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That's a pretty cynical view. You're a assuming people will strive for the lowest common denominator of living standards just so they can get free housing. Do
by xux 13y ago
That's a pretty cynical view. You're a assuming people will strive for the lowest common denominator of living standards just so they can get free housing.
Do some people take advantage of welfare? Sure. But if you're doing pretty ok making $30k a year, would you drag yourself into unemployment just so you can take food stamps? Doubt it.
In fact, I see it completely reversed. It's a short term problem, with a long term solution. If you look at Maslow's hiearchy of needs, people who have their basic necessities met (housing, food, friends, etc) will naturally strive for higher living standards. In the short term, people will become homeless to claim free apartments, but in the long term strive for higher living standards.
- wmt 13y agoI don't think supporting basic income instead of housing projects is a cynical view. A basic income that guarantees enough money to have a basic living should help most poor much more than housing projects or food stamps.
- lmm 13y agoDo we have evidence of this? I'd like to believe it's true, but there's a part of me that thinks giving people food and housing rather than money makes it less likely they'll spend it on drugs.
- nknighthb 13y agoWhich is like arguing that distributing condoms causes teenagers to have sex, or needle exchange causes drug use. You're solving the wrong problem. We can be sure addicts are going to get their drugs, and they're going to get the drugs whether they have a place to live and food on the table or not. The question is whether they're going to be committing other crimes that put society at risk in order to do so. I'd rather they spend my tax money than break into my house.
- lmm 13y agoMy problem isn't that they're using drugs, at least in the immediate; my problem is that if we give them money and they spend it on drugs then we haven't done anything about the fact that they're still hungry and homeless. The problem we want to solve is that these people don't have food and shelter - or from a more selfish perspective, that these people are costing us money on prisons and emergency services. Now, would giving these people money solving these problems? Would giving them money be more effective at solving these problems than housing projects and food programs? Like I say, I'd like to believe giving them money works, but I want to see the evidence.
- nknighthb 13y agoThen I think you either missed the word "most" or have bought into the lie that "poor" and "drug addict" are synonymous.
- crystaln 13y ago> You're a assuming people will strive for the lowest common denominator of living standards just so they can get free housing. Not exactly. I'm assuming SOME people will take advantage of the system. Some people ALWAYS take advantage of a system with bad incentives. Lots of people don't want to work, which is fine. However we don't want to reward people more for doing less.