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And all you'll ever get is anecdote if you look in the U.S. The "welfare professionals" (let's define this term to mean those that know precisely the minimum of
by delinka 11y ago
And all you'll ever get is anecdote if you look in the U.S. The "welfare professionals" (let's define this term to mean those that know precisely the minimum of effort to maintain the illusion of 'seeking gainful employment' in order to keep their handouts) keep a low-profile and compartmentalize well. Going to the welfare office today? Don't wear new/"in" clothing, don't take the iDevice with. Out and about socially? Maintain the appearance of not actually being on welfare of any sort: wear the nicer clothing, expose the iDevice prominently. And they can't have their children mocked and ridiculed at school for not fitting in as well, so they need their own iDevice as well.
It's anecdote because there's no data. There's no data because who'd admit to cheating the system? There's no cause for investigation due to compartmentalization-- none of their intended social circle knows they're on welfare; any that do are also on welfare and doing the same thing.
How would I, a "technocrat" making about six figures know this? Because a couple times in my life I've had to take advantage of this safety net. And I was always irritated at how people I'd seen entering and leaving the welfare office had so much material crap that I couldn't afford when I'd see them again out in public. There were several occasions where some of these welfare recipients were running businesses and hired me to perform computer repair, then in the offices I'd here them on the phone discussing with others how to game a particular part of the system. Disheartening.
You want /data/ on this? Good luck.
- socialist_coder 11y agoLOL, so it's a conspiracy and all the poor people are in on it!
- delinka 11y agoI never said all of them; I said "welfare professionals" for which I don't have a count. If you want a count from my anecdote, let's say 15. I can't even guess a percentage because I didn't sit at the welfare office all day observing and counting people, nor following them around to observe their public lives and behavior. I'm sharing my own anecdote so you can see how it might be impossible to find actual data on this phenomenon. Certainly there are people who "conspire" to do bad things. Sometimes the "conspiracy" is one guy. Sometimes it's a small group. The only thing I can say with absolutely certainty is that the system will be gamed. How much depends on data that you're just not going to find.
- XorNot 11y agoThis entire rant is just that: a rant. You have no idea if anything you're talking about is real. It's all anecdote and suspicion at others. Someone who is creative and fastidious about saving, reusing and recycling would, to your eyes, look like a welfare fraud because they might superficially seem better off then you think they should.
- jazzyk 11y agoHow is it a rant? He has first-hand, eye-witness experience. There are enough anecdotes (I could supply a few) to suspect there is a welfare abuse problem - we just don't know the extent of it, as numbers are hard to come by (for reasons explained by the poster you criticize). Stating the fact that _some_ people take advantage of the system does not make one a heartless bastard.
- dalke 11y agoSo it's the same level of anecdotal evidence as all of those suspected in-person voter fraud cases, which justified the introduction of voter ID laws?
- spacemanmatt 11y agoYup, you definitely sound like you have never been poor.
- spacemanmatt 11y agoSorry, that's only my 2nd most anticipated downvote from a parent-poster.
- DanBC 11y agoThe parent poster cannot downvote your comment, as you cannot downvote this comment.
- tsotha 11y agoOh yes. What could an HN story that involves poverty be without yet another round of "You don't know poor people. Let me tell you about poverty."
- spacemanmatt 11y agoI am not offering a story. Where'd you get that? Oh, right, you imagined it.