Your comment is a gross oversimplification, but yes, that sort of is what goes through their minds.

Subsistance farming peasants in Asia won't plant the highest EV cash crops, because they are slightly more risky than farming rice for consumption. They are so risk averse that they farm the safest, most certain crops, even though it guarantees they will never do better than barely survive.

For example, a Communist regime might guarantee these peasants just enough rice to survive each year, let's say 20 bags of rice. Even if they grow 150 bags per year, they only get 20 and the government gets the rest. But, if they only grow 5 bags, the government will give them 15 bags.

Even though they typically grow far more than 20 bags per year, they prefer the deal from the government guaranteeing the 20 bags. It's massively -EV for them, but they value the security and certainty of it, because a crop disaster could wipe out a family. They value the certainty above all else.

This same phenomenon happens virtually every time the desperately poor are confronted with this scenario, and this pretty much exactly like giving minimal welfare to the poor in the US and it keeps them down.

Ok let's forget about risk for a second, unless you mean the risk of transportation costs involve in going to an interview or things like that. Not that those are trivial to poor people, but if you mean "risk" in the capitalist entrepreneurial sense that has nothing to do with poor people. Po people aint got no capital to risk.

There are constant built-in incentives for poor people to work. The very small amount of welfare available is not enough to be a disincentive. When we are talking about welfare we are mostly talking about AFDC, foodstamps, and section 8 rent subsidies (the landlords of a few million families receive this) and the EITC. These are basically there so that our country doesn't look so third world and is the maximum allowed by white guilt. It is not enough to make anyone turn down gainful employment. Most of those benefits listed are for single parent families with dependent children, either explicitly or preferentially.

Our government does not give money to dudes just roving around with no job. Food stamps maybe but not money.

Jim and seattle please translate risk as it applies to the american poor with respect to incentive to find work.

Is the word risk used somewhere specifically or is that a general question? Trying to figure out the context.


Edit: Nevermind I see where I wrote it. I was thinking of the risk to try to improve your lot in life knowing that you might fail. Wasn't thinking of financial risk.

@deuces

AFDC was reformed and replaced by TANF in 1996.

Demographic of the people likely to be taking the poll.

http://www.talkingbiznews.com/1/the-...urnal-readers/

I'd be curious to see, with said results, the numbers of responders from WSJ or NBC.

b

Cmon it wasn't a poll of WSJ readers

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They aren't polling their readers. They do hundreds of polls a year, you can find their methodology if you are really that interested.

There are incentives built into a number of programs that disincentivize additiional work by making the effective marginal tax very high. Im sure its been discussed in this forum within the last month or two, usually in conjunction with a negative income tax.

I suspect the vast majority of the "too much welfare" respondents weren't thinking along these lines though.

High marginal tax rates coming out of the depression through to the 70s sure disincentivized people.

I'm guessing the majority of 'too much welfare' respondents really don't realize how much they benefit from public resources in general, nor do they realize, based on other polls, where they stand on the socioeconomic ladder.

b

i get the feeling you're upset with the results of the poll. bear in mind that poll results measure nothing more than the opinions of the people surveyed. a poll could certainly be skewed any number of ways to make people give answers the surveyors want, but that still doesn't mean what they find is 'correct'.

Not upset at all. Given the polarization we have on this issue today, it isn't surprising there's a poll showing this. and yes, I'm fully aware:

Which is why I lol when some act as if it's definitive. Yknow, like all the polls saying Mittens was going to win.

What's more interesting is finding out why the people that actually think this way, think this way.

b

There is no need to be upset. Take a deep breath and read my posts rather than just reflexively reacting to what you think they are saying.

Say you phase out housing benefits starting at $18,000 a year. You are a worker that makes $16,000 a year. You get offered a promotion that pays $4,000 a year extra. You may not want or be able to afford to take that promotion.

This is not good for lower income workers and suboptimal for society, but it is the structure of some of our current assistance programs. It doesnt mean there is "too much welfare", it not an indictment of lower income workers, but it does create disincentives to work.

Some examples.

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/fil...alTaxRates.pdf

I would be very interested in learning if respondents meant the sort of thing you are talking about, or just generally meant "welfare makes people hate working" or wtfever

Is this the new 2p2 meme or something? Projecting someone must be upset because they post a differing view?

And I think a lot of that could also be tied to how the poverty rate/compensation* hasn't hardly budged in decades to keep up with rising cost of living.

*I can't remember the name of the term, but it's where they figure how much a family needs regarding minimal standard of living in the country.

b

oh yeah. It's the new "umad" thing. Jimmies rustled, same diff. Still stupid. But apparently the forum (regular politics) is better when we let everyone troll

I knew that, or I did know that. Because he's so damn liberal Clinton reformed welfare so as to end it after a certain period of time and also require recipients to actively look for work in order to receive benefits (they had to submit job search forms and report in and talk to social workers). I think the net effect was to scale down welfare payments. According to this wikipedia article the average monthly payment was $157 in 2007.

I just can't see, with the amounts in question, where there is given a significant disincentive to work. No one can survive on that, keeping in mind you have to have children to even get that.

May Lee Atwater burn in hell. In the 80's he inscribed the indelible image of the welfare queen in the national conscience that still prejudices the debate and policies today. If we are going to talk about welfare let's talk about who is actually getting what. Let's compare the actual immeasurably micro disincentive to work to the debilitating risk to those people who could be thrown into starvation or intense food insecurity should welfare be scaled back even further.

Brilliant idea. Which is why it will never happen. Americans can't handle the truth.

You asked me earlier to clarify the risk I was referring to, but you have pointed it out here.

The risk for a person living in poverty, living in section 8 housing and getting stamps, etc. is that they have to give that up if they get a real job. They can survive if they stay home, and there's some security and certainty in that.

If they start getting a check, all that stuff is gone -- What if the job doesn't work out? What if they get fired or laid off, etc? What if they don't have a reliable car or a phone,etc? What if they have to buy all kinds of tools beforehand? What if they don't have a driver's license? What if they have a record? Will it keep them from getting promoted? What if they have warrants? What if they have bad credit and can't get approved for an apartment? What if they need to buy new clothes or uniforms that they can't afford?

There's significant perceived risk, imo. Enough to make many of them hesitant to take the steps necessary to improve their conditions, even though it's clearly +EV.

This thread isnt in regular politics AFAIK. Plus a little bit frustrated at the non-sequitir responses.

Do you really think unfairly large effective marginal tax rates on additional income for people making near poverty levels of income doesn't warp work incentives? That's pretty wild.

The answer to these problems isnt to cut off the checks though.

[Kidding]Now that you're not pissed off [/kidding]

I would put education as the biggest cause and it is education in a very broad sense.

Living wage?

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Most of those you list are not significant risks because in the event of those outcomes the person who left welfare for a job can get back on welfare, so getting a job is pretty risk free.

I don't think the actual amounts of welfare (staying in the realm of welfare for poor people as oppose to corporate welfare and giveaways) are enough for a family to survive on.

If you are suggesting that the state provides disincentive by taking away the incentive that would be there in the case that these people got nothing from the state, that is a cruel and dispensable opinion. If you are saying that the amount of welfare entices people not to work then let's talk real amounts and see if that makes sense. You mention "getting a check". According to the wiki article that average check, for a family, is 154 a month.

I think what welfare reform is really about is forcing people into under-the-table jobs that pay less than minimum wage. It would be great, from an business owner's point of view, if we could get all the poor people on welfare currently to work for the types of wages that illegal immigrants currently work for. In fact those wages would go down even further with an increase in the dirt cheap labor pool.

I was obviosuly talking about a paycheck when I said "getting a check".

There are tons of people who live in housing projects for little to no cost, who receive food stamps, child care, etc. and who barely work or don't work at all.

I think many of those people do work off the table to supplement their welfare. Do you mean the 2 million people in section 8? I think they have to pay something.

Not everyone who wants to work can find a job. People without adequate transportation are turned down. People who become embroiled in the life around them end up with criminal records despite not being truly bad or violent people. They are often rejected the moment their record is discovered. It is hard for people who are born into poverty to establish fruitful networking, networking being the main way people get jobs.

Arguments like yours are very theoretical and consider only a few variables. If you consider more variables, the significant ones, you will find that the situation is a little more complex. Incentives are important but monetary incentives are not the only incentives.