Talk:Welfare trap

Wikipedia Ambassador Program assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at University of California-Berkeley supported by WikiProject Sociology of Poverty and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2011 Q3 term. Further details are available on the course page.

Above message substituted from {{WAP assignment}} on 15:24, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Starvation claim

Some people advocate dramatically cutting welfare payments or eliminating them entirely, but this would leave the very poor no protection from starvation and death, therefore it arguably creates a bigger problem than it solves.

It is simply not true that without a government funded welfare system in place, the poor will die of starvation. This completely ignores the thousands of privately financed charity organizations that assist the needy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.14.72.16 (talk • contribs) 11:57, 14 December 2004 (UTC)

Since the poor did die of starvation before government-funded welfare was created, it is reasonable to assume that they will do so again if welfare is removed. Private charities have existed for thousands of years, and they've never been able to prevent all the poor from starving to death. Sure, charities make a difference, but it's a small difference. And even if that weren't the case, charities are inherently unreliable, since they depend on people's good will. If, for some reason, there is a decrease in public good will, charities fail. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 22:12, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's definately not neutral POV then. Considering that $241 billion was given to charity in 2003 in the United States [1], there's absolutely no reason to believe that charity donations will not increase if people were able to keep more of their money. Charity donations also seem to increase over time on a stable basis. It shouldn't be stated as fact that once government funded welfare is cut, people will have absolutely no protection from starvation and death. The statement is seriously loaded and definately not neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.14.71.241 (talk • contribs) 06:48, 9 January 2005 (UTC)

Again, I'd like to point out that people did starve before welfare was introduced. For the vast majority of poor people living during the 5000 years before the welfare state was created, charity offered no protection from starvation and death. Is there any proof that the same thing will not happen again if government welfare was cut? I have 5000 years of history to support the fact that people will starve without welfare. What proof do you have to support your belief that they wouldn't?

And by the way, $241 billion may sound like a big number, but how much of a difference did it make when compared to welfare? -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 10:33, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that people starve now, welfare or no! And it's odd that everyone assumes that the abolition of welfare would mean lower taxes. There's always an agency that needs more money... -- CMoorhouse 9:35, 15 Sep 2005

And there's always a government that needs more money —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.16.10.68 (talk) 07:51, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Howdy!

Made some changes to this thing, tried to reorganize and reflect everyone's point of view with sentences like: "some argue that X, others argue that Y." No reason why both points of view can't coexist in an article like this. Also added another example with some simple mathematics to further illustrate the issue and give it individual recognizability. I also codified the different approaches to the problem by the dominant theory in various countries. RiseAbove 07:53, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I still have no idea where to post this! It's in the wrong place! It's in relation to the beginning of the article.Hello, I'm not sure about this. In England if you are unemployed you can't choose if you want to take a job. You either take it regardless of how much it pays or your benefits stop. Maybe you only mean Americans have the right choose? It's a small nit picking comment but if English people understood the fact that those people can't choose there may be less class discrimination. I don't even know if you think that's relevant either lol! I can't do computers! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.29.19.123 (talk • contribs) 15:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

If you turn up for an interview unshaven, dirty, pick your nose, etc., you can still deliberately fail to get hired. With workfare schemes there isn't the change in hours occupied by working or complying with unemployment requirements, but there is still a possibility of being worse off in purely monetary terms.150.101.19.117 (talk) 03:27, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Neutrality and verify

The verify tag was added because the article is unsourced. The neutrality tag was added because of sections like this:

In short, the welfare trap demonstrates the way that social welfare systems can create a perverse incentive. Although such systems are intended to reduce unemployment and poverty, they often create a situation whereby the welfare recipient has an incentive to avoid raising his own productivity because his net income gain after benefits and taxes is not enough to compensate for the effort he must expend at work.

Surely welfare systems are intended to reduce poverty not unemployment. - FrancisTyers 11:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

This article is in pretty bad shape. The text has been lifted directly from an Indian book - "Global Encyclopaedia of Welfare Economics" by B N Mandal. You can see it through Google Books. The entry on "Welfare Trap Theory", despite talking about American and UK theories, is itself unreferenced.

Just googling usage of the term "welfare trap", it seems to be used for ANY situation in which people become dependent on welfare payments for a long period of time. These include situations where people are unable to get off welfare (eg single parents who are simply unable to get above the income threshold to get off welfare due to time limitations and childcare payments) as well as the notion that there is a "perverse incentive" such as Mandal describes.

Clearly this article needs a big rewrite. Wikipedia certainly shouldn't be direct quoting without reference. Copyright, people?

Nix6 (talk) 15:26, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Mandal copied Wikipedia, not the other way round: there's quite a few sections of that book that are exact facsimiles of the relevant articles circa 2009. I'm not sure what Wikipedia's policies on CC licence violations by third party print publishers are... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dtellett (talk • contribs) 20:56, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Deleted criticism

I deleted the criticism paragraph at the bottom of the page, because I'm not certain there's a meaningful distinction in this instance between "psychological" and "economic" decisions. That is, economics is, to a large degree (especially where political economy and economic policy are concerned) nothing more than psychology on a mass scale. It is nothing more, that is, than the study of human action and the reasons (psychological and otherwise) for that action. Thus, I think the final paragraph may serve more to confuse readers than clarify a very subtle distinction. Anyway, that's my two cents, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.RiseAbove 08:12, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Unemployed don't have a choice anymore.

I still have no idea where to post this! It's in the wrong place! It's in relation to the beginning of the article.Hello, I'm not sure about this. In England if you are unemployed you can't choose if you want to take a job. You either take it regardless of how much it pays or your benefits stop. Maybe you only mean Americans have the right choose? It's a small nit picking comment but if English people understood the fact that those people can't choose there may be less class discrimination. I don't even know if you think that's relevant either lol! I can't do computers!

Accuracy

A person on disability in the United States currently receives 603 a month from SSI. If they've worked they may also get SSDI. They may also receive Food Stamps, which may add about $90 a month. They may also be able to find subsidized housing. They also usually receive Medicaid, though as well. Hackwrench 08:20, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

proposed solutions

A while back I was reading about India and Australia proposing/starting new schemes that involved having to work for the government a set number of hours for welfare Eddus 17:20, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Speaking from experience...

...the Welfare Trap DOES exist. I'm living proof of it. I never wanted to be on disability... but rather than pay for my further education and training to be able to drive a car, or learn a trade.... my mother filed me for disability payments, because I AM disabled. However, I quickly found out that she sold my soul to the government so I might have some money to pay bills. I am now 30 years old, IN debt with the cost of living going up through the roof... and I can't even think of GETTING a job, not when I live nowhere near transportation TO a job. Let alone, have the money to pay for things like a car, license, insurance, etc.

I never thought I'd be in this fix. Where I'm struggling to get out of the poorhouse and my PITIFUL $3,500.00 worth of accumulated debts, and into perpetual unending tax debt through the IRS. The ONLY upside to my situation is, my income is non-taxable AND well below the poverty level so I've never dealt with the IRS in my life. But MAN, what a price to pay for that mercy.....—Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.209.20.131 (talk • contribs) 19:28, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Current accuracy

A person on disability in the United States currently receives $623.00 a month from SSI. Which means their annual income is $7,476.00. The federal annual poverty level for a single person family in 2007 is $10,210.00. If you're on SSI, you can earn up to about $700.00 extra a month, before you risk losing or having your benefits reduced. Additionally, the first $70 a month you make, aren't reportable to SSI.

http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/07poverty.shtml —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.209.20.131 (talk • contribs) 19:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Redirect

I typed "Poverty traps" by accident and it took me to "Welfare trap". Then when I typed "Poverty trap" it took me to "Poverty trap". Why is this? This doesn't make sense.--Burrburr (talk) 23:35, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

You're right, it makes no sense. I just changed it.Cretog8 (talk) 23:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Possible reference

America Now by Marvin Harris mentions this concept among others. --Error (talk) 23:55, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

A few issues

1. In the UK, there is a distinction between two concepts:

   Why only in the UK? Surely the two concepts can exist anywhere, and other jurisdictions could just as well have either or both of them.

2. Also, he will incur additional ancillary costs such as time and money spent commuting and increased stress.

   The position of this makes it sound as though travel expenses necessarily come after deduction of tax in the equation. This may or may not be the case. If the portion of your earnings that is spent on work-related expenses is exempt from tax, then it can sometimes affect the figures quite significantly. Maybe there's a way that it can be written better....

3. Currently it ignores the fact that unemployment-related benefits may require you to be actively seeking employment. Moreover, declining an offer of what is deemed a suitable job may also affect your benefits. As such, in either of the example scenarios the incentive to stay unemployed may not actually be there (at least unless you're cheating the system).
4. We ought to expand the article to cover the country-specific details of the welfare trap. Both how the benefit systems of various countries lead to the welfare trap, and some examples of how some benefit systems may avoid it and where in the world these are implemented. Does anybody here have the information to add?
5. Moreover, are there really cases anywhere in the world where somebody would earn more on unemployment-related benefits than in a job, even before deduction of work-related expenses? Or is it just the way it may sound to some when they first hear of it? -- Smjg (talk) 16:10, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

1. Yes, because you're not considering other sources of aid that comes with welfare. These sources of aid stop if you start a job.

   I have a friend that has a severe disability and needs to take medicine and get physical therapy for the rest of his life. Neither one of these will be covered if he takes a job. There is no job he can qualify for without desk job education (he has other qualifications that are no longer valid due to his condition), so he can't find a job where he can make ends meet. This is not even considering cost of living. Now if there were some way for him to receive the medical benefits such that the rest of his income was his to pay for the cost of living outside of his medical needs, he would most certainly take a job.

   Since he is disabled with a condition that is reasonable to not expect him to work, he doesn't ever have to look for a job. However, he has expressed a strong desire to work, even through the pain, especially if he could work a job that allowed him to work from home.

   So he is the perfect example of an unbeatable welfare trap. There is no reasonable solution for work.

2. Now if he votes according to his beliefs, he has to vote for people that could reduce his benefits. This makes his life even harder as he is now in a voting trap. Welfare trap leads to voting trap.

   We need a political stance that will find a medium that gives more benefits to people that work, and less to those who can and don't. The plan could grant even more benefits to those that work when they are classified unable to, without stripping them of their medical benefits.

   However, if they work to a certain point where they don't need benefits, if we take them away, there's incentive for them to fall back to a lower status, creating the trap again.

   The ultimate solution is to have diminishing returns system that shifts people from government aid to charity aid. --Cflare (talk) 15:56, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

You mean things like NHS concessions that apply to people on certain benefits? Maybe these concessions should be made contingent on income rather than on where it comes from.

But I agree with this idea of less to those who can and don't, and more to those who can't and do. Generally, we need to replace this system whereby JSA, HB, etc. simply top up whatever you're earning to however much they decide you need to live on. — Smjg (talk) 17:57, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Edits

I have some ideas which might improve this page, but I'd like to get some feedback first.

• Right now, the article talks about the US or the UK - should we divide up the page by country and try to get some more examples?
• Perhaps have a subsection on policies that attempt to eliminate the welfare trap? e.g. means-tested versus universal benefits.
• Might there be some benefit from merging this with the poverty trap page? That one could also use a cleanup, but I think it could be useful to differentiate between what the poverty trap means in the UK (as shown in this article, which is the terminology used by social policy experts such as Howard Glennerster) versus what it means in developing countries, because as it stands now it's kind of confusing to have two different meanings dependent on context spread over two pages. JuliaK (talk) 17:30, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Graph Image Illustration

Previous versions of the page contained this graph, which was evidently removed (17 November 2022‎) for lack of proper sourcing. Indeed, the source referenced for the image does not, itself, provide a working source of the actual data used to compose it (it suggests "www.dpw.state.pa.us", but this is currently defunct). (Interestingly, the image currently at the source is not identical, but there is no note of an update to the 2012 post, making it probable the image was recreated by User:Wikideas1 [who lists it as "Own work"] using the data.)

In any case: that image was an excellent illustration of the article: literally showing the "gap". Ideally, a new image could be found/created that is better sourced. However, in the meantime, unless someone is seriously questioning the accuracy of that data, I think it appropriate to seek consensus to restore the image, perhaps with a "citation needed" tag (per Wikipedia:Citation_needed: "Is the information probably factual?").

2601:404:D400:4AF0:2C68:C962:E353:F90 (talk) 15:33, 3 June 2023 (UTC)