Is what one values dependent on personal gain?

~I heard another similar catch phrase. That a man is only as loyal as his options.

Take a econ class.

We all have different value systems—the things we value the most. The character in the TV series obviously values material wealth above all else and projects that value system into the people around him. In many environments, such as cities, this can appear to be true. But there are many people with other value systems, such as those who value good character over personal wealth, those who value a balanced symbiosis in nature over what is often referred to as the spiritual—and vice versa.

I’m pretty sure Einstein didn’t value money over his yearning to understand the physical laws of the world we live in. He probably would have done it for free, to his first and second wives’ regrets—and collecting welfare in order to feed his children—which should make you question the value you place on welfare recipients in general.

I’m thinking of guys like Tesla, who basically lived in poverty most of his life, but today we find his theories quite useful. He didn’t have sponsorship for his work during a good portion of his productive life. And he died in poverty in a room at the Chelsea Hotel in NYC during one of it’s seedy stages.

Or Kafka.

Or Andy Warhol, seemingly one of the most materialistic artists of the twentieth century, would probably been starving in a loft doing art compulsively if he hadn’t become insanely popular.

There are many value systems. Not all of them have to do with what a dollar can buy.

I’m not sure if the protagonist values wealth above all. The cat example seems to suggest pleasure is the main value. Subsequently, he spoke on the negative value of a welfare recipient. Meaning, the cost of unproductive welfare recipients are not valuable to people because they don’t give pleasure like the cats do.

I agree there are many types of value systems, but your answer doesn’t directly answer my question. Based on what you wrote, I took it as any type of value system does depend on personal gain.

Personally, if I lived in the time of Tesla and he was a productive welfare recipient, I wouldn’t consider him a wastling because in a sense the welfare he receives from my tax money would actually be a form of payment for his productivity. The issue with this type of example is the rarity of it. The amount of prodigies on welfare is small and the probability is low. It’s not normal.

“The amount of prodigies on welfare is small and the probability is low. It’s not normal.”

How would you know that? How do you know what people do privately in their own habitats? And even if you knew, are you the arbiter of what is valuable and what is not?

Tesla, throughout his life, except by a very few, was considered idiosyncratic or a fraud at best, insane at worst. In the press, he was a joke. His claim to wirelessly transport electricity was confirmation that he was a wackjob until recently. You probably would not have known him personally and only known him through the press, so you probably would have shared these opinions like most scientists and the general public.

Everyone has ups and downs. I would like to believe that few people are on welfare for life. We don’t give up on people when they have a rough patch. If we did then it would be like a hospital pulling the plug on people with minor injuries . I was nuts out of my gourd in 1999/2000 in university, and years later given time to recover I have permission to work part time to start. I would like to believe that my half decade on Fluther has helped someone somehow.

@Espiritus_Corvus

How would you know that?

You answered it for me. A person is valued because of his productivity and we only have access to his productivity because he made it public. The public doesn’t value what the public doesn’t know or as you mentioned, doesn’t understand. A closet prodigy on welfare is therefore a wastling until he grants access to the public or until the public comprehends it.

are you the arbiter of what is valuable and what is not?

You answered this too. We’re all arbiters. We all have our own value systems. My concern is whether all value systems are always dependent on personal gain, as the protagonist suggests. I can’t think of an example to show otherwise. Even in the case of a wastling, while I don’t value welfare recipients because I have nothing to gain from them, there are those who do see value in wastlings. For example, charitable people get pleasure from their contributions to wastlings.

In my opinion, the protagonist is saying what gives you the most pleasure is also the greater tragedy when that pleasure ceases. A hierarchy of pleasure. It’s like the death of my pet in comparison to the end of Google. Google’s end would be much more tragic because it offered greater pleasure.

I think you should take a while to ponder the implications of that quote in your first paragraph. To begin with, just which of the 2 individuals in that comparison do you think mosquitoes t likely redponsible for THAT little essay on relative value. Do you think the “deadbeat on welfare” an accurate description of the average welfare recipient? Did you ever ask yourself “just why might it be essential to devote great effort toward vilification of the poor?” Just which class stands to gain from a mindset of contempt toward the ” undeserving” poor? Do you actually believe the rich are rich merely because “they deserve it”?

@stanleybmanly Yes, I think a deadbeat on welfare is an accurate description because 67% of welfare recipients aren’t productive. Only 33% work. link

It isn’t vilification. In order to understand the value of something, you need to understand its counterpart.

The rarity of crony capitalism does not negate normal capitalism. Yes, most rich people deserve their fortune. Even those that inherit money deserve it because it takes work to maintain money.

38% of the homeless in Pinellas County, Florida work full time jobs. The stats don’t tell the whole story, though.

Regardless, your stats above are an extremely simple minded approach to an extremely simple minded opinion pushed as fact. Are you so sure that if a person isn’t working that this means they aren’t productive? Don’t be so bloody sure.

A person is valued only because of his recognized productivity. Sometimes their productivity isn’t recognized until after they are long gone, like Tesla. If Einstein had never been published, or if he had stayed in Germany where all his early proofs were destroyed, his value would never have been recognized.

John Kennedy O’Toole’s multi-million seller wasn’t recognized until after years hammering away as an unpublished writer, he committed suicide while on welfare and living with his mother. Years afterward, he was published and stayed on the NYTimes best seller list for god knows how long, but today there are 1.5 million copies of The Confederacy of Dunces still selling worldwide in eighteen different languages.

What if Stewart Brand ignored the two kids building motherboards in their parents’ garages in Palo Alto, never introduced them to key figures at Stanford, never threw a little cash their way and left them to get arrested on felonies for building blue boxes that cheated Ma Bell out of long distance calls? How long before you and I would be able to communicate like this? A century, perhaps? The corporations, with all their proprietary paraphenalia, weren’t interested in getting high-speed computation to the general public. They saw no profit in it. Not even Gates saw it coming. He was only interested on software and he didn’t care who found it valuable, as long a they found his work valuable. Nobody of any importance in government, the corporate world, or the university system saw the value in expanding the internet beyond the realm of communications between DOD and a few academics. But Brand and these kids did. And Brand wouldn’t have recognized what he was seeing if he was of the mindset that these two kids were just fucking around with electronics instead of going out and finding a job.

I’m no Harry Potter fan, but I know the impact that the stories have had on two whole generations of young people and many adults—the first stories of the series written by a British welfare recipient simply trying to keep her child amused. And then there is the money and jobs generated from the industry she built around those stories. And then there are the charities she supports. Would her time have been better spent working on a factory floor all her days?

Many of the homeless, and many of welfare recipients suffer from mental illness. Something as common as OCD can keep a person from working a regular job, or even finishing higher education. But now we are learning how the very same effects of certain aspects of schizophrenia and autism make a person very valuable, especially in detailed work. People who we simply wrote off as “wastrels” only a few years ago are now being valued in the hardware and software industries.

My point is this: You nor I don’t know what great cellist is on welfare, working away with bow and rosen, pen and paper, or free software, possibly changing music forever now, or in the future when their notations are found. Or what great autistic or schizophrenic poet, scientist, writer, artist musician, who is now at this very minute portraying the beauty and ugliness we need to recognize in order to make the next step into a better world. What mentally handicapped person is now at this very minute working on ways to adapt the mentally handicapped in order that they may come with us and be productive? Until people with dyslexia were able to make the rest of us understand how to teach dyslexics, they too were written off and kept back in school and sentenced to never reaching their potentials—more wasted human resources.

We all of us represent human resources. Neither you nor I know what will be valuable in the future. You and many others like you are not aware that it is possible to reach those who you call the “wastlings” and encourage them to regain the ambitions they had early in life, then lost for one reason or another. You don’t know what is going on in their lives, you don’t know the pathologies and therefore you don’t know the importance and savings to us all of investing your tax money into recovering these people and bringing them back into society.

It is a huge mistake to discount these people simply because they do not live similar lifestyles as we do. It is extremely simplistic, expensive and unproductive.

@maxomite We need more people who remember what it is like being poor to run for government. For when one gets in power, so they can emphasise with others. Being poor helps that. Having life done to one should be a pre-requisite for leadership of a country, state or municipality or any executive position . I remember what parts of my life sucked , and I have a tendency to want to help those down on their luck because I wanted to be helped in the similar situation. Some people get sidetracked at all stages of life. Some get kneecapped at the starting block and need help to not give up. If we let the “their all bums on welfare” then we get ignorance and cruelty to others who are trying the best that they can to become self sufficient.

@Espiritus_Corvus I look at it comparatively. Productivity on the welfare side is unknown. There is a frame of reference in a historical context showing a small number of recognized prodigies that lived or died in poverty. Prodigies in general are a rarity. Most people are not special. The productive impact of most people is menial. It was always the few who evolved society. Given all this information, investing in welfare is literally the worst investment advice in history. It’s inefficient, high risk, and low reward.

In contrast, you have young, educated, self-sufficient folks out there that show promise, but lack funding. Alternatively, you have educated, self-sufficient folks with a lot of funding who have a history of productive value on a large scale. In either case, this is a much safer, efficient and rewarding investment.

Look at Palmer Luckey. He invented a virtual reality headset at 17 that showed promise, but lacked funding to really enhance it. He put up a prototype called the Oculus Rift on kickstarter (crowdfunding site) and raised 2.4million from investors. He only needed $250,000. Eventually It was acquired by Facebook for 2.3 billion.

My point is if viewed comparatively, there are clearly greater productive values out there with more certainty, which means better investments, and greater personal gain. It’s better than an unknown with a dream of potential.

As long as productivity isn’t recognized it has no value and until that happens, a welfare recipient with potential can’t be compared to a guy like Palmer Lucky who’s productive value was recognized by the public. Palmer production gives pleasure to millions of people. The welfare recipient does not. As the protagonist said, if Palmer passed away now, the world would be saddened over the tragedy. If the welfare recipient with potential passed away, no one would bat an eye.

You must realize that the TANF program is a limited and temporary program specifically for people (nearly always single women) with kids. All kids are of course “deadbeats”, and of course the women bearing the children to qualify for the paltry TANF allocations must be “deadbeats” as well. The narrative you parrot—parenting as a nonproductive characteristic directly reflects the attitude foisted on the society as justification for the ever growing allocation of that society’s resources to “winners” at its apex. It is a simplistic and transparently evil strategy foisted on people who should know better, and amounts to little more than enriching those at the top through drprivations inflicted on that society’s future——its kids.

The whole point of welfare reform in 1996 was to require able-bodied adults to work if they want welfare. This is TANF, previously called AFDC. It isn’t much of a reform if only 33% are working. Do you know why there was a reform? It’s because welfare was promoting dependency on the government and encouraged behaviors detrimental to escaping from poverty.

Do you know that poor people reproduce at 3x the rate than any other class? What does is say about a person who reproduces children when she can’t take care of herself? Raising a myriad of children at the expense of the public. This isn’t a societal benefit. Apparently, TANF to you means a public daycare where parents are free to reproduce at will and be full-time parents on the public payroll. If anyone is being evil here, it’s the irresponsible parents. This isn’t an investment. It’s an epidemic.

I think it makes more sense to invest in people who show promise and are self-sufficient instead of dependent unknowns. An even safer play is to invest in people who already have a history of productive value. It’s why people continue to invest in Google, Apple, or a guy like Elon Musk.

Then this theory would also mean that children and the aged that have little or no productivity are less than and not worthy of care and respect. I have been on both sides of every fence there is now at almost age 60, and I can assure you that the most productive years of my life had nothing to do with earning money. Raising my child, volunteering for various community organizations, rescuing animals and wild life, being a steward of nature on my rural properties. All productive and valuable efforts, none of which earned me a thin dime but made me wealthy in spirit and were of benefit to many others of all species, humans and non-humans.

Many spiritual philosophies put the emphasis on our being not our doings. Money has nothing to do with how productive one is. I agree that there is abuse of the system but to say that every welfare recipient is of no value is quite arrogant and smacks of an elitist attitude. I agree, too many children are born to those that have few or little means of supporting them or being good parents but again, you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, it’s not a perfect world, nor has it ever been , and it will never be.

Every culture and society has it’s share of indigent and always has.
Also, lets not forget that life is unpredictable and even the most productive people can fall from grace. The recession is a good example of that, and I am one that was financially devastated between 2010— 2013, losing my work, unable to find new, sustainable, employment, plowed through my life savings and lost it all, culminating in having to file a bankruptcy at the tender age of 56 after decades of solvency and prosperity. There are also a shit ton of seniors out there that were destroyed in the recession and are now going into their later middle age and old age without a pot to piss in.

Do you suggest we start culling seniors that have ended up poverty stricken in their older age as well? Poverty has many faces and not every face is the face of the few that are abusing the government. I may be poor these days but I am still quite productive and ones value is not dependent on the size of their bank account. Money buys freedom and things but it doesn’t buy character. Something you either have or you don’t and if you don’t it is doubtful you ever will.

Coloma makes a valid point. The problem with the @maxomite take on abandoning women who won’t (or can’t) work lies in the unspoken yet unavoidable reality around throwing away all of those supposedly surplus kids destined as a result to clog future prisons and emergency rooms at expenses exceeding the costs required to enable a reasonable outcome from some semblance of a decent life. Make no mistake. Those throwaway “deadbeat” people are not the creation of a “luxury” welfare system, but rather the NECESSARY and unavoidable consequence when the accelerating accumulation of wealth by a tiny percentage of individuals is ONLY possible through advancing the impoverishment of the society overall. As your explanation indicates, great exertions are underway on the part of those fattening up toward distinguishing the worthy rich from the undeserving poor, lest those being suckered catch on to the truth. The fiction must be maintained that the 2,facts of the few waxing fat as the rest slide toward destitution are totally unrelated. When in fact the former is not possible minus the achievement of the latter.

@stanleybmanly Exactly, well said.

@maxomite I’ll add as well, your comment about “women” having children they cannot support is rather sexist. One does not become a mother without a father and deadbeat dads are a huge, mitigating factor for many women struggling to raise a child without the financial and/or physical support of a partner. Men abandoning their parenting responsibilities is a major contribution to women and children living in poverty. Nothing new abut this, males have run off and abandoned their children throughout history.

Am I the only one here who thinks that humans have intrinsic worth apart from their contributions to society?

THAT is EXACTLY what this discussion is about. There are forces a foot which recognize the necessity of declaring some of us unworthy of consideration if the rich are to continue rolling up ever more of the country’s wealth. THIS is what the wrangling over health care is REALLY all about. And this is the bottom line of @maxomite ‘s argument.

@Coloma Isn’t that what I wrote? I wrote I think value is the scarcity and efficiency of one’s productivity in meeting the public’s needs and desires. The money earned is corollary. Money doesn’t even have to be corollary. I mentioned charity earlier on in the conversation. If the protagonist or I don’t value welfare recipients, it doesn’t mean others don’t either. You do/did. Mother Theresa would too. In your case, your value is determined by your productive impact, i.e. your child, and those you helped. I don’t know you. You didn’t impact my life. I have nothing to gain from you. Comparatively, you’re not valuable to me. Respect for one does not mean disrespecting others.

@stanleybmanly I can’t say I agree with you. Rich people are not in that class at the expense of everyone else. Just the opposite. Rich people are in that status because they increase everyone’s quality-of-life and standards-of-living. Like I said, the rare instances of crony capitalism and systemic issues does not negate normality.

@Coloma You taking it too personally. It was just an example. I agree with you. Runaway fathers are part of the problem. Single-parenthood is a big issue. I don’t care because nothing can be done about it. There is always going to be a portion of society that aren’t responsible human beings.

I certainly don’t think humans have intrinsic value.

@maxomite No, not personal, just responding to your words, call it semantics if you so desire. Okay, well then, you’ve won your own argument sooo, now what? LOL

Now I need to binge watch another show.

Just for the record, I too, do not believe humans have intrinsic value either. I believe we all manifested like every other life form, by luck of the DNA draw, that we could all have, just as easily, evolved as a Seagull or a Tortoise or a Hedgehog.
What I DO believe though, is that ALL existing organisms have a right to live a decent quality of life regardless of the form they evolved into. Arguing that poor people have less of a right to exist is like arguing that a Lion has less of a right to exist than an elephant.

@maxomite but it is normality itself which has shifted. Capitalism is about exploitation, plain and simple. In the past, this country was defined by the fact that the rich could indeed prosper, but the standard of living for the overall society was on the rise. This is CLEARLY no longer the case and the rich are currently accumulating wealth at the direct and demonstrable expense of the society overall. The current situation amounts to a society where profits are privatized and expenses are passed to taxpayers. The result is a transfer of wealth from both individuals and the public assets to folks at the top. This trend is not only continuing , but accelerating, and the only possible way for this to continue is if those being robbed can be convinced that both they and the rich are getting what they deserve. Thus in the face of obscene accumulations of wealth we are told that we cannot afford such things as public services. Your position of supposedly defective people on the dole fits in neatly with the requirement that people accept their fate as somehow the irresistible force of inevitability. I am rich and you are broke and without opportunity because I am deserving and you are defective. That’s the myth. The truth is I am rich, because the resources required to grant you a stable footing are steered from you and directed into my pocket. THAT is the current reality.

@Coloma I don’t think anyone ever made that kind of argument here. It’s why I said respecting one does not mean disrespect of the other. Valuing one individual over another does not mean you deny the other’s right to exist. The belief that everyone has a right to live a decent life falls under the same line of thought as humans having intrinsic value. I’m confused as to to how you have different views for similar lines.

I’m not sure if it was intentional, but you’re making a huge leap by equating lack of investment for the poor with denial of a decent life. It’s like blaming a passerby who witnessed someone’s misfortune. If someone screws up, you don’t blame the person who isn’t helping mitigate the problem. You blame the person who screwed up.

@maxomite You claim that it is best to only “invest” in promising humans and not “dependent unknowns”. That is impossible as you cannot possibly invest in some without automatically, by default, disrespect and diminish others. What about all of these potential others that just need a leg up to become “investment” material? I agree with @Espiritus_Corvus and @stanleybmanly on all counts. More than 50 shades of gray here. Many poor people are byproducts of their culture, economy and environment and are poor through fault of their own.

@stanleybmanly No, capitalism isn’t about exploitation. Capitalism is an economic system in which trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. It means people produce goods and sell it to each other with the things they already own. Participation is optional.

Disproportionate profits are not exploitative The relationship between you and your employer is voluntary. You agree to sell your productivity and they agree to buy it at a certain rate. If the terms are met and conditions adhered to, the claim of unfair treatment is asinine.

The choice between productivity and leisure rests on greater personal gain. If employees chooses to work it’s because they receive a gain that didn’t exist before. If the employee didn’t believe his pay was worth his productivity, he wouldn’t work. The gain was only made possible due to to the coordination of capital and leadership (the entrepreneur).

Someone having no choice in where they work or little bargaining over wages is by no means exploitative. It’s the opposite. People don’t work to be worse off. Capitalism improves the lives of the poor low-skilled employees by offering them opportunities that simply didn’t exist before. Sweatshops made the U.S an economic powerhouse and has done the same for China and India. Sweatshops are a welcomed in the countries they’re situated. $3 an hour is a considerable improvement over $0. What critics don’t understand, mainly because they’re nowhere near the places they criticize, is that what they had to do for survival prior to sweatshops was far worse.

Contrary to your opinion, the standard-of-living and quality-of-life has greatly improved for everyone in the country. Poverty is always a small fraction of society. It doesn’t change. The percentages hover between 10–15%. It doesn’t matter what you do to curb it. It’s not going away and it certainly isn’t an issue. It’s only an issue when that number creeps its way to half or greater than.

@Coloma I can’t disrespect someone by not investing in them. If that’s disrespect, I would have to invest in every quack who thinks they’re something special. I can’t diminish people who already diminished themselves. It’s like throwing dirt on dirt. I didn’t cause their misfortune. How can I be liable if i don’t fix their misfortune?

Welfare has been around for 80 years. The war on poverty started in the 1960s. The goal was to give them a leg up. The rate of poverty since the war has moved between 10–15%. It’s 2017, 57 years later. The poverty rate is the same. This is literally one of the worst investments in history. I’m not even talking about prodigies here. At a minimum, I’m talking about getting people to be productive without being on the government dole.

@maxomite So what was your motive in asking this question if your only objective was to prove yourself right while conveniently dismissing and refusing to acknowledge others thoughtful, reasonable and rational replies? Looks like you could have just not asked a question that you clearly didn’t want a discussion about, because, you know, “discussion” means others are free to chime in with their thoughts and opinions. What you really wanted here was a debate and the only objective was to win, a point, counter point game, not to engage in conversation or give credit to anyone elses sentiments.
Alrighty then, you have successfully won your own staged debate so, here ya go, a big wreath of roses for you in the winners circle, though you can’t call a one horse race much of race any more than you can call a one sided discussion a discussion. haha

What exactly did I write that gave you the impression your opinion was dismissed or not acknowledged? You chimed in and I responded with my own opinion. I’m not sure why you think disagreement is a form of dismissal.

@maxomite I do not. I am just noting that there are many truths and perspectives of merit and there is no right.wrong, one size fits all, when it comes to a topic such as this which is loaded with multiple factors. I think everyones answers here share the burden of truth.
Welcome to Fluther, we’re a good group I hope you enjoy your time here.

@maxomite , The largest segment of those on welfare is the working poor. They put in their time, but can’t make enough to support themselves. Why not replace welfare with a universal basic income? Everyone is entitled to a minimum level of support, if the country can support it, which it definitely can.

@LostInParadise Good point, I think @Espiritus_Corvus mentioned that as well, that a good percentage of homeless have full time jobs but nobody can live on a min. wage income. Simple math.

@LostInParadise Only 33% of welfare recipients work. 67% don’t. link

Either way, one of the issues with basic income is that it causes inflation. If you just give people a bunch of money and tell them to spend it, then prices are going to rise accordingly because everyone is just going to adjust for the fact that everybody has more money to spend.

Here is a link for the other basic income issues that are beyond the scope of this platform.link

For starters, it would be best to focus on the cause instead of treating symptoms. Government meddling around in the economy is the cause of why a working person can’t pull his own weight. The secondary cause is one I already mentioned – reproduction run amok. These grown adults are doing work that was designed for a high-school teenager and they expect to make $50 an hour to support a family of 7.

I noticed you have a tendency to use axioms. Everyone is entitled to minimum support humans have intrinsic value. I don’t agree with any of these axioms.

I would rather replace welfare with charity. Encourage family and community support. The Church. Non-for-profit. Return power back to the people to decide who is worthy of help and who is not?

@Coloma Thanks. Agreed.

A good percentage of welfare recipients who are not working are either children, disabled or elderly. Link 1 Link2 We obviously have different core values. I don’t believe that a person’s worth is something that can be worked out on a spreadsheet.

No, the stats are only measuring able-bodied adults who do not work. The whole point of TANF reform was to monitor this type of group. 67% not working is referring to the able-bodied. It has nothing to do with children, the disabled, or the elderly. link

Also, your sources aren’t reliable. They do not link to any credible research center or any government department.

Yes. It’s what corvus was mentioning earlier – relative value. At the core, a do not believe a person has any value just by being human.

I have problems with your conclusions, the first being that you assume that eveyone not working doesn’t want to work. Since this is particularly apt regarding those enrolled in the TANF program, it set me to wondering why you chose that particular program for posting stats to illustrate your point. I think I know now. It’s because the TANF program, pathetic though it is, survives as the last vestige of what passes for welfare. But let’s get to this business of value. Let’s get down to the reality of those “able bodied adults who don’t work”. Why not dispense with the verbiage and call them what they are, mothers of young children, the only participants allowed in the program. The values you espouse here may appear to be hard analytical truths, but they amount to little more than cynical excuses to duck the obligations required to sustain an equitable society. Since anyone without a job is without value, children must be included in the category in order that their mothers qualify as “deadbeats”. Since these mothers and their children perform no “useful” work, the state has no business supporting the mothers or the kids or the public schools for that matter. The selfish stupidity and shortsightedness in this line of thought cannot be exaggerated. It is a necessary drill in building public acceptance for the concept of throwaway people, enabling the ongoing concentration of wealth. It is an insidious and evil rejection of the common good. And it is once more a prime example of furthering the goal of privatizing profit while socializing costs. The government is obligated to us collectively regardless of the fact that those who govern amount to whores of moneyed interests. The value in our children and their mothers lies in their POTENTIAL. There is no future without them, and the potential thrown away in the name of greed is both stupid and criminal.

First of all, it’s not just TANF. I can use any welfare program. If you look at SNAP (food stamps), the results are the same. Only 20% of able-bodied adults work while receiving SNAP. link

Secondly, 40% are men.

Thirdly, I can easily prove these people don’t want to work. It’s not an assumption. Take the state of Maine as an example. Until 2014, the state waived work requirements for those receiving food stamps. I forgot to mention this detail earlier. The reason welfare collection without work exists is due to an option which allows states to waiver work requirements.

In 2014, Maine decided to put an end to the waiver. The results of this decision showed a near 80% plummet in welfare participation. In December 2014, the population of able-bodied welfare recipients in Maine was approximately 13,000 in size. By January 2015, that number dropped to 4500. Later in March 2015, that number dropped to 2,678, and by September, it had fallen to 1800. The same phenomena happened under President Clinton’s administration when he reformed the AFDC – now known as TANF. The only difference is it took more than several months to see the change.

After nearly a century of government attempts at lifting and empowering the unproductive members of society, the only thing we have to show for it is a few tales of rags to riches. How many more centuries is it going to take to realize the potential isn’t there? How long will it take to realize national policy shouldn’t be influenced by a small percentage of the population? How much more money needs to be wasted? How much higher in debt?

Attempting to teach a man how to fish doesn’t mean your attempts will be a smashing success. The potential isn’t always there to tap. The wise choice is to invest in those who actually show promise and not worry about a few lemons within the overall population.

Wait just a second. Your Maine example only proves that if you put restrictions on eligibility for food stamps, the numbers of those qualified will fall. It’s ridiculous to state that the fact Maine disqualified people proves those people don’t want to work. Your entire argument is based on the VERY flawed assumption that anyone without a job doesn’t want to work. The food stamp program is a means tested scheme to supplement the nutrition of people subsisting at poverty levels. It is an embarrassing admission on the failures of ruthless capitalism. Yet even the meager assistance granted under the SNAP program exploits people toward the goal of privatizing profits while socializing costs. The work requirement to qualify for the program not only disqualifies people in desperate need, but allows employers to pocket what should be the wages of employees with knowledge that the taxpayers will feed them.

In order to show these people don’t want to work, one would have to show job opportunity and support is available for anyone willing to work. Part of Maine’s work requirement, the state used its resources to create FSET. Job openings for lower-skill workers are abundant in Maine, and for willing workers who can’t find immediate employment, Maine offered training and community service slots.

Maine’s FSET program provides job search assistance and job search support, including job plan development, resume writing, interviewing workshops, job bank registration, coaching, and follow-up. Individuals in FSET are assigned a case manager and also receive a monthly travel reimbursement of up to $50 during the time they participate in the FSET program to help them pay for the travel costs of getting into the program. Maine also includes an educational component of its FSET program to provide additional educational training and certification for high wage and in demand jobs.

In 2014, Maine estimated that its FSET services would be able to serve up to 1,000 able-bodied adults with a long-term aim of being able to serve 6,000 (approximately half of able-bodied welfare population) in 2014. However, instead of utilizing FSET or getting a job, they surrendered food stamps. As noted, by September, the caseload dropped to 1,800, diminishing the need for a large number of FSET slots.

Maine also offers community service positions to able-bodied adults as a means to fulfill their work obligation. As noted, the hours of community service required can’t exceed the amount of an individual’s food stamp benefit divided by the higher of either the federal or state minimum wage. In Maine, 24 hours of community service per month (six hours per week) can fulfill the work requirement. However, when the Maine Department of Health and Human Services conducted outreach to about 700 of these able-bodied adults in Portland to inform them about a volunteer program that could fulfill the community service work requirement, only about 15 of the 700 contacted responded.

@maxomite In my county here in Northern CA. the largest segment of poverty stricken individuals are widowed and divorced women over age 60. Have you ever tried to find work in your 50’s and 60’s? I am 57. 5 and worked in a very lucrative interior design and home staging biz. for years. After the recession devastated my business I couldn’t even get hired cleaning a pre-school after hours for min. wage.

Do you have any idea how many middle aged and older people have not been able to find decent work for years after the recession, or are grossly underemployed?
Age discrimination is real, being either over or under qualified is real. Do you think a former interior designer looks like a good employee for cleaning a pre-school after hours?
Employers know you will move on at the first opportunity.

Employers also do not want to pay medical benefits for older workers either if you can even secure a full time position to begin with. Working 2 and 3 part time jobs has become the norm for many since the recession.
Again, there are so many facets to poverty and unemployment beyond the few that actually do not want to work. Even those with lucrative jobs are being phased out in their 40’s these days, especially in the tech industry when you can hire 2 or 3 young upstarts for the salary of one long term employee.

So many scenarios and variables that one cannot make blanket statements regarding many persons facing the challenges of poverty. I have gone from having hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank, a lovely home on a 5 acre property, exemplary credit to living in a studio apartment and filing a bankruptcy in the last 5 years and having to apply for state medical benefits as I simply, can no longer afford hundreds of dollars a month for private insurence and at almost 60 I also cannot afford to go un-insured for even a week. There are many faces to poverty, don’t glom them all together into some demeaning and demoralizing collage of deadbeats.

An underemployed worker is still a worker. An employee without a decent job is still an employee. I would never call someone like that a deadbeat.

If you look at the chart I linked to earlier, in 1997, able-bodied adults on welfare who worked was only 30%. The 1990s was a period of economic prosperity. If 70% of able-bodied adults didn’t want to work in the good times, certainly they wouldn’t want to work in the bad times. Recessions are just a convenient defensive argument to use for those who never wanted to work. Note, this isn’t to say recessions don’t cause higher rates of unemployment.

Guys and gals, isn’t the topic about value and gain? Even if a welfare recipient is productive, is his value equal to a self-sufficient employee? Obviously one who both takes and gives has less value than one who only gives. Even if an employee is self-sufficient, is his value equal to a prodigy? Clearly one who is more productive, scarce, and efficient has a greater impact on society than merely being employed.

It’s why Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire even though there are many like him in the tech industry. It’s why many use Facebook and the reason they value him – personal gain. It’s why a biochemist is more valued and makes the big $$$, while the deep fryer makes pennies. People care more about their health than they do about being served some fries. It’s why Pfizer is a billion dollar corporation and why investors greatly invest in it. The product value is rarer and better. Same reasons for famous actors, musicians, entrepreneurs, and investors. The tragedy is greater because the loss was larger due to the bigger productive impact.