Hypothetical: How would you improve the welfare system for families?

[MSSheBear]

In California you must have a certain number of Early Childhood Education courses even if you were just an aide. It has to be certain courses, not just any. You also cannot have a record and you fingerprints must be on file. You also must be CPR certified and have a negative TB test. I imagine this is the case in most states. The requirements are much higher for center directors.

 

[QContinuum]

And thank heaven that is the case. I’m all for certain minimum standards for daycare and preschools!

 

[Allegra]

I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of any course requirement before. Most states do require a clean record, immunizations, a drug test, and CPR class, but that’s not the same as being certified to teach early childhood.

 

[Allegra]

I’ve often dreamed of opening boarding houses for students from horrible home environments. It would be a safe, clean, healthy place where they could do their school work and after school activities and their families would be free to visit whenever. I think a lot of moms would be willing to use such a service to protect their kids if it didn’t mean losing custody forever. Kind of like a crises nursery for school-aged kids.

 

[philipl]

But will there be enough jobs for everyone who has to transition from welfare to work?

Yes and for the few that dont have jobs that is what the church is for.

Do we end welfare for the sins of the few, at the expense of the many innocent? Including those left behind by today’s economy?

But its not the sins of a few. The whole model is corrupt.

 

[MSSheBear]

You need to take the courses in California and in fact you need the equivalent of an Associate’s degree to work in state funded centers and they do have a form of teaching certification for daycares. This includes infant care and the state mandates an infant care course for anyone working with the infants.

As an aside when I was working in a daycare many years ago a lot of the workers were illiterate or didn’t speak English. Sometime the courses were offered in Spanish. I suspect mandating literacy and English course for welfare recipients might help.

 

[Angel_Bradford]

I think allowing for free child care and public transportation, if needed, for a year past graduation would increase the recipients’ chances of getting on their feet.

 

[gcshapero]

Very great question.

1. Drastically change the welfare system so that it is only available to those in real need for it. This could include the handicap and the elderly.
2. In 1964, LBJ started the Great Society Act which was a means to give welfare in the form of reparations to Black Americans. The problem is that A) it was only intended to keep them from thriving through dependency on the government, B) intended to keep them voting Democrat, and C) intended to incentivize fathers to leave the home and destroy the Black family unit.

I would prefer the family unit, regardless of race, to thrive. The Black family in the West has become so badly with 70% of motherhood out of wedlock and the vicious cycle of that with their kids entering into the criminal system. That needs to stop if we want people to thrive again.

1. I would have financial education as part of the regular curriculum throughout the students’ years in school. They would learn about common sense economics, how to balance a checkbook, how investments works, etc.
2. I would do what Russia does which is have a day that honors large families. Families are the cornerstone for a sustainable society, and this should in part also be promoting church communities.
3. The cases of welfare recipients MUST go through courses with a social worker who teaches them how to create a solid resume and level out their skills. They must have a timeline in which to have completed these sessions. If they are skipped out at all, then the welfare may be pulled.

I’m not against welfare on the surface, but the point of it should have always been to help those who are in a desperate situation and can find their self-reliance again.

 

[DarkLight]

My understanding on welfare is that there aren’t actually that many work-capable individuals who are not working for a significant period of time. Once you discount children, the elderly, and those considered disabled, most households either have someone working or are temporarily out of work (and are back to work after a few months). So trying to get everyone jobs is of limited utility - it doesn’t address that far more on welfare are working and simply aren’t making enough to meet their needs.

 

[philipl]

This is anecdotal, but a couple of years ago my wife hire a new person for the company she worked for at the time. She double his salary after about a year he went back to his old job and took a pay cut. He told her he made more money with government hand outs had less stress and got to see his kids more

 

[ndsolt]

How would home visits help?

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

This is anecdotal, but a couple of years ago my wife hire a new person for the company she worked for at the time. She double his salary after about a year he went back to his old job and took a pay cut. He told her he made more money with government hand outs had less stress and got to see his kids more

All this does is highlight the evil of the “we own you” mentality. The new change to salary vs houlry workers and overtime have helped but it’s still terrible. It’s not really a part of capatilism because more socalist societies (in Asia) are worse than America.

 

[DarkLight]

philipl:

This is anecdotal, but a couple of years ago my wife hire a new person for the company she worked for at the time. She double his salary after about a year he went back to his old job and took a pay cut. He told her he made more money with government hand outs had less stress and got to see his kids more

All this does is highlight the evil of the “we own you” mentality. The new change to salary vs houlry workers and overtime have helped but it’s still terrible. It’s not really a part of capatilism because more socalist societies (in Asia) are worse than America.

I’m curious what the hours were too. It was an unfortunate problem that I was with many lower wage workers that the jobs they could get promoted into had truly brutal hours. Many of the lower levels of retail management may actually have been making less than the hourly workers did, per hour - because they were on salary, the company routinely demanded 60 or 80 hour weeks with no additional compensation.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

I’m curious what the hours were too. It was an unfortunate problem that I was with many lower wage workers that the jobs they could get promoted into had truly brutal hours. Many of the lower levels of retail management may actually have been making less than the hourly workers did, per hour - because they were on salary, the company routinely demanded 60 or 80 hour weeks with no additional compensation.

YES! My first job was that way. The first dictrict manager was a good person who understood what salary was supposed to mean and let us cut store hours during our non-busy time and work 30 hour weeks to make up for the gruling 80 hour weeks.

My second district manager said, “Well if you think you can get a better job at Walmart, go work there.” Suffice to say that I soon looked for another job.

 

[DarkLight]

Yeah - especially at that level.

I’ve heard it recommended as a decent game for the young in certain IT sectors. But then the 80h workweeks there are actually paid well - I’ve heard of a few folk who take a crazy 24/7 banking IT job for a few years, tuck it away, and have a nice down payment when they’re done.

 

[philipl]

My wife makes north of $130000 He was about 90000 and yes there were lots of long hours during storm seasion, but he would rather make he could make 45000 and with a wife and 3 kids living in Ohio when he did the math he was making more than 90 once all the government bennie kicked in. Those systems to so full of abuse. It is not a small percentage.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

My wife makes north of $130000 He was about 90000 and yes there were lots of long hours during storm seasion, but he would rather make he could make 45000 and with a wife and 3 kids living in Ohio when he did the math he was making more than 90 once all the government bennie kicked in. Those systems to so full of abuse. It is not a small percentage.

And how much of that 90k was health insurance after Obama’s genius idea?

Before Obama care my family was paying about $3k a year for health insurance. A spectacular HMO where we could do anything and everything was covered. Right now we’re paying around $15k if we do nothing but well checks and have no emergencies. There are no bounds to what could happen if we get injured these days. With a child with medical needs, we hit the $15k and will probably spend around $20k on health insurance.

And it didn’t need to be that way. For us, it used to be so good.

It’s repulsive.

As a side note, I know of two teachers who left corporate jobs for teaching because they knew they could get CHIP for their kids and with the new coverage laws driving up costs so high working overtime and being a corporate minion for that $80 job just wasn’t worth it. Having a 45k-50k position afforded them a safety net. Health insurance that can’t bankrupt you…and not that much less $$ to spend. And quite frankly, I can’t blame them

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don’t pretend to have an answer. But I think a touch of distributism might help if it could somehow be implemented.

When I was a kid, the “hillbilly family” was intact. They lived in the country on very small farms. Subsistence living mostly, but dignified, and they “worked out” some as well: men in the fields for someone mostly, or as “shade tree mechanics” for whomever. Women tended to do things like sell eggs or butter. Kids picked strawberries for their school money. They went to country churches without fail.

But that pretty much got wiped out and most of them moved to town and the second generation just became “town trash”. There is a minor move back to the countryside going on, but it’s not poor people who are doing it. It’s middle class and above.

I wish I knew an answer; a way to get assets into the hands of those who largely never get any, or at least on a bigger scale. There are young men and women who work their tails off, save everything, start small operations and thrive. I’m immediately reminded of a young woman who worked in a feed store hefting feed sacks and salt blocks. Saved her money and on the side bought a tractor, rake and baler to do custom haying for people. She’s pretty well off now. Some of the young men haunt the country sale barns to buy Holstein calves for bottle-feeding. Eventually, some of them are able to buy farms.

But those stories don’t represent all that large a percentage.

 

[DarkLight]

The problem right now with healthcare is there’s no good option to solve everything. For me it was a lifesaver - quite possibly literally. It meant I had an option for healthcare in a situation where I probably wouldn’t have had any at all short of marrying a guy with a good policy, and needed lots of care just to make it back to where I could work, and lots more to keep me working while things stabilized.

And they can totally deny “non-emergency” care if you can’t pay, which in a lot of cases includes any of the work to actually get and keep someone stable rather than just patching them up.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

The problem right now with healthcare is there’s no good option to solve everything. For me it was a lifesaver - quite possibly literally. It meant I had an option for healthcare in a situation where I probably wouldn’t have had any at all short of marrying a guy with a good policy, and needed lots of care just to make it back to where I could work, and lots more to keep me working while things stabilized.

And they can totally deny “non-emergency” care if you can’t pay, which in a lot of cases includes any of the work to actually get and keep someone stable rather than just patching them up.

I didn’t acknowledge it in this post, but I a had previously, that it was good some people were helped. But the people it helped and the people it grievously damaged is an incredibly fine line often separated by what seems to be a few hundred bucks.

I would have happily paid “a little more” to help my neighbor. Perhaps in the 20%-30% range. But $3k to $20k is not “a little more”…it’s nearly a 700% increase…and represents a significant % of my family’s income.

What happened was that the healthcare simply took from those who were not in a position to fight back. It seems very common in the $50-$90k range. I know people in the $120-$200k range who reported only a 2 or 3% increase on their $5k-ish corporate policies. Mostly, my guess, is becuase their company ate the increased cost to keep them happy.