Milton Friedman, the famous economist, once wrote, “If given the opportunity to earn income without working vs. earning income by working, everyone will opt for earning income without working, and then do their best to earn whatever they can off the books!
That is not completely true, as many choose to get an education while living either wholly or partially off of government benefits.
One of the problems is when a person goes through the earning phase during which they no longer qualify for assistance, but cannot live on their income! So, it must be that welfare benefits continue until recipients can earn a living wage.
There are different opinions on what constitutes a living wage. One the one hand, it is the amount of money required to sustain the human organism’s life functions in a capacity to perform gainful work. This view provides much incentive to recipients to obtain employment.
There have been experimental models used on a small scale that have proved it is possible to reduce the welfare rolls to zero. One such model is the work camp in which recipients live in mass tent shelters, eat in common cafeterias, and share the work required to operate such a facility!
Males and females live separately. No fraternizing is permitted. Everyone dresses the same. Children are taught in schools staffed with other recipients. Most of the recipients perform agricultural labor, to produce food for the camp, which is the single greatest need. There is no meat in the diet.
There is no television, telephones, cars, privacy, and medical care is by voluteers. The day begins at 5:00am, breakfast is at 6:00am. Work is from 6:30am to 7:00pm with a 1/2-hour lunch. Dinner is at 7:30pm. Mass shower facilities have only cold water, and soap is limited, to keep costs down. But there is toilet tissue!
Criminal offenses are met with exile, and prosecution in the courts of the jurisdiction. Offenders are on their own after that. But there is really nothing to steal, no purpose to any crime. Young boys may stay with their mothers until age 8 years. Then they join the males-only facility.
Girls are taught homemaking, childcare, sewing, leather tanning, cooking, and other domestic skills while boys are instructed in trades involving work needed in the camp. If a woman wants to leave, but she cannot afford to, she is assigned to a husband who is ready to leave, and the two are married and leave together.
Optionally, if people can’t afford to raise their own children, but they are able to support themselves, only the children need go to the camp. Children who become abandoned are eventually assigned to a recipient couple which is leaving.
With this model it has been proved that the camps—and therefore welfare itself—are unnecessary, because no one took advantage of the programs. It turned out everyone could support him/herself and their children, by their own resources.
Another problem encountered is what constitutes poverty. One line of reasoning uses an absolute model, which permits poverty to be eliminated. The other uses a relative model, which compares living standards, and selects the bottom percentage to be poverty.
The second model perpetuates poverty interminably, and it becomes a never-ending plague on the society. With the absolute model, if everyone has enough to eat, clothes to wear, and shelter; poverty is eliminated!
So, it’s really in how one views the problem. Author, Jonathan Swift, made what he called, “A Modest Proposal”, which elimated poverty by having the rich eat the children of the poor, in a satiricle criticism of how inept the British government was at caring for the poor, and the ridiculous contrivances it used to justify protecting the wealthy and powerful!
My personal belief is that everyone will always do what they deem to be benficial to themselves and their loved ones, to the limits of their abilities. Therefore, those who legitimately lack the ability to support themselves, for reasons of disability, handicap, illness, mental deficiency, insanity; should be given the care and training required to overcome those obstacles.
That does not include those who simply make poor choices, and wind up in trouble because of them! A woman who divorces her husband, thereby alienating her primary source of income, has no fundamental right to demand taxpayers pay for her foolishness!
If divorce is made economically infeasible for women, families will stay together, which is the number-one defense against poverty! Most of those living in poverty are single mothers. If we place government subsidies on single-motherhood, we’ll get more of it, and more poverty too, as it is with any other government subsidy!
If we want to solve the problem of poverty, the government must place a subsidy on women being married before they have intimate contact! That will prevent most preventable poverty! The government does that by denying assistance to single mothers, so there’s nothing to fall back on.
With proper incentives, many fewer single mothers would exist. If a high-school girl reasonsnto herself, “If I get pregnant, there is no one who will help me!”, she will avoid temptation, and remain chaste!
There is hardly a person alive who, if offered a hand-out, will reject it. I hear stuff like, “Well what if someone’s home is forclosed on, and so they’re homeless!”
I say, “They didn’t wake up one morning without a home! They had months and months to do something about the situation, like sell the house, and move into something they could afford! If government removes all incentives for plain irresponsibility, people will act more responsibly!
That’s just common sense! The greatest civilizations have been those that stress the responsibility of the individual, and hold citizens to that! If a single mother can’t afford disposable diapers for her infant, she could if she had a husband, and cotton diapers work just as well, and you can use them over again. So, they’re much less expensive!
If a single mother can’t afford infant formula for her baby, she always has breasts to fall back on, so that is no legitimate need! Unless a woman conceives as a result of rape, it was her choice, and no one else’s. She should bear the responsibility. But what if abortion isn’t allowed? As long as she is aware of that, she can make her decision to have intimate contact outside the bonds of Sacramental Marriage accordingly.
Personally, I’d wait until I had a husband to support me. I think that’s the only reasonable choice! Girls need to remember just one thing–ONE THING–avoid privacy with males you’re not related to! That’s it! The whole problem is solved!
hankmortar 