2 ms·

Hard thresholds on benefits just suck. They should always, always be progressively tapered, in a way that incentivises work. Otherwise you're just creating a pe

by toyg 4y ago

Hard thresholds on benefits just suck. They should always, always be progressively tapered, in a way that incentivises work. Otherwise you're just creating a permanent class of people without any incentive to contribute to the society that keeps them alive. I know someone with similar problems in the UK: they are part-time, but working more hours would mean paying more in childcare and lose benefits, ending up with less money than before. It's just stupid.

FpUser 4y ago
I once found German guy on github and wanted to hire him to perform some domain specific programming. He refused with the same argument: will loose the benefits.
sandworm101 4y ago
Retired rich people. Whenever a system it setup to help poor people, a harsh system of cutoffs is needed to prevent retired people from qualifying for the benefit by moving money around on paper. The problem is that we have far too many systems to allow relatively well-off people to "zero" their on-paper income, even their personal assets, during retirement. Entire industries exist to facilitate such trickery (see every other TV commercial on CNN/MSNBC/FOX).
- svieira 4y ago
  Starving the poor to prevent feeding the rich seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
  - paparush 4y ago
    This is America. Don't catch you slippin up.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Or rather like cutting off someone else's nose to spite people it won't matter much to. The efforts US politicians go through to make sure that some of the people who have paid a disproportionately large amount of taxes don't get a fraction of them back when they don't need it have been valiant. Considering that you could simply tax them enough to create a universal benefit, effectively refunding part of their own taxes and redistributing the rest, I'd suggest that starving the poor is a goal rather than a side-effect. We can't give people free college, what if people who could afford college go?
  - onei 4y ago
    On the one hand yes. But letting your system be abused by those that have no need for it is never a good use of funds.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      That's actually not always true; it depends on the rate of fraud, the amount earned, how widespread it is, and the amount of damage you do to good-faith applicants by making the process harder. For example, Florida required drug testing to receive welfare; that program cost more than it saved taxpayers in benefits. https://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/florida-didnt-save-money-by-drug-testing-welfare-recipients-data-shows/1225721/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/florida-didnt-save-mone...
    - rnd0 4y ago
      >But letting your system be abused by those that have no need for it is never a good use of funds. And yet, we have rich people using fraud to get government funds that they have absolutely no need for while the poor get exploited and starve. The abuse is going on A N Y W A Y; it's just that people get more indignant when one of the "poors" occasionally get that extra soda out of the machine.
- no_wizard 4y ago
  If we know what they are so much so that they advertise these services on cable news channels, you'd think the government would be able to make carve outs for these things as they come up no?

by toyg 4y ago

FpUser 4y ago

I once found German guy on github and wanted to hire him to perform some domain specific programming. He refused with the same argument: will loose the benefits.

sandworm101 4y ago

Retired rich people. Whenever a system it setup to help poor people, a harsh system of cutoffs is needed to prevent retired people from qualifying for the benefit by moving money around on paper. The problem is that we have far too many systems to allow relatively well-off people to "zero" their on-paper income, even their personal assets, during retirement. Entire industries exist to facilitate such trickery (see every other TV commercial on CNN/MSNBC/FOX).

svieira 4y ago
Starving the poor to prevent feeding the rich seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
- paparush 4y ago
  This is America. Don't catch you slippin up.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Or rather like cutting off someone else's nose to spite people it won't matter much to. The efforts US politicians go through to make sure that some of the people who have paid a disproportionately large amount of taxes don't get a fraction of them back when they don't need it have been valiant. Considering that you could simply tax them enough to create a universal benefit, effectively refunding part of their own taxes and redistributing the rest, I'd suggest that starving the poor is a goal rather than a side-effect. We can't give people free college, what if people who could afford college go?
- onei 4y ago
  On the one hand yes. But letting your system be abused by those that have no need for it is never a good use of funds.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    That's actually not always true; it depends on the rate of fraud, the amount earned, how widespread it is, and the amount of damage you do to good-faith applicants by making the process harder. For example, Florida required drug testing to receive welfare; that program cost more than it saved taxpayers in benefits. https://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/florida-didnt-save-money-by-drug-testing-welfare-recipients-data-shows/1225721/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/florida-didnt-save-mone...
  - rnd0 4y ago
    >But letting your system be abused by those that have no need for it is never a good use of funds. And yet, we have rich people using fraud to get government funds that they have absolutely no need for while the poor get exploited and starve. The abuse is going on A N Y W A Y; it's just that people get more indignant when one of the "poors" occasionally get that extra soda out of the machine.
no_wizard 4y ago
If we know what they are so much so that they advertise these services on cable news channels, you'd think the government would be able to make carve outs for these things as they come up no?