[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.