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A Bit of Cash Can Keep Someone Off the Streets For 2 Years or More (sciencemag.org)
An anonymous reader writes: If someone is about to become homeless, giving them a single cash infusion, averaging about $1000, may be enough to keep them off the streets for at least 2 years. That's the conclusion of a new study, which finds that programs that proactively assist those in need don't just help the victims -- they may benefit society as a whole. "I think this is a really important study, and it's really well done," says Beth Shinn, a community psychologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville who specializes in homelessness but was not involved in the work. Homelessness isn't just bad for its sufferers -- it shortens life span and hurts kids in school -- it's a burden on everyone else. Previous studies have concluded that a single period of homelessness can cost taxpayers $20,000 or more, in the form of welfare, policing, health care, maintaining homeless shelters, and other expenses. To combat homelessness, philanthropic organizations have either tried to prevent people from losing their homes in the first place or help them regain housing after they are already destitute. But there aren't many data on whether giving cash to people on the brink of becoming homeless actually prevents them from living on the street.
I'd favor a basic income. A very basic income. Something like the following.
For citizens and permanent residents (Green Card holders).
$500/month 21+ years old
$250/month for 21 and younger
Add $200/month/person if we get rid of S.N.A.P.
Increase progressive income taxes. Institute a 10% Universal Basic Income tax on AGI on citizens and permanent residents.
Not an addition to social security payments. More like an "expanded social security", except this is below the special minimum or wharever it is called.
I estimate it would cost $1.2 trillion to do the idea above.
There was a chapter in SuperFreakonomics about the cost of homelessness to society via emergency services and law enforcement and how free housing is a cost-effective solution. It's good to see another example of their hypothesis that simply providing free services to the homeless is cheaper than the status quo.
People against this idea who say "I'm a small government conservative and I don't believe in giving people free stuff" miss the point entirely; this saves money and reduces the size of government in turn. Anyone who has moral problem with saving money by helping people is likely an Ayn Rand fan or an asshole, but probably both;)
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Pretty much everyone normal has had a phase in their life where they had unexpected expenses combined with an income shortfall and not enough assets to raise any cash (human or financial assets).
I think in many cases, especially when you're young, and if its a short-term issue we all manage to squeak by, somehow without becoming homeless or destitute. But I know I can remember a couple of occasions where it was obvious to me that if one more thing happened, I would be fucked.
The problem with bailing everyone out is that it's impossible to prevent abuse and for some people getting bailed out becomes a habit. And if you never had to worry about being bailed out, why you'd generally be less risk averse.
That being said, I'm sure there are huge payoffs to bailing people out in terms of reduced ancillary costs. But why not just cut through the moralizing and call it basic income and be done with it? It's going to be a political issue eventually, might as well deal with it on the front end rather than the back end.
There is a big, but often hard to detect difference between giving someone a handout and helping them to recover from a crisis.
It all depends on the person. Hard times can hit even the most responsible people (they need help). Other people are the definition of irresponsible, becoming parasites if enabled by others (taking handouts). There needs to be ways to determine what kind of person is requesting help, and act accordingly.
Most Americans are just a paycheck away from financial disaster, with no savings buffer. I know this is not always from poor choice, but it often is. Proper budgeting is the key: save for a rainy day.
One final thought. We often reap what we sow. Some call it Karma. If we sow wisely, helping others, and being wise with our savings, when hard times come it will go better. Such a person is both better prepared to handle a crisis, and will find that by being generous, they are more respected by friends and family, are known to be responsible and will more likely get help. I know this is not always true, every time - each persons's situation is unique, but it's good advice IMO.
My first impression upon reading the summary on /. was: "Wow! I find it hard to believe $1,000 could prevent homelessness for two years, but I want to know more." My second impression, after reading the article was: "Why did the author offer so few details? There's no link to the study and no mention of the sample size." These are red flags. And the study itself is apparently pay to view.
The study showed something much more specific than the summary mentions, and sometimes the opposite of what the headlines indicates.
Quoting the article, good outcomes were likely when :
--
giving one-time cash quantities to people on the brink of homelessness who can demonstrate that they will be able to pay rent by themselves in the future, but who have been afflicted by some nonrecurring crisis, such as a medical bill. Recipients need to be able to demonstrate consistent future income
--
Not so effective, the study found, was giving cash to people carelessly. If someone was broke last year, and the year before, and they were broke last month, they'll probably be broke again next month.
Personal experience helping ex-cons, alcoholics, and drug addicts is that *most* people will continue doing what they've been doing, and continue getting the same results. The trick is to find the ~5% who are doing something different, so they'll get different results, and help them.
1000 bucks can either buy a palace or a box under the bridge. It all depends on where you live.
Maybe I'm oversimplifying but it seems to me there are mostly 3 basic reasons why people are homeless.
1) Fundamentally stable person who had a bad life emergency situation that wasn't their fault but they were unprepared, followed by a lack of opportunity to recover (e.g. laid off or bad health issues) (would do the right thing with $1000 given the opportunity, but $1000 would not be nearly enough to make a real difference)
2) Mentally disabled (because society pushes many out on the streets instead of providing institutional care). (would blow the entire $1000 on rubber chickens and would be no better off)
3) Loser too lazy to work/too stupid to make good lifestyle choices (e.g. drug addict, alcoholic etc) (would blow the entire $1000 on a giant drugs/alcohol binge and would be back on the street begging in a few days, probably worse off because their addiction symptoms will now be worse post-binge)
The programs work by giving one-time cash quantities to people on the brink of homelessness who can demonstrate that they will be able to pay rent by themselves in the future, but who have been afflicted by some nonrecurring crisis, such as a medical bill.
I don't know how many of you have experience with being really poor, but if the rent/mortgage/light bill money is in jeopardy, the medical bill is from the County Hospital emergency room... and it goes in the circular file.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
That's about a dozen doses of meth.
So they can't round it down from $83.33? Weasels - nickle and dime you on everything ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
One can't argue with the economics, but it seems to me that the part left out is that said homeless person will take the two grand and find a place to live. Besides, say, buying alcohol or drugs.
On the other hand, if a significant enough percentage of homeless do use the money wisely, maybe the program is still an overall win.
But then, what of the people who aspire to be homeless so they can get the handout?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The programs work by giving one-time cash quantities to people on the brink of homelessness who can demonstrate that they will be able to pay rent by themselves in the future, but who have been afflicted by some nonrecurring crisis, such as a medical bill. Recipients need to be able to demonstrate consistent future income, and the amount given needs to actually cover their housing expenses for the month.
The primary difficulty (as the article mentions) is recognizing people who are about to become homeless who could be helped by this.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
giving one-time cash quantities to people on the brink of homelessness who can demonstrate that they will be able to pay rent by themselves in the future, but who have been afflicted by some nonrecurring crisis, such as a medical bill.
This is like adding money into a responsible persons emergency savings account.
Not so effective, the study found, was giving cash to people carelessly. If someone was broke last year, and the year before, and they were broke last month, they'll probably be broke again next month.
This is like giving an alcoholic a gift card to the corner liquor store.
Well, there's this study you see, it's all right there at the top of the page...
Nullius in verba
In the area where I work, there are quite a few homeless people. I've seen one guy out here for 9 years now. He isn't homeless because of some financial disaster. He is homeless because he clearly has a disease of the brain. He spends quite a lot of his time locked in combat with somebody in the sky. I don't think giving him $1,000 or $1,000,000 would keep him off the streets for long, if at all. What he really needs to get him indoors is treatment for his disease, but as is the case with many people with his type of affliction, he'll probably be back out here sooner or later.
"Homelessness" isn't always somebody without a home who wants one. It's a problem you can't just throw money at to make it go away. You can't just give all of these people jobs and consider the problem solved. It needs to be treated as a symptom of a disease, and one that usually cannot be permanently cured. Even if you could cure it, they are still human beings who deserve to have their wishes respected, and if they refuse treatment you cannot just force it upon them. Some people make the choice to live out there, because it's easier to cope with their disease this way. The next time you see a homeless person, please don't look down on them like some dirty bum pushing a stolen cart full of blankets and trash; they're probably suffering far more than you'll ever know, and it's most likely not at all their fault that they're in that state.
There has also been experiments done with lump-sum welfare and monitoring how people are after a period.
There was even a TV show in the UK that generally tends to have way too many TV shows about benefits abuse.
Basic idea is give a years worth of welfare payments all at once.
A large percentage of these people, expectedly, had a once-off celebration before starting to get to work in order to actually get a stable income going, start their own business or find a job without having to worry their asses off about trying to make it to the next payment.
The psychology behind this torture of living from wage to wage is well understood and it is horribly detrimental to said people.
It's not like paying a year at a time would mean money would be lost, you DO have checks for when people have wage-paid jobs, when they get a job, they give you the money back, problem solved.
Of course, places like the UK and America just like to punish people on welfare, instead of using it to self-regulate the job sector by preventing employers from creating jobs so shitty and underpaid that nobody does them. :Punishing Welfare doesn't work. Punishing Prisons don't work. They've never worked. They never will work.
It works very well in Nordic countries. They have the strongest job sectors, best overall health, most stable economies on the planet.
The 2008 recession barely dented most of them, but in particular Norway who probably has the best model since they have a very nice buffering system to prevent all hell breaking loose in the event of the global economy shitting itself to any significant extent.
Stop it already.
These people WANT to be in jobs, these people want to make a decent living, but society throws them under the bus for being poor and unlucky. Even someone with a decent job could make one simple mistake and end up bankrupt, homeless and down the shitter in the space of a year.
The amount of people that want to abuse welfare and be lazy all day are an extremely small minority.
Even people that abuse drugs WANT a job so they can continue their habit. Very few of them want to turn to crime.
RE: "giving one-time cash quantities to people on the brink of homelessness who can demonstrate that they will be able to pay rent by themselves in the future, but who have been afflicted by some nonrecurring crisis, such as a medical bill. Recipients need to be able to demonstrate consistent future income." Well that's quite a different scenario! And that makes sense. As usual, the article did not mention that. Seems like almost every "news" source these days tells only half the truth.
Even most die-hard Republicans are not heartless and don't really want people to starve in the street.
I doubt you'd have much of a fight in Congress if the solution to the foodstamp program's problems was to do something like provide free subsistence foodstuffs to anyone who asked where "free subsistence foodstuffs" would be a bag of rice and a bag of beans. All the daily calories met. Perhaps we enrich with some vitamins so that the RDA doses are met.
In such a program no one would ever have to go hungry; if they run out of rice and beans and are hungry, go get some more. In such a program, there's not much to abuse as there is little arbitrage value to a bag of rice or a bag of beans when anyone can get them for free. No one's going to be trading their free bag of rice for a pack of smokes.
Such a program provides the bare minimum for subsistence with respect to food, but will surely meet with howls from the liberals who will complain its not fair to poor people to have to eat only beans and rice! Poor people can't cook rice and beans without electricity or gas! Poor people should be able to buy steak, lobster, and potato chips just like everyone else!
A similar line of reasoning for housing. A dormitory situation with bunks for anyone who wants one, rice and beans included! You will be expected to contribute to basic chores needed to keep the dorms clean and functional and not commit crimes against your roommates. Imagine the outrage among the left.
I don't care where "away" is, but preferably somewhere far, far from civilization.
Baltimore, Fergusson, and Detroit it is, then!
American Culture seems to be strongly influenced by 'every man for himself'; or more subtly, your destiny is made by you and the effort you put into life. If you happen to be lazy, then suffer you.
I think there are three levels of maturity in a people and society:
1- Dependency (Child Stage)
2- Independence (Late Teen Stage). ie I can do it without anyone's help
3- Interdependence (Mature Stage) we all need to work together.
The USA seems to have gotten stuck between 2 & 3, while Europe/Canada/Australia went on to stage 3.
ie, We have strong social support systems such as good basic free medical care, good basic social security services, humane prisons with some attempt to reform.
While I as a tax payer don't like supporting lazy people, I think it is the lesser of two evils. ie having destitute people resort to crime with all the associated costs.
So I think the article is right, but culturally I don't see the USA ever changing within my lifetime.
46137
So, just the same as the Fair Tax regressive tax pushed by conservatives? I got thrown out of a Fair Tax meeting for asking what the justification was for the numbers used, and what the effect would be if the numbers were tweaked. They only wanted the groupthink members to attend so they could compliment themselves on how smart they are and how dumb everyone else is, and questions, even in the question period, weren't allowed.
Learn to love Alaska
Ya this very much seems to be a case of providing a safety net for someone who doesn't have one or who has run through theirs. I can see why that would help. Unless you are super rich, you can get hit with expenses just beyond your ability to deal with. Even if you have a few million, there are still edge cases that can happen that can deplete your resources. Of course the less you have, the easier it is to get them depleted.
Well when that happens, it can snowball real bad and you lose everything, it gets in a positive feedback loop. So some financial assistance can stop that, it can break the feedback loop. You pay off the debt, which prevents interest from accumulating, which would necessitate more debt, which leads to a unsustainable level and so on.
Makes a lot of sense to me that this would have a positive effect and be a good idea, but within the listed constraints. Just giving people money rarely helps.
I've seen both in my family. I've seen a couple family members bailed out by others when they had a crisis, and they are doing well today. I also have a family member who is ALWAYS broke ALWAYS having money problems and no amount of money will help her because she causes her own problems.
But there aren't many data ...
Having a phrase like "But there aren't many data" is like jamming a stick in the spokes of my mental bicycle - over the handlebars we go.
Perhaps someone left out "points" after "data"? Or swapped "data" for "studies"?
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
So in other words the people who didn't piss away money before won't take this windfall to explore new career opportunities as a street bum, what a shocker. Not surprised by the example being medical bills either, I know two Americans that are screwed by health problems, one with back problems and the other with heart problems. Both could have surgery and have 20+ more good years, but they've fucked themselves out of health insurance and with pre-existing conditions they're still pariahs. It'll probably cost society more in the long run but nobody wants to carry the burden today. So glad I live in a country with universal healthcare...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Lets just ship you away instead. One less holier than thou asshole douchebag to put up with.
I'm not sure how the $1000 figure breaks down in detail, but I'm sure it would apply to someone you know who is out of work and has been, say, whacked by balance billing and loses his home and savings to the hospital's collection agency. Such a person could stretch $1K over two years by bunking with someone he knows and doing odd jobs for food.
These are not the people you see on the street. Most homeless are mental cases who wander aimlessly all day in between bouts of screaming at passing traffic, and then pass out on the sidewalk for whatever sleep they can get. They would have no idea how to productively use your thousand dollars if you handed it to them in small bills.
Don't fuck up under any circumstances, whether you can control it or not, because if you do you WILL become homeless. Here is some of what to expect: You WILL be labeled a lazy bum (does not matter if you hold down a job like many homeless do) You WILL be labeled mentally ill (as if this is somebodys fault, or that al homeless are like that) You WILL be labled a drug addict (even if you never touchef the stuff. Also, drug addiction is considered a much graver sin if it is someone who is homeless) The police WILL stop, harrass, and run your name to see if you have warrants, if they find out you are homeless, or if you are showing any signs you may be homeless (dirty clothes, unkempt apperance, worn out bag or tattered clothing, carrying an excessive amount of things, to name a few.) Being seen too many times in certain areas during certain times/number of times will tip them off for sure. Expect to find it very hard to get any sleep. Hundreds of cities in the US made it flat out illegal to just sit down on a sidewalk, and parks close at night, have sprinklers that are ment to keep the homeless away. If you think you can go to a library or Starbucks to sleep, think again, as those places are patrolled by employees and sometimes police officers *who are actively looking for people sleeping* and they will wake you up and tell you you are not allowed to sleep there. Especialy if they think you are homeless You WILL be denied employment if an employer gets wind of your homeless situation. You may even be fired from any job you have now for the same reason. Most of your "friends" WILL abandon you, and tell you to never speak to them again (homelessness is seen as a MORAL failing in the United States) You WILL be wide open to physical assaults, robbery, rape (if female), and the police won't came most of the time. Not just from other homeless, or criminals, but teenagers seeking a thrill ("Bumfights" was hugely popular), and there have been quite a few cases of teens setting homeless people on fire in their sleep. You probaly be able to get any help for a very long time, as the shelters are always "full". It really sucks if you are not a vet, over 25 years old, or under 65 years old. Remember that the jaws of homelessness are always just inches from your face at all time, so don't fuck up, ok?
The trick is to find the ~5% who are doing something different, so they'll get different results, and help them.
Or in this case, we're talking about the people who will continue doing OK like previously because they were doing find until some kind of accident happened. But even otherwise if you could know (which I know isn't easy) that giving someone $1000 every year would prevent that person from being homeless, it's still a worthwhile investment even if you don't care about people's well-being.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Don't fuck up under any circumstances, whether you can control it or not, because if you do you WILL become homeless. Here is some of what to expect: You WILL be labeled a lazy bum (does not matter if you hold down a job like many homeless do) You WILL be labeled mentally ill (as if this is somebodys fault, or that al homeless are like that) You WILL be labled a drug addict (even if you never touchef the stuff. Also, drug addiction is considered a much graver sin if it is someone who is homeless) The police WILL stop, harrass, and run your name to see if you have warrants, if they find out you are homeless, or if you are showing any signs you may be homeless (dirty clothes, unkempt apperance, worn out bag or tattered clothing, carrying an excessive amount of things, to name a few.) Being seen too many times in certain areas during certain times/number of times will tip them off for sure. Expect to find it very hard to get any sleep. Hundreds of cities in the US made it flat out illegal to just sit down on a sidewalk, and parks close at night, have sprinklers that are ment to keep the homeless away. If you think you can go to a library or Starbucks to sleep, think again, as those places are patrolled by employees and sometimes police officers *who are actively looking for people sleeping* and they will wake you up and tell you you are not allowed to sleep there. Especialy if they think you are homeless You WILL be denied employment if an employer gets wind of your homeless situation. You may even be fired from any job you have now for the same reason. Most of your "friends" WILL abandon you, and tell you to never speak to them again (homelessness is seen as a MORAL failing in the United States) You WILL be wide open to physical assaults, robbery, rape (if female), and the police won't care most of the time. All of this dosen't just come from other homeless, or criminals, but teenagers seeking a thrill ("Bumfights" was hugely popular), and there have been quite a few cases of teens setting homeless people on fire in their sleep. You probaly won't be able to get any help for a very long time, as the shelters are always "full", and many are extremly dangerous and not fit for an animal. It really sucks if you are not a vet, over 25 years old, or under 65 years old. Remember that the jaws of homelessness are always just inches from your face at all time, so don't fuck up, ok?
I think we should all have a sit-down and have a reconsideration of how we do government. The main proponents of the US Constitution believed largely in government having absolute power and the people having absolute obedience. That that power was divided up among Federal, State. and Municipal governments was just one of many slick moves to give the impression that "real" concessions were being made. The limitations on federal power were fully intended by them to be ignored as well.
We need to take a good look at how resources are allocated and made fallow. The whole process of giving people resources and then immediately taking them back is very peculiar.
A cash infusion will solve a lot of cash flow issues.
This.
But why not have a program where a check is written and sent to the landlord? Or an EBT card in the person's name is loaded to cover food, medicine, etc? Bad cash flow because some externality cut into a person's budget is one thing. But if it's due to poor management skills, $1000 might go to that new shiny iPhone. Or booze. Worse yet, if someone has a collection agency on their ass for that new big screen TV set and they know there's a $1000 handout program, they'll just coerce the people into paying their load first. Instead of just picking up the TV that they couldn't afford. An assistance system that makes direct payments to keep people housed and fed will relieve them of these pressures. 'Gee, I'd like to make that payment. But the money went straight to the landlord.'
Have gnu, will travel.
The idea that someone on the edge just needs a little money to get by is the concept behind Modest Needs, a charity where people can explain what small financial difficulty they have run into, and people opt to fund it... it's a little like Kickstarter in that they only get the money if people donate the money they are asking for within a certain amount of time.
It's great because you can help a little of people with not much money, and you also get to decide who to help directly if you want (you can also have them auto-allocate funds if you prefer not to think about it). Doing the allocation manually is great though as you can help put some people over the edge to reach the donation goal that might not otherwise have made it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The problem is that government is absolutely the worst group to be distributing money like this. There is no oversight so any such government agency would be rife with fraud. You would end up helping almost no-one at the cost of millions of dollars, money the taxpayers could have kept and more carefully spent themselves helping the poor.
There is a charity called Modest Needs for exactly this kind of purpose (I did a more detailed post elsewhere in the thread). Rather than wishing the government would come along and waste all your money while claiming it was helping, why not throw a few hundred dollars to someone who desperately needs it today?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Truly it's not a very humane system he proposes. The problem is that dealing with druggies is extremely frustrating. My nephew drove my brother half crazy before he finally had it with him and threw his 30 year old son out on the street. Eventually, after you've mortgaged everything you own and sent them to rehab countless times they will break you. And that's with your own flesh and blood that you love more than yourself. I understand the AC's frustrated proposal even if I don't agree with it. Drugs are a terrible curse on families and society but sometimes there is nothing you can do to save people from themselves and dealing with the trauma is unbelievably expensive.
Yes it is far better to prevent it in the first place. The government not only cannot do this; they do not want to because a large portion of government funds and jobs go into running homeless shelters. The motivation the government has as a whole is to create more poor people, not fewer.
The sooner you realize the government has evolved to farm poor people for its own growth, the better off you will be.
Contribute to private charities, they are actually trying to help people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
https://www.bing.com/search?q=...
RE: "giving one-time cash quantities to people on the brink of homelessness who can demonstrate that they will be able to pay rent by themselves in the future, but who have been afflicted by some nonrecurring crisis, such as a medical bill. Recipients need to be able to demonstrate consistent future income."
Well that's quite a different scenario! And that makes sense. As usual, the article did not mention that.
Seems like almost every "news" source these days tells only half the truth.
It's literally a quote FROM THE FUCKING ARTICLE, and the post you replied to specifically said it was from the article. You didn't read the article or the post (or at least didn't comprehend them) then you bitch about the media not keeping you informed. If you want to see who is keeping you uninformed, look in a mirror.
Enigma
The trap many poor people are getting in these days is they hit one of these financial emergencies and they take out a "payday loan" to get by. But now they have already spent their next check and thus once they do get paid they take out another loan when paying the previous loan off. These places charge huge fees and as much interest as they legally can and once someone gets into the cycle it can be difficult to get back out, especially if they were previously living paycheck-to-paycheck. They now have an extra expense every check (fees and interest to the loan place) and so are even more squeezed than before. A $1000 infusion would allow someone in a cycle like this to break the cycle and at least start keeping all of their checks.
Enigma
Maybe a $500 education program to tell people not to be stupid would be better.
YOU didn't come here for Basic Income. You work in the US, you own a small part of the US (a house), and have an American family, and I notice you write (very) American English. You've decided to basically become an American now, it seems. A "new American" I've heard such immigrants called.) You just haven't made it official.
The proposal is:
$500/month 21+ years old
$250/month for 21 and younger
So a family of four gets $1,500 / month from tax payers like you and I.
The average family in Mexico is four people earning $850/month.
They'd get more money by coming to the US and NOT working than by staying in Mexico and working. Do you think that might be attractive to some people? Considering not just Mexico, but all of Central and South America, maybe a few million people?
Do you have a spare $1,500/month to pay for someone who wants to come here and not work?
That's why, despite the "unfairness" to "new Americans" like you who have chosen not to make it official, we can't offer a free "five percenter" income to anybody who feels like showing up without even working. Probably tens of millions of people would love to double their income and not even have to work anymore. That incentive is too strong.
Maybe a $500 education program to tell people not to be stupid would be better.
There are always going to be stupid people, that doesn't mean they should starve in the streets. But yes, education is the key, they should be drilling the idea of an emergency fund into kid's minds all through school so when they get out on their own they won't even consider that they could go without. Unfortunately, people generally learn their money habits from their parents and their peers so it's not likely that the situation will change any time soon.
Enigma
You forgot to factor in cost of life (housing, food, utilities, medical assistance, education, services, you name it). I think that 850 $ in Mexico (or others central and south America countries) can buy you much more than 1500 $ in the USA. I (for one) wouldn't like to live in a cardboard box in the USA, even if I didn't have to work in order to do so, ðY thanks but no thanks.
Probably tens of millions of people would love to double their income and not even have to work anymore. That incentive is too strong.
Funny how this argument never comes up for Billionaires, they are special flowers who are carrying the rest of society and shouldn't be taxed at all lest they desert us...
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
Economists, conservatives "puzzled".
Watch this Heartland Institute video
My unsupported assertions trump research every time.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Libertarians across the USA are scrambling to explain that giving people cash before they go homeless will only turn them into dependent slaves and no matter what the science says it is guaranteed to doom them to poverty even faster while simultaneously requiring the stealing of money from people who worked harder than they did because libertarians can't quite figure out that there is such a thing as luck and sometimes somebody can have great luck and sometimes you can have terrible luck and a huge chunk of the luck you have in life is already present in who your parents are and what color their skins is.
Because libertarians would rather trip over sidewalks full of starved corpses than spend an extra dollar in taxes.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I earn well over half a million - and me and my family very nearly were homeless last year, just because of a spate of bad luck. In April I changed jobs - it was a much better opportunity but it came with a year of contract work first, a risk I thought was worth taking because of how great an opportunity it was, in May my daughter had an accident and needed surgery, insurance refused to pay - and I was out many thousands.
This was followed by a whole sequence of similar unpredictable and unavoidable massive expenses - the last of which was November. One of the many things I hadn't been able to pay while going deeper and deeper into debt to service these disasters was servicing my car (which I need to make money). In November the cambelt shattered and the engine was destroyed, the cost of that repair was almost as much as my daughter's surgery.
By the end of November I had more debt on ONE credit card than 10% of my annual brute income !
I was on the verge of bankruptcy and homelessness. The only reason I could avoid it was one tiny bit of good luck -I had family able to help.
That is the kind of story behind MOST people who end up homeless.
Don't worry - a year later, I am well within my means again, and life is getting better for us every month - but it was seriously close and without family with money, we'd not have been able to weather that storm.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The attitude you display here, that there is nothing more to being American than making and spending money, is exactly the attitude which is leading this country to destruction.
Make American Tesen-less again.
Yeah, okay... since the topic is about a very basic income level I only replied in an economic context. You are a coward and not willing to reply with a registered account. America is not on a path to destruction, that reads as a typical ignorant Trump support comment...
So long coward, lets kick you out!
Except we may very well decide that nobody should be elected anymore and instead have to pass a test and have referrals. We may decide that only technology minded people make technology decisions, only welfare minded people make welfare decisions, only medical minded people make medical decisions. There may even be a model that never occurred to me. And we need to do it on a worldwide basis, not just a United States one.
Everyone with a salary or hourly wage is required to pay pay-roll taxes, and above a minimum threshold, income taxes as well.(billionaires included, but few of them have this sort of income)
There is also the Capital Gains tax(~15% I believe) on any income from investing back in the economy(this is where most billionaires get income)
In theory this is to encourage investments in the economy as that increases the GDP and helps there to be more for everyone.
This was more valid back when the stock-market had more to do with capitol investments in companies and less to do with High Frequency Trading.
I fully understand the feelings behind your comment. I've been homeless, I've seen a lot of things. It's annoying to see people waste money while you're struggling.
The correct logic is the same in either case. If you create an strong economic incentive for poor people to come to a country, they'll try to do so; if you create a strong economic incentive for rich people to come to a country (or send their money there), they'll try to do so.
A guy with $100 to his name probably has it in his wallet, or in his checking account. A billionaire doesn't have a millions of $20 bills in his a wallet, a billionaire owns Tesla, Amazon, or some other company. The "billion dollars" isn't actual dollars, it's a company or two. Sending his billion dollars to some other company means sending the company there. It is indeed bad for the economy when a company moves their operations away - see Detroit for an example.
I believe it because it happened to me.
I was not doing well and would have been homeless or worse but I was able to sell some code I had written for $1000.
From that $1000, I was able to buy a car which then allowed me get a job with UPS loading trucks while going back to school which led me to a good job which led me to a better job and so forth.
I really attribute everything to that $1000.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
are likely to be houses in motels at very high rates when they can be houses in public housing for much less.
Great point, real link is Modest Needs
Feel really bad about messing that up as they might have lost some donors. :-(
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In America, we've designed our cities so they cannot be used without money. There are few sources of water and public restrooms. Cities are barren. There's no food growing in trees, no game animals to hunt, not nuts and berries to find. To a homeless person, our cities are dirty, surprisingly loud, and dangerous.
Our politicians create social programs, but they aren't monitored for results. There are effectively no social workers, because you cannot attend to the best interests of the client--and be a gatekeeper for the system. Those who work with poor people often have no concept of what it's like to be poor--much less homeless. As a requirement, a "social worker" should have to live on no more than welfare for a month, with no financial help from their saving or anyone.
The homeless are not the problem; homelessness is the problem. We need to let people sleep in their cars--even if it lowers our property value for a day. We need to stop breaking down park camps. We need to stop "upscaling" people into homelessness. We need to stop outsourcing jobs. We need to stop wanting to control the lives of poor people, because our entire legal system is undeniably slanted against the poor.
Poverty and homelessness is not a crime.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I gave a family of four (two parents, two kids) a single payment of $2,700. They had SNAP and WIC available, so food was not an issue. That $2,700 was for a security deposit and the first month's rent. Parent A had a full time job, parent B worked at least 10-20 hours a week initially.
They paid their rent for the second month, then never paid again and were homeless again in four months. Might have had something to do with Parent A cheating on parent B, parent B cheating on parent A, and parent B buying stuff at the sporting goods store and getting fired from his job for insubordination. The lives and well being of their young children were held in the balance, and yet they couldn't be motivated to not bang other people, hold down a job or live frugally for a while.
Throwing money at ignorant people usually results in failure.
There's a lot more to this story, but this part is most on-topic.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
This assumes that said homeless person isn't mentally ill and/or addicted to drugs. That $1000 will last less than a week if not properly managed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... != https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Casteism
Where the heck does all that money go? Do you buy a new Lamborghini every year or something? You could buy a house anywhere in the world on 2 years income, and pay it all in cash! You can even set up a trust fund (that would be untouched even if you declare bankruptcy) to both own the house and have enough money in it to pay property taxes for the rest of your life.
That's why BI needs to be restricted to citizens. Not to legally here, not to illegally here, but only to citizens, with proof of citizenship. And only to minor children of citizens (and no others), to nix the anchor-baby problem.
I'm not much for socialist welfare and such, but I do think BI is better than the current impossible tangle. Get rid of the entire welfare state (with the possible exception of some medical aid to low income) and replace it with BI, and it would probably cost taxpayers less and do more good.
One of the problems with the current system is that it enforces poverty, because if you do save and invest what little you've got, or own your home, or for one disabled payment program, so much as own a car -- you're no longer eligible. I know people who stay poor on purpose because otherwise they'd lose their benefits. I myself have been dirt-poor/homeless yet ineligible because I'd socked away my paltry little inheritance as the only retirement fund I'd get, rather than spending it right off.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Competition keeps prices low. Gasoline is much cheaper where there are multiple gas stations competing for customers on the basis of price. Right now there are multiple health insurance companies competing for my business on the basis of low premiums and good customer service. A lot of discipline is imposed on these companies when they have to operate efficiently in order to not lose market share to competitors.
Competition, in fact, is the only thing that has ever caused healthcare costs to decrease. As the National Center for Policy Analysis points out,
Patients don't bother to shop for medical care, and doctors don't advertise their prices because nearly 90 percent of patients' tabs are paid with other people's money. However, when patients pay their own medical bills, they act like normal consumers -- comparing prices and looking for value. And when patients act like prudent consumers, doctors who want their patronage must respond by competing on prices, convenience and other amenities.
Consider cosmetic surgery, one of the few areas of medicine where consumers pay out of pocket. The inflation-adjusted price of cosmetic medicine actually fell over the past two decades -- despite a huge increase in demand and considerable innovation... Wherever there is price competition, quality competition tends to follow. Take corrective eye surgery. From 1999 (when eye doctors began performing Lasik in volume) through 2011, the price of conventional Lasik fell about one-quarter due to intense competition. Eye surgeons who wanted to differentiate themselves from other surgeons, and charge more, began to provide more advanced Custom Wavefront Lasik technology using IntraLase (a laser-created flap). By 2011, the average price per eye for doctors performing Custom Lasik was about what conventional Lasik had been more than a decade earlier; but the quality is far better. Occasionally an eye surgeon will offer a daily deal at half this price.
One criticism skeptics often voice in discussions about fostering patient consumerism is that a patient having a heart attack is not in a position to shop for the cheapest cardiac care from the back of an ambulance taking him to the emergency room. Few people would disagree. But only about $1 out of $20 is spent on patients who enter the health care system through the emergency room door.
Consider the experience of an insured patient whose doctor orders an abdominal CT scan. Receiving this service at a hospital outpatient department could cost the patient (or her health plan) nearly $3,000 depending on whether the patient's deductible has been met. Yet this same service is available outside the hospital at a medical imaging center for prices that are often 85 percent less. Few health plans provide the tools for enrollees to compare prices and few patients have an incentive to ask about prices.
Doctors and hospitals don't quote prices and don't compete on price because most patients are largely insulated from the adverse effects of not making price comparisons and acting like consumers. Both economic studies and common sense confirm that people do not shop carefully and prudently when someone else is picking up the tab. The contrast between cosmetic surgery and other medical services is important. One sector has a competitive marketplace and stable prices. The other does not. The medical marketplace should work more like the market for cosmetic surgery.
I've asked the question many times, and no one has ever been able to explain how a single-payer system, with no competitors, would not eventually incur much higher costs because it has turned into a bloated bureaucracy that delivers rotten healthcare -- like that which our veterans get from the VA -- and operates as inefficiently as a DMV.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Money is irrelevant to whether people slack.
I am living proof that this assertion is false. Back when I had a lousy income, I worked my butt off to change the situation (went back to school, went to lots of job interviews, while continuing to work a minimum-wage job). Now that I have a decent income, I am a slacker compared to my former self.
Maybe you can't relate, because you've never been in a cash-poor situation.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Why such a large assessment? That scheme would generate far more revenue than needed to maintain the roads. But your ratios are pretty good. Keeping the same ratios,
A 540-pound motorcycle pays $1e-7 / mile (probably not worth collecting)
A 3,470-pound SUV pays $2.7e-5 / mile
An 80,000 pound semi trailer pays $0.33/mile
That level of assessment is much more congruent with the revenues that are needed to maintain roads.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
1) I haven't been earning that for very long - my salary only got that high in the last 2 years.
2) The taxman takes 45% of it.
3) Currently about 80% of the rest goes to paying debt installments due to last year's misfortunes. Which is an improvement, there were several months when I had to keep adding debt to pay the installments on previous debts. Debt is a trap that can swallow up *any* income - when you're forced to take large debts to deal with things you could not have foreseen that's a problem.
You know the worst bit ? 18 months ago I was basically debt free, the only debts I had was my car payment and the bond on my home.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
That you are an exception doesn't make that false.
It's amazing that someone with zero training in logic can get modded up so much around here.
Yes, if a counterexample can be shown, it by definition makes a proposition false.
In logic, and especially in its applications to mathematics and philosophy, a counterexample is an exception to a proposed general rule or law. For example, consider the proposition "all students are lazy". Because this statement makes the claim that a certain property (laziness) holds for all students, even a single example of a diligent student will prove it false. Thus, any hard-working student is a counterexample to "all students are lazy". More precisely, a counterexample is a specific instance of the falsity of a universal quantification (a "for all" statement).
That that is is that that that that is not is not.