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As a long time Public Welfare employee I feel that I can chime in on this topic and clear a few things up.
Personally it makes me sick to walk around town on my lunch break and see the able bodied people playing basketball in the park, strolling around in their pj's at noon, carting their ten kids around all wearing way nicer clothes than my kids wore, talking on their iPhones etc. Mind you these are the same people who were just in my office earlier crying that they were too disabled to work, had no food in their house, wah, wah, wah. Meanwhile the streets are littered with garbage and all that...We refer the cases to fraud investigation but 9/10 times the case is thrown out due to some crap technicality. The system is sickening, truly. People who have not had an insiders view to it would be truly surprised and disheartened to see the level of fraud and abuse that goes on. You would be disgusted to see your tax dollars "at work". People have made welfare a lifestyle, we have generations of families on the dole and they don't seem to know about or aspire to a different life. So that all being said..YES I believe in a work requirement for welfare clients...even 10 hours per week, something!! I just know our government can't do anything without some cluster-eff of a convoluted process.
Ok, well that is all!
These are exactly the people who Hungary's approach would help the most: people who don't even know about the world of work. Their lives are just dribbling away, figuratively as well as literally. Some are just plain lazy but I think the great majority would welcome and appreciate a step they could use to climb to a different life.
I can't help but think what some of the folk you talk about will think when they hit 60 or 65 and then realize they've wasted their whole lives! Nothing to look back on, no accomplishments to point to. And 10 - 20 more years to regret it. It's such a waste.
And streets littered with garbage. Why? People don't have to live like that. They can have clean streets, nice parks, playgrounds. The work is there, the people to do it are there, "all" it takes is the decision to do it.
I don't have a problem with the concept of workfare. Putting in X hours a week for X dollars. Seems fair and there is something just about everyone can do. Even many of the disabled.
Living on the dole can become a habit/lifestyle. Years ago I knew a young woman who was the first in several generations of her family to NOT receive some kind of government benefits. Today I know several people who are very legitimately on disability or some kind of welfare. Guess what? These folks spend more in time and energy looking for work under the table than most do who work full time. Think it would be easier/better for these folks to just get a job and go off the dole? No, because the system holds them hostage. Even a minimum wage legitimate job throws them off benefits. Even a part time minimum wage job will do it.
It's all about the healthcare. Most of us can agree what we pay for healthcare is not affordable. Think for a minute what your premiums would be as a person with a disability or if you had a couple small children. As soon as these folks get a job, they lose their healthcare and there is almost zero chance the job they get will be full time, with benefits, at a living wage.
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Everyone, whether they work or not, gets a social benefit.
I understand how complicated that can be, especially with regard to health care. I don't think we've found the answer with health care yet. I can't believe Obamacare is it or single payer or a pure market approach. I don't know. Guess I'm one of those stupid Americans who they fooled so Obamacare would pass!
However, it makes no sense to me that a problem would stand in the way of a solution. I agree that not all problems have solutions but I don't think this is one of them. All the people who work in the welfare/health care/education system,...and they say this is the best we can do? Systems that at the best prevent things from getting worse?
I think we've been on the wrong path for so long that better paths have been lost in the rearview mirror. We can only think of going further down the blind alley we've been going down so long.
Really, the biggest obstacle to solving the real problems that welfare was designed to solve but in part makes worse is not theoretical or technical. The biggest problem is inertia: a body in motion tends to stay in motion in the same direction. "We've always done things this way." Or, "That wasn't invented here."
We need something different and we could do worse than adopting something that works: Hungary's approach. Course changes can always be made with experience.
Nearly all US welfare programs already have some form of work requirement for the able-bodied who are not caregivers for very young or very old dependents. Apparently, this is a little-known fact.
yep, and the EITC - earned income tax credit - was passed to take the place of cash payments.
When I was in college, there were many young single parents there - requirement to continue receiving assistance.
If you see people lounging around, buying all kinds of things with what you think is "welfare" money - its not - most likely from some nefarious deeds.
The US program that links work to government assistance is the earned income tax credit. It works rather well. Some people hate it, some think it should be expanded.
Apparently you dont know the difference between food stamps and welfare.
were you by any chance receiving unemployment at the time as well? and maybe...had to do work search?
I am very much aware of the difference. The work search requirement of UE has nothing to do with the foodstamp program. I could continue UE for the full term as long as I documented a work search regardless of the results. Once I get a job and receive a paycheck, my UE would be reduced by an amount equivelent to the paycheck until my UE payment ceased. My UE benefits can continue as long as I submit my work search, but payments would not occur as long as I have sufficient income from work.
Foodstamps are a welfare program designed to ensure persons below poverty level have access to basic food. This is accomplished by providing vouchers to the participant to exchange for food in a retail environment. This has since transformed to a debit card, supposedly to reduce the stigma of welfare on the recipient. I would be eligible for foodstamps even without a work search, as the foodstamp program is administered by a different agency as the UE office and have no crosschecks in their programs. I would still be required to report any income to the foodstamp program, work related or not, and that income would reduce my foodstamp benefit. I would still receive my full foodstamp benefit if I had 2000 work search entries a week and did not receive any financial contributions to my family during that period.
Your apparent distinction between welfare and foodstamps is probably the distinction of a cash payment versus a food voucher. I contend that welfare is a charitable benefit regardless of the form of the distribution. Both foodstamps and cash subsistence are welfare programs.
' “There are between 300,000 and 500,000 people who are able to work, but their socialization to work is very weak,” said Lajos Kosa, the executive vice president of Mr. Orban’s governing Fidesz party. “They need to be led back to the world of employment, but they are lacking fundamental skills.” '
"Those fundamental skills include showing up for work on time or finishing an assigned task, he said."
That's what we need here. Too many people are languishing, unfulfilled, with no purpose in life. Well-intentioned or not, welfare programs keep them there. We should follow Hungary's lead. Not job training, no learning new skills, but picking up a tool and using it. Eight hours work for eight hours pay. Everyday, not just when you feel like it. Idle hands are the devil's workshop. We see it everyday.
Give people a chance to earn money and they'll earn respect. Then they can get on with their lives.
That's what we had here in the U.S.A. until some Right Wing Political Types shut it down it was called the WPA.
Rzzzz, it's not a communist employment program. Fidesz is anything but communist. It's nationalist and conservative. Mussolini would feel more at home in it than Lenin ever would. No Internationale here!
Howest2008, I don't know much about the WPA except that it was one of the New Deal programs to put people back to work during the Great Depression. Maybe it was intended to be permanent, maybe not. But it originated in response to a great economic collapse of 1929 that resulted in 25% unemployment. Hungary's program is not like that. It tries to put to work people who are chronically and maybe generationally not working, mostly not because the economy went in the tank but because they can't get onboard for one reason or another. As such, it is part of the permanent welfare landscape. Replacing much of it, it is hoped.
I hope what kind of party or system thought of a policy doesn't matter more than if the policy is good or bad. Genocide is bad whether done by Nazis or Communists. Social employment could be good whether done by Republicans or Democrats.
Just look at Hungary's human trafficking rate. That should tell you everything.
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Does WPA Ring A Bell (?)
