Liberal Forum

LowIQTrash » Today, 3:53 am » wrote: ↑

Today, 3:53 am

I missed this post so let me address this, because your take is severely flawed.

1) The federal poverty rate is laughable based on their income thresholds, so I would take the Census’ numbers with a heaping pile of salt, just as I do with every number pumped out from the BLS - Bureau of Lies and Sh*t.

2) “We’ve had welfare for decades and the poverty rate hasn’t changed, therefore it must be ineffective.”

You cannot draw this conclusion because welfare and poverty is a complex subject. There’s a reason multivariate regression analysis exists in statistics and natural sciences.

The goal of “welfare” - at least in the US - is to keep those who are poor from sliding into extreme poverty, not to lift people out of poverty. When viewed this way, “welfare” is actually a resounding success.

(The other goal is to recycle the currency into the hands of the poor - also a success)

Aside from disability benefits, there are few if ANY welfare payments that cover actual expenses (e.g. food stamps are around $300 / month but grocery bills are easily $350-450 / month per person if you eat healthier foods and not ramen noodles and milk/cereal/Campbell’s soup 2x a day)
 
Maybe @Cannonpointer  can chime in since he has more experience dealing with poor people, I just know by doing the MATH that “welfare” is certainly not designed to lift anyone out of poverty - so the assumption is invalid

Continued:

Americans overwhelmingly support an effective mandatory work requirement for able-bodied adults receiving welfare benefits. That’s evident in public opinion polls and ballot measures; in purple Wisconsin almost 80% of voters supported this in 2023. The bipartisan effort to reform Aid to Families with Dependent Children during the Clinton administration was a success.  Despite the subsequent granting of numerous waivers of work requirements, according to the Congressional Research Service, the 1996 Clinton welfare reforms reduced the rate of dependency of families on what is now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families by 80%. Six years after the adoption of the reforms, the number of program beneficiaries had fallen dramatically, the labor-force participation rate of never-married mothers had increased, and child poverty had declined. State-imposed work requirements for food-stamp eligibility in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Florida have thus far also been successful.  Demand for reform would be even stronger if the public understood how generous social-welfare benefits are. In reporting household income, the Census Bureau doesn’t count 88% of transfer payments made to households that are defined as being poor. The census doesn’t count refundable tax credits (for which the beneficiary receives a check from the Treasury), food-stamp debit cards, free medical care through Medicaid, or benefits from about 100 other federal transfer payments as income to welfare recipients. When those benefits are counted as income, 80% of those who are today counted as being poor are no longer poor, and almost half have incomes equivalent to American middle-income earners. A mandatory welfare work requirement for able-bodied adults receiving welfare benefits, a requirement that the Census Bureau count all transfer payments as income, and a mandate that all federal agencies use the same income measure when determining eligibility for welfare would be major steps toward righting the nation’s finances.  Requiring all able-bodied Americans to work as a condition for receiving welfare would do more than reduce the deficit. It would bring people back into the economy, the source of prosperity and economic independence. A job is the best nutrition, housing, healthcare, education, child-care and general welfare program.