Is Proverty in US "Too Comfortable"?

[Broomstick]

Nor then does welfare which pays people to do nothing at all. Supposing we could eliminate involuntary unemployment then we could also eliminate welfare, except for the permanently completely disabled. However since we cant the question is which system is most effective at relieving involuntary unemployment with the fewest possible undesireable side-effects.

At least with unemployment benefits there's an expectation that claimants will find work at some point. Of course job market conditions like a shitty economy or living in a deprived area might make it harder for folks to find a job, but that's hardly the fault of the benefits system.

In the US, since 1996, this is also an expectation of what passes for welfare.

For our unemployment benefits, the absolute maximum is 99 weeks. If you haven't found work by then.... too bad, the benefits end.

For "welfare", the expectation is that you either attend school, look for work, or find work. Failure to do so a certain amount of time per week, which must be documented, will result in termination of benefits, meaning you can lose your foodstamps, your residence (should you be fortunate enough to get subsidized housing), and anything else you may be getting.

At least in the US, this notion that people are being somehow paid to sit home and do nothing, is a myth.

[energiewende]

You seem to think that I am arguing that welfare should be cut because I hate poor people.

What in fact I am saying is that welfare (whatever sum may be given out, which may be more or less than now) should have an obligation to do work that is at least not more onerous than that required in a similar paying job.

In the particular case you cited - that in the US able-bodied men without dependents receive much less welfare than those with dependents - I think this system is bad. It looks sensible if you assume it doesn't change incentives but in fact it encourages people to have children they cannot ordinarily support in order to be elgibie for welfare, which they are then never able to support through working. This is the main mechanism of the welfare trap.

What I pointed out is that for single men and women, welfare does have an obligation to work. And for families on TANF, welfare has a requirement to participate in job training, job seeking, or community workfare that comes to 36 hours/week.

Moreover, the idea of a welfare trap is impressively stupid, consdiering that after five years on TANF, recipients can not receive TANF again. That's why the program is called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Emergency funding for the jobless is rarely the main contributor to long term dependency in any country. In the US, housing benefit can be worth up to $44,000/year and even allow the recipient to build equity(?!). Of course the progrram is limited to 'just' 3 million participants and naturally many many more would want to join this lucrative program. But my argument is not for arbitrary restrictions on who can claim welfare to reduce numbers: rather the opposite. There should be a general pressure for people to leave welfare if they can, but with availability guaranteed for all who need it. This is the principal advantage of a 'workfare' scheme with a simple minimum wage machine avoiding most of the problems of farming people out on unpaid internships while the state still pays the bills.

He wants to 'prevent abuse' by limiting demand; it sounds like he wants to provide socialised housing on demand but make them as crap and undesirable as possible to revent people wanting to use them.

As the UK how effective this approach was, and don't use words like 'underclass'.

Council houses in Britain were built to commercial standards and as late as the 80s and 90s rented at a commercial rate. They were part of the general move to a Planned Economy whereby the government would produce and provide almost every service to the bulk of the population; they were not a welfare programme. These are British council houses for instance:



Not distinguishable from regular middle/lower-middle income housing, and note the numerous cars on the drives.

The 1950s and 1960s tower blocks proved to be a failure but that does not mean they were intended at the time to be low quality. They were intended as an alternative to industrial slums and regarded as very modern in their efficient use of limited land footprint to house a lot of people in notionally superior space. They turned out to be socially undesireable because British people prefer living in houses, and this tended to attract people who couldn't get in anywhere else, which in turn concentrated pre-existing social problems in a confined space.

[Simon_Jester]

Wait. So you note that high rise public housing is accidentally crappy, and therefore concentrates social problems.

Wouldn't deliberately crappy housing have the same effect?

[Starglider]

Wait. So you note that high rise public housing is accidentally crappy, and therefore concentrates social problems. Wouldn't deliberately crappy housing have the same effect?

The primary problems with 60s council tower blocks were;
a) Indoor common areas easily wrecked and abused by scum, affecting all residents
b) Lifts, garbage chutes, shared heating etc relied on maintenance which was often not provided
c) Unexpected architectural problems simply due to inexperience (e.g. structural vulnerability to gas explosions, lack of sound insulation)

New build low-rise housing does not have these faults, it is simply small. Space is a luxury and it's quite reasonable to make council houses smaller, so that more can be built for the same price. If you want a larger house earn it; the ridiculous government-approved inflation of UK house prices is a separate issue. Newer build 'social housing' is also done on a smaller scale interspersed with other housing rather than giant dedicated council estates, which reduces the potential for concentration of problems.

[NoXion]

In the US, since 1996, this is also an expectation of what passes for welfare.

For our unemployment benefits, the absolute maximum is 99 weeks. If you haven't found work by then.... too bad, the benefits end.

I knew that US unemployment benefits run out (why? It's not like you can "run out" of being unemployed!), but even unemployment benefits in other countries which aren't time-limited (like income-based JSA in the UK) involve regular appointments with staff who are supposed to assist the claimant and discuss their jobsearch and related activities. Of course that task is made more difficult if the government insists on using the Department for Work and Pensions to provide a pig-trough for private companies like A4e and Maximus, as well as distracting Jobcentre workers with bullshit like sanctions targets!

For "welfare", the expectation is that you either attend school, look for work, or find work. Failure to do so a certain amount of time per week, which must be documented, will result in termination of benefits, meaning you can lose your foodstamps, your residence (should you be fortunate enough to get subsidized housing), and anything else you may be getting.

At least in the US, this notion that people are being somehow paid to sit home and do nothing, is a myth.

But even if they were, if there aren't enough jobs being generated by private industry then I don't see how anything is improved by trying to force people to turn a crank for their money. Apparently having the state hire (at the going rate) that excess labour in order to conduct much-needed infrastructure projects and maintenance, is too much like socialism for some, even though in the long run, the one counted in time-spans longer than quarterly profit-and-loss accounts, it would actually be good for business.

It always amazes me how some fail to grasp just how profit-seeking engenders the most idiotic and short-sighted behaviour in people and institutions.

[energiewende]

Wait. So you note that high rise public housing is accidentally crappy, and therefore concentrates social problems.

Wouldn't deliberately crappy housing have the same effect?

My point is that in terms of space per resident, modernity of fixtured and fittings, etc. these apartments were objectively superior to the housing they replaced. As Starglider points out they were wrecked by a minority of the tenants from whom the others could not easily escape as they could in an estate of separate houses.

There never was an intention to make council housing bad and really apart from sometimes being forced in with the criminal underclass it wasn't and isn't. That's highly variable though - there are council estates situated in generally very middle class areas. Sometimes you might walk down streets of council houses in such areas and not even realise they are council houses.

My views is that this

If you want a larger house earn it; the ridiculous government-approved inflation of UK house prices is a separate issue.

is now the overriding concern. It is so difficult to get planning permission to build in the private sector that the quality and size of private housing is dropping at the same time prices are exploding. Ideally the planning system would be abolished and replaced with some extreme greivance-based tort, but a second best solution may be for the state to ignore its own rules and build a lot of council houses.

[Terralthra]

You seem to think that I am arguing that welfare should be cut because I hate poor people.

What in fact I am saying is that welfare (whatever sum may be given out, which may be more or less than now) should have an obligation to do work that is at least not more onerous than that required in a similar paying job.

In the particular case you cited - that in the US able-bodied men without dependents receive much less welfare than those with dependents - I think this system is bad. It looks sensible if you assume it doesn't change incentives but in fact it encourages people to have children they cannot ordinarily support in order to be elgibie for welfare, which they are then never able to support through working. This is the main mechanism of the welfare trap.

What I pointed out is that for single men and women, welfare does have an obligation to work. And for families on TANF, welfare has a requirement to participate in job training, job seeking, or community workfare that comes to 36 hours/week.

Moreover, the idea of a welfare trap is impressively stupid, consdiering that after five years on TANF, recipients can not receive TANF again. That's why the program is called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Emergency funding for the jobless is rarely the main contributor to long term dependency in any country. In the US, housing benefit can be worth up to $44,000/year and even allow the recipient to build equity(?!). Of course the progrram is limited to 'just' 3 million participants and naturally many many more would want to join this lucrative program.

What program is this? Please provide a source.

But my argument is not for arbitrary restrictions on who can claim welfare to reduce numbers: rather the opposite. There should be a general pressure for people to leave welfare if they can, but with availability guaranteed for all who need it. This is the principal advantage of a 'workfare' scheme with a simple minimum wage machine avoiding most of the problems of farming people out on unpaid internships while the state still pays the bills.

So your argument here is that it's better for someone to literally turn a crank for pennies than to get actual training that might enable them to get a better job?

[Zaune]

Ideally the planning system would be abolished and replaced with some extreme greivance-based tort, but a second best solution may be for the state to ignore its own rules and build a lot of council houses.

I wouldn't personally go that far, but I suppose if we can't or won't stop the big players from treating the rules as a suggestion for the right price then we might as well not bother having them; at least it'd mean there was a somewhat level playing field.

I think it's going to have to be tower blocks rather than houses though. We're not as desperately short of space as certain tabloid newspapers might have you believe, but we are at the point where we ought to start conserving it. Especially since the most critical shortage right now is of one- and two-bedroom apartments suitable for single adults or couples with no kids.

[The Yosemite Bear]

funny thing is, there are enough people that regularly post on this webboard, that we all know who after medical expenses are below the line. People here know how these people supplement their income, and the hard choices these people make. So people trot out the old Ronald Reagan lies about the caddy driving wloefare queens and never see people going ok it's ramen and a little meat because that's what I can afford, I know the ramen is awful for my health, but it's cheaper than McDonalds. BTW they aren't coupon monopoly money anymore WIC uses credit cards and it can only be spent on FOOD, <winter my roomates tend to be under employeed (12-20hrs/wk.)So while I'm still doing 30hr/wk. in the big hotel's restaurant I get used to shopping at Costco.)

[Elheru Aran]

5) WIC: another food benefit. Open only to pregnant women, nursing women, infants, and children.

I will note that while it's supposed to be just women, infants and children, the male partner does benefit. This is personal experience; if the child is breast-fed only, there's still plenty of food on the WIC vouchers (and way more milk than two people can drink). Not a LOT, mind you, but enough that you can save maybe $20-40 worth on food in a month. It helps.

[Broomstick]

Well, yeah, if the food is in the house you can't stop the guy from eating it. And I know of at least one instance where, after the untimely death of a wife, the father received WIC benefits - for the infant and his young children, of course. Although he had quite a few run-ins with people who didn't understand that.

[Simon_Jester]

Wait. So you note that high rise public housing is accidentally crappy, and therefore concentrates social problems. Wouldn't deliberately crappy housing have the same effect?

The primary problems with 60s council tower blocks were [considerable]

New build low-rise housing does not have these faults, it is simply small. Space is a luxury and it's quite reasonable to make council houses smaller, so that more can be built for the same price.

This doesn't really address energiewende's point. What he seems to be missing is that if we deliberately make low-rent housing bad, to create an incentive to move out of it, we also guarantee that only the most dysfunctional people will take it, even if the alternative is sleeping on their cousin's couch.

The same argument applies to making, say, single mothers with children turn a crank for ten hours a day to feed their kids. You create a system where only dysfunctional people will apply, and they're then too busy dealing with the random shittiness of the system to fix their own dysfunctions.

My point is that in terms of space per resident, modernity of fixtured and fittings, etc. these apartments were objectively superior to the housing they replaced. As Starglider points out they were wrecked by a minority of the tenants from whom the others could not easily escape as they could in an estate of separate houses.

And, also, because by definition this class of housing is a place you go because you don't have much of another option. People don't like to live in publicly funded housing even when it's being handed to them; homo economicus might love the idea but it's less desirable than you might think if you pretend that sapiens and economicus are identical.

is now the overriding concern. It is so difficult to get planning permission to build in the private sector that the quality and size of private housing is dropping at the same time prices are exploding. Ideally the planning system would be abolished and replaced with some extreme greivance-based tort, but a second best solution may be for the state to ignore its own rules and build a lot of council houses.

The idea of replacing a planning process with a tort process sounds staggeringly stupid- many of the cost-benefit problems involved are by nature incalculable (historical value of Victorian buildings, value to the community of greenspace*), and the nature of tort legislation is that it tends to favor whoever can hire the best lawyers, regardless of whether it's just or in the community's interests for that side to win.

*If England were settled on the American plan there would probably be no recognizable English countryside anymore, it'd be wall to wall suburbs. And while you might not care, a fair number of Britons do or did care about that.

[Korto]

On the subject of this "Minimum wage machine", this suicide thread would seem to be relevant.

Joiner calls his second condition “burdensomeness,” and it may be as emotionally intuitive as loneliness. When people see themselves as effective—as providers for their families, resources for their friends, contributors to the world—they maintain the will to live. When they lose that view of themselves, when it curdles into a feeling of liability, the desire to die takes root. We need each other, but if we feel we are failing those we need, the choice is clear. We’d rather be dead.

This explains why suicides rise with unemployment, and also with the number of days a person has been on bed rest. Just the experience of needing and receiving help from friends—rather than doing for oneself and others—can make a person pine for death. We’re a gregarious species, but also a gallant one, so fond of playing the savior that we’d rather die than switch roles with the saved. In this way suicide isn’t the ultimate act of selfishness or a bid for revenge, two of the more common cultural barbs. It’s closer to mistaken heroism.

So what this machine would do is drive home that they are so useless that this is all they're good for. They'll never find a real job, never contribute, never be worthwhile. They're a burden to society, and the world would be better without them.
Long term unemployed already have enough self-worth problems.

[Zaune]

Some people might not see that as a drawback...

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I can't understand the rationale behind mandating makework over just giving people the money. If people want the makework then give it to them I guess, but since it's literally pointless I can't see it being something many people would take; work ethic usually seems to take effect with work that can have some sort of meaning somewhere. But as is you're literally just adding misery to those using it and preventing them from using that time elsewhere. Sure, many of them would literally waste it, but many others would use it in a way that, while not being something they'd get paid for, would still help things. They could create things, spend time with people to enrich their lives, learn something, or many other things.

Is it purely out of spite? The idea that if they're getting something from society in a way one doesn't approve of they should suffer for it?

[Simon_Jester]

I can't understand the rationale behind mandating makework over just giving people the money. If people want the makework then give it to them I guess, but since it's literally pointless I can't see it being something many people would take; work ethic usually seems to take effect with work that can have some sort of meaning somewhere.

Anyone worth a damn will care about work that is in turn worth a damn. Otherwise... yeah, not so much.

I can see the logic of 'makework' with genuine social value (obvious examples would be construction work on infrastructure programs, or making welfare recipients work at daycare centers that in turn profit from the cheap labor to offer low costs to other workers who want somewhere to park their kids while they work productively). But it's just stupid to deliberately create a useless waste of time for welfare recipients to burn N hours a day on, under the delusion that otherwise there are masses of bums getting piles of free money to do nothing all day.

Is it purely out of spite? The idea that if they're getting something from society in a way one doesn't approve of they should suffer for it?

I'm honestly beginning to think that the answer is "yes." It's... this particular mutation of the Protestant-prosperity-gospel "work ethic," to the effect that if you aren't working hard and prospering you're a sinner and you deserve whatever shit happens to land on you, and maybe even deserve other people actively trying to drop more shit on you to grind your face in it.

And while many people who buy into this don't seem to feel overtly spiteful, it seems like a sublimated form of spite, something that comes out of the very human tendency to resent it when we perceive that another person is getting "something for nothing." Of course, this perception of "something for nothing" is often profoundly ignorant of what welfare really is and how it works. And it's equally ignorant of the whole concept of, you know, 'human capital,' the idea that society as a whole and individuals in particular need to be invested in in order to be worth anything.

It's easier, when you are successful and sometimes even when you aren't, to assume that human success or failure comes purely from inner qualities. The idea that someone else has to come in and give you the starting conditions to make something of yourself is philosophically inelegant, and galling to people whose pride comes from being "self-made." And yet, inconvenient though it is, it remains true.

[xthetenth]

I think the irony I enjoy most in the US' current setup is that if people were viewed as having literally no value other than their labor and social policy were driven by an investment oriented outlook it would probably be significantly more humane. As it is now you have to fund and work hard just to become another cog in the machine and the only reasons I can think of that make sense are spite (likely in large part to protect a fond self-delusion that one's successes are actually due entirely to one's efforts) or a rather wrongheaded understanding of economics (zero sum game outlooks are both popular and destructive).

[Spoonist]

So first apologies @TheHammer for the late reply. Haven't had time for a proper reply.
Then, @TheHammer, I don't think that we necessarily are as far appart as you seem to suggest. I just think that parts of your argument is misdirected. Its when you veer off into emotional arguments that you seem to miss the salient points as given.
We are in complete agreement that the system in place is crap and that a new simpler one is necessary.
Where we seem to be in disagrement is that you think that wellfare systems like the ones in the US can be and should be made to be just/fair/evenhanded (can't come up with right word in english). My view is that that is not possible nor desirable.
For the US specifically the political system in place is not made for these kind of things, even with the best of intentions the politicians are process bound to create crappy systems like the ones you have in effect today. It is also impossible to make such a fair system that would be worth it from a cost perspective, the administrative and regulatory burden on the current systems is immense already - trying to make it more fair would only add to that burden.
Now with those caveats lets go into the quotefest.

*sigh* This was already explained to you by others. But I will try to see if I can clarify it again.

*golf clap* I see, so you'll open with an insult in an attempt to make yourself immediately superior before you've even bothered to make an argument. Very weak debating tactic. You're the one being explained to in this scenario. I'll even use your convulted "Person B, Person C" scenario so that hopefully you'll get it this time.

Here I disagree completely. When someone repeatedly do not "get it" even when explained multiple times, then starting with an insult is usually a very strong debating tactic. The likelyhood of the person "getting it" this time around is still low but the likelyhood of the other person reacting strongly to the insult and thus keep the dialog is increased. Also belittling someone one disagrees with through passive aggressive wording is very effective in all forms of dialog where there is other participants and an audience, especially if there is already a majority opinion about the views discussed.
More on the actual who is explaining what to whom below...

The problem with that is that as long as the system is if you have X qulifications < Y income, you can recieve Z amount of foodstamps.
Then if person A has X and person B has X+1$, then A will recieve foodstamps and B will not and as long as those foodstamps are >1$ there will be people on foodstamps eating better than people without. Regardless of wether one or both of them are working.

And thusly you have identified the problem. Finally, I've gotten through!

And that response shows that you still don't get it. For your grieviance to work it doesn't matter how low or how high I place X. So we could double or halve the qualifications of X and your grieviance would still be in place.
So your emotional response is against all and any systems that start handing out stuff at certain break off points.
That means that you will have this grievance with any and all systems that the US political system will normally & predictably create.
More on that below.

This is aggravated by it being specificly foodstamps that can't be used for something else by its terms.
Person B again doesn't qualify but have an income of X, person C qualifies but C's income+foodstamps<X. So in absolutes C has less to spend than B, however because foodstamps are earmarked C cannot distribute his income as B can. This means that in reality that B on average will spend less on food than C, because part of C's income can only be spend on food. So C will eat "better" than B but be poorer in absolutes.

As you appear to be understanding, the problem is that just above the poverty line person B's income is less than person C's income+foodstamps. Person C can only spend foodstamp money on food, but person B's food budget is smaller than C's by financial neccessity, not because they lack the desire to eat better/more often. Further, you ignore the fact that food stamps are not taxed, meaning person B's buying power is even further marginalized. For Person C to aspire to be Person B, they would have to make enough to overcome the gap of lost benefits while accounting for increased taxes (payroll as well as income).

Nope, again you show that you are not "getting it".
1) The example of A & B, is not the same example as B & C. Hence the new person/letter.
2) How could you possible go from my statement that "C's income+foodstamps<X. So in absolutes C has less to spend than B" to your statement that "person B's income is less than person C's income+foodstamps"??? Yours is the opposite of what I said.
*sigh* indeed...
Lets use your words and see if you get it this time:
Because they are earmarked, even if "person B's income, after tax, is MORE than person C's income+foodstamps, after tax", they will not be distributed the same. Instead they will be distributed more as per the earmark. In this case even if B has more money to spend than C, C will spend proportionally more on food. Thus it is the earmark itself that creates the condition you complain about, ie, people just qualifying for foodstamps will spend proportionally more on food than people barely not qualifying. Its endemic to the earmark.
3) Food stamps being taxed or not, is redundant information. I already stated "in absolutes", that takes care of all irrelevant factors.
4) As Broomy repeatedly has presented, the benefit of barely qualifying is very low compared to the administrative effort to apply. So lots of C will always aspire to be B just to stop the hassle of applying.
5) There are enough people who would qualify but can't get through the administrative loopholes that easily counter those who take advantage of the system.

Do you understand now? The system is broken if it makes Person C look at the prospect of becoming person B and says "Fuck that shit". Person B and person C would LOVE to be person D, the guy well above the poverty line, but there aren't any real programs that help Persons B & C to do that. Could Person C claw their way to being a person B under the current system? In many cases, absolutely. But why again why would they want to?

Completely agreed on the system being broken. Completely agreed that if the system benefits staying in more than getting out then it needs fixing.
Almost completely disagreed on that that is the case with foodstamps in the US today. The almost comes from the outliers of the system, as in those close to the qualifications from both sides. Like the combination of compounded systems.
More on that below.

So if you are really advocating that people on foodstamps shouldn't be able to eat better than those without then you shouldn't be bitching about the outlier 2-5% or some random examples of cheaters. Instead you should be bitching about it being foodstamps at all, instead of cash.
But since you are not it is clear that you think that people in the upper criteria on average should get less foodstamps and that the system should be more regulated. That means that fewer will recieve foodstamps and more of the budget will be spent on regulating them than handing them out.
That is clearly punishing people on foodstamps.

Did you pull that 2-5% out of your ass? How about you cite something if you're going to use a statistic. People recieving a benefit from the government aren't being "punished". Its the people NOT recieving this benefit that are being "punished" if you will. Sure, if they make enough money they really don't care because the benefits are inconsequential to them. But for the folks in between, the person B's, its a bitter fucking pill to swallow. But rather than look at it logically, and ways to improve the system which is what the article is really about, you get knee jerk reactions such as yours that "How dare you propose we punish the poor!".

Nice that you ignored both points in the quoted passage. 1-regulation costs 2-widening the gap of beneficiary vs non-beneficiary.
Yes, the 2-5% is pulled out of my ass. Its an educated guesstimate based on most people on foodstamps not being remotely close to the 'eating better' category. Especially since you said compared to those precisely above it. Why it needs to be a guesstimate is because the US gov doesn't really provide statistics in a sensible enough manner. But for the argument it doesn't matter if I'm off by some %, even up to 10-15% would still be OK for such a system as is in place in the US.
However, just for you, here are some stats from USDA. (Didn't you link to something similar above?)
Since the admin in the US works as it does, this is the latest report I could find on trafficking:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ORA/menu/Publis ... ummary.pdf
"trafficking diverted an estimated ...one cent of each SNAP dollar..."
So 1% are converted to other stuff than food. That is people that consider themselves to have 'enough' food to want to spend it on something with a higher priority. Which according to this:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ORA/menu/Publis ... ummary.pdf
is "bills and other, often urgent, financial needs".
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ORA/menu/Publis ... 010Sum.pdf
From here we also get that 25% who was eligable for SNAP benefits didn't recieve them/apply for them. That is pretty damning. So we need less regulation, not more. The admin in place prevents eligable people from participating.... For instance ~65% of eligable elderly do not get it even though they are eligable for it. Probably because of pride combined with it being too hard to apply for.
Now look at p11 in this report:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ORA/menu/Publis ... ds2010.pdf
There you can clearly see the participation rate vs the eligable rate when it comes to households close to the qualifications. Its less than half of the eligable that participate (~37%) so those where your concern is greatest are some of the least likely to participate. Which would say that your understanding of human nature should be somewhat adjusted. It also means that lots of those close to the qualification line complaining about those recieving it, in all probability, are also eligable for it.

And I should be clear. I'm not a conservative. Perhaps you think the word "reform" is a code word for "cut" which is what many conservatives use it as. When I speak of reform, I'm talking a re-allocation of resources to give people incentives to try to become person B, and programs that give them the tools to have a chance to become person D.

Whether you are conservative, liberal or whatnot doesn't factor in in why I'm arguing with you over this. In my view, you didn't present any typically conservative opinions. What I complained about was the emotional argument that people on foodstamps shouldn't eat better than the X+1$ counterpart. Which is why I'm arguing that you are "not getting" what effects these types of systems have, nor what the side-effects to what you are advocating would be. That the working poor on foodstamps eat better than the working poor without, is a side-effect, and not necessary detrimental to the whole program.

Whatever happened to Person A anyway?

A&B was one example, B&C another. Both showing that it is setting an arbitrary X qualifications which gives earmarked benificts which produces the effect you complain about - something which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Instead its the old 'good enough' cost efficient policy in effect. (Which Simon Jester covered somewhere on p2-3). B&C specifically explained why earmarks will create the effect you complain about.
Your reallocation suggestion would have people on the threashold but still qualifying jumping through more hoops. And that reallocation would reduce the arbitrary X to a lower level if the costs are to remain the same.
Plus lots of such "incentives" already exist within the system as it is. They are almost exclusively detrimentary to the people within the system needing those stamps.
That is because the solution to most of the issues are not within programs such as this. You can't solve the issues of a recession from within a foodstamps program. You can't solve the issues of endemic poverty or minimum wage from within a foodstamps program. You can't solve the issues of mental disorders and drug addictions from within a foodstamps program. You can't solve the issues with unemployment from within a foodstamps program. And if you set up qualifications such as "actively seeking work", or, "re-educated to be marketable", or, "able to relocate" or any of your incentives for the poor to get out, you are instead setting up systems of disqualifications.

OK lets go to the 'below' part:

That persons on welfare are often times better off then persons just past the "cut off", and that in and of itself serves as a dis-incentive to get off welfare. Foodstamps is only one aspect, there are also subsidized housing and other programs to take into account. Which means only two factors would really influence a person to get off welfare 1) Pride, or 2) An opportunity to bypass the "no mans land" between the point where you lose benefits, and where you are making enough money that you really don't miss those benefits.
I'd like to see welfare benefits for food and housing be provided across the board to anyone who wanted them, but to be such that no one would want them unless they really needed them in order to prevent the system from being abused.
The most basic of food and housing, while providing programs for training to allow people to better themselves rather than to simply perpetuate the welfare cycle. Now that you have that baseline survival safety net, you provide financial incentives when certain milestones are met, such as finding employment and maintaining it for 6 months or a year, completing a training program, etc. In short, you reward able bodied and able minded people for bettering themselves, so that eventually they work their way out of the system.

Which is what all of this boils down to.

-People on the right side of the "cut off" point will be better off than the ones just above. Yes, agreed. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Its such a small percentage of the whole that it becomes statistically insignificant to the program as a whole.
While any attempt to solve this would, due to how the political system is built, create a more complex system or limit the number or recipients.

-One of those is because of federal vs state thing. There are several benefit-the-poor programs in place, etc, that the areas between them and the compounded effects of them are hard to grasp, and worse to regulate. So the political incentive to go into thus multitude is very low. This is especially difficult when you have a state gov of a different party than the fed gov/admin. So the political system in effect will lead to different applications in different states, and of different existing programs in different states, with different political agendas/ideas behind them.
None of which benefits the poor.
But to try to solve such political issues or take leverage for such issues within feed-the-poor programs like SNAP is a mistake. It leads to increased ratio of admin vs actual payouts.

-The ones who according to you have most to complain about, ie, the ones who barely disqualified and didn't get it, are so few in comparison to the masses of eligable to benefits but who are not recieving it, that the whole point becomes moot. The system in its attempt to create such incentives that you are talking about and to decrease the benefits in the zone that you are talking about, becomes so cumbersome that over 60% of those eligable in precisely the zone you are talking about doesn't participate.
So we need less of the reforms you are alluding to. More reforms along those lines can't make up for the rest of society's problems.

-Forcing people to take training is almost always counterproductive. It leads to added costs for the system to provide training to people who are just "sitting off time". The same thing happens if you put in bonuses in the feed-the-poor programs, they will go but not be happy about it and usually not benefit from it. Instead if you have a different, unrelated system in effect that provides training but the only incentive is the training itself, like second chance public education, then you are more likely to get the right people to attend that training.

-if you are saying that we need to set up a system that "no one would use unless they need them" then I don't know what to say. Is your empathy really that low? And I have to question which program you are arguing about here really? Given the sources above over 90% of SNAP participants are way below the poverty level. So there is some cognitive dissonance here. I'm guessing that you consider people below the poverty line in the US as needing assistance? I'm also guessing that you'd agree to the special qualifications for those at or slightly above the poverty line to get assistance as well? If so who are you talking about? There is a negligable amount of people applying who don't need it (dependent on how state regulations are covering loopholes like students etc).

-Providing "the most basic of food and housing" is really troublesome in the US. The vast majority of SNAP beneficiaries are in urban areas, the costs of housing in urban areas are usually increasing faster than the benefits get adjusted. And most of the low-rent places in US cities wouldn't really be called "basic" or even "adequate" when compared to modern regulations etc. Then programs like SNAP are continously hampered by lobbyists, so that nutritional value is not considered. So due to the subsidies for US farms the most affordable food is also some of the least healthy food. (Corn sugars as the most prominent example, transfats as the other, pink slime, etc etc). So the politcal system is set up so that "the most basic of food and housing" really isn't.

-Minimum wage is a problem in and off itself. If the gov needs to subsidize private company interest's in such a way that the gov have to pay extra on the side to minimum wage workers, then feed them on foodstuffs also subsidized with gov funding, etc.

-You have some sort of illusion that people are not already trying to get out of SNAP fast enough as it is. Or that there exists a big zone of those who wouldn't benefit from getting out of their benefits. This doesn't comply with the in-depth interviews in the reports I linked to above. Nor does it comply with the number of eligable vs participating. Nor does it comply vs the numbers of people losing qualification while still being below the poverty line. Yes there are situations where your concern is correct and one would lose benefits if one only took one step out of the current situation. Those are mainly when several different programs are in effect, usually in a combination of fed+state, so something which is very hard to regulate away without a major overhaul of all programs (not going to happen unless the US changes it's constitution). But even then people try to desperately get out of their situation, all it does is make the intermediary step unattractable or unavailable.

-So lets mention the deadbeats. Lets pretend that the US doesn't have a huge urban problem with drug abuse and mass unemployment. Even without such there will always be a small percentage of the pop falling outside of society's radar, whether due to mental issues, social issues or whatnot. Some of those will be unwilling or simply unable to live by ordinary society's rules, like having a residence or holding down a regular job. Some of those conditions are temporary (like depression symptoms) others are long term or even permanent. Should the nation of "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses"-fame really exclude such from feed-the-poor programs simply because there also exists 'deadbeats' within that group? I'd say that US society suffers because of such sentiments. I also think that from a cost perspective it would have been more cost efficient to be less stringent in the feed-the-poor stuff, since the costs you create to society as a whole by these exclusion principles are simply higher.


tl;dr
I agree that feed-the-poor programs are unfair. The arbitrariness of the qualifications will always make some on the line lose out.
I disagree that it should be a goal to try to completely remove such unfairness. This because the unfairness usually stems from other parts of society not solvable by any feed-the-poor program. Thus the more you try to fix such unrelated unfairnesses the less of the money will actually end up feeding the poor.

[energiewende]

is now the overriding concern. It is so difficult to get planning permission to build in the private sector that the quality and size of private housing is dropping at the same time prices are exploding. Ideally the planning system would be abolished and replaced with some extreme greivance-based tort, but a second best solution may be for the state to ignore its own rules and build a lot of council houses.

The idea of replacing a planning process with a tort process sounds staggeringly stupid- many of the cost-benefit problems involved are by nature incalculable (historical value of Victorian buildings, value to the community of greenspace*), and the nature of tort legislation is that it tends to favor whoever can hire the best lawyers, regardless of whether it's just or in the community's interests for that side to win.

*If England were settled on the American plan there would probably be no recognizable English countryside anymore, it'd be wall to wall suburbs. And while you might not care, a fair number of Britons do or did care about that.

I agree it is unlikely any system results in the perfect answer to the question of whether having space to raise one's children and a garden for them to play in is worth more than the psychological benefit of knowing you can go and walk in the countryside. It's not obvious to me why rambling receives a far higher weighting than living space however, and that's what the planning/greenbelt system does. It has essentially wiped out most of the increase in income since the 1970s, which seems a very steep price to pay indeed.

Now suppose there were no tort or planning regulations: in this case people could still buy land to set aside for walking or enjoying nature if they want to. You may scoff at this, nut the largest organisation for this purpose is almost 120 years old and already owns 1.5% of the total land area of the country. By comparison all currently urbanised land amounts to 6%.

[TheHammer]

And that response shows that you still don't get it. For your grieviance to work it doesn't matter how low or how high I place X. So we could double or halve the qualifications of X and your grieviance would still be in place.

My grieviance remains so long as the system is configured as it is now. Which is precisely the point. It should be changed - you remove "X", or redefine "X" as such that you place the emphasis on trying to get people off welfare. More on that below.

So your emotional response is against all and any systems that start handing out stuff at certain break off points.
That means that you will have this grievance with any and all systems that the US political system will normally & predictably create.

Yes that's probably true. I'm not basing my statements on the likliehood of anything changing. There are plenty of "better" systems for a variety of things that won't change because of the US political system. That in and of itself doesn't mean it's not worth discussing.

Nope, again you show that you are not "getting it".
1) The example of A & B, is not the same example as B & C. Hence the new person/letter.
2) How could you possible go from my statement that "C's income+foodstamps<X. So in absolutes C has less to spend than B" to your statement that "person B's income is less than person C's income+foodstamps"??? Yours is the opposite of what I said.
*sigh* indeed...

Your person "a,b,c" was convoluted at best. I consider it best to just drop that example and focus on the core concepts.

Lets use your words and see if you get it this time:
Because they are earmarked, even if "person B's income, after tax, is MORE than person C's income+foodstamps, after tax", they will not be distributed the same. Instead they will be distributed more as per the earmark. In this case even if B has more money to spend than C, C will spend proportionally more on food. Thus it is the earmark itself that creates the condition you complain about, ie, people just qualifying for foodstamps will spend proportionally more on food than people barely not qualifying. Its endemic to the earmark.
3) Food stamps being taxed or not, is redundant information. I already stated "in absolutes", that takes care of all irrelevant factors.
4) As Broomy repeatedly has presented, the benefit of barely qualifying is very low compared to the administrative effort to apply. So lots of C will always aspire to be B just to stop the hassle of applying.
5) There are enough people who would qualify but can't get through the administrative loopholes that easily counter those who take advantage of the system.

Do you understand now? The system is broken if it makes Person C look at the prospect of becoming person B and says "Fuck that shit". Person B and person C would LOVE to be person D, the guy well above the poverty line, but there aren't any real programs that help Persons B & C to do that. Could Person C claw their way to being a person B under the current system? In many cases, absolutely. But why again why would they want to?

Completely agreed on the system being broken. Completely agreed that if the system benefits staying in more than getting out then it needs fixing.
Almost completely disagreed on that that is the case with foodstamps in the US today. The almost comes from the outliers of the system, as in those close to the qualifications from both sides. Like the combination of compounded systems.
More on that below.

So if you are really advocating that people on foodstamps shouldn't be able to eat better than those without then you shouldn't be bitching about the outlier 2-5% or some random examples of cheaters. Instead you should be bitching about it being foodstamps at all, instead of cash.
But since you are not it is clear that you think that people in the upper criteria on average should get less foodstamps and that the system should be more regulated. That means that fewer will recieve foodstamps and more of the budget will be spent on regulating them than handing them out.
That is clearly punishing people on foodstamps.

Did you pull that 2-5% out of your ass? How about you cite something if you're going to use a statistic. People recieving a benefit from the government aren't being "punished". Its the people NOT recieving this benefit that are being "punished" if you will. Sure, if they make enough money they really don't care because the benefits are inconsequential to them. But for the folks in between, the person B's, its a bitter fucking pill to swallow. But rather than look at it logically, and ways to improve the system which is what the article is really about, you get knee jerk reactions such as yours that "How dare you propose we punish the poor!".

Nice that you ignored both points in the quoted passage. 1-regulation costs 2-widening the gap of beneficiary vs non-beneficiary.
Yes, the 2-5% is pulled out of my ass. Its an educated guesstimate based on most people on foodstamps not being remotely close to the 'eating better' category. Especially since you said compared to those precisely above it. Why it needs to be a guesstimate is because the US gov doesn't really provide statistics in a sensible enough manner. But for the argument it doesn't matter if I'm off by some %, even up to 10-15% would still be OK for such a system as is in place in the US.
However, just for you, here are some stats from USDA. (Didn't you link to something similar above?)
Since the admin in the US works as it does, this is the latest report I could find on trafficking:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ORA/menu/Publis ... ummary.pdf
"trafficking diverted an estimated ...one cent of each SNAP dollar..."
So 1% are converted to other stuff than food. That is people that consider themselves to have 'enough' food to want to spend it on something with a higher priority. Which according to this:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ORA/menu/Publis ... ummary.pdf
is "bills and other, often urgent, financial needs".
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ORA/menu/Publis ... 010Sum.pdf
From here we also get that 25% who was eligable for SNAP benefits didn't recieve them/apply for them. That is pretty damning. So we need less regulation, not more. The admin in place prevents eligable people from participating.... For instance ~65% of eligable elderly do not get it even though they are eligable for it. Probably because of pride combined with it being too hard to apply for.
Now look at p11 in this report:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ORA/menu/Publis ... ds2010.pdf
There you can clearly see the participation rate vs the eligable rate when it comes to households close to the qualifications. Its less than half of the eligable that participate (~37%) so those where your concern is greatest are some of the least likely to participate. Which would say that your understanding of human nature should be somewhat adjusted. It also means that lots of those close to the qualification line complaining about those recieving it, in all probability, are also eligable for it.

SNAP is only one aspect of welfare. And I think you misunderstand. I don't want to "Add regulation", I want to reform the system such that you don't need as much regulation because the types of programs supported would not be of a nature to be abused.

And I should be clear. I'm not a conservative. Perhaps you think the word "reform" is a code word for "cut" which is what many conservatives use it as. When I speak of reform, I'm talking a re-allocation of resources to give people incentives to try to become person B, and programs that give them the tools to have a chance to become person D.

Whether you are conservative, liberal or whatnot doesn't factor in in why I'm arguing with you over this. In my view, you didn't present any typically conservative opinions. What I complained about was the emotional argument that people on foodstamps shouldn't eat better than the X+1$ counterpart. Which is why I'm arguing that you are "not getting" what effects these types of systems have, nor what the side-effects to what you are advocating would be. That the working poor on foodstamps eat better than the working poor without, is a side-effect, and not necessary detrimental to the whole program.

It matters in that "reform" is too often used as a code-word for "cut" amongst many conservative groups. If you are seeing the word "reform" and interpret it to mean "cut" then you are mis-interpreting the entire basis of what I'm saying. Thus establishing what I mean is important to the discussion.

Whatever happened to Person A anyway?

A&B was one example, B&C another. Both showing that it is setting an arbitrary X qualifications which gives earmarked benificts which produces the effect you complain about - something which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Instead its the old 'good enough' cost efficient policy in effect. (Which Simon Jester covered somewhere on p2-3). B&C specifically explained why earmarks will create the effect you complain about.
Your reallocation suggestion would have people on the threashold but still qualifying jumping through more hoops. And that reallocation would reduce the arbitrary X to a lower level if the costs are to remain the same.
Plus lots of such "incentives" already exist within the system as it is. They are almost exclusively detrimentary to the people within the system needing those stamps.
That is because the solution to most of the issues are not within programs such as this. You can't solve the issues of a recession from within a foodstamps program. You can't solve the issues of endemic poverty or minimum wage from within a foodstamps program. You can't solve the issues of mental disorders and drug addictions from within a foodstamps program. You can't solve the issues with unemployment from within a foodstamps program. And if you set up qualifications such as "actively seeking work", or, "re-educated to be marketable", or, "able to relocate" or any of your incentives for the poor to get out, you are instead setting up systems of disqualifications.

OK lets go to the 'below' part:

That persons on welfare are often times better off then persons just past the "cut off", and that in and of itself serves as a dis-incentive to get off welfare. Foodstamps is only one aspect, there are also subsidized housing and other programs to take into account. Which means only two factors would really influence a person to get off welfare 1) Pride, or 2) An opportunity to bypass the "no mans land" between the point where you lose benefits, and where you are making enough money that you really don't miss those benefits.
I'd like to see welfare benefits for food and housing be provided across the board to anyone who wanted them, but to be such that no one would want them unless they really needed them in order to prevent the system from being abused.
The most basic of food and housing, while providing programs for training to allow people to better themselves rather than to simply perpetuate the welfare cycle. Now that you have that baseline survival safety net, you provide financial incentives when certain milestones are met, such as finding employment and maintaining it for 6 months or a year, completing a training program, etc. In short, you reward able bodied and able minded people for bettering themselves, so that eventually they work their way out of the system.

Which is what all of this boils down to.

-People on the right side of the "cut off" point will be better off than the ones just above. Yes, agreed. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Its such a small percentage of the whole that it becomes statistically insignificant to the program as a whole.
While any attempt to solve this would, due to how the political system is built, create a more complex system or limit the number or recipients.

Feasability of getting something done through the "political system" would kill every idea in its crib. My idea would actually create a less complex system and would expand recipients, but would it pass through congress? Probably not in my lifetime. Again however, that's not a reason not to discuss it.

-One of those is because of federal vs state thing. There are several benefit-the-poor programs in place, etc, that the areas between them and the compounded effects of them are hard to grasp, and worse to regulate. So the political incentive to go into thus multitude is very low. This is especially difficult when you have a state gov of a different party than the fed gov/admin. So the political system in effect will lead to different applications in different states, and of different existing programs in different states, with different political agendas/ideas behind them.
None of which benefits the poor.
But to try to solve such political issues or take leverage for such issues within feed-the-poor programs like SNAP is a mistake. It leads to increased ratio of admin vs actual payouts.

-The ones who according to you have most to complain about, ie, the ones who barely disqualified and didn't get it, are so few in comparison to the masses of eligable to benefits but who are not recieving it, that the whole point becomes moot. The system in its attempt to create such incentives that you are talking about and to decrease the benefits in the zone that you are talking about, becomes so cumbersome that over 60% of those eligable in precisely the zone you are talking about doesn't participate.
So we need less of the reforms you are alluding to. More reforms along those lines can't make up for the rest of society's problems.

The bottom line is this, if you are somewhere in the welfare system, be it getting all the benefits, getting some of the benefits etc. You do not see the incentive to working hard to "Get off" welfare. If you have no opportunities to get so far off welfare that you won't miss the benefits, then what is the point of trying to do so?

-Forcing people to take training is almost always counterproductive. It leads to added costs for the system to provide training to people who are just "sitting off time". The same thing happens if you put in bonuses in the feed-the-poor programs, they will go but not be happy about it and usually not benefit from it. Instead if you have a different, unrelated system in effect that provides training but the only incentive is the training itself, like second chance public education, then you are more likely to get the right people to attend that training.

No one would be forced to take training. But there would be incentives for taking and passing courses. One would not pass by simply "sitting off time" if they failed to actually complete the training course. You would not get credit for simply showing up.

-if you are saying that we need to set up a system that "no one would use unless they need them" then I don't know what to say. Is your empathy really that low? And I have to question which program you are arguing about here really? Given the sources above over 90% of SNAP participants are way below the poverty level. So there is some cognitive dissonance here. I'm guessing that you consider people below the poverty line in the US as needing assistance? I'm also guessing that you'd agree to the special qualifications for those at or slightly above the poverty line to get assistance as well? If so who are you talking about? There is a negligable amount of people applying who don't need it (dependent on how state regulations are covering loopholes like students etc).

On the contrary, my empathy is rather high. I don't want to see people trapped in a system where they have little hope to achieve anything better. In fact, as I previously noted my idea would be to eliminate the idea of qualifications. If you are hungry, the government will provide you a meal. It won't be a delicious meal, but you could live on it and it will be nutritionally viable. Say something like a civilian model MRE - designed around cost and nutritional efficiancy. I'm not saying we would go out of our way to make it unpalatable, but that such considerations would be secondary. The idea being that no one would prefer to eat those meals, thus they couldn't be traded for anything of value and thus not abused.

To get something better than the bare essentials, then there would be programs (funded by administrative and cost savings) to provide job training. Further, there would be financial incentives for completing those programs. A reward for working yourself off welfare.

-Providing "the most basic of food and housing" is really troublesome in the US. The vast majority of SNAP beneficiaries are in urban areas, the costs of housing in urban areas are usually increasing faster than the benefits get adjusted. And most of the low-rent places in US cities wouldn't really be called "basic" or even "adequate" when compared to modern regulations etc. Then programs like SNAP are continously hampered by lobbyists, so that nutritional value is not considered. So due to the subsidies for US farms the most affordable food is also some of the least healthy food. (Corn sugars as the most prominent example, transfats as the other, pink slime, etc etc). So the politcal system is set up so that "the most basic of food and housing" really isn't.

Yes the political system is also broken.

-Minimum wage is a problem in and off itself. If the gov needs to subsidize private company interest's in such a way that the gov have to pay extra on the side to minimum wage workers, then feed them on foodstuffs also subsidized with gov funding, etc.

Oh I agree, slumlord employers like Walmart are also part of the problem.

-You have some sort of illusion that people are not already trying to get out of SNAP fast enough as it is. Or that there exists a big zone of those who wouldn't benefit from getting out of their benefits. This doesn't comply with the in-depth interviews in the reports I linked to above. Nor does it comply with the number of eligable vs participating. Nor does it comply vs the numbers of people losing qualification while still being below the poverty line. Yes there are situations where your concern is correct and one would lose benefits if one only took one step out of the current situation. Those are mainly when several different programs are in effect, usually in a combination of fed+state, so something which is very hard to regulate away without a major overhaul of all programs (not going to happen unless the US changes it's constitution). But even then people try to desperately get out of their situation, all it does is make the intermediary step unattractable or unavailable.

I'm sure they are, but in many cases the reason isn't a logical one where they will be better off. It's good old fashioned pride. The same reason you have a significant number of people who aren't taking advantage of programs they would otherwise be eligible for.

-So lets mention the deadbeats. Lets pretend that the US doesn't have a huge urban problem with drug abuse and mass unemployment. Even without such there will always be a small percentage of the pop falling outside of society's radar, whether due to mental issues, social issues or whatnot. Some of those will be unwilling or simply unable to live by ordinary society's rules, like having a residence or holding down a regular job. Some of those conditions are temporary (like depression symptoms) others are long term or even permanent. Should the nation of "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses"-fame really exclude such from feed-the-poor programs simply because there also exists 'deadbeats' within that group? I'd say that US society suffers because of such sentiments. I also think that from a cost perspective it would have been more cost efficient to be less stringent in the feed-the-poor stuff, since the costs you create to society as a whole by these exclusion principles are simply higher.

I think a lot of the issues with unemployment have to do with a lack of needed job skills. Which is a big reason why I feel training programs to give those skills should be a part of welfare programs. The money is there, it just needs to be allocated more efficiently.

Mental health and other issues are a separate discussion. They have needs beyond the basics that should also be covered. As to your closing statement, as I noted I'd like to make the benefits available to all persons thus non-exclusionary in nature.

tl;dr
I agree that feed-the-poor programs are unfair. The arbitrariness of the qualifications will always make some on the line lose out.
I disagree that it should be a goal to try to completely remove such unfairness. This because the unfairness usually stems from other parts of society not solvable by any feed-the-poor program. Thus the more you try to fix such unrelated unfairnesses the less of the money will actually end up feeding the poor.

What I'm saying is you can't fix the current system. You would need to reform it entirely. Refocus from making being poor "tolerable", and instead provide the means and incentives for people to no longer become "poor".