No, I want to reform the welfare system, and if you’re confused this only applies to unskilled laborers.
How is punching me in the face helping anything?
I’m against the minimum wage, but I don’t know how it would work without some sort of welfare to support the people earning 3 bucks an hour.
Well, not punching you in the face certainly isn’t helping anything, so we might as well TRY SOMETHING amiright?
Why does welfare have to be financed via compulsory taxation? Why not allow private welfare to take over? Historically that’s worked fine.
Because most of them don’t. Name a means of support your average shaniqua has for her 5 kids in da hood when welfare is abolished.
Not unless you can tell me why not punching me in the face is a problem.
I see you’re trying to shift the burden of proof. Too bad such mindtricks won’t work on me.
Now then, since you claim that most people (which isn’t the same as everyone) working for the minimum wage have no other means of support whatsoever, do you have any evidence to back that up? Systematic studies would be especially nice.
Prostitution
Just above, Wheylous posts actual facts that directly refute your absurd claim.
How can it get organized without some kind of bureaucracy overseeing it?
Oh now I get it, thanks.
Would volunteering and interning be an optimal alternative for younger workers who have no skills with which to compete in the labor market? A worker willing to work for little to nothing, simply to gain skills, shows me as an employer the motivation or dedication that workers has, and the likelihood for long-term employment. A kid in high school arguing that they deserve X dollars per hour (higher than any other worker) despite their lack of skill or experience does little to encourage me to spend more on that worker, though their productive level is likely to be nominal compared to the intern or volunteer. And since many workers at this age are more likely to still live at home with family support, it’s not unrealistic to see a situation where this works. I’d gladly buy my child a bus pass or drive them to a job where they worked for little or nothing, knowing they were gaining skills that benefitted them as a future laborer or tradesman. I’m more inclined to do that as opposed to co-signing on excessive debt on a liberal arts degree where job prospects are less likely.
Not exactly, they would be working, and yes for minimum wage, but they would also have a little additional welfare to support themselves until they developed their skills more.
That seems to me to be a subsidization of underperformance.
- Welfare before the Welfare State by Joshua Fulton
- The Welfare State and the Promise of Protection by Robert Higgs
- From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services by David T. Beito
- The Costs of Public Income Redistribution and Private Charity by James Rolph Edwards
- Replacing Welfare by Michael Tanner
- Man vs. The Welfare State by Henry Hazlitt
All out of http://candlemind.com/projects/progclub/file/michael/SSN.php
And from the “Costs” article above,
Robert L. Woodson (1989, p. 63) calculated that, on average, 70 cents
of each dollar budgeted for government assistance goes not to the
poor, but to the members of the welfare bureaucracy and others serving the poor. Michael Tanner (1996, p. 136 n. 18) cites regional studies supporting this 70/30 split.
In contrast, administrative and other operating costs in private
charities absorb, on average, only one-third or less of each dollar
donated, leaving the other two-thirds (or more) to be delivered to
recipients. Charity Navigator (www.charitynavigator.org), the
newest of several private sector organizations that rate charities by
various criteria and supply that information to the public on their
web sites, found that, as of 2004, 70 percent of charities they rated
spent at least 75 percent of their budgets on the programs and services they exist to provide, and 90 percent spent at least 65 percent.
The median administrative expense among all charities in their sample was only 10.3 percent.
I’m considering making a presentation on the poor under Libertarianism.
Mary, a teen fresh out of high school who doesn’t have enough money for college, goes to work. Or tries to, Mary finds that people don’t think her work is worth the minimum wage, so Mary ends up like the millions of other unemployed people. One day the minimum wage law is repealed, Mary immediately finds a job, working for $3 a hour isn’t Mary’s cup of tea but it’s better than nothing. The welfare office decides Mary still isn’t making enough money, they decide she is eligible for welfare, Mary is thrilled that now she actually has enough to live off of. Mary stays in her $3 a hour job, continues to recieve welfare benefits, she tries to save up enough money to go to college, but there just isn’t enough left over to do that. (It would take her about 30 years to save up enough for college.) Mary, having had the years crush her spirit, stays in the $3 a hour job, since if she makes more the welfare benefits are cut, making it more difficult for her to make it. She can get a better job, lose the welfare benefits, which would damage her financial security, or she can stay in the $3 a hour job which will be the more secure option. Almost everyone chooses the more secure option. They, being able to make it in a crappy job, with the help of welfare, stay in the crappy job instead of taking the time to gain more valuable skills.
That’s what $3 a hour plus welfare will do. It will mean people stay in the crappy jobs instead of improving themselves and getting better jobs. (This is because many people won’t take the chance of dropping welfare for a job which is only slightly better.) Welfare destroys people’s incentive to do better, it’s as simple as that, if I (a former bleeding heart hippy Democrat) can understand that I don’t see why others can’t grasp it as well.
How so?
Ah, yeah that’s a good point.
I can’t imagine that supplemental benefits to a $3/hr job would be much. Would they be less than the benefits currently given to 100% unemployed potential workers under current wage laws? Like the current system, it seems that this proposed method would have a similar effect; underemployed workers receiving partial benefits would be vested, and support politicians and policies that maintained or strengthed the system of welfare (even revised, tiered welfare).
(I’m still a sort of a hippie, but old-school. Born on a commune, grew up at Rainbow Gatherings, hated big government. I was at odds with the movement to modern liberalism by most hippies, who hated the state, but wanted to use the state to infringe upon the rights of those they opposed. Funny, that.)