-less-symp...

giardini 11y ago

My understanding is that the CATO Institute is paid for largely by the right-winger Charles Koch (a former member of the John Birch Society) and is an organization that shills right-wing thought. The CATO institute isn't an "independent think tank" - it's been set up to promote a right-wing agenda. Paul Krugman histories the development of an entire network of such entities by wealthy arch-conservatives and small-business organizations (who supported right-wing ideas because they reduce taxes and empower employers vis-a-vis employees and especially unions) in his book "The Conscience of a Liberal": http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393333132?keywords=conscience%20of%20a%20liberal&qid=1445792170&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393333132?keywords=conscie... This network of organizations, which took decades to build, does indeed compose a "vast right-wing conspiracy" in the sense that they coordinate with and cross-reference each other to deliver right-wing political views and to promote the hiring of lobbyists and aides in Washington, D.C. who share their political views. Luckily, according to Krugman, their persuasive power is diminishing with time. My take-away: don't equate one of these right-wing "think tanks" with a real think-tank, e.g., RAND corporation.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
They provide some pretty straightforward calculations to back up their point. Are the calculations wrong? If so, where is the first mistake?
- lostcolony 11y ago
  The calculations aren't wrong (well, they might be, but it's immaterial). What is wrong is the belief that this is the way things have to be, and that the choice is a binary "keep the status quo" or "eliminate welfare". Why do we cut the amount of welfare people get as their income increases? Well, there's the obvious reason, that their income should supplant welfare. Is that what happens? No. Their income ends up paying less than welfare, until they earn sufficiently high amounts. Why is that? Because the system is broken. As a cynic, I would even say that the pressure to cut it off earlier, rather than later, largely stems from conservative pressures ("if they're able to work that minimum wage job for 30 hours, then they certainly should be able to work 40! Stop their governmental handout at 30 hours!" "Okay, then we'll just work 20" "If they can work 20, they can work 30! Stop their governmental handout at 20 hours!" Etc). That is, this broken system that they're speaking out against is -exactly the broken one they caused-. What would actually make sense? Well, tailoring off welfare payments at some percentage of earned income. Let's say 50%. That is, someone on welfare earns $50 one month from a job, their welfare payout reduces by $25. Take into account additional costs as deductibles; things like "Driving to the job took an extra $10 from me" - okay, fine, then your welfare payout is reduced only $15. The tax payer has saved $15 (as only $35 was paid to the welfare recipient), the welfare recipient came out ahead by $25 ($50 earned + ($25 welfare + $10 gas refund/deductible) - $10 gas cost; they walk away with $75, $50 of which they earned), -and- they're working toward rejoining the workforce. Welfare effectively stops once they've reached wages of 2x welfare + cost of incidentals, and until they reach that point, every extra dollar they earn is a net gain to them; there is no valley where their purchasing power actually drops because they chose to work. While we're at it, if we're really concerned about people working, let's also fund more job training centers, more disability rehab and job placement centers, etc. Why don't we do all of that? Because there is no political pressure to do that; conservatives would rather completely dismantle welfare, and liberals either aren't that concerned by the status quo, or are tired of trying to work with conservatives over the issue (and so it's become a shouting match where both parties have drawn lines in the sand and refused to compromise).