The US should, in theory, be a meritocracy. As a culture, want to have it so that people will sink or swim on their own. The benefit is that if some elite is useless, she will be kicked to the curb, and someone who was born into poverty that will do a better job will be hired. That’s a positive because it ensures that the best person available for the job will have it, which is the most efficient allocation of skill. The ideal of a meritocracy is fluidity, where people are able to flow to where the market needs them.
Welfare, as it is, does little to make the US more of a meritocracy. Helping people feed their families may help someone, but it doesn’t do enough to help people to move out of poverty, to better themselves, etc. Throwing money at people doesn’t strike me as efficient if you only want that money to be spent on improving the social status. Currently, wellfare does not improve fluidity, or at least not as much as it could.
A better use of public funds would be to provide services, rather than handouts (teach to fish vs. give a fish). The state should provide classes and counselling, all sorts of necessary education. If welfare is given to the jobless, those jobless should be required to attend classes on interviewing and resume building, on investing, and be taught useful skills to improve their prospects in the job market, and to increase their productivity in society.
Initially, this looks like an expensive undertaking, but ideally it would present a net reduction of costs. By training those on welfare, and providing programs and counselling to enable people to improve their lives, they will be less dependent on handouts. They will be able to support themselves sooner.
Clearly, this idea represents a socialist state and involves much government interference. However, I think that in the long run it benefits the individual, both the poor and the rich, because it improves the productivity of the nation, and it (again, ideally) decreases the overall welfare spending.
Thoughts?
1.) Many of the states already implement some of the programs that you have mentioned.
2.) In most states, to obtain welfare and keep it, one must be at least applying for jobs and documenting proof that they have so done.
- In a way, that’s actually a problem because the proof is the prospective employer signing something and knowing why they are signing it. It tells the employer ahead of time that the person is in economic despair, and at the present time, jobless, thus, an employer may be less likely to hire that person.
3.) Have you considered the possibility that some nations (particularly the U.S.) may not want their citizens to be more productive on the whole because that may go against the governmental agenda?
- Consider this, the more productive (knowledgeable) people are on the whole, the more likely they are to become dissatisfied with mundane jobs that require no skill. Thus, people will be constantly looking to go up the food chain. The reason that this may be a problem for the U.S., is because the minimum wage would be constantly increasing, (as the majority of the laborers had at least an equivalent of an Associate’s, or maybe even a Bachelor’s degree) that would undermine the national intention which as a capitalist country requires a division of the skilled and unskilled, the rich and the poor. (In terms of money and skill)
Furthermore, the rich would become poorer. The new players in the game who have been trained to be more skilled would be dissatisfied with having more knowledge, yet still working for the same wages, thus, more unions would be formed and salaries would go up etc.
4.) College is unaffordable to most people by design. It has to be something that not everyone has access to, only the exceptionally talented of the very poor have the means to even go to college, via scholarships. The reason for that is that the nation likes to continue a circular cycle where the majority of the children of the poor will remain poor, the same can be said for the children of the rich.
Paris Hilton is an excellent case and point regarding that matter. Imagine if she was born an impoverished daughter of an immigrant living in Brooklyn, how would she be doing now?
I think that, if the US is implementing policy to maintain the social schism, it is at the very least short sighted. The problem of not having people willing to do the lowest-level work is not a big one. There will always be teenagers and those who mentally cannot get beyond a certain level. Besides that, if I wanted to reveal myself to be a real radical, I would advocate B.F. Skinner’s solution, which was to require all members of the society to perform some form low level labor for some portion of their time.
Unfortunately, you’re right that the rich would get poorer. It’s not unfortunate because it’s unfair to the rich, but it’s unfortunate because the rich largely control public opinion and special interests, so implementing a policy that makes them less rich and less powerful is not likely to make it very far.
How is your plan different than the status quo? The welfare reform act of 1996 is still largely in effect. Under the law, no person could receive welfare payments for more than five years, consecutive or nonconsecutive. The act transferred welfare to a block grant system. Some states simply kept the federal rules, but others used the money for non-welfare programs, such as subsidized child care to allow parents to work or subsidized public transportation to allow people to travel to work without owning cars. States provide training and counseling to various degrees. There used to be more in the ’60 and ’70 but vocational training and counseling have come under fire for being expensive and ineffective. Most people have been satisfied to see people who are knocked off the welfare rolls doing menial work in low paying jobs for which little training required.
Skinner’s solution is not logical because it prohibits people in necessary professions pertaining to human welfare, (i.e. doctors) to waste some of their time performing a menial task.
The bottom line is, some countries have it better than we do, while most have it worse, that’s exactly why we wish to repeat the socio-economical pattern that we have been following because it is (at worst) a proven formula for some degree at success and, (at best) a pretty good formula to ensure the well-being of the majority.
The only major change America is currently undergoing is the movement from a secondary (industrial) to a tertiary (people-oriented jobs) society. This is a downside because there are less steel mills paying $13/hour and more Wal-Marts paying $8/hour employing people that twenty, thirty years ago would have went to the steel mills.
Of course, this is also beneficial to the rich. The ultimate economical goal of this nation is to make sure that the average citizen has just enough to survive, but has to work hard and long to do so. The reason for that is, it causes the average citizen to ignore what’s going on below the surface and not have the time to organize in order to make change come about.
People seem content because they understand that the average American is making more than they did twenty years ago, of course, it takes an economist to understand the exact role of inflation, cost of living, real estate etc. It’s for that reason that the Americans don’t realize that the average standard of living is actually worse than it was. Of course, when the Wal-Martization of society is complete, nobody will remember what it was like when the middle class was actually the true middle class not encompassing only the 70th percentile echelon.
The problem in the US is that the republican party is totally against any sort of social welfare programs unless they are for already rich people.
As a result whuile they grudgingly approve basic welfare spending they are vehemently opposed to any program that would actually lift poor people out of poverty. So as soon as they gain any sort of power to do so , they scuttle every program, wether it works or not.
Social Welfare systems create more poor people in the long run. They are simply economically ignorant systems. One might call someone who believes in the socialistic non-sense an economic creationist.
Oh, but the silly herd will continue to believe that it’s in their and their children’s benefit.
=D>
Just my two cents.
Most of the posters have covered the basics, but a few are a bit off.
First, if the grades are 3.3 or high, most students are eligible for federal Pell grants. There are numerous scholarship from many groups. Because a father or mother is affiliated with a group, that group provides a scholarship for the daughter or son.
Education is not out of reach. However, high school students entering university must take remedial classes. Sad, but true. Perhaps, it should be required that high school students enter a community college, before university, as high school grades are not an indicator of university success.
Welfare in the form of cash, food stamps, Medicare is available to students and those unemployed or living in poverty. It depends upon the family finances. Currently, welfare recipients must work or perform community service in order to receive benefits. The problem is, that every five years, mom pops out another burden to the taxpayer, to avoid employment or community service.
Hum, if government passes a law stating “Citizen X is eligible for Y benefits, and no more, regardless of the increase in family size” there will be a huge protest regarding Civil Rights Violation.
What about the taxpayers’ rights???
Carleas, what you propose, the cream will rise to the top, follows Alexander the Great’s thinking. The problem occurs when the cow is starving or sick, and cannot feed the calf? How can the potentially brilliant child become the best, creatively think and be productive, if starved during the formative years?
Felix, I think my proposal is just to increase the about of service welfare that is offered. There are programs that meet that description already. I want more of them.
Pavlovian, Skinner’s solution is to a problem: That there aren’t enough low-level workers because everyone is better educated. In such a system, the time taken from any individual would be compensated for by the wealth of other individuals in their field.
Unrealist, I think the problem is bigger than any one party. Sure, the Democrats are in favor of universal healthcare, but as a society we seem reluctant to socialize. As Pavlovian hints, the US is run by the rich, and social welfare favors the poor.
Nothingness, I don’t think that’s empircally justified. There are a number of more socialized countries with better average standards of living and fewer poor. Please expound your statements.
Aspacia, the potentially brilliant child needs services when the parent can’t provide them. That’s what I’m saying.
If you think of welfare in terms not just of checks for people who have ten babies with no dads, and instead in terms of student loans and grants then under those circumstances I could see how someone could become upwardly mobile in society in spite of economic struggles. That may be a totally different subject though.
I can see that this debate is for Americans, all I will say is move to Ireland, or do as we do.
We are in the early stages of a progressive welfare state. Education is free(kinda, some irish people will debate it), Healthcare is free. GB is at it longer than us but they screwed up their educational system in the 60’s and their Healthcare infrastructure is highly arbitrary to the point where there are four times as many IT and information people than doctors in cancer wards! Ireland will obviously hope to learn to avoid this but at this stage we are the second richest country in Europe per GDP. Can’t be too unhealthy…unless you contract cancer 
.
Just reread you post, and you did not say this.
Our society does provide tax paid education to create a skilled, employable citizenship, along with free breakfasts and lunches. You seemed to be arguing against this “handout.”
How is it a ‘handout’ when even the poorest parents have to pay into these taxes?
I was referring to Carleas’ term “handout.” The poorest parents only have to pay sales tax, most of their income tax, if they work, is rebated to them.
I support helping the poor, but favor restricting them from having more children while receiving aid.
No, see, the more kids they have the more organs they can harvest for sale on the black market and get themselves out of poverty.
You shouldn’t restrict their earning potential.
Wow, another cynic =D> =D> =D> Hilarious. Sounds like Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” tongue and cheek satire.
The number welfare recipients has decreased significantly and continues to decline.
year # rcvng welfare U.S. pop.
1993 14,142,710 258,137,000 5.5%
1994 14,225,591 260,372,000 5.5%
1995 13,652,232 263,034,000 5.2%
1996 12,648,859 265,284,000 4.8%
1997 10,936,298 267,636,000 4.1%
1998 8,770,376 270,029,000 3.2%
1999 7,202,639 272,690,813 2.6%
2000 5,780,543 275,130,000 2.1%
Source: HHS Administration for Children and Families.
Despite the growing population, the government is generally helping less people all the time whether they have children or not.
Great stats kid 
The government is forcing welfare recipients to get off their asses and go to work or some type of career training. I have had welfare moms complain about having to work full-time, and they have 4 children, and are trying to obtain an education. Okay, where’s Dad?? Oh, he left for another woman. Okay, why didn’t you obtain a skill in high school. Oh, I didn’t graduate. Why? Well, hem haw, I had two babies at home.
Understand. The days of a man will support the family are long gone, actually they never really were in place. Too many women still believe this shit.
This student will never graduate, until after her children have moved from the home.
Using my example, speaking outside of the realms of personal wealth, it would be a temporary increase to the patients/doctors ratio, which is almost never a good thing.
Secondly, it is best for people to always be making some sort of headway in terms of attaining their fullest professional potential, Skinner’s, “solution,” is a hinderance to that, at best. The reason I say that is, there is going to be a serious public outcry when people that have the talent and intelligence for higher things are forced into menial jobs that are well below their intellectual thresholds, simply stated, people will not stand for it.
There have also been studies to the effect that somebody that takes a year off after high school (still planning to go to college) has a lower percentage graduation rate, and less of a percentage rate of going to college at all, than a typical person that goes to college (or doesn’t) right after high school.
Long story short, the solution (in the grand scheme of things) doesn’t really bode well for anyone.
My cynicism isn’t as pervasive as my love for rationality.
Some people need help, some people don’t.
Some people are in a position to help, some aren’t.