[nhashem]

Yet another handful of anecdotes about a need-based social welfare program.

If you're desperate enough, sabotaging yourself to qualify for a need-based social program eventually becomes the objectively optimal thing to do. This is the first I've heard of that sabotage extended all the way to intentionally getting AIDS and intentionally not seeking treatment, though.

Typically these stories can be dismissed for the anecdotes they are. I have a handful of right-winger friends who love sending me some article from the Wichita Star or something where some woman got promoted at her job, lost her Medicaid benefits, so she quit her job, and now gets even more benefits, or something, and RAAAR $16 TRILLION IN DEBT WE'RE ON THE ROAD TO GREECE MAKERS TAKERS SMALL BUSINESS THIS COUNTRY IS GOING TO HELL.

No, this country has decided it's beyond the state's responsibility to provide food, shelter, and medicine to everyone. Instead, various state and local programs only provide it those things to a fraction of the people who need it, usually based on some seemingly well-intentioned criteria. And then some people have the kind of lives where being a homeless prostitute without AIDS is worse than having a roof and having AIDS, so they decide to do that.

You can accept that any program like this will induce morally hazardous behavior in some people, and look for objective information vs. sensationalized anecdotes to see if that program needs reform. You can also realize any need-based program will almost always introduce said morally hazardous behavior, and the problem is that we underfund these programs so that they need this need-based criteria to begin with.

Or you can push to eliminate all these programs because you think they turn everyone into lazy welfare AIDS-seeking moochers, and the good news for you is there's already a political party in the US that pretty much supports all that.

[maratd]

> Or you can push to eliminate all these programs because you think they turn everyone into lazy welfare AIDS-seeking moochers

So let me get this straight ... for thousands of years, support for the needy was provided by local religious institutions and local efforts. People gave alms, etc to their local church and then the church rendered assistance. Essentially, the community helping itself. Neighbors helping neighbors, albeit indirectly to preserve dignity.

Here come the neo-liberals. Anything even remotely related to religion needs to be eradicated, so we can't keep doing things the way we used to. Now we tax the shit out of anything that moves and dispense assistance on a federal level, from Washington DC, thousands of miles away, by some faceless bureaucrats. How deranged do you have to be to think that's an improvement?

Guess what? The poor and needy were provided assistance long before the welfare programs came to the fore in the 20s and 30s. They were provided assistance through private channels, through their community. Unfortunately, due to taxation to provide for similar programs on a federal level, quite a few of those channels have dried up. Unfortunate indeed.

[npsimons]

There's a name for when the churches ran the world: it's called the dark ages for a reason. I'd rather not have to rely on someone's (supposed) piety on top of the questionable scruples of the church to render assistance. What happens if you're an outspoken critic of the church or (heaven forfend) a "sinner" homosexual? At least when the Tea Party criticizes the government, the government doesn't pull the welfare checks of its members.

[maratd]

> At least when the Tea Party criticizes the government, the government doesn't pull the welfare checks of its members.

Nope, they just nail them with a tax audit. Power corrupts regardless of who wields it.

Also, I wasn't proposing theocracy. Read what I wrote again. You weren't paying attention.

[Vivtek]

They nail them with a tax audit when there's reason to believe they're cheating on their non-profit status. And if they have nothing to hide and their accounting is honest, then an audit shouldn't be a problem. Right?

[maratd]

> And if they have nothing to hide and their accounting is honest, then an audit shouldn't be a problem.

Are you one of those people who support the NSA? I really didn't think I'd meet one on HN.

[dragonwriter]

> So let me get this straight ... for thousands of years, support for the needy was provided by local religious institutions and local efforts.

No, for thousands of years, we had an economic system in which the needy who were physically able to work were likely to be able to do work in the most common jobs available (largely, barely-better-than-subsistence farming), where the needy that weren't able to work might get some support from religious institutions (not necessarily local), individual authorities or, where it existed, the state, or elsewhere, but mostly just suffered and died. (And were often criminalized.)

Evolutions of property arrangements (including those that enabled capitalism), population density, and industrialization eliminate the easy access to basic work in the developed world (in exchange for more productive work where work was available) before much changed in the way that the "needy" were treated.

> Here come the neo-liberals. Anything even remotely related to religion needs to be eradicated, so we can't keep doing things the way we used to.

Neoliberalism [1] is not particularly concerned with religion, pro or con, nor does it generally support replacing private charity with public social support (it generally opposes public social support, and isn't particularly enthusiastic about private charity, though forced to choose between the two -- or just as a convenient way of selling opposition to public support -- neoliberals will back private charity, including religious.)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

[subsection1h]

    for thousands of years, support for the needy was provided
    by local religious institutions and local efforts.

For thousands of years, inadequate support was provided. People used to die in the streets. Furthermore, such support has historically not been provided to unpopular minorities, unless you consider slavery "support".

    Here come the neo-liberals. Anything even remotely related
    to religion needs to be eradicated

Show me a single poll of which the results show that more than 2% of participants want "anything even remotely related to religion" to be "eradicated".

    Now we tax the shit out of anything that moves 

Okay, now I think you're just trolling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Mariginal_Tax_R...

[mikeash]

You're right, the poor and needy were so much better off before government welfare programs. Ha ha ha ha ha.

[j2d3]

This is interesting, I didn't view this article the same way.

"No, this country has decided it's beyond the state's responsibility to provide food, shelter, and medicine to everyone." - this does seem to be true, and I view this article as a criticism of this decision, not as a criticism of the programs these people are seeking to get benefits from.

I think this story highlights the absurdity of not having unqualified assistance for housing, food, and healthcare. If people take this as a reason to eliminate these programs, well... I'm sure people will view it that way - well, I don't know what to say about it. I mean, I can at least agree with this: "THIS COUNTRY IS GOING TO HELL."

[nickff]

Some see the main problem here as being moral hazard, which causes social welfare programs to become very expensive, with most of the resources going to people who have been lured in by the promise of 'money for nothing'. This is a normative argument which is what I think you are critiquing here.

I would put forward another criticism of need based programs which is positive, and has recently been made with increasing frequency. This argument is that the nature of many programs induces dependence among the recipients; the principal example of this being US federal disability benefits. These benefits can be permanently forfeited if the recipient earns more than a given amount over a certain time frame, which forces the recipient to consider trading in a long term cash flow (disability benefits) for greater income with uncertain future prospects (a job). The result is that many people with difficulty working, who could do some limited work are disincentivized from ever taking a job; this is especially apparent during recessions. [ http://economics.mit.edu/files/7388 ]

The other problems you can have when you begin to hand out government aid are moral ones, which you may agree with. Those who are lazy and collect benefits get to take from those who work hard; even more troubling is that the workers have no way to force the slackers to do anything, while the slackers can use regulation and taxation to manipulate the workers. This argument does not address people who are unable to support themselves.

[SapphireSun]

The real problem with these programs is that they are designed with a hard cut-off point rather than reducing the compensation at a slightly slower speed than private employment ramps up. For instance our tax system works in a rational fashion: you pay say 0% on the first 8k, 10% on the next several thousand and so on. In this manner, you are never disincentivised from trying to get more money because it's always positive (though more inefficient money accumulation wise).

What I don't understand is why we don't have programs (say unemployment benefits) where when you finally get work, the money you earn above the cut off replaces need based compensation dollar for dollar until you're free of the system. It makes no sense to cut people off the soon as they get a job when the job pays less than the program.

[nickff]

You're talking about what has been called a "negative income tax"; the idea has a long history, but was popularized in the USA by Milton Friedman. A form of this was implemented as the "earned income tax credit", but only as a supplement to traditional welfare programs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

[SapphireSun]

Thank you for the link!

[ignostic]

I find it interesting that you dismiss the evidence as anecdotal, then proceed to come to conclusions about society based on said evidence.