Scrapping Welfare

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guanophore said:
It is misleading. No one is being denied benefits! They are just being asked to either work, or train for work in order to get them.
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No, it was accurate in what happened.
You can’t explain everything in the title,
the story was very clear they might make changes to again become eligible.
 
starshiptrooper said:
If it is really a good investment, why do you need to force other people to pay for it?
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If you could make a fortune and get someone else to foot (or partially) the bill, don’t tell me you wouldn’t do it. Besides, politicians must okay the deal. They generally do because it works out for the city. San Diego recently refused to fund a new stadium and the team left for Los Angeles. Will be interesting to see what the result will be for both the city and the team.
 
Are you saying that that would be a bad thing?
 
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Not overly impressed with some of the arguments in this article.

“Specifically, some people in that early Christian community believed the return of Christ was imminent, and as a result they saw no need for further labor. Paul sought to break this heresy and warned against it, adding that people who cling to it should not be fed -as a means of forcing them to acknowledge the ridiculousness of their belief. There is no reason the words should be applied in the present day.” - That’s an interesting assertion, but the writer doesn’t provide any actual argument for it. Why shouldn’t those words be applicable to similar lazy people now, as they were back then? The fact that the reason for laziness is something other than the heresy of immanence isn’t relevant.

“The Church has made this clear. The state has an obligation to collect taxes from the taxpayer and to wisely redistribute those funds to alleviate poverty.” Where has the Church taught this? Can anyone provide a source?

“Wealth, like children, belongs to God. We cannot on the one hand say our children belong to God so we may not abort them, but on the other, our wealth belongs to ourselves. This is a form of hypocrisy recognized by the Church.”
  • This is a very poorly thought out analogy. For a parallel to exist, we would have to be comparing the confiscation of one’s children by a socialist state to the confiscation of one’s wealth/income through taxes. One’s children do, in fact, belong to oneself, for one’s safeguarding, similar to the way that one’s wealth belongs to oneself. No one interprets the statement “that’s my son” to imply a right to kill. Analogously, one is responsible to use his own wealth in the best way possible. That’s what the whole parable of the talents is about.
 
Can you elaborate on what you mean by that? Are you talking about government funding, or private support?
 
Catholic Charities around here doesn’t from private support receive even enough money to cover the needs that aren’t covered by welfare. While I’m sure some people would donate more if they were not paying in taxes, given the proportion of taxes that actually go to welfare and human nature it’s highly unlikely private charity would be able to fill the gap.
 
My thoughts exactly - I mean I wasn’t there, but from what I know of history the reason governments started administering welfare in the first place would seem to be that private charity wasn’t cutting it in terms of getting enough help to those who needed it.

I’m all for setting requirements - strict ones - in terms of people who are able either having to seek work or train for it.

And if the able bodied who were on bemefits were also required to do a bit of time each week cleaning streets, maintaining public parks or helping out at hospitals or nursing homes, to get a taste of the benefits of work, then so much the better.
 
My only worry with strict requirements is that strict requirements often seem also to tend to overclassifying everyone they can as “able to work.” A lot of government agencies are known for being notoriously skeptical of people who don’t look sick enough, and there’s very little classification available for those who aren’t classed as disabled but nevertheless may not be currently in good enough health to work.

That was my story upthread. I was fortunate to live in an area where I didn’t have to meet those requirements. I don’t know what I’d have done if I had, or if I’d been dealing with another doctor who didn’t believe me about my symptoms (which has happened to me). There was absolutely no way I was in a fit enough state to be holding down a job, but like a lot of mental illness there wasn’t any way for me to demonstrate that other than my own self-reports.
 
DarkLight said:
My only worry with strict requirements is that strict requirements often seem also to tend to overclassifying everyone they can as “able to work.” A lot of government agencies are known for being notoriously skeptical of people who don’t look sick enough, and there’s very little classification available for those who aren’t classed as disabled but nevertheless may not be currently in good enough health to work.

That was my story upthread. I was fortunate to live in an area where I didn’t have to meet those requirements. I don’t know what I’d have done if I had, or if I’d been dealing with another doctor who didn’t believe me about my symptoms (which has happened to me). There was absolutely no way I was in a fit enough state to be holding down a job, but like a lot of mental illness there wasn’t any way for me to demonstrate that other than my own self-reports.
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To be clear, I didn’t mean to suggest tightening the classifications of who is or isn’t disabled or otherwise legitimately unable to work. It is a sad fact that people with mental illness and the like often get short shrift in terms of recognition of the difficulties they are under work-wise.

I meant simply, where appropriate, upping the requirements on those who are indisputably able.

Sorry for the confusion.
 
Welfare just sustains people in their poverty; it doesn’t help them get out of it.

 
The monasteries her father Henry closed did a far better job caring for the poor than Elizabeth’s innovations.
 
guanophore said:
What “unemployed” stats do not capture is those who have fallen off the rolls because they timed out. They may not have been able to find a job while their benefits existed, so they ran out of aid, but are still not employed. “Unemployment” stats only count those who are eligible for benefits.
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Actually, this is 100% false. The unemployment rate is not measured by counting people who collect benefits.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
Actually, this is 100% false. The unemployment rate is not measured by counting people who collect benefits.
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Correct, the official stat comes from a survey. But if you are not employed and not actively looking for work, you are not considered unemployed.
 
stinkcat_14 said:
How can you be unemployed if you are not looking for a job? Particularly given how easy it is to look for a job today?
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Unemployed by standard meaning is just ‘not employed’. The labor force participation rate is probably an accurate measure of this basic word meaning.

Think of Venn diagrams, what they measure is the overlap between unemployed and actively job hunting.
 
Theo520 said:
Think of Venn diagrams, what they measure is the overlap between unemployed and actively job hunting.
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As well they should. If I am going to school and not looking for a job I should not count as unemployed. If I am retired I should not count as unemployed. If I am looking for a job and don’t have one, I should be considered unemployed.
 
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