5 ms·

The issue is not "why don't they upgrade the system" but the issue is "does it do what is required of it by those who sign the cheques"? Sadly, being a "hostil

The issue is not "why don't they upgrade the system" but the issue is "does it do what is required of it by those who sign the cheques"? Sadly, being a "hostile environment" for claiming benefit is exactly what large numbers of welfare systems the world over are designed to do. It has taken a decade for America's Underclass to claw its way back to parity - given how many more people are affected this time round, I doubt any country, even US can afford to stall so many of its citizens for so long again. We can mail everyone a cheque. That might be the simplest solution all round.

twblalock 7y ago
Mailing everyone a check at the scale of the US population is also a technology problem. I don't expect it to go very well -- it will happen slowly, a lot of people entitled to checks won't get them, checks will be sent to the wrong places, etc.
- rocky1138 7y ago
  Deposit $1000 into every account electronically
  - crooked-v 7y ago
    What about the people without bank accounts?
  - twblalock 7y ago
    I have 3 bank accounts. Do I get $3000? What if one of them is a joint account with another person? It's not that simple.
    - alexpetralia 7y ago
      This part I actually don't think is that complicated. Only one of those bank accounts paid a tax liability or received a tax refund last year. The same one will receive this direct deposit.
      - machello13 7y ago
        Isn't this exactly how they're doing it? They're only mailing out checks to people who didn't use direct deposit for their taxes.
  - rchaud 7y ago
    How would that be done if the individual hasn't provided direct deposit information?
- blintz 7y ago
  Agreed, but still radically simpler than the convoluted means testing that we do now. If welfare critics care about the efficiency of the public dollar, this seems like a simple measure to get more benefit at lower cost.
- sizzle 7y ago
  Mailing address should be a part of the intake process and matched with the mandatory census that is done periodically. Seems like this could smooth out a lot of edge cases
- nexuist 7y ago
  One of the great mysteries of government solved itself in front of my eyes as soon as I did a hackathon sponsored by a local city. Even simple relationships like matching a person to their address, not only were difficult to access, but literally did not exist (even if they did exist, city officials told us that some people change addresses so quickly we can't count on the data to be accurate). Same goes with similar data points like phone numbers. It's interesting, because this data obviously exists somewhere - with the NSA, cellphone/utility providers, hell, Facebook probably has it - but accessing that as a city official involves a lot of phone calls, warrants, etc. So even things as simple as "send each person a check" are impossible to automate because the data does not exist - and arguably for a lot of people, should not exist in govt hands.
crooked-v 7y ago
The most obvious example of this right now is Florida, where the current unemployment aid system was intentionally designed to make it difficult to maintain benefits and to make it easier to count firings as 'for cause', to reduce the official state unemployment statistics.

twblalock 7y ago

Mailing everyone a check at the scale of the US population is also a technology problem. I don't expect it to go very well -- it will happen slowly, a lot of people entitled to checks won't get them, checks will be sent to the wrong places, etc.

rocky1138 7y ago
Deposit $1000 into every account electronically
- crooked-v 7y ago
  What about the people without bank accounts?
- twblalock 7y ago
  I have 3 bank accounts. Do I get $3000? What if one of them is a joint account with another person? It's not that simple.
  - alexpetralia 7y ago
    This part I actually don't think is that complicated. Only one of those bank accounts paid a tax liability or received a tax refund last year. The same one will receive this direct deposit.
    - machello13 7y ago
      Isn't this exactly how they're doing it? They're only mailing out checks to people who didn't use direct deposit for their taxes.
- rchaud 7y ago
  How would that be done if the individual hasn't provided direct deposit information?
blintz 7y ago
Agreed, but still radically simpler than the convoluted means testing that we do now. If welfare critics care about the efficiency of the public dollar, this seems like a simple measure to get more benefit at lower cost.
sizzle 7y ago
Mailing address should be a part of the intake process and matched with the mandatory census that is done periodically. Seems like this could smooth out a lot of edge cases
nexuist 7y ago
One of the great mysteries of government solved itself in front of my eyes as soon as I did a hackathon sponsored by a local city. Even simple relationships like matching a person to their address, not only were difficult to access, but literally did not exist (even if they did exist, city officials told us that some people change addresses so quickly we can't count on the data to be accurate). Same goes with similar data points like phone numbers. It's interesting, because this data obviously exists somewhere - with the NSA, cellphone/utility providers, hell, Facebook probably has it - but accessing that as a city official involves a lot of phone calls, warrants, etc. So even things as simple as "send each person a check" are impossible to automate because the data does not exist - and arguably for a lot of people, should not exist in govt hands.

crooked-v 7y ago

The most obvious example of this right now is Florida, where the current unemployment aid system was intentionally designed to make it difficult to maintain benefits and to make it easier to count firings as 'for cause', to reduce the official state unemployment statistics.