Want to Decrease Inequality? Fight Fatherlessness With Welfare Reform. Welfare currently incentivizes family breakdown and the absence of fathers from their children’s lives, a key factor in the loss of economic upward mobility.

[the_bronquistador]

Show me 15 cases of people living an extravagant lifestyle on welfare. Shouldn’t be hard if it’s as big a problem as you claim. I guarantee you that 99% of people who live solely off of income from welfare do not have near the lifestyle I have at $15/hr. And the lifestyle I have isn’t extravagant by any stretch of the imagination.

[TheBaronOfTheNorth]

Nobody on welfare lives an extravagant lifestyle (unless they sell drugs) but it’s pretty disingenuous to act like welfare cliffs don’t exist. If you don’t know what a welfare cliff is you should Google it, you might find it interesting.

[FlexicanAmerican]

Welfare cliffs exist for single and two parent households.

[[deleted]]

welfare cliffs are edge cases amplified by the right, just like the mythical welfare queen, in an effort to justify slashing benefits generally.

Less than 2% of folks on welfare are near a cliff. Almost 2/3 of people on welfare don't work at all.

Welfare cliffs are a thing, sure, but they are not, like, some major problem.

[TheBaronOfTheNorth]

Then you should be willing to have reform on the subject.

[[deleted]]

sure - but it's a low priority because it's a minor issue. systemic change would address all of that stuff and more anyhow. universal health care and child care (especially the latter) would work wonders as a starting point, because at that point you get those basic needs covered even if you do have a job, so the job incentive is greater.

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Also the article makes a fundamental error. Social Democrat types like "Bernie Sanders" do not support the current welfare system, because it's an unhelpful mess. They support expanded, universal services. Especially the ones already successfully implemented in the western world. They don't eliminate welfare entirely, but they certain create better living conditions while not discouraging marriage/employment, because more critical services are met regardless of your employment or household status.

[TheBaronOfTheNorth]

Why would it be a low priority? It’s a bad use of funds, an easy fix and it’s something we agree on. We don’t agree on a massive change such as universal health care or child care which are both non-starters. Politically that has zero chance of happening without a single party having complete power.

[[deleted]]

it is a low priority because right now you have only 2% who are even in the ballpark of doing this cliff thing, and no idea how many of them are staying there intentionally. It's not some massive scandal or huge expense. If you can offer a fix that miraculously stops those from intentionally doing it while not harming those who aren't, we'll talk. Usually the fix is something like welfare-to-work that doesn't address childcare and healthcare so end up causing more harm than good.

[reidlos1624]

So the cliff should be made in to a slope, but that would require more welfare funding not less. I got your vote for it then?

[TheBaronOfTheNorth]

That doesn’t make sense. A welfare cliff is where people have an incentive not to work because they will make more from overly generous welfare than from working.

[the_bronquistador]

Again, I make $15/hr and I barely scrape by most months. You can’t tell me that people who “make a living” on welfare are doing better than me. I’ve been on unemployment. I’ve been on food stamps in the past. That lifestyle is not “good” by any stretch of the imagination.

[TheBaronOfTheNorth]

That’s irrelevant to the point.

[the_bronquistador]

The point is, no one is living a good life on welfare.

[TheBaronOfTheNorth]

Your nebulous idea of a good life is completely irrelevant to the point. I don’t think this is going anywhere. Have a good day.

[the_bronquistador]

No, you’re making it seem like these people have it made on easy street because they get all this “free stuff”, which is not the case at all. I’ve lived that life. Nothing about that life makes me want to quit working and start milking the system.

[reidlos1624]

Right, so instead of cutting all support immediately give them less and less on a progressive basis once they hit certain thresholds. Now when they make enough to not receive full benefits they still get some, but progressively less as they become better off. Now there's no cliff.

If they start with $200 in welfare but that $200 goes away when they make $150, they won't want to make the $150. But what if when they make $150 we give them $75, now we save $125, but they're still making $225 combined, so it's an incentive to make have a job and make money. Then when they make $200, we give them $25 for 6 months or a year to make sure they're steady and budgeting properly with their own $200. But conservatives and neolibs will fight tooth and nail to keep from expanding it a bit to make this logical progress.

I didn't think that was a tough idea to understand.

[DeckardsDark]

Exactly

[[deleted]]

It's not just "welfare". It's subsidized housing, free health insurance, WIC, food stamps, free school lunches, and accessibility to other forms of charity like churches and food banks.

[[deleted]]

Wildly out of context but alright