Hunger in the US is overhyped when compared with the US 100 years ago, or with poor countries today, but yeah, there's still a problem here, and you nail it. Two obvious facts that neither party wants to face: When you look at the neediest 5%, and especially the neediest 1%, you realize that a large fraction are psychotic or intellectually disabled. Expecting either category to fill out some complicated form is ridiculous. I once took a schizophrenic family friend to the welfare office, and she curled up on the floor and started to cry as the case officer asked her whether she owned any stock or bonds.
Those of us who don't rely on the government for food assistance hate it when large entities burden us with complicated paperwork requirements (IRS, DMV, insurance companies) and come to hate the entities themselves. This change will also make poor people dislike and distrust the federal government more, which is win-win from a Republican perspective.
I agree with all this. It's an obvious truism that "Increased paperwork can undermine and even reverse all those good intentions." But note how the perspective changes. Conservatives are acutely sensitive to this dynamic for businesses, but are oblivious to it (or worse) for poor folks. Left-progressives do just the opposite.
I think the point is that they are entirely sensitive to it with regard to poor people and social programs--cutting the rolls is the entire point of the new requirements! There is absolutely no goal to improve efficiency or fairness, conservatives just don't believe these (social welfare, public health, health care) are appropriate governmental functions!
It's sort of like the question in criminal justice about whether it's better to convict 1 innocent man vs. let 1 or 10 or 100 guilty men go free. Conservatives believe it's better to let X number of poor people starve than to incorrectly give welfare to Y people who don't deserve it. Progressives believe the opposite. But also, not everyone agrees exactly on what X and Y are.
The Great Depression casts a long shadow in America. If we are bluntly honest, any actual hunger today is caused by personal issues (serious mental issues, addiction etc.) than by someone working a job and struggling to afford food. If someone is working a job and is hungry, they’ll fill the forms out.
How administratively difficult it is to comply with the requirements of our social safety is underreported for sure. I have an adult disabled family member and making sure he is able to stay on the programs available to him, which are what let him live independently, while also allowing him to have a part time job, is a ton of work.
That said I am not sure changing what SNAP covers is exactly the same thing as the work requirements. That’s paternalism not restricting access, no?
Thanks either way for the reporting on an important subject and Merry Christmas.
It would be a worthy goal to set up a system to streamline all assistance programs across the federal, state and local levels and align recertification schedules to make it as simple as possible for people to get what they're entitled to.
Unfortunately the failed DOGE experience might have soured taste for government efficiency programs.
Do we see the problem here? In the richest country in the world, that has to import laborers and engineers to fill employment needs? One in eight is 12.5%. Below, Richard writes of the psychotic and intellectually disabled, but that can’t be more than 1% or 2%. The rest are bums. We should institutionalize the 1% or 2%, then these requirements would be effective and humane.
That’s a bizarre construct of what I posted. I think lines must be drawn. That’s how government works. That’s what govt does for income levels, age of majority, basically everything.
But what I posted was to institutionalize the 1 or 2% that require it, and leave in place the measures that are meant to ensure we are not supporting freeloaders. That does not create the situation you posited.
Do you think ANYONE should be institutionalized? Should everyone be? Aha! You drew a line, didn’t you?
10.6% of the US lives under the federal poverty line and 12.9% lives under the supplemental poverty measure, so 12.5% seems reasonable to me, assuming the program intent is to help impoverished people.
How many of those 10.6% are receiving black market income? Drug dealers? Earning cash income and not reporting it? And how many are simply determined not to work. I have two in my family. One is a 35 year old woman who has never worked a day in her life, and the other is a 39 year old man who briefly served in the Navy and is on disability for a minor problem that was pre-existing.
I wonder if there might not be some "work requiremente" that would asuage the distaset for the guy livinging his parents basement playing video games all day and getting food stamps without being a too-clerev-by-half way of preventing people from using food stamps?.
Hunger in the US is overhyped when compared with the US 100 years ago, or with poor countries today, but yeah, there's still a problem here, and you nail it. Two obvious facts that neither party wants to face: When you look at the neediest 5%, and especially the neediest 1%, you realize that a large fraction are psychotic or intellectually disabled. Expecting either category to fill out some complicated form is ridiculous. I once took a schizophrenic family friend to the welfare office, and she curled up on the floor and started to cry as the case officer asked her whether she owned any stock or bonds.
She was probably fed up with how commodities investors always get left out of these questionnaires.
so unfair!
Those of us who don't rely on the government for food assistance hate it when large entities burden us with complicated paperwork requirements (IRS, DMV, insurance companies) and come to hate the entities themselves. This change will also make poor people dislike and distrust the federal government more, which is win-win from a Republican perspective.
Merry Christmas🎄!
I agree with all this. It's an obvious truism that "Increased paperwork can undermine and even reverse all those good intentions." But note how the perspective changes. Conservatives are acutely sensitive to this dynamic for businesses, but are oblivious to it (or worse) for poor folks. Left-progressives do just the opposite.
I think the point is that they are entirely sensitive to it with regard to poor people and social programs--cutting the rolls is the entire point of the new requirements! There is absolutely no goal to improve efficiency or fairness, conservatives just don't believe these (social welfare, public health, health care) are appropriate governmental functions!
It's sort of like the question in criminal justice about whether it's better to convict 1 innocent man vs. let 1 or 10 or 100 guilty men go free. Conservatives believe it's better to let X number of poor people starve than to incorrectly give welfare to Y people who don't deserve it. Progressives believe the opposite. But also, not everyone agrees exactly on what X and Y are.
Every program has its own forms. Wasn't there a Department that could have worked on creating one form that rules them all? A DOGE?
The Great Depression casts a long shadow in America. If we are bluntly honest, any actual hunger today is caused by personal issues (serious mental issues, addiction etc.) than by someone working a job and struggling to afford food. If someone is working a job and is hungry, they’ll fill the forms out.
How administratively difficult it is to comply with the requirements of our social safety is underreported for sure. I have an adult disabled family member and making sure he is able to stay on the programs available to him, which are what let him live independently, while also allowing him to have a part time job, is a ton of work.
That said I am not sure changing what SNAP covers is exactly the same thing as the work requirements. That’s paternalism not restricting access, no?
Thanks either way for the reporting on an important subject and Merry Christmas.
It would be a worthy goal to set up a system to streamline all assistance programs across the federal, state and local levels and align recertification schedules to make it as simple as possible for people to get what they're entitled to.
Unfortunately the failed DOGE experience might have soured taste for government efficiency programs.
Whatever the level of socialist redistribution, it is never enough for socialists.
“ SNAP serves one in eight Americans.”
Do we see the problem here? In the richest country in the world, that has to import laborers and engineers to fill employment needs? One in eight is 12.5%. Below, Richard writes of the psychotic and intellectually disabled, but that can’t be more than 1% or 2%. The rest are bums. We should institutionalize the 1% or 2%, then these requirements would be effective and humane.
So your theory is that in the 2nd percentile with an IQ of 69 they should be institutionalized, but at 70 magically they are fully self sufficient?
That’s a bizarre construct of what I posted. I think lines must be drawn. That’s how government works. That’s what govt does for income levels, age of majority, basically everything.
But what I posted was to institutionalize the 1 or 2% that require it, and leave in place the measures that are meant to ensure we are not supporting freeloaders. That does not create the situation you posited.
Do you think ANYONE should be institutionalized? Should everyone be? Aha! You drew a line, didn’t you?
Many people need to be institutionalized and then there are those just over the limit and they need various levels of assistance.
10.6% of the US lives under the federal poverty line and 12.9% lives under the supplemental poverty measure, so 12.5% seems reasonable to me, assuming the program intent is to help impoverished people.
How many of those 10.6% are receiving black market income? Drug dealers? Earning cash income and not reporting it? And how many are simply determined not to work. I have two in my family. One is a 35 year old woman who has never worked a day in her life, and the other is a 39 year old man who briefly served in the Navy and is on disability for a minor problem that was pre-existing.
I wonder if there might not be some "work requiremente" that would asuage the distaset for the guy livinging his parents basement playing video games all day and getting food stamps without being a too-clerev-by-half way of preventing people from using food stamps?.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, here's my gift: a bootleg copy of the greatest Christmas sitcom episode ever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7WjB52MKrE