The double-standard of making the poor prove they’re worthy of government benefits
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/07/the-double-standard-of-making-poor-people-prove-theyre-worthy-of-government-benefits/But the logic behind the proposals is problematic in at least three, really big ways:
The first is economic: There's virtually no evidence that the poor actually spend their money this way. The idea that they do defies Maslow's hierarchy — the notion that we all need shelter and food before we go in search of foot massages. In fact, the poor are much more savvy about how they spend their money because they have less of it (quick quiz: do you know exactly how much you last spent on a gallon of milk? or a bag of diapers?). By definition, a much higher share of their income — often more than half of it — is eaten up by basic housing costs than is true for the better-off, leaving them less money for luxuries anyway. And contrary to the logic of drug-testing laws, the poor are no more likely to use drugs than the population at large.
The second issue with these laws is a moral one: We rarely make similar demands of other recipients of government aid. We don't drug-test farmers who receive agriculture subsidies (lest they think about plowing while high!). We don't require Pell Grant recipients to prove that they're pursuing a degree that will get them a real job one day (sorry, no poetry!). We don't require wealthy families who cash in on the home mortgage interest deduction to prove that they don't use their homes as brothels (because surely someone out there does this). The strings that we attach to government aid are attached uniquely for the poor.
That leads us to the third problem, which is a political one. Many, many Americans who do receive these other kinds of government benefits — farm subsidies, student loans, mortgage tax breaks — don't recognize that, like the poor, they get something from government, too. That's because government gives money directly to poor people, but it gives benefits to the rest of us in ways that allow us to tell ourselves that we get nothing from government at all.
= new reply since forum marked as read
make horrific life choices -- like getting caught in adultery, developing a substance abuse problem, or temporarily losing their hearing due to Oxycontin abuse it's OK -- because they have money.The irony is that many people holding these views consider themselves to be Christians.
"Every white suburbanite...."
* The Friend who Came to America from Europe/Cuba/Scandanavia/Canada to "escape (insert Repub boogeyman prefix here)ism".
* A Friend who's a Small Businessperson (makes over 250k a year, naturally) who will have to either close up shop or fire his workers because his taxes are going up 3.6 percent. Of course, they seem to omit the part about the first $250k still taxed at normal rates.
* One or two scandal-ridden Democratic politicians (For an extreme case, see: Cuyahoga County, Ohio) who at worst commit either perjury or white collar crime, while overlooking their own party's majority of lying, warmongering, laissez-failing, tax-wasting and thieving gems.
* A poor person or persons (usually, minorities) they've worked with once who "gamed the system".
* "Welfare queens" they've seen or heard of, but usually can't name (see above).
* Someone they know (or themselves) whose health insurance premiums are going up "because of Obamacare". You know, because those benevolent private insurance conglomerates are perfectly innocent of profiteering and only have your best interests in mind
Any that I missed?
We require that farmers show that they're planting and plowing or that they're refraining. The money is to encourage either planting and plowing or not planting. Depends on the produce.
We require that Pell grant recipients actually register for classes. Pell grants are to subsidize tuition and fees.
We require that people taking the mortgage deduction have mortgages. Same for health care deductions.
All of these are part of implementing government policy. It may feel like free stuff, like the child care credit gets me "free" money, but if I don't have documentation that I either provide up front or have in case of audit I may not take the deductions or credit.
What's done with the money is up to the person, since paying the money implements policy fairly directly. A farmer can plant collards if he's getting a subsidy not to plant sorghum, and he can spend that money on a European vacation--as long as he doesn't spend it on planting sorghum, he's met the requirements.
So why do we subsidize poor people with the various programs put under the "welfare" category?
To implement public policy. We want them to have shelter, we want them to have at least minimum levels of clothing and food. If it's being spent for other things, then it's not implementing public policy. And often it's not spent because as soon as people who got the money to spend it on food sometimes spend it on other wants that are more pressing--and they'll cover the needs later. Where I student taught mothers who got money for formula realized the school employees would provide it if the mothers didn't, and found other uses for the money.
If they don't need it, then means testing should strip them of the subsidy because the subsidy isn't a gift it's a means of implementing public policy. It's not "doing until the least" in an affirmation of unification of church and state, nor is it primarily a means of leveling wealth distribution. It's a means of reducing poverty and making sure basic needs are met, which is public policy.
The problem with saying there's no evidence that "the poor" actually spend their money in inappropriate ways is a very poorly framed question. It leaves out information, it includes extra information, and it leads the reader to make bad inferences.
No, most poor don't abuse the system. "The poor" is a generic and that means "the average or prototypical poor person." At the same time, some poor do abuse the system, and "the poor" glosses over individuals because we also interpret the generic noun to mean "all of the poor." How do we know that some poor abuse the system?
Because all those cards being swiped, all those accounts being accessed, they all provide Big Data. And so legislatures have asked their welfare distribution agencies to provide lists of where money's spent and what it's spent on. There's a small amount that is spent wildly inappropriately, and while individual expenses can be argued over it's fairly clear that not all of them can be justified. Some is spent nowhere near the residence of the person receiving it. A lot's spent on luxuries or to service addictions, until that's prohibited. Then we know from enough studies that people sell their benefits at a discount for ready cash to cover things that the subsidies don't cover. And that's not always rent.
So some accounts from California--the last bit I read up on and the one I remember the best--had withdrawals at casinos in Vegas, money spent on lobster and such. Had the cards been reported stolen, no problem--but they weren't. Perhaps they were lost, perhaps the owners didn't know they were stolen or lost. But the inappropriate use was too large to be accounted for in that way, and often the cards returned to being used in entirely appropriate ways. Usually such accounting reports (not "newspaper reports" or "reports from the white privilege zone" justify these laws, however tangentially.
was reselling the stuff! He wasn't eating it! And he got arrested!
http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/receipt.asp
Talk about a straw man. Typical right wing propaganda.
You do realize, that for a family of three, welfare/TANF might pay as much as 900something? That is, or was, the maximum allowable benefit in Alaska (a generously paying state - based on a family of three) a couple years ago. Some families might get a few hundred dollars in food stamp benefits every month - and some of them might use some of that money to buy things like soda and chips. Some of them also live in low income housing or have some kind of rental assistance program - some of them.
There are plenty of poor people, also, who do not get this kind of assistance at all. Not health insurance, not food stamps, not low income housing, not TANF - nothing. Often they are individuals who are poor and determined to be "able" to work. Some of them suffer from mental health disorders, some of them are former veterans - a lot of them are young and single.
If, for instance, you consider the cost of living, in regards to a young person working full time for the minimum wage here in Maine: 7.50 an hour. At forty hours a week, that's roughly 1200 dollars before taxes - and probably closer to eight or nine hundred after, unless you are also paying for employee health insurance and other things, in which case it goes a good bit lower.
So, let's be generous and say 900, no health insurance benefits through work. Rent up here in Maine tends to be less expensive than in other areas - but it has gone up in the last decade or two. If you are lucky, you might find a small house or apartment for five hundred a month - for rent alone. Then, living here in Maine, with our cold winters (especially in the north) you have heating bills that vary quite a bit, but, typically, for one person... a bare minimum of 100 bucks a month (likely similar expenses with any type of heat - though likely to be much more in colder months). Electricity, if someone is very, very conservative, might cost 50 or 60.
Now let's keep being generous - and say you don't have a car, so you can walk to work, I once knew a man who walked ten miles either way. You save on the car payment, car insurance, gas, etc... but your expenses are already at at least 650 for rent, heat and electric. With the remaining two hundred and fifty, you get to consider how you're going to feed yourself, how you might buy clothes, or medication that you may need - or anything else. Then there's always the strong possibility that something will go wrong, and you'll have to find more money... somehow, just to survive.
You see, the expenses, in relation to the income whether through work or through social safety programs... it does not compute. It is highly unlikely that you are going to get by as a single, low income person on your own - it becomes far more unlikely when you add a spouse and/or children into the mix. This is indeed why we have food stamps, TANF - and so on. However, it does not enable one to live above the poverty level, it does not help one thrive - it may - may - enable one to survive for the brief period of time during which they can receive benefits. The restrictions, means testing and other things are the result of years of angry contempt from people who really don't understand this system - don't know the people it helps - and have never been in that kind of situation themselves.
It is not simply that these means testing programs are insulting and unacceptable from a moral and even ethical point of view (they are) but that they are wasteful. Very, very, very few cases of welfare fraud have ever been proven. You have some things that are in a somewhat more gray area, but TANF does not pay enough to buy expensive street drugs. Food stamps and/or TANF do not pay enough to regularly dine on lobster or filet mignon - you might get to buy that once a month or so, if you're damned careful and have other income on top of that assistance... but this is not a matter of people living well above their means and screwing the tax payers to do so.
You will end up spending more money than you will save by administering drug tests, investigating supposed fraud and abuse - and you will have eager legions of resentful, gleeful cheerleaders who have wanted these kinds of things to happen for years.
What little assistance the poor in this Country receive as a result of social programs is pathetically little indeed if you consider the cost of living almost anywhere in America. On top of being impoverished and desperate enough to apply for state/federal aid and go through the required process... now we must subject poor people to drug testing and place more precise, specific limits on how they can use what pathetically little we give them.
These accounts of "spa treatments", "buying lobster", and other things... I would ask... so what? Are these same people not members of the human race? Isn't it a fact that other people, particularly the wealthy - spend enormous amounts of money on organic food, lobster, night club outings, private yachts and jets and so on and so forth?
There is no reasonable way to justify what little assistance the poor in this Country do receive. Further, there is no way to justify the kind of contempt for the poor that ends up creating these so called means testing programs and robbing people of what little sustenance they have.
Look at the numbers. Just once - look at them. You will see that the working poor, the unemployed, the disabled, and so on... they are not getting enough to do all this shit they are being accused of. They are, in many cases, not getting enough to survive without further help from family or friends or local communities. Some years ago, I did apply for and receive food stamp benefits - back when it was still paper money. For myself, my fiance - and two children... and we had a very, very pathetic income. I remember being routinely mocked by several people for shopping at a discount grocery store with it - and buying what they called "junk food" such as sandwich meat, peanut butter, juices that were supposedly filled with sugar - and so on and so forth.
"Usually such accounting reports (not "newspaper reports" or "reports from the white privilege zone" justify these laws, however tangentially. "
No. They don't. You are talking about a very, very tiny group of people who have done things that are questionable - and some, even fewer, who might have done something illegal. If would be beyond ignorant and well into the realm of malicious and cruel to implement these programs against all of the poor, based on the actions of a few.
Do some research - I have done mine, I have had little else to do during my current unemployment. The numbers do not add up. Go state by state, consider the average wage of workers in the service industry and various other industries. You will find that it's nothing short of miraculous that many of these people manage to survive, despite being frequently scapegoated, hated, and viewed with contempt and disdain by members of society who do not share their poverty and discomfort.
Over 47 million Americans in poverty.... many without homes, many without health insurance, many without food stamps, or TANF, or any other kind of assistance. When poor people get these things, I thank the Universe, and my heart gives a little cheer for them... and if I had the power, I would give them much, much more. A chance for a real life, with hope, with real prospects for a decent future and decent life for anyone who wanted it. They are working for it already. Whether stay at home parents or regular work force members. Whether individuals or families.
I don't apply for (and do not currently receive) any form of state or federal assistance because I don't need it. I am poor - but my family lets me live with them and feeds me, so I am not as badly off as millions of other Americans who are barely surviving, and even not surviving. I would prefer to let that money go to people who are more desperate than I am, who are more in need.
Even so - too many of them do not get that needed assistance, largely thanks to a common, societal misunderstanding/ignorance of what life is like for the poor and working poor.
