Originally a reply to an entry by
I think there are many better, yes, more sophisticated, ways to handle this [than his proposal, provide everyone willing to document their poverty with a check to push them past the poverty line]. One, universal medical insurance. Enough $$ to cover, oh, say insulin, needles, glycometers, etc for a poverty stricken diabetic or hiv meds for an hiv+ individual could be far more than a generally healthy poverty stricken person would need. Particularly given that those needs are in addition to the common basic needs.
Sophisticated work training programs. Training everyone to be a generic office worker is probably less than helpful. Checking out local needs and student strengths is more helpful. Uniting potential employers with potential employees is very helpful. Also support groups to provide counseling (be it debt, drug, or psychological) and the like as necessary very helpful.
Assistance in a nonfiscal form. I don’t support helping the poor to become happier on my dime. I support helping the poor because it works towards the greater good, according to my idea of what that good is. If their ideas don’t agree with my ideas, they needn’t accept the assistance. I’m breaking with the utilitarian line here.
Their happiness is not the goal. They can spend their money to accomplish that when they get a job. Government money should be used to serve public needs. In this case, reducing the externalities of homelessness. Further, getting people into jobs, off the streets, whatever, reduces the degree to which their current state reduces others’ quality of life. Their tax revenue is simply bonus on top of that.
Provide the minimum housing that will get most people off the streets. Encourage and facilitate the finding of productive employment. Provide the essentials of life and the services needed to make a meaningful life: Food, shelter, healthcare, education, counseling.
Ideally, someone would create work structured to accomplish useful tasks that can be done with relatively little education, no set schedules, and other constraints appropriate to the “unemployable”.
A final point, which is essential to this process. The support needs to be graduated in such a way that individuals receive rewards for incremental steps towards independence and productivity.
Your solution would leave no one making less than the poverty level with any incentive to continue working beyond their own job satisfaction.
I wonder if this wouldn’t be a good opportunity for a modern version of the CCC. We have millions of able, but unemployed, and a huge need for labor in building new housing and entire new towns to replace those destroyed throughout the gulf region. The CCC incorporated broad skills training throughout its programs, and gave a whole generation a purpose and self-confidence that was totally missing before the program. It wasn’t just welfare, or even “workfare”. It actually made people who had little hope into successful citizens.
Now, maybe my view of the historical success is too rose-colored, and maybe my view of the present is overly optimistic to believe that such a thing could be made to work again 70 years later. But this seems like an opportune time to try. And as you point out, a whole lot better than just handing over money.
I have to agree with you here. The CCC put up a lot of public works that we’re still using today, but which could use renovation or replacement due to constant use with not quite enough budgetted for maintenance. As lots of people have pointed out, politicians know that they’ll get attention if they’re the ones responsible for some new project, but there’s no press in being the person behind the bill for millions for street & sewer repairs.
At times I have favored universal medical insurance, it would depend on the implementation. To the extent you provide public goods and services universally you aren’t setting up an anti-poverty program. Poverty is certainly less difficult when the government provides a wealth of public goods and services to all.
Plus, any program other than a cash grant minimum income program like mine isn’t really designed to alleviate poverty, but to alleviate some other human problem. If people have enough cash to meet their basic needs (nutrition, water, shelter), they aren’t poor.
If they have enough cash to meet their basic needs, but fail to spend that cash on their basic needs, then they’ve got a different kind of problem. Not poverty, but stupidity, insanity, severe disability, addiction, etc. A lot of the people we consider chronically “poor” are probably suffering from some other underlying problem, otherwise we’d just give them the cash they need and they’d buy what they need, right?
So, point out where you disagree with me on the following statement: you’re proposing that we put a bandaid over the obvious problem that other people are suffering without examining the root causes, sign off on it, and say our job is done, regardless of how the solution performs.
And you’re telling me this isn’t a true Swiftian modest proposal? I honestly do not believe you. =)
I used to work for the poverty-industrial complex (legal aid) so I’ve become weirdly cynical about it all.
To qualify for our services, people had to meet strict federal poverty guidelines. There was a cliff effect, if people made $1 more than the guidelines, no services. But the value of our services to a client would cost $hundreds/hour on the open market. Create enough services like this, and people who somehow manage to remain below the official poverty line get a lot of help from the government that non-poor working-class people could never afford. It’s weird. And it’s one of the reasons the working poor vote Republican. They think the poverty-industrial complex is patently unfair.
The main reason I propose this cash handout is to get people to think about what the anti-poverty programs are really supposed to accomplish. I don’t think my program is realistic. But if we did implement my program, I don’t think the problems we associate with poverty would disappear. At all. They might even get worse.
Mainly, I wish these need-based programs were aimed at the underlying needs they ought to alleviate, with eligibility criteria that make sense. If the problem is addiction, provide addiction counseling to anybody who is addicted. If the problem is mental illness, provide mental health treatment to anybody who is mentally ill. If you don’t have enough slots, create waiting lists or lotteries so that working class and middle class people have a chance to benefit. Just because I’m middle class doesn’t mean I can afford expensive legal services when my landlord tries to evict me without proper notice or my husband serves me with divorce papers.