Is Proverty in US "Too Comfortable"?

[LadyTevar]

5 questions for Michael Tanner -- a policy expert who says we've made poverty too 'comfortable'
In Plain Sight - Thu May 16, 2013 7:37 AM EDT

What if, instead of operating a variety of anti-poverty programs, the government simply mailed every poor person in America a check big enough to lift them out of poverty? That, says the Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner, would make more sense than what we do now – and, he says, we’d still have money left over.
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Here’s Tanner’s math: By his count, the federal government spends more than $668 billion a year on a total of 126 anti-poverty programs, including those that address housing, hunger, health care, and cash assistance. They range from TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), which most people associate with traditional welfare, to much smaller programs for Indian tribes, at-risk youth, and others. If you divide Tanner’s total by the roughly 46 million people with incomes below the poverty line, you get nearly $15,000 for every poor man, woman, and child in the U.S.

Tanner acknowledges that poor individuals don’t receive that much money, and that’s his point: government spending isn’t laser-targeted to those most in need. In fact, he says, “throwing money at the problem has neither reduced poverty nor made the poor self-sufficient. It is time to re-evaluate our approach to fighting poverty.”

You’ve taken a fair amount of heat for saying that America should “focus less on making poverty more comfortable.” What do you mean by that? Is poverty ever comfortable?

Poverty is never a good thing. But most of the programs we have to combat poverty are based on taking people who are in poverty and giving them a little more income so their poverty doesn’t feel quite as bad. Instead, we should be focused on how to we get more people out of poverty.

What do you think we are doing wrong?

The problem is that our welfare programs aren’t targeted at the right things: education, pregnancy prevention, and job creation. They’re targeted at giving people who are poor the resources to live in poverty.

We know that if you drop out of high school you’re likely to be poor. If you graduate from college, your chances of escaping poverty are much greater.

We know that if you’re a woman, don’t get pregnant if you’re not married. That’s not a moral judgment, it’s an economic one. It’s simply more difficult to raise a child if you have one income rather than two.

And get a job, any job, even a low-wage job, and stick with it. Even a low-paying job is better than no job at all. People are more likely to move out of poverty if they have a low-paying job than if they are on welfare.

And we need to create more jobs. The fact is, we still have an anti-job atmosphere. Too many taxes, too many regulations. We don’t do a very good job of creating an environment that’s going to create more jobs.

What do we do about the millions of people who are in poverty right now? They are poor, they don’t have skills, they don’t have a good education, they don’t have or can’t get a job. Do we pull the safety net out from under them?

We should target our aid to those people who need the help the most. We have created a situation in which there are a certain number of people who are not going to be able to become an economically viable family unit anytime soon, and we probably have to support them in the short term. In the long term, however, we want to give people in the future more of an opportunity to avoid poverty and to get out of poverty.

It’s unfair to compare my approach to utopia. Let’s compare it to the real world and in the real world, the approach I’m talking about would mean fewer poor people than there are today. Would there be zero? No. I don’t know if a society in the history of the world has ever had zero. Poverty in many ways is the natural condition of man. Throughout most of mankind’s history, most people were poor. The question is, how do you create more prosperity?

People on my side of this have often appeared to be hard-hearted, by arguing on a dollars-and-cents basis. But you shouldn’t measure compassion by inputs. You measure by outcomes. And by that measure, we’re failing. And the burden is on the poor, who are the ones suffering in poverty.

So you think it would be more compassionate to blow up and restructure the system?

It’s not fun to live in poverty. Poor people don’t want to be poor. Most poor people would like to work. Most poor people would like to be non-poor. But we’re not giving them that opportunity. The goal should be that each person gets to achieve their full potential. Most people trapped in the welfare system are not getting to do that.

It was Ronald Reagan who said, we fought a war on poverty and poverty won. Do you agree with that?

Let’s put it this way: We are certainly not beating poverty. We may have had a draw but that’s not where we want to be.

Editor's note: This interview has been edited and condensed.

[TheHammer]

I think there is some merit to this concept. I've heard countless stories from friends who will be grocery shopping, see a lady tagging along with 3-4 kids buying lobster and steak and paying for it with government issued welfare debit cards. And heard stories about people on welfare feeding steak rather than dogfood to their dogs because they could buy steak with welfare money.

Anecdotal? Sure, but the fact that it happens indicates a problem with the system. It is rather infuriating when working people see people on welfare eating better than they do. And this is but one example of a way where money could be spent in a more productive manner.

[Vehrec]

Something about the steak and lobster on welfare things rings false to me-It should result in eating well for a weak and then going on ramen noodles and government cheese for the rest of the month, shouldn't it? Either that or they are skipping out on staples entirely to dump all their food budget on the expensive items.

Though I suppose that given the government spends billions of dollars to make US cotton cheap and hundreds of millions to make Brazilian cotton competitive...well anything could happen.

[Losonti Tokash]

It's basically total bullshit that also carries the interesting implication that the poor are obligated to be miserable and completely destitute. You see the same thing when people whine about poor people having iPhones or even laptops. You can even see it in this guy's opinion that people stay in poverty because we haven't made them miserable or desperate enough to want to escape. It conveniently ignores how many working people use welfare, food stamps, or other assistance, and negatively judges the poor for even the smallest "luxuries" like refrigerators or phones.

[PainRack]

It's basically total bullshit that also carries the interesting implication that the poor are obligated to be miserable and completely destitute. You see the same thing when people whine about poor people having iPhones or even laptops. You can even see it in this guy's opinion that people stay in poverty because we haven't made them miserable or desperate enough to want to escape. It conveniently ignores how many working people use welfare, food stamps, or other assistance, and negatively judges the poor for even the smallest "luxuries" like refrigerators or phones.

Is this based off something else Tanner has said?

He didn't claim this in the article quoted, and in it, wrote that US policies are aiming to make people in proverty comfortable as opposed to lifting them out of proverty.

I doubt the exact truth of this statement, especially given the context of how nutritional aid does help employment prospects in 3rd world countries, but I can see his point. I just doubt the relevance of his statements. His statements might be factually true, that we should aim more at lifting people out of proverty, we aren't successfully lifting them out, our policies aren't working, but they might...... I guess the word is not be relevant.


The policices might not have affected outcomes simply because of broader natures, this doesn't mean they're not working or that they aren't useful in combating proverty or lifting people out of proverty.... but I leave that argument to those more knowledgable about the US system.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And it ignores the fact that a lot of those luxury items get placed on markdown. What if the lobster and steak were 50% off because they were on their expiry date and about to spoil? Already looking funny around the edges? It became a good deal, but tastelessly cooked until safe to eat, it's hardly a luxury item. People see things from a distance, offhand, and make assumptions about them with no context.

$200.00/month is an excessive amount for food for one person, which is the max on food stamps. But to actually survive most people barter some of the food purchased with that amount into things like toilet paper, a couch to crash on when completely homeless... Because they're getting absolutely nothing else from the government. A homeless person with enough food to be fat is currently how the US system is set up: A smart person can use that extra padding to get better conditions than being homeless, but that's it.

And that's pampering?

[K. A. Pital]

Poor people with phones is a definitely modern phenonmenon, since mobiles are extremely cheap now. A poor person might not have enough money to feed himself properly and be malnourished, but have a mobile phone.

Seen it more than once.

[Flagg]

People on food assistance in Washington state qualify to receive a free prepaid cell and 250 free minutes per month. So I'd expect people here to have a cellphone ESPECIALLY if they are malnourished.

[Elheru Aran]

As someone currently benefitting indirectly from public assistance (WIC vouchers for my wife and baby), here are my thoughts:

My wife and I work part-time. She actually manages to make more than I because I lose around $250 in insurance benefits and taxes out of an average ~$500 paycheck; she comes home with ~$300 (this is biweekly).

That means that we approximate maybe $1100-1200 a month in net income. When you take out $320 rent, $60-70 each on electricity, water and natural gas, $40 a month in phone bills (hers; I use the freebie she got via Medicaid), $80 car insurance (thankfully this month will be the last of our payments on the PT cruiser, that was $156 a month), about $80 worth of gas and $60-80 for food... that leaves... (assuming a starting point of $1100 and maximum payments on everything, adding in the $156 to show how that's affected us up to now) $234, which I don't think is right because we almost never have anything left at the end of the budget for each biweekly period. Oh, well, that's not allowing for a tithe (my wife is fairly religious, we attend church regularly), so take out another $110. That leaves $124. And then there are the payments to her brother who we bought our other car from, so you can knock another $80ish off that. $44. Oh hey, I forgot our internet, by which I am posting here; that's $42 a month. >poof<

And that's not even taking into account that we'll need to start buying diapers soon when all our baby-shower gift cards run out, and next February or so the baby will go off Medicaid, which will mean I will have to add her to my insurance, which will take another $100 or so out of my paycheck. We will almost certainly apply again for her, but still.

We are *not* 'comfortable'. We are in a position where, as long as we remain healthy and our income is consistent, we can make it from paycheck to paycheck. However, should the car need repairs, or one of us gets sick and misses a few days (or the baby gets sick and we have to stay home, that's a consideration now too), or if the bills are high one month, etc, that's it. Bang! Call the utility companies and beg them to let us go over a month (with the understanding that our bill will be twice as high next month because they carry it over), start asking nearby relatives if they have any food in their pantries they can spare, ask friends with babies if they have spare diapers, plan a tight menu without any snacks or second helpings, what have you.

If the refrigerator dies? We're screwed. If the stove dies? Ditto. If the car dies? Ditto. There are so many scenarios that could screw us over. We had some money saved up earlier this year for when my wife was taking off work thanks to the baby arriving, but now that's almost entirely gone.

Comfortable? No. Hell no. Looking for another part-time job or a full-time job, but it hasn't been easy so far thanks to being deaf. I can't go on disability because it takes a long time to be approved, during which you can't be employed because if you're employed, you're obviously not 'disabled' enough to require disability payments... we *may* make little enough that we may be eligible for food stamps, but we've been told before that we aren't qualified because-- guess what? They look at *gross* income after tax, ignoring bills and benefits. When you look at that, turns out we make more like $2400 a month or something, which is over the limit. I've tried a time or two to apply, but it hasn't worked out so far.

We do manage to save some money thanks to the aforementioned WIC vouchers; they help provide a decent amount of food each month. Not a huge amount, but maybe like $50 worth. We *try* to put some money aside each month, but so far that hasn't really helped. Thank goodness the car payments are winding up at least, that extra $150 will be a HUGE help.

The big problem with the idea of mailing a big check to everybody on welfare and that's it, IMO, is that most people would be just like, "hey, free money!" and blow it. Perhaps I don't give them enough credit, but from our own example, we have a whole list of things we want to fix up/change around the house and in general that we just haven't been able to afford lately (like buying me new underwear, to pick a random example). If we were handed a huge slice of money, sure, we'd want to save most of it... but say, couldn't we use a little bit of that to get a new dishwasher... another little bit to get the timing belt looked at... the cars could use an oil change... hmmm, how about buying up a nice stock of diapers... you see how it goes.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Was going to post something longer, but what has been said already is putting down the words far better than I could, ESPECIALLY Elheru Aran, I tip my hat in sympathy to your situation...

What I will say is that anyone talking about the poor being too "comfortable" is usually a codeword for "not being punished enough" Basically these people think that if your "Poor" you should be the begger on the street with the tin cup... That anything other then that, and you shouldn't be complaining.

[Flagg]

Wait, how the fuck is it that you're not already on disability? You should be able to at least get partial disability while working. You need to call a social worker or the disability office unless I'm greatly mistaken.

[TheHammer]

And it ignores the fact that a lot of those luxury items get placed on markdown. What if the lobster and steak were 50% off because they were on their expiry date and about to spoil? Already looking funny around the edges? It became a good deal, but tastelessly cooked until safe to eat, it's hardly a luxury item. People see things from a distance, offhand, and make assumptions about them with no context.

$200.00/month is an excessive amount for food for one person, which is the max on food stamps. But to actually survive most people barter some of the food purchased with that amount into things like toilet paper, a couch to crash on when completely homeless... Because they're getting absolutely nothing else from the government. A homeless person with enough food to be fat is currently how the US system is set up: A smart person can use that extra padding to get better conditions than being homeless, but that's it.

And that's pampering?

Oh I know people barter some of their food benefit for other things. The things you mentioned, but also alcohol or drugs. It's rather a poor allocation of resources then isn't it? I'm not advocating letting people starve, but the system we have now of "here is $200 go spend it however you like" is a bad one.

It's basically total bullshit that also carries the interesting implication that the poor are obligated to be miserable and completely destitute. You see the same thing when people whine about poor people having iPhones or even laptops. You can even see it in this guy's opinion that people stay in poverty because we haven't made them miserable or desperate enough to want to escape. It conveniently ignores how many working people use welfare, food stamps, or other assistance, and negatively judges the poor for even the smallest "luxuries" like refrigerators or phones.

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I don't know of any reasonable person begrudging anyone basic phone service or refrigerators. But persons below the poverty line on welfare should not be in a position where they are able to afford things such as laptops and iphones that working people "just above" the poverty line can not. And yet that's the reality. And when someone on welfare sees they actually would be worse off should they try to get off welfare, then that is obviously a major dis-incentive for them to even try.

[Zaune]

The big problem with the idea of mailing a big check to everybody on welfare and that's it, IMO, is that most people would be just like, "hey, free money!" and blow it. Perhaps I don't give them enough credit, but from our own example, we have a whole list of things we want to fix up/change around the house and in general that we just haven't been able to afford lately (like buying me new underwear, to pick a random example). If we were handed a huge slice of money, sure, we'd want to save most of it... but say, couldn't we use a little bit of that to get a new dishwasher... another little bit to get the timing belt looked at... the cars could use an oil change... hmmm, how about buying up a nice stock of diapers... you see how it goes.

And this would be a bad thing? Just to pick an example at random, getting the car fixed up. If everyone in your neighbourhood suddenly had the money to pay for all the maintenance they'd been putting off until now, maybe your local repair shop could justify taking on some more people, maybe even opening that second branch the owner was thinking about before the economy shit the bed. Maybe if a few hundred thousand people in this country had spontaneously acquired the money to replace their clapped-out white goods then six thousand people wouldn't have started drawing the dole because Comet went under last month. (Or maybe they would have anyway because Comet were a crappy retailer, but the point stands.)

People have to spend money for capitalism to work.

[Simon_Jester]

If the goal is to invest money in consumer spending, handing poor people checks up front works.

If the goal is to invest money in the education and job-search efforts of the poor, handing poor people checks and saying "go do whatever" is not so brilliant.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I don't know of any reasonable person begrudging anyone basic phone service or refrigerators. But persons below the poverty line on welfare should not be in a position where they are able to afford things such as laptops and iphones that working people "just above" the poverty line can not. And yet that's the reality. And when someone on welfare sees they actually would be worse off should they try to get off welfare, then that is obviously a major dis-incentive for them to even try.

If the issue is that those on welfare are better off (and that's an assumption we're making here; I'm not stating it as a fact), then wouldn't a better solution than bringing the poor down even more be to give that assistance to more people? Just give the benefits to everyone; it's an utterly insignificant change to those who already have lots of resources, and for those on or near the bottom, no longer is there the worry of getting more work/higher pay and suddenly losing your benefits, or even the worry of working more hours to get the same effective income.

[TheHammer]

Comfortable? No. Hell no. Looking for another part-time job or a full-time job, but it hasn't been easy so far thanks to being deaf. I can't go on disability because it takes a long time to be approved, during which you can't be employed because if you're employed, you're obviously not 'disabled' enough to require disability payments... we *may* make little enough that we may be eligible for food stamps, but we've been told before that we aren't qualified because-- guess what? They look at *gross* income after tax, ignoring bills and benefits. When you look at that, turns out we make more like $2400 a month or something, which is over the limit. I've tried a time or two to apply, but it hasn't worked out so far.

See, I think in a nutshell this sort of illustrates the problem. I don't know where you live exactly, or how much this varies from state to state, but in Illinois with their being 3 of you, if you lost $350 in income, you'd qualify for foodstamps in the amount of $526.00 - And that's not counting what other assistance you'd recieve for getting under that poverty "threshold". People making less money than you do are living better than you are thanks to welfare...

[Zaune]

There's got to be jobs for them to search for first, and increased consumer spending is probably the fastest and easiest way to achieve that.

[Elheru Aran]

Wait, how the fuck is it that you're not already on disability? You should be able to at least get partial disability while working. You need to call a social worker or the disability office unless I'm greatly mistaken.

That's something I should probably do, but from everything I've read about getting disability in Georgia, basically if you're already employed they figure you don't require disability, and you have to be able to prove that your disability impairs you from working in a significant fashion. Obviously, as I have a job, I cannot say that it keeps me from working.

As was explained to me, essentially I would have to leave my job, *then* apply for disability. As first applications are almost always rejected, you have to keep on appealing until you get approved. This process takes at least a year or so; the average is about two years to get approved, IIRC. During this whole time, basically I can't work; they do compensate you for the time you spend trying to get approved, but until then, you're screwed.

According to the Social Security Administration:

If you are working in 2013 and your earnings average more than $1,040 a month, you generally cannot be considered disabled... Your condition must interfere with basic work-related activities for your claim to be considered. If it does not, we will find that you are not disabled.

Also see this (PDF warning): http://www.ssa.gov/disability/Documents ... eet-AD.pdf

So, yeah. No disability for this deaf guy with a job.

Zaune, you're missing the point that maybe people don't necessarily *need* to consume the money they're given immediately. Perhaps it's better that they either receive a large sum and *save* it for future usage, or are given small sums at regular periods (basically the current system). Simon is correct. And let me ask you-- if a retailer is given enough business suddenly because a lot of people are given checks... is he more likely to just sit back and let his current employees work harder while he rakes in the money, or is he going to trust that the money will last and expand? I think the former is probably the case more than the latter... remember when George W. gave everybody a free check back in, what was it, '08 or 07? The economy sure didn't get much better then.

Hammer, I'm in Georgia. We do qualify for food stamps, I think (just checked) but it's a pain to get them. The local DFCS office is a huge pain in the neck to get through...

[Flagg]

I look at it this way: Which is better, a deadbeat living a modest life on welfare or a deadbeat dead in a gutter? This question is also an indication of cuntitude.

[Losonti Tokash]

Hammer, not only is our system nowhere even close to "$200 for whatever," you advocate crippling the tools needed to pull someone out of poverty. It is nearly impossible to get any job without regular computer access or a cell phone. IPhone 4s are free from just about any major carrier, not some luxurious extravagance. Ipads and other tablets are cheaper than most laptops, and lots of those ones you see being used are either pre-owned or the person already owned a computer before they needed assistance. You seem to think the point of an assistance program should be mere survival.

PS, I mention refrigerators and cell phones because an actual talking point on Fox and among conservatives is that a person with a refrigerator isn't really poor. And lunatics yelling about "Obamaphones," a program started by Reagan asd expanded by Bush because they recognized how critical phones are to getting a job.

[Flagg]

Elheru, I have a deaf aunt that is on partial social security disability. She works part time. I'm serious, you need to apply. It's a federal program so I don't see how you being in Georgia would matter.

[TheHammer]

I don't know of any reasonable person begrudging anyone basic phone service or refrigerators. But persons below the poverty line on welfare should not be in a position where they are able to afford things such as laptops and iphones that working people "just above" the poverty line can not. And yet that's the reality. And when someone on welfare sees they actually would be worse off should they try to get off welfare, then that is obviously a major dis-incentive for them to even try.

If the issue is that those on welfare are better off (and that's an assumption we're making here; I'm not stating it as a fact), then wouldn't a better solution than bringing the poor down even more be to give that assistance to more people? Just give the benefits to everyone; it's an utterly insignificant change to those who already have lots of resources, and for those on or near the bottom, no longer is there the worry of getting more work/higher pay and suddenly losing your benefits, or even the worry of working more hours to get the same effective income.

The idea of providing absolute basic neccessities to everyone isn't the worst idea in the world. I mean, sure its a form of Communism, but provide some baseline nutritional, housing, medical to every citizen would at least give them a platform to build upon.

[Elheru Aran]

Hammer, not only is our system nowhere even close to "$200 for whatever," you advocate crippling the tools needed to pull someone out of poverty. It is nearly impossible to get any job without regular computer access or a cell phone. IPhone 4s are free from just about any major carrier, not some luxurious extravagance.

I beg to differ. 'Free' is only if you submit to some, say, 2-year contract or something. You can't get out of this contract without paying hefty fees, and the price of the phone is included in the monthly payments, which are generally around $60-80 on average in my area (don't know about yours, but this is pretty average among the major carriers). My wife uses Metro PCS and has a pretty basic brick for $40 a month; it was one of the only free phones they offered. Same goes for ipads and such; they may be advertised as free but you're stuck paying a hefty bill for a couple years.

Another example; AT&T offers every now and then a $15/month Internet rate. The catch? This is only for 1 year; they may play along with you if you beg them nicely by giving you odd discounts here and there at the end of that period, and after a while they'll run out of discounts they can give you, sticking you with $40-60 depending on what service you got.

So, trust me, unless someone lucks on some great deal, if they can afford a fancy smartphone like the iPhone or pads or whatever, they're making enough that they can pay the higher monthly bills. Conversely, they could get a brick (which would work perfectly well for texting and calling) and a lower rate, and be able to put the extra money aside.

Not to say that impoverished people with iPhones are blowing their money on luxuries; just pointing out that they could use their money in a better fashion.

[TheHammer]

Hammer, not only is our system nowhere even close to "$200 for whatever,"

Actually, I believe we established that through barter the $200 in food stamps a person recieves can be turned into almost anything from toilet paper to drugs and alcohol or whatever.

you advocate crippling the tools needed to pull someone out of poverty. It is nearly impossible to get any job without regular computer access or a cell phone.

I know plenty of people who have jobs - good jobs - and do not own a computer. Further, there are many places to access computers for the purposes of job searches and checking email free of charge such as libraries, employment offices etc. And as I said, I don't believe anyone begrudges basic phone service, even cell phones, but it certainly doesn't have to be a smartphone such as an iPhone.

IPhone 4s are free from just about any major carrier, not some luxurious extravagance.

Yes they are free... with a two year commitment for cell phone service with a data plan. If you figure around $50 a month (a modest estimate) you're looking at $1200 for your "free" phone. Basic Cell phone service would easily be half that. I know several people not on welfare who consider those to be a luxurious extravagance.

Ipads and other tablets are cheaper than most laptops, and lots of those ones you see being used are either pre-owned or the person already owned a computer before they needed assistance.

iPads are less functional than most laptops, and despite your assertion, no, they are not cheaper. If you are talking generational parity you can get several laptops brand new for around $300 versus $500 for a baseline (non-mini)Ipad. Even pre-owned or refurbished you're looking at around $300+ for a functional ipad. Google it.

The point i'm making is these aren't cheap devices. Many people not on welfare don't feel that they can afford them. Thus people on welfare having them is quite a kick in the teeth to those people don't you think?

You seem to think the point of an assistance program should be mere survival.

I believe an assistance program should be providing means for people to get off the assistance requirement. Job training, child care assistance so they can go to work or school, etc.

But yes, for those who choose not to try and better themselves I think providing absolute basics for mere survival is adequate. I'm not interested in subsidzing someone's happiness if they refuse to put in effort to earn it.

PS, I mention refrigerators and cell phones because an actual talking point on Fox and among conservatives is that a person with a refrigerator isn't really poor. And lunatics yelling about "Obamaphones," a program started by Reagan asd expanded by Bush because they recognized how critical phones are to getting a job.

You'll note I said reasonable person. Not Fox News.

[Mr. Tickle]

Perhaps the wording "Comfortable" is a bit misleading and is skewing the discussion on what I think is a valid point by the writer, I disagree with the idea of using the whole welfare bill in 1 big lump to solve it but it's a good way to frame the extreme end of a possible other solution.

I think a better way of looking thinking about what is the current use of welfare programs in any country, and I'm speaking as a brit here, is it to actually make people's live better or is it merely to "manage" the effects of poverty in these situations. By giving smaller slices of programs through a mix of various channels each targeting a sub-set of that person/families individual problems really the best way to deal with the fundmental problem of having people who need extra money just to barely live "comfortably"?. I think the author of the article is right, we know the best way to raise people out of poverty, and that's through better education and job prospects.

I think the crux of the issue is really are we going to get those sorts of outcomes through the present direction of how welfare programs are organised? Is the money being spent to actually deliver those outcomes or is the money just taking the edge of it. Without solving those bigger issues you are just locking people into that system which means the support is in effect making no real difference to problem.

Would giving each of those families a lump sum of £X to effectively push them into the middle classes instantly solve it, I doubt it, while having that money might be a outcome of being "middle-class" that is really just an outcome of having secure professional jobs which provides that wealth, plus the likelihood of having access to better standards of education and networks etc etc.

Never the less, I think its an important discussion to have. I generally think this is a "left" leaning forum so I think most of us have no issue with the general concept of welfare etc but then you should also consider how exactly that is done to actually make any difference to the issue it's supposed to be addressing, which I think is the main drive of that article.