[macintux]

Speaking as someone who’s been trying to help someone stay alive for several years, there is massive inefficiency and bureaucracy standing in the way of people actually getting help, presumably because we’d rather see many people suffer than a few people cheat the system.

[ianai]

Then there's my dad. I had to fight him to apply for benefits when he became disabled. While waiting at the benefits office I overheard one person behind the glass say to the person working with us "you going to get those crackers [a slur for white people] some cheddar [slang for money]?" He was ultimately denied and, of course, didn't appeal - he just identified deeply with the rejection.

[FormerBandmate]

That’s literally systemic racism.

It’s also profoundly inefficient and stupid. Credit card companies can approve you in 15 seconds, there is no reason the government couldn’t

[jjeaff]

It's a particular incidence of racism by someone working in a system, but I wouldn't call it "systemic racism" because there is not a recurring, broad, historical problem of white people not being able to get welfare. In fact, the majority of welfare recipients are white.

Additionally, most of the poverty programs I am familiar with are not a subjective decision process. You either meet the requirements or you don't. If you don't, they tell you why and you either agree or you have to appeal and get whatever incorrect information they have on file corrected.

[steele]

Beyond the bureaucratic nightmare, stigmatization of government assistance is terrible. When one considers the shape of wealth inequality in the US, the cruelty expressed by the prejudiced employee is likely due to their perception of the novelty and some entitlement to abuse the power dynamic. Not excusing or downplaying the event, marginalized people (including but not limited to those with disabilities) regularly experience indignities built into many institutions. Despite being visibly White, the concept US whiteness since it's inception has always been amorphous, exclusive by design, and generally adjusts definition based on the complicity to harm the 'other'.

[dpbriggs]

Why do you feel the need to apologize for racism? It isn't necessary in this conversation.

[jjeaff]

I see no apology, but why do you seem to take offense at pointing out the existence of racism?

[steele]

Did I apologize for your reading comprehension too? Is my apology in the room with you right now?

[KrugerDunnings]

I live in Europe and a large part of my (extended) family works in the social sector and for all the good they do I can never shake the impression that the first to benefit from all these social programs is the people that organise them. Same thing with a lot of startup and business accelerators or professional networks they love to talk about how they are helping but I've learned that they do (almost) nothing for you and that it is better to invest your time in executing your own plan.

[njarboe]

It is estimated that the state of California paid out more than $30 billion in fraudulent COVID related unemployment benefits. At this point these systems can be massively cheated when made easy (ie., no in-person application required). It has been estimated the 35% of unemployment claims are fraudulent[1]. Not just a few people unfortunately (or maybe just a few doing a huge amount of fraud, but fraud is a big problem).

[1] https://edd.ca.gov/siteassets/files/unemployment/pdf/fraud-i...

[jnovek]

Unemployment is a completely different beast from all of our other social programs in the US. In a relative sense, it’s brainlessly easy to get on unemployment.

Lumping all social programs together and pointing out the one with the biggest fraud issue is disengenious —- e.g. the SSA reports that our disability programs have a fraud rate of less than 1%.

[KerrAvon]

The right answer to this is to prosecute the offenders, rather than implementing a rigorous means test process and shutting out people who might actually need help. It’s less efficient, but it’s the only humane option.

[slv77]

A lot of the fraud originated overseas with some of it from state sponsored groups. Prosecution is essentially impossible.

[Beldin]

$30 billion? In fraud - the total benefits for this one emergency expense amounting to about $90 billion? For a state of 40 million inhabitants?

Seems a tad steep.

[unyttigfjelltol]

If it were just a defense against "cheating" this would make sense. Imagine changing the word to "extortion" or "ransom" and the issue is obvious-- when you pay people to do bad things, the problem gets bigger.

However, the systems actually are gatekeeping on the basis of desert or merit. That's a more debatable virtue but the only viable alternative is to instead push out aid through local, flexible, discretionary face-to-face interactions between people who know one another well...... like when you helped a personal friend......

[jnovek]

Just lower the amount of means testing for programs like SSDI. I’m not even advocating for getting rid of means testing, just make it less onerous. It’s incredibly difficult to navigate and, ironically, puts a lot of pressure on people who are disabled.

[chiefalchemist]

> there is massive inefficiency and bureaucracy standing in the way of people actually getting help,

That's because that bureaucracy isn't there to serve its clients. Its there to serve itself. Those are politically popular jobs that flourish on backs of the underserved and impoverished. There's no incentive to reduce the friction when for the most part poverty is seen as a personal moral failing. It's not the system. It's "them". And the system perpetuates itself and that belief.

[thegrim33]

That's moving the goalposts though, now it's "yeah, they actually do put in all this money and time and effort to fix it, it's just muddled in bureaucracy so doesn't work well". The original claim was that the effort/resources aren't being put towards it, but they are.

[watwut]

I don't think that is moving goalposts. Some of that bureaucracy exists and consumes money explicitly because certain political party wanted to make access to programs punishing and harder.

They are not money spent to help anyone, they are money spend to prevent access to existing programs.

[ModernMech]

Yup, what’s more, is that people who are not trying to help have inserted themselves into the money flow.

Take the intensive case management for instance. If you are severely disabled and in need of assistance, the state will pay for a case manager to help you with life.

Case managers are paid $7 an hour when alone, $14 with a client. When they are with a client, they are instructed to do mostly paperwork. The goal here is to not actually help people, but to fill out paperwork in proximity to them to collect state funds, while paying social workers peanuts without benefits. So the case manager helping the impoverished is herself, financially insecure.

So where is all the money going?

A company manages the case managers, and they pocket the bulk of state funds. The management, board, and directors all live in very large houses and drive very expensive cars. Case managers drive 2002 Honda Accords without AC or a radio. Clients live in squalor, just happy to have someone doing their paperwork nearby. This is the American caste system.

So I think you can see, even when we fund social services, the money still ends up in the hands of the wealthy. It’s just what capitalism is designed to do.

[indymike]

> It’s just what capitalism is designed to do.

Capitalism is simply allowing private citizens to own, in part or full, the means of production such as farms and businesses. I'm not sure that capitalism is responsible for a decision about dispersing government money to create terrible jobs resulting in mismanagement and horrible customer service.

> money still ends up in the hands of the wealthy

I think the definition of wealthy requires money end up in someone's hands.

[fuzzfactor]

>simply allowing private citizens to own, in part or full, the means of production such as farms and businesses.

To me this is just free enterprise and private property rights.

Capitalism is more like when the strength of the capital itself gives it a significant or outsized influence compared to the fundamental enterprise and private ownership interest.

Usually when Other People's Money is involved in ways where a chain of resources & debt is built that can influence enterprise and ownership in ways that might not take place otherwise.

Both positive and negative outcomes can be leveraged or exaggerated, for instance in the case of a benevolent capitalist compared to a greedy one.

Edit: not my downvote, bump back up from me

[indymike]

> To me this is just free enterprise and private property rights.

Capitalism is just a system which allows private citizens to own the means of production.

Everything else is just people trying to overload a word to create a savior or boogey man.

Thank you for the vote correction.

[none_to_remain]

So you latch on to the outsourced part and complain about capitalism, or we could latch on to the government-funded part and complain about socialism.

I think more than capitalism v. socialism here the problem is that we are governed by filth who are looting public treasuries for themselves and their buddies.

[lr4444lr]

That's not how I read his comment at all: if the government grants are not doled out with oversight, it's entirely rational for greedy actors to minimize the dollars ultimately reaching the intended targets.

[prottog]

> we are governed by filth who are looting public treasuries for themselves and their buddies.

Hence the conservative ideal of smaller government with limited powers, so that there is both less to loot from as well as a lesser ability for those in power to direct those treasures to themselves.

[HarryHirsch]

And then it's put into practice and it looks like Alabama, they are running the natural experiment in Alabama since 1901, the 1901 constitution and its impacts on the state are well-known.

To get any kind of local tax raised, the local authority has to go through the oligarch-controlled legislature in Montgomery, where it would be shot down. And like that you end up with county roads on a 70-year replacement schedule.

[ModernMech]

I'm focusing on the bad actors, who are the ones extracting all of the money from the system as profit. That's what makes this dysfunctional. If they were gone, the people trying to help would have more resources. Notably, these people hold titles associated with the artifices of capitalism. The social worker doesn't need a board of directors. She knows what needs to be done. It's the board of directors who need the social worker -- not to fix anything, but to do the appearance of work while they collect rent checks from the government. It's disgusting.

We can imagine this enterprise organized another way which actually helps people. Fewer Ferrari dealerships would make sales, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

[Kye]

An accessible overview of some of the hurdles people face: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJDk-czsivk