[jacksnipe]

Sorry, but citation needed. Means testing might seem “obvious” from first principles, but from a policy point of view, it makes little to no sense.

The macroeconomic effects of welfare programs create a society that is better for everyone to live in. Reducing the issue to a matter of personal responsibility is a reframing that allows you to completely lose sight of the big picture, and create programs that are destined to fail by not reaching many of the people they need to.

[stretchwithme]

Citation needed for the right to other people's money.

Government running charity interferes with the normal feedback in society. And the need to ask politely, justify one's apparently bad decisions and change failing behavior.

People become "entitled" to regular cash so a lot of the fear that ordinarily motivates the rest of us goes away.

Any system that asks nothing of people is a bad system.

I grew up on welfare. I've also seen how a lot of people on welfare actually live and how they spend their time. They don't spend it cleaning, I can tell you that.

[LocalH]

Administration of means testing is often more expensive than doing away with the means testing.

How about UBI coupled with repealing the minimum wage?

[justusthane]

That’s my soapbox — I think that’s the only feasible hope for the future, taking into account increased efficiency, fewer jobs, and higher corporate profits. UBI funded by higher corporate taxes.

I just don’t see any realistic way to make it actually happen.

[Xss3]

The ultra wealthy are betting on us lying down and dying in droves while they build techno fascist city states with AI enhanced anti-dissent technology ensuring organised protests are impossible....Its already happening online. Hundreds of thousands of bots appear across platforms sowing doubt about everything until nobody believes anything or anyone strongly enough to get out on the streets and face the army of ai drones.

[dataflow]

> Administration of means testing is often more expensive than doing away with the means testing. How about UBI coupled with repealing the minimum wage?

Er... why wouldn't UBI be more expensive?

I'm not even arguing against UBI here, I'm just trying to make sense of your claim, which seems quite dubious.

[tenacious_tuna]

I would rather we have a system that is too generous and gets taken advantage of than one that is too parsimonious where people die for want of food and shelter that we could provide for them.

We exist in a world where people can be unable to work or even advocate for themselves through no fault of their own. As we raise the bar for how people have to prove that they "need" help, there will be people who die because they don't have the capacity to prove that. In theory we have social workers (as a societal role) but in reality they're underfunded/don't have capacity for the same reasons.

This feels like the same moral argument behind the presumption of innocence in the American legal system: far better to let criminals walk free than to falsely imprison an innocent person. Why do we not apply the same logic to welfare?

I mean, I know why: we're worried the system would get taken advantage of and not serve the people it's "meant" to help.... but then, who does it help? How much effort is it worth making people spend to prove they need help when that effort comes with a blood cost?

I agree with GP that welfare systems make for better societies--see also, public healthcare. I have several friends who are alive because of welfare systems. I grew up with people whose family squandered the welfare they got, but I don't view that as sufficient reason to withhold welfare from anyone else; I just accept that's the cost of a system that helps people.

[MBCook]

Yep. Better to catch $1m in fraud by spending $20m than to spend $10m helping people with a possibility of $2m in fraud.

It makes no economic sense. It’s not more humane/helpful. But it’s what we ‘choose’ over and over.

[account42]

I'd also rather people get "free" benefits and perhaps spend some of their time doing something creative or otherwise useful to society but which doesn't pay than force everyone to take a job no matter how useless or even destructive it is.

[duk3luk3]

> a lot of the fear that ordinarily motivates the rest of us

No, that seems like mostly you. Most people are not motivated by fear.

[const_cast]

> Citation needed for the right to other people's money.

It's called taxation, it's codified in law. Like... literally. I don't think you could find a better citation for "rights" than that. Jesus Christ.

[standardUser]

> Any system that asks nothing of people is a bad system.

Ok bro, while you're out there building morally pure systems the rest of us will do research and learn what actually works in the real world.

[soraminazuki]

Citation needed that your neoliberal views are anything other than bad faith voodoo economics. We have decades' worth of proof that it's toxic for society, both politically and economically. Your whole talking point is an excuse for the ultra rich to get even richer through mass exploitation, which ironically is the embodiment of entitlement that you're so opposed to.