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> "Assistance" programs meant to prop people up with so many reporting requirements and perverse incentives that punish you for improving your situation... It'

> "Assistance" programs meant to prop people up with so many reporting requirements and perverse incentives that punish you for improving your situation... It's a legitimately difficult problem, though. The interests and perspectives of the people who depend on these programs and the people who pay for them are often badly misaligned. On the one hand, you want to make it easy for the people who depend on these programs to improve their lot and achieve independence. On the other hand, the people who pay may be legitimately resentful when their money is going to strangers who don't in fact need it. It's a fine line to walk between those things, and the likely outcome is something that's biased towards one side or the other.

lostcolony 4y ago
It's actually super easy to do. See, you just...make sure that rather than cliffs, you have percentage based reduction of benefits. I.e., you lose $1 of benefit for every $2 you make, or whatever. And something similar with assets (though admittedly the details would be trickier to avoid it being gamed). Neither the group that needs help (and their supporters), nor the group that doesn't want to give hands out to people who refuse to work but could, have reason to object to something like that. The actual problem is the red meat that welfare/socialism is to our political bases in the US, and the incentives of politicians, on both sides of the aisle, to ensure it persists. If you do the obvious thing to actually address the problem, neither side can use it any longer to stir up the base. So the incentive is to not actually fix it.
- paulmd 4y ago
  As discussed elsewhere in the comments here, and as discussed in the article, there is indeed a phaseout for income. Every $1 you make above $85 reduces your benefits by $0.50, so they are doing exactly what you suggest. The $2000 number is a cap for wealth, not income. The problem isn’t having a phaseout or not anyway - we could set a wealth cliff of $50k and that would be perfectly fine. It’s the numbers that matter, where the phaseout or cliff is placed and how steep a phaseout. $85 a month is a redonkulous place to put the phaseout even if phaseouts are “better” - that is a worse policy than a 50k a month cliff! And you’re right, the reasons the number hasn’t been adjusted since 1935 (in 1989 the number was inherited from a prior program, it wasn’t adjusted at that time) is because of political will. Social spending on anyone other than the elderly is extremely unpopular in the US.
  - jnovek 4y ago
    Not for SSDI. There’s a strict cutoff that’s adjusted every year. This year it’s $1350 — if you make more than $1350 any given month, you do not receive benefits for that month.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    I don't know why you'd have any wealth cutoff. This is a replacement for their income because they can't make any income due to disability. What business does anyone have dictating anything else about their life. None. That's very authoritarian.
  - lostcolony 4y ago
    From my post - 'And something similar with assets (though admittedly the details would be trickier to avoid it being gamed).' I honestly don't care if $85k is the cutoff. I don't care if there is a cutoff at all (but I recognize some people don't like the idea that if a millionaire becomes disabled he'd be eligible for some amount of money from the government). If someone becomes disabled or whatever, and they have money saved from working, why would they not get benefits? Why do they have to deplete their savings first to get shitty benefits? Social security doesn't have an income or asset cutoff; why does disability? I actually personally agree with the sister post of just...paying people based on their disability, without caring about how much other income they're able to generate, or assets they collect. But I recognize how politically untenable that is.
- kbelder 4y ago
  One issue if that if you have multiple benefits, and each phases out over a similar range, the combined total loss can be over 100%. Suppose that between $25,000 and $35,000 income, you start paying taxes, you lose food stamps, you have to start paying toward your medical insurance, you lose your daycare assistance, free school lunches, etc., etc... each one of those could be staggered, but the net result is just overwhelming. I'm not a big fan of social programs; but if we're going to do them, they should at least be done sensibly.
  - lostcolony 4y ago
    Oh, agreed; it's why I don't call out specific benefits (since I know they have different rules and such). My intention there is to generalize to all of them.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > It's actually super easy to do. See, you just...make sure that rather than cliffs, you have percentage based reduction of benefits. It's even simpler: stop means testing individual programs, that's what progressive taxation is for. If you are going to give someone benefits due to a particular level of disability, give them benefits calculated based on that. If they have more outside income than you would expect with that disability, good for them, and they’ll also pay more taxes. Same with other special-circumstance aid qualifications (for general poverty support, this reduced to UBI.)
lkxijlewlf 4y ago
> On the other hand, the people who pay may be legitimately resentful when their money is going to strangers who don't in fact need it. Fair. But I'm resentful of the big fraudsters like Rick Scott.
notamy 4y ago
> On the other hand, the people who pay may be legitimately resentful when their money is going to strangers who don't in fact need it. I understand that this is probably a stupid question, but I'm coming from a place of ignorance: Do people who dislike/resent this not also get upset that ex. their insurance pays for things people don't "need"? Or would the kind of person who makes this complaint also not be likely to have insurance?
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  Insurance in the US is often private. Private insurance companies push pretty hard to not pay for things that people don't need (to the point of sometimes not paying for things that people do need, but that's a different topic). But to me, the emotions don't match the financials. There's always a trade-off between false positives and false negatives; the more you prevent people cheating the system, the more you deny benefits to people who need them, and vice versa. And enforcement has its own cost. But nobody feels bad about paying for too much enforcement.
  - chii 4y ago
    I'd use the same idea in the justice system, where the presumption of innocence is paramount, and apply it here. It's better to let 9 criminals go free, than to jail 1 innocent person by accident, and it is better to assist 9 extra people in need, than to let one person in need to not get it due to the rules. Somebody needing assistance is presumed to need it, until proof is found that they are cheating the system. This will let some people use the system fraudulently, but it ensures that it catches the vulnerable that truly need it.
michaelmrose 4y ago
There is not fine line we are just flat out dumber than rocks. Its incredibly simple in fact. Lets talk about subject of the article disability income. Someone with a projected lifespan of 20-30 more years, 2000 a month income, and no projected time frame in which they are expected to be able to earn an income who is actually successfully subsisting on that income of 2000 a month needs an input of 24000 per year to go on subsisting indefinably adjusting for inflation. If they had $48,000 in the bank it wouldn't meaningfully effect their need. In fact making them spend down everything they have before helping them is pretty stupid it renders their life very fragile and less likely to be stable long term and doesn't even save much money. The equation begins to change only when funds on hand are sufficient to meaningfully change inflow or pay for capital investment like buying a home outright or buying a second property for income. The turnover figure where someone doesn't NEED to have an actual income is actually reasonable measured in YEARS of income whereas the actual figure is now a single month of income. For an alternative look at health insurance. It's possible to go from free insurance to no insurance based on a 10c an hour raise at your part time job. Most reasonable upward economic trajectories move through successively better paying positions towards healthy finances. However if you can in a single small raise go from +2% wages to -50% actual economic health moving upwards might be a quick path to homelessness before you can actually complete your upward path. This is especially true when yourself + spouse costs not 2x the cost of insuring yourself but more like 3x. A non moronic idea might be to allow poor people to keep the same insurance that used to be free at an increasing cost such that any raise at all was ALWAYS a step up. > the people who pay may be legitimately resentful when their money is going to strangers who don't in fact need it. Sane solutions are not found by appealing to the emotions of ignorant, selfish, hateful people. They are found by doing math and projecting the probable results of the effect of alternative policies.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > If they had $48,000 in the bank it wouldn't meaningfully effect their need. In fact making them spend down everything they have before helping them is pretty stupid it renders their life very fragile and less likely to be stable long term and doesn't even save much money. It's one thing to give someone benefits to support their person, it's another to give them benefits to support their person AND their existing savings. It's pretty natural to be less generous to someone who already has the money to pay for what they're asking you to pay for. > Sane solutions are not found by appealing to the emotions of ignorant, selfish, hateful people. You're not going to get "sane solutions" with that attitude. You're going to get people to feel good about ignoring your ideas because you insulted them.

lostcolony 4y ago

It's actually super easy to do. See, you just...make sure that rather than cliffs, you have percentage based reduction of benefits. I.e., you lose $1 of benefit for every $2 you make, or whatever. And something similar with assets (though admittedly the details would be trickier to avoid it being gamed). Neither the group that needs help (and their supporters), nor the group that doesn't want to give hands out to people who refuse to work but could, have reason to object to something like that. The actual problem is the red meat that welfare/socialism is to our political bases in the US, and the incentives of politicians, on both sides of the aisle, to ensure it persists. If you do the obvious thing to actually address the problem, neither side can use it any longer to stir up the base. So the incentive is to not actually fix it.

paulmd 4y ago
As discussed elsewhere in the comments here, and as discussed in the article, there is indeed a phaseout for income. Every $1 you make above $85 reduces your benefits by $0.50, so they are doing exactly what you suggest. The $2000 number is a cap for wealth, not income. The problem isn’t having a phaseout or not anyway - we could set a wealth cliff of $50k and that would be perfectly fine. It’s the numbers that matter, where the phaseout or cliff is placed and how steep a phaseout. $85 a month is a redonkulous place to put the phaseout even if phaseouts are “better” - that is a worse policy than a 50k a month cliff! And you’re right, the reasons the number hasn’t been adjusted since 1935 (in 1989 the number was inherited from a prior program, it wasn’t adjusted at that time) is because of political will. Social spending on anyone other than the elderly is extremely unpopular in the US.
- jnovek 4y ago
  Not for SSDI. There’s a strict cutoff that’s adjusted every year. This year it’s $1350 — if you make more than $1350 any given month, you do not receive benefits for that month.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  I don't know why you'd have any wealth cutoff. This is a replacement for their income because they can't make any income due to disability. What business does anyone have dictating anything else about their life. None. That's very authoritarian.
- lostcolony 4y ago
  From my post - 'And something similar with assets (though admittedly the details would be trickier to avoid it being gamed).' I honestly don't care if $85k is the cutoff. I don't care if there is a cutoff at all (but I recognize some people don't like the idea that if a millionaire becomes disabled he'd be eligible for some amount of money from the government). If someone becomes disabled or whatever, and they have money saved from working, why would they not get benefits? Why do they have to deplete their savings first to get shitty benefits? Social security doesn't have an income or asset cutoff; why does disability? I actually personally agree with the sister post of just...paying people based on their disability, without caring about how much other income they're able to generate, or assets they collect. But I recognize how politically untenable that is.
kbelder 4y ago
One issue if that if you have multiple benefits, and each phases out over a similar range, the combined total loss can be over 100%. Suppose that between $25,000 and $35,000 income, you start paying taxes, you lose food stamps, you have to start paying toward your medical insurance, you lose your daycare assistance, free school lunches, etc., etc... each one of those could be staggered, but the net result is just overwhelming. I'm not a big fan of social programs; but if we're going to do them, they should at least be done sensibly.
- lostcolony 4y ago
  Oh, agreed; it's why I don't call out specific benefits (since I know they have different rules and such). My intention there is to generalize to all of them.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> It's actually super easy to do. See, you just...make sure that rather than cliffs, you have percentage based reduction of benefits. It's even simpler: stop means testing individual programs, that's what progressive taxation is for. If you are going to give someone benefits due to a particular level of disability, give them benefits calculated based on that. If they have more outside income than you would expect with that disability, good for them, and they’ll also pay more taxes. Same with other special-circumstance aid qualifications (for general poverty support, this reduced to UBI.)

lkxijlewlf 4y ago

> On the other hand, the people who pay may be legitimately resentful when their money is going to strangers who don't in fact need it. Fair. But I'm resentful of the big fraudsters like Rick Scott.

notamy 4y ago

> On the other hand, the people who pay may be legitimately resentful when their money is going to strangers who don't in fact need it. I understand that this is probably a stupid question, but I'm coming from a place of ignorance: Do people who dislike/resent this not also get upset that ex. their insurance pays for things people don't "need"? Or would the kind of person who makes this complaint also not be likely to have insurance?

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
Insurance in the US is often private. Private insurance companies push pretty hard to not pay for things that people don't need (to the point of sometimes not paying for things that people do need, but that's a different topic). But to me, the emotions don't match the financials. There's always a trade-off between false positives and false negatives; the more you prevent people cheating the system, the more you deny benefits to people who need them, and vice versa. And enforcement has its own cost. But nobody feels bad about paying for too much enforcement.
- chii 4y ago
  I'd use the same idea in the justice system, where the presumption of innocence is paramount, and apply it here. It's better to let 9 criminals go free, than to jail 1 innocent person by accident, and it is better to assist 9 extra people in need, than to let one person in need to not get it due to the rules. Somebody needing assistance is presumed to need it, until proof is found that they are cheating the system. This will let some people use the system fraudulently, but it ensures that it catches the vulnerable that truly need it.

michaelmrose 4y ago

There is not fine line we are just flat out dumber than rocks. Its incredibly simple in fact. Lets talk about subject of the article disability income. Someone with a projected lifespan of 20-30 more years, 2000 a month income, and no projected time frame in which they are expected to be able to earn an income who is actually successfully subsisting on that income of 2000 a month needs an input of 24000 per year to go on subsisting indefinably adjusting for inflation. If they had $48,000 in the bank it wouldn't meaningfully effect their need. In fact making them spend down everything they have before helping them is pretty stupid it renders their life very fragile and less likely to be stable long term and doesn't even save much money. The equation begins to change only when funds on hand are sufficient to meaningfully change inflow or pay for capital investment like buying a home outright or buying a second property for income. The turnover figure where someone doesn't NEED to have an actual income is actually reasonable measured in YEARS of income whereas the actual figure is now a single month of income. For an alternative look at health insurance. It's possible to go from free insurance to no insurance based on a 10c an hour raise at your part time job. Most reasonable upward economic trajectories move through successively better paying positions towards healthy finances. However if you can in a single small raise go from +2% wages to -50% actual economic health moving upwards might be a quick path to homelessness before you can actually complete your upward path. This is especially true when yourself + spouse costs not 2x the cost of insuring yourself but more like 3x. A non moronic idea might be to allow poor people to keep the same insurance that used to be free at an increasing cost such that any raise at all was ALWAYS a step up. > the people who pay may be legitimately resentful when their money is going to strangers who don't in fact need it. Sane solutions are not found by appealing to the emotions of ignorant, selfish, hateful people. They are found by doing math and projecting the probable results of the effect of alternative policies.

tablespoon 4y ago
> If they had $48,000 in the bank it wouldn't meaningfully effect their need. In fact making them spend down everything they have before helping them is pretty stupid it renders their life very fragile and less likely to be stable long term and doesn't even save much money. It's one thing to give someone benefits to support their person, it's another to give them benefits to support their person AND their existing savings. It's pretty natural to be less generous to someone who already has the money to pay for what they're asking you to pay for. > Sane solutions are not found by appealing to the emotions of ignorant, selfish, hateful people. You're not going to get "sane solutions" with that attitude. You're going to get people to feel good about ignoring your ideas because you insulted them.