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Forums - General Discussion - What is compassionate about a nation having a welfare system?

Kasz216 on 29 October 2010
Squilliam said:
Kasz216 said:
Squilliam said:

I wouldn't know about the UK as I live in NZ. Personally if I was to choose between the American style of screwed up government and the UK style of screwed up government, I would have to choose the former, having lived in the UK for 9 months.

In New Zealand we have something in the order like that. You can earn $80 before your government 'welfare' gets docked at a rate of 70% per pre tax dollar earnt. Which effectively means that after $80 the person gets to keep $1 out of every $10 or an effective marginal tax rate of 90%! This is entirely screwed up but thankfully/hopefully it looks like it'll get fixed over the coming two years as we finally have a more sensible government in with a prime-minister whom ran a successful business before running for office.

So regarding that system, it can/probably work but only if it is actually designed properly. Otherwise it can act as a massive disincentive to work and can be even worse than not having it at all.

That's... pretty dumb yeah... I mean give me welfare, here is how i'd set it up.

1)  After you go on unemployment, you have 3 months or so to find a job.

2) After 3 months you either work 20 hours a week for the government doing something like litter pickup, enevelop stuffing, sending emails, colecting census  info... whatever they need, government always needs more help with random stuff.  Maybe let the government bid for private jobs doing stuff like telemarketing.

Or, once every 2 years you can go to school for a semester or two and pick up training.

3) Repeat step 1... also actually try and place people in jobs.

It just... makes sense.  It keeps people in the habit of working, I know when i've gone long stretches without working I pretty much have to readjust everything to get back into it and dealing with near strangers on a day to day basis etc.

 

As for the Welfare thing, I don't see why it just can't be... If you make $200 dollars of non taxable welfare a week(making a number up)... welfare makes up the difference plus a bonus of half up to 150% of the number.

For example, say you get $200.  You find a job at a fast food restraunt that pays you $150, you can get $100 tax free.  So you get $250.


Basically until you make $300 with taxes taken out, you could get 100 from the goverment adding up to $300.

So the Welfare person working part time is getting paid $100 from the government and is making between 200-300

While the non working Welfare person is only getting 200.

The new system is something like you have to be in work or training within X number of months of recieving the benefit. I think its 3 months like what you're saying essentially.

But I totally agree there needs to be a good gap between what you can earn when you're on welfare and what you can earn coming off of it. Otherwise considering costs like transportation etc incurred by working people would not be better off if they came off of the welfare system. It is probably better to subsidise a job by say $100-150 from the government than it is to pay someone $200 to not work. You get far more productivity out of your population and the people employed remain employable unlike the situation where if you're out of work for more than 6 months your chances of actually finding a job become slim.

In my country the WINZ (work and income New Zealand) is actually employing private job agencies to find jobs for people. So arguably the best possible system is in place given the profit motive to encourage employment agencies would make them far more efficient than a government agency, especially one which tends to employ less skilled people.


Couldn't agree more.  I really like the way you guys run things in New Zealand (and Australia) with a lot of these things.   It just generally seems smarter then what I see out of the US and Europe.

I mean me, I'm not like Mafoo where I'm hardcore anti-government, so much as I'm anti-incompetant government.



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HappySqurriel on 29 October 2010

One thing that never seems to be asked when discussing the redistribution of wealth is how well has it worked so far. If you look at systems like welfare, workfare, food stamps, and rental subsidies and measure success based on the ability for people to improve their standard of living in the absence of these wealth transfers it is obvious that they haven't worked. In fact, with how these programs distort the economy it is difficult to argue that these people are better off while they're on these programs.

Welfare is the most obviously flawed system being that you take people who lack education and experience to earn a decent living, and you pay them while preventing them from gaining a quality education or any experience.

All worker subsidies distort the market in a similar ways. In all markets you will have companies that pay more than other companies in order to attract better employees; and (in this context) better employees means individuals who have more experience, are smarter, harder working, or are better able to take on greater responsibility. These companies don't pay more as an act of charity, they do so because the competitive advantage they gain from hiring better employees makes up for the increased wages. Now, when you subsidize employees who are earning less than a living wage to a living wage you create a subsidy for companies who pay low wages, a cost to companies who pay a high wage, and remove the competitive advantage of paying a living wage for companies. In other words, you effectively eliminate jobs that pay an adequate wage in favour of jobs that pay low wages.



whatever on 29 October 2010

The welfare you are describing (in the OP) is generally run by a State government, not the Federal government.  So it is therefore not a constitutional issue.

As for compassionate, it depends on how it's run.  It should be run as a safety net for when people are having problems.  It should not be open ended and it should provide training for people that need it.



whatever on 29 October 2010
TheRealMafoo said:
richardhutnik said:

The norm for government run welfare is to take money from others via taxes (money people don't willingly give) and hand it over to a system with individuals who do the work as a job.  


That's not welfare, that's government employment. Welfare is handing it over to individuals in which you get no production in return.

The problem with this system, is you take the liberty of one group, to care for another. Where is the compassion is stealing from a group of people your elected to represent?

Look, if I became president and found a way to feed/house millions of people without taking from others, I would love to do it. But as an elected official of the US Federal Government, I would have to take an oath to uphold the Constitution to all I represent. This means I am not allowed to take from people, regardless of how good of a cause I think it is. I just don't have that authority, just because I have the power.

No one who is not a Libertarian understands that. As soon as you do, you will become one.

Except the welfare he is describing is usually run by a State government.



Rath on 30 October 2010
HappySqurriel said:

One thing that never seems to be asked when discussing the redistribution of wealth is how well has it worked so far. If you look at systems like welfare, workfare, food stamps, and rental subsidies and measure success based on the ability for people to improve their standard of living in the absence of these wealth transfers it is obvious that they haven't worked. In fact, with how these programs distort the economy it is difficult to argue that these people are better off while they're on these programs.

Welfare is the most obviously flawed system being that you take people who lack education and experience to earn a decent living, and you pay them while preventing them from gaining a quality education or any experience.

All worker subsidies distort the market in a similar ways. In all markets you will have companies that pay more than other companies in order to attract better employees; and (in this context) better employees means individuals who have more experience, are smarter, harder working, or are better able to take on greater responsibility. These companies don't pay more as an act of charity, they do so because the competitive advantage they gain from hiring better employees makes up for the increased wages. Now, when you subsidize employees who are earning less than a living wage to a living wage you create a subsidy for companies who pay low wages, a cost to companies who pay a high wage, and remove the competitive advantage of paying a living wage for companies. In other words, you effectively eliminate jobs that pay an adequate wage in favour of jobs that pay low wages.


I can't speak for America, but to me it seems the welfare system in New Zealand has overall been successful in its aims.



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Kasz216 on 30 October 2010
Rath said:
HappySqurriel said:

One thing that never seems to be asked when discussing the redistribution of wealth is how well has it worked so far. If you look at systems like welfare, workfare, food stamps, and rental subsidies and measure success based on the ability for people to improve their standard of living in the absence of these wealth transfers it is obvious that they haven't worked. In fact, with how these programs distort the economy it is difficult to argue that these people are better off while they're on these programs.

Welfare is the most obviously flawed system being that you take people who lack education and experience to earn a decent living, and you pay them while preventing them from gaining a quality education or any experience.

All worker subsidies distort the market in a similar ways. In all markets you will have companies that pay more than other companies in order to attract better employees; and (in this context) better employees means individuals who have more experience, are smarter, harder working, or are better able to take on greater responsibility. These companies don't pay more as an act of charity, they do so because the competitive advantage they gain from hiring better employees makes up for the increased wages. Now, when you subsidize employees who are earning less than a living wage to a living wage you create a subsidy for companies who pay low wages, a cost to companies who pay a high wage, and remove the competitive advantage of paying a living wage for companies. In other words, you effectively eliminate jobs that pay an adequate wage in favour of jobs that pay low wages.


I can't speak for America, but to me it seems the welfare system in New Zealand has overall been successful in its aims.

Well, you know the US government, so I imagine you can guess.<g

Our government is so messed up that we don't even give it to the countries we build.  What with Iraq running off a parlimentry system.



Rath on 30 October 2010
Kasz216 said:

Well, you know the US government, so I imagine you can guess.<g

Our government is so messed up that we don't even give it to the countries we build.  What with Iraq running off a parlimentry system.

Yeah, I can imagine.

I hope that eventually people get sick enough of it that the government is forced to reform itself.



Kasz216 on 30 October 2010
Rath said:
Kasz216 said:
 

Well, you know the US government, so I imagine you can guess.<g

Our government is so messed up that we don't even give it to the countries we build.  What with Iraq running off a parlimentry system.

Yeah, I can imagine.

I hope that eventually people get sick enough of it that the government is forced to reform itself.


Yeah, the way our welfare is set up... it's hard and confusing to apply, it lasts a short time, but can be extended a pretty long time if you know that it can be...

It's basically one of those systems that depending how much you know about it depends how well you are... and even then there isn't really much that helps people find jobs.

I wish we had Welfare like NZ... as you can probably guess from my above "how I would remake US welfare".


The US really has a lot of issues too just being how huge it is.  LIke instead of food stamps(which are now food debit cards) we should have just... food sending, food to people.   A lot of areas don't have proper markets and a lot that do, the markets can't afford to accept foodstamps.



Rath on 30 October 2010
TheRealMafoo said:
Rath said:

I feel no need to uphold your constitution, therefore any understanding of its meaning wouldn't change my opinion.


And this is why we will never agree on anything. I am one who wants rules that government officials are elected to uphold. You want a government where the elected officials make the rules.

Freedom isn't for everyone.

What? That's not what I was saying at all. Why would I want to uphold the constitution of a foreign country?

In fact - given that NZ doesn't really have a constiution - I don't see the need to uphold any constitution at all =P



DeadNotSleeping on 30 October 2010

"The system is impersonal, and based around doing the absolute minimum to try to placate a need, to silence those in need, and also to quiet the collective guilt of a nation that they have poor among them, or out of concerns that there is a need for a safety net."

Is that opinion based on anything other than personal interpretation?  I ask because I myself have received government handouts that were funded by the taxpayers when I couldn't find work after my term ended.  Kept a roof over my head, food in my belly and the bills paid.  This meagre allowance gave me enough financial buoyancy to keep my affairs in order and find some solid work--in the Canadian Forces.  Had there been no safety net to protect me I'd be on the street.  I was given a chance and I consider that compassion.