Poor-Bashing is Never the Answer

[maplesyrup]

Article

A large food bank recently surveyed its users receiving welfare and asked them why they were on assistance instead of working. Some of the answers are worth noting. If you need a prescription drug and the only jobs you can find are at, or close to, minimum wage, with no benefits - how can you quit welfare if this is the only way you can keep drug coverage? If you have small children to raise and there's no affordable, safe child care, how can you work without abandoning your children?

Many welfare recipients reported being disabled. They should be on disability benefits, but about half of all people who apply are denied. In many cases, people who are eligible to collect disability benefits simply give up in despair. Being poor, they don't have the resources to fight a powerful government bureaucracy.

If governments are serious about giving people on assistance the "hand up," we need: a national prescription drug program to provide coverage for workers who do not have employer drug coverage; a national affordable child care program; social housing; improved access to disability benefits so people with disabilities can keep more earnings from work and not lose benefits they need; and provisions for attending school to upgrade job market skills while receiving unemployment or welfare benefits.

We should not penalize, and certainly not convict as criminals, people who want to improve their chances of working.

If we are serious about ending child poverty, no provincial government would claw back the national child benefit supplement from Canada's poorest families because they are receiving assistance. In short, unenlightened poor- bashing should give way to policies resulting in greater participation in the labour force, more cohesive families, and stronger, healthier communities.

It is truly remarkable that organizations like the Fraser Institute have any credibility at all in our society. And they wouldn't except for Canada's right wing media.

The rich always come up thith these bullshit schemes to deal with the poor. The only problem with their schemes is that the poor become poorer and the rich become richer. It is time to put the rich out to pasture, and start listening to the poor about what is best for the poor, eh?

[The Terrible Sweal]

The Fraser Institute sure has evolved! The passage you quoted actually made a lot of sense to me. Where would you complain about it specifically?

[maplesyrup]

The Fraser Institute sure has evolved! The passage you quoted actually made a lot of sense to me. Where would you complain about it specifically?

Of course they make sense. These ideas are coming from the poor, or people who care about the plight of the poor. There is no Fraser Institute comments here - I was just suggesting we stop listening to groups like that whose ideas will only make matters better for the rich at the poor's expense.

[takeanumber]

Actually, it's funny.

The Fraser Institute depends on those big corps for money.

Yet, lol, big corps don't like it when the Fraser Institute publishes anti-subsidy, anti-pork papers.

But the Fraser Institute still does it.

So the control isn't 1:1.

I know many people who work at the Fraser Institute, and I respect many of them. In fact, one of the profs who had a great influence on me worked there for many, many years.

-----------------------

No, poor bashing isn't the answer.

There's a policy gap with respect to the poor.

[Slavik44]

why is it that the right wing nuts got it wrong? I can't say I heard Jack layton suggest anything that would change welfare from a cealing to a floor for the poor, I can't say I saw any party truly confront the issue and make it a priority and give a plan to fix it, the whole election seemed to be based on fixing one problem healthcare, without ever prioritizing the root of that problem. I realise that you may not be talking specifically about the political parties statements during the election in general, but it seems to me that it is un-fair to say the right wing nuts got it especially considering that pointing the finger doesn't do the poor any good.

[Argus]

If governments are serious about giving people on assistance the "hand up," we need: a national prescription drug program

$KA-CHING!

to provide coverage for workers who do not have employer drug coverage; a national affordable child care program;

$KA-CHING! $KA-CHING!

social housing;

$KA-CHING!

improved access to disability benefits so people with disabilities can keep more earnings from work and not lose benefits they need; and provisions for attending school to upgrade job market skills while receiving unemployment or welfare benefits.

$KA-CHING! $KA-CHING!$KA-CHING!

Neat. Okay, genius, you've just demanded about $15 billion a year more in program spending. Where does the money come from? Oh, right! Just print more money!

It is truly remarkable that organizations like the Fraser Institute have any credibility at all in our society. And they wouldn't except for Canada's right wing media.

Those bastards! Imagine them talking about things like money and taxes and economics and, and boring stuff like that! We don't want to hear about it! We just want the government to solve everyone's problem! No matter how much it costs!

[DAC]

As one of those “right wing nuts” let me inject an element of reality and practicality into this.

If you allow those on welfare to define what benefits they should get, there won’t be anything left for anybody or anything else, before long. That’s simple human nature.

But let me suggest one practical concrete change that would do a great deal to reduce the welfare rolls without hurting anybody on them. For welfare or EI or disability coverage, any such help to the needy, remove the 1 for 1 reduction of benefits against earnings. I’m not sure what the exact rules are now, but it used to be a free $100 earned in a benefit period, after which you lost any amount you earned. If that were changed so that you could keep 50% of whatever you earned after the free amount, it would encourage those able to do so to work and to find jobs which increased their earnings. And every increase in their earnings would decrease the burden on the taxpayer.

What do you think?

This doesn’t address some of MS’s quote’s suggestions, but they are bigger, more loaded questions. For example,

Many welfare recipients reported being disabled. 

A lot of people who work in downtown missions, missions oriented to helping the poor with their material needs, soon become very cynical about those claims. There are enough people who are out to take the system for anything it can get to make it hard to remain open and trusting.

Example: some years ago I was called by someone asking for my church to help them with some extra food, because they had some extra expenses their social assistance wouldn’t cover. We helped them. In the next week or so I had something like 8 calls from members of that person’s family, all from the same phone number, asking for help. Every one of them assured me that they were not aware that we had helped the first caller, or that anybody else from their family had approached us. It makes you very sceptical when people claim they aren’t working because of disability.

Example 2: a friend tells me about a former co-worker, who is receiving a disability check from the company for back problems or at least for something that prohibits his doing heavy manual labour. But this “disabled” person regularly takes on work on his own which involves heavy lifting ... It’s easy to claim disability.

There are obvious problems about disability. That does not mean that all claims are invalid or that everybody who is disabled is getting disability. It just means it’s not a simple issue.

[Argus]

Many welfare recipients reported being disabled. 

A lot of people who work in downtown missions, missions oriented to helping the poor with their material needs, soon become very cynical about those claims. There are enough people who are out to take the system for anything it can get to make it hard to remain open and trusting.

My favorite has always been the Jamaican woman who was kicked out of Canada - a phony refugee claimant, she was furious that she hadn't been able to take her big screen TV or her new van with her - though she did get to take a lot of jewelery. When asked how she had been able to afford a van and big screen TV (she had spent her entire time in Canada on welfare) she replied, without any embarrassment at all, that since the government provided her with a home and paid her drugs and she got all her family's food at food banks and all her family's clothes at the Sally Anne or Goodwill, she had been able to afford them fairly easily. She thought of it as being thrifty and careful, not cheating the system in any way.

[caesar]

I would like to give the working poor a hand up but I don't want to have to subsidize them the rest of their lives. Subsidized housing is unfair unless it is available to all working poor. I know that many seniors live in subsidized housing; those of us who have saved for our old age instead of spending every penny we made end up subsidizing those who may have partied and lived the high life believing the government would take care of them in their senior years.

For those disabled and unable to work; I do believe they need more to live on. However, not all disabilities prevent someone from working.

I know many welfare recipients that are just using the system. If they are not working towards being independent and getting themselves off the system; why is it my responsibility.

[August1991]

For welfare or EI or disability coverage, any such help to the needy, remove the 1 for 1 reduction of benefits against earnings.

Thank you DAC, for an injection of intelligence in these rants.

I once sat through an extremely intelligent, 45 minute Jacques Parizeau speech that amounted, DAC, to your one sentence. (For those impressed by the alphabet, Parizeau has a PhD from the LSE.)

Rich people are taxed at about 50 cents on the dollar. Poor people are taxed one dollar on the dollar.

In fact, poor people are taxed more. To work, you have to pay bus fare, have clothes and organize the kids. So the dollars lost (taxes and costs) are greater than the dollars earned. Our society places far higher "taxes" on poor people than it does on rich people.

And Argus goes on about Jamaican women. Argus, give it a break.

[Slavik44]

If governments are serious about giving people on assistance the "hand up," we need: a national prescription drug program

$KA-CHING!

to provide coverage for workers who do not have employer drug coverage; a national affordable child care program;

$KA-CHING! $KA-CHING!

social housing;

$KA-CHING!

improved access to disability benefits so people with disabilities can keep more earnings from work and not lose benefits they need; and provisions for attending school to upgrade job market skills while receiving unemployment or welfare benefits.

$KA-CHING! $KA-CHING!$KA-CHING!

Neat. Okay, genius, you've just demanded about $15 billion a year more in program spending. Where does the money come from? Oh, right! Just print more money!

It is truly remarkable that organizations like the Fraser Institute have any credibility at all in our society. And they wouldn't except for Canada's right wing media.

Those bastards! Imagine them talking about things like money and taxes and economics and, and boring stuff like that! We don't want to hear about it! We just want the government to solve everyone's problem! No matter how much it costs!

Well when i was asking that question about similar increases to the millitary the answer was from budget surpluses, so I see no reason why that same answer cannot be given here.

[takeanumber]

You list all of these anectdotal examples, as though you're building a case against any sort of social safety net.

The real outrage should be that people are exploiting the social safety net, and worse, taking resources away from the people who really, really need them.

Instead of chucking the baby out with the bathwater, why don't we tag these exploiters?

Surely, the United Way could build a database that all the charities could access.

[Big Blue Machine]

I think we should penalize people who misuse the social services, by putting them into the military. The military is better than welfare.

[caesar]

Would we want cheats and liars and neer do well responsible for protecting our country.

I think if I were in the military; I would find that insulting

[Argus]

Rich people are taxed at about 50 cents on the dollar.  Poor people are taxed one dollar on the dollar.

Would you care to be more specific on this? It is my impression that poor people are taxed considerably less than others. Of course, I don't now what you mean by "rich people". When leftists talk about the "rich" they mean "Anyone who owns their own car".

In fact, poor people are taxed more.  To work, you have to pay bus fare, have clothes and organize the kids.  So the dollars lost (taxes and costs) are greater than the dollars earned.

I don't consider the cost of living to be a tax. If you want to go that way it costs a lot less for a bus pass than to pay the car loan and insurance and parking and gas on a BMW. It costs a lot less to pay your subsidised rent than the mortgage on a million dollar home.

If you want to suggest the poor pay a higher percentage of their money on neccesities, fine. But that's not a tax.

And Argus goes on about Jamaican women.  Argus, give it a break.

Why? It happened. I could also mention the white woman in Toronto who quit her $34,000 job after calculating she would make more money on welfare.

[Big Blue Machine]

The poor aren't taxed more than rich people. At least I hope not.

[DAC]

  You list all of these anectdotal examples, as though you're building a case against any sort of social safety net.

Not me, though I don’t think government is able to do a good job of it. It’s too open to politics, bureaucracy, arbitrary rules, and treating people like numbers. Private charity (organized) is far more efficient.

The real outrage should be that people are exploiting the social safety net, and worse, taking resources away from the people who really, really need them.

Yes. But to many people, that’s just working the system.

Instead of chucking the baby out with the bathwater, why don't we tag these exploiters?

Surely, the United Way could build a database that all the charities could access.

Tagging the exploiters is not so easy, because most of them do have genuine needs - or at least apparent needs. There is in fact a lot of cooperation between churches and food banks and government social services, both formally and informally. But when someone comes to a church pleading for help because they’ve had some unusual problem, their social services worker may be able to say, “It’s likely a scam. This person gets in on every scam available.” But rarely can the worker say it is definitely a scam.

My small church does what it can to help, but we have more calls for help than we have resources to answer. One of our policies is that if someone asking for help tells us something we know is a lie, they have weeded themselves out. Often though we give help when we think it likely we’re being taken, because we don’t know, however much we check. In order to help those with real needs, we accept the fact that we will sometimes, perhaps often, get taken, despite cooperative work with other agencies and investigation as far as we are able of the request.

And by the way, MS would consider us a congregation of right wing nuts. How are you helping, MS?

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear DAC,

If that were changed so that you could keep 50% of whatever you earned after the free amount, it would encourage those able to do so to work and to find jobs which increased their earnings. And every increase in their earnings would decrease the burden on the taxpayer.

I am in complete agreement. While I may be a 'left-wing nut', I despise the welfare system as it stands. There is no incentive to work whatsoever. I own a business smack-dab in the heart of Calgary's 'poor' district. The Drop-out Centre provides free beds, the Mustard Seed and CUPS provide free food, and Harry Hays Building distributes cheques, (yours and my tax dollars) which gets spent on drugs and alcohol. Where is there a need to work?

Work-for-welfare needs to be instituted pronto. I see a few mentally unstable people walking around, on occassion, and these are people that genuinely need gov't assistance. But they are the minority, and the help they truly need is gobbled up by the majority, lazy and the addicts.

[August1991]

The poor aren't taxed more than rich people. At least I hope not.

They most certainly are.

Anyone receiving welfare will lose one dollar of benefit for each dollar earned in work. In effect, the tax rate is 100%. In fact, the effect is worse. To work, there are transport costs, clothing to buy, babysitting expenses etc. In addition, welfare recipients need not pay certain medical costs.

This policy is an invitation to fraud and a disincentive to find work.

----

Our social service system has become a large bureaucracy that few want to fall into. There are forms to be filled, documents to show, offices to go to, numbers to take, rooms to wait in and agents behind glass to talk to.

I sometimes feel immigrants manage better in this minefield because they get advice from fellow recipients in their community.

The homeless in large cities are clearly people who want nothing to do with bureaucrats or bureaucracy.

In any case, the single greatest group in poverty in Canada are native Indians. They are also treated like children by the federal government.

[caesar]

Anyone receiving welfare will lose one dollar of benefit for each dollar earned in work. In effect, the tax rate is 100%. In fact, the effect is worse. To work, there are transport costs, clothing to buy, babysitting expenses etc. In addition, welfare recipients need not

That is not a tax; it just means they lose a hand out; they still would be taxed very lightly if at all. They get gst rebates; something I have never seen.

[takeanumber]

Look up 'negative income tax' for the solution that I support to solve the problem.

[playfullfellow]

The whole wlefare system needs to be overhauled which is very evident by the posts here. There are too many people who use the system just to get out of work and that in turn affects the people who legitimately need assistance. There are too many people who know how to use the system so they don't have to work. I know lots of people on AISH who would love to work but because of their disabilities can not work full time. Unfortunately, once they make over 200 dollars per month, then their benefits are cut. So they are basically told they have to live on around 1000 dollars per month, not very much to live on in my opinion.

Physically and mentally capaple people should have to something in return for their cheque. Employers that need casual labour could sign up for a pool and help off set the cost of welfare by footing part of the bill. If any really outstanding workers show up, then they may be able to hire them on longer term. If there are no jobs availeble in the pool, then there are plenty of streets and parks that need to be cleaned.

There should also be zero tolerance for cheaters. Once caught cheating, they should get blacklisted. We should also have a good look at our minimum wages every 4-5 years to make sure they are keeping up with our cost of living. Right now, they are not.

[theloniusfleabag]

The whole wlefare system needs to be overhauled which is very evident by the posts here. There are too many people who use the system just to get out of work and that in turn affects the people who legitimately need assistance. There are too many people who know how to use the system so they don't have to work....

There should also be zero tolerance for cheaters. Once caught cheating, they should get blacklisted.

I agree with most of this post, but why does the gov't not look at re-vamping the system? Come to think of it, perhaps I am glad they do not. We'd likely see a 1 billion dollar study done which said that it would cost too much to change things.

[madmax]

Example 2: a friend tells me about a former co-worker, who is receiving a disability check from the company for back problems or at least for something that prohibits his doing heavy manual labour. But this “disabled” person regularly takes on work on his own which involves heavy lifting ... It’s easy to claim disability.

There are obvious problems about disability. That does not mean that all claims are invalid or that everybody who is disabled is getting disability. It just means it’s not a simple issue.

Example #2 is hearsay. But there is nothing wrong with reporting fraud. Your friend telling you isn't doing anygood, because he is telling the wrong person.

I have no problem ratting out fraudulent acts.

[Canadian Blue]

It is truly remarkable that organizations like the Fraser Institute have any credibility at all in our society. And they wouldn't except for Canada's right wing media.

The rich always come up thith these bullshit schemes to deal with the poor. The only problem with their schemes is that the poor become poorer and the rich become richer. It is time to put the rich out to pasture, and start listening to the poor about what is best for the poor, eh?

I'm more of a moderate libertarian in my views, however one question is how would you avoid a welfare trap? You can call for more funding all you want, but it won't solve anything. In some cases a large welfare state could be an incentive to be lazy. I prefer a system which truly helps the disadvantaged, and tell's lazy people to go get a job.