How do we break the welfare cycle?

gailforecast · 08-07-2020 9:02pm

oceanman wrote: »

the US is a broken country with huge problems and social divides, a place we should never try to aspire to...

Sure, but people aren’t taxed to the hilt there.

osarusan · 08-07-2020 9:02pm

There's only three ways to spend the taxpayer's hard-earned money when it come to welfare reform. More walls. More bars. More guards.

08-07-2020 9:04pm

gailforecast wrote: »

I mistyped. It’s besides the point. If someone thinks certain work is beneath them, the blame doesn’t lie with billionaires, the blame lies with a stinking attitude problem.

Still none the wiser on what you mean.

There's a large sociology base around this question, built up over more than a century. David Graeber is fashionable at the moment for what he calls 'búll**** jobs'.

I'm lucky that I'm in a job that I find meaningful and I can talk about having a work ethic and so on. But zooming out, so many of the jobs that we do either have no meaning or actively make the world a worse place.

I've worked in the latter category and hated myself for having to do so. That was the most toxic time of my life; I shouldn't have done it but I had no choice. Sociologically this whole question is a far more complicated scenario than just being annoyed at strangers for not working harder.

And all throughout human history the concept of the work ethic has been related to the idea of the 'dignity of labour'. That's another thing that's broken for many people today and needs to be solved if you want people to work more.

Irish Praetorian · 08-07-2020 9:04pm

Yeah I've no problem with some of these measures around tightening up welfare in order to discourage long term dependency in all but the most appropriate cases (I wouldn't mind seeing things like respite for carers of the seriously disabled and even more facilities for the seriously disabled).

But let's not leave one half of the equation alone - I hear plenty of young couples speaking of the difficulty of getting a family started even when both are working full time and often leading them to only have one child or two. The biggest expense? Property, in the form of rent or mortgage payments.

I would suggest a draconian culling of the rental sector outright;

1. Property tax (think LPT on steroids) on all but a person's primary residence - if you're in the business of owning a house/apartment so that you can accrue a rental income then its time for you to find a new investment opportunity. Seasonal rentals are fine, apartment complexes I would be open to exempting or making encouraging some kind of co-op structure, but the basic idea is you own a house you intend to use, not just to make money off. You want somewhere to sleep in the city when you finish work, you had better be some high flying over worked git who's willing to pay for the pleasure.

Possible problems; who would invest in building a house if they can't profit off it/won't people just collude to say a friend 'owns' a property.

2. State development and redevelopment - partly in answer to the problem above, the state needs to get a lot more aggressive about developing and redeveloping areas as appropriate. Lovely historic terrace houses look nice with their semi-elliptical transom, but guess what looks nice? A new family able to live in the city close to their work and schooling without having to commute 90 minutes every day. If there is demand then build, and if it is dilapidated develop.

Possible problems; the planning infrastructure needed for centralized development, possibility for the usual feeding at the state trough.

3. Get a hell of a lot tighter on tenant responsibilities and tie that in with welfare reform - the state ought not to be in the business of providing housing and free services for those who scorn their basic duties as citizens (let alone human beings). A person might not be able to pay rent once in a while, a person might occasionally get in a scuffle - fine people can be in error and we should be understanding. But persistent abuse of a service should be dealt with far more severely far more quickly - if the rent is consistently in arrears eviction should be streamlined, if anti-social behaviour becomes a regular occurrence it should not be the burden of decent neighbours to endure it.

Possible problems; problematic individuals and their dependents ending up on the streets, overzealous enforcement.

And since ideas sound best in threes I'll leave it there, come decry me as a heartless fascist or a hippie communist, I'm eager to see which prevails XD

Josh. · 08-07-2020 9:06pm

The US and the UK are fukked

We don't want to aspire to be like them

gailforecast · 08-07-2020 9:06pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Still none the wiser on what you mean.

There's a large sociology base around this question, built up over more than a century. David Graeber is fashionable at the moment for what he calls 'búll**** jobs'.

I'm lucky that I'm in a job that I find meaningful and I can talk about having a work ethic and so on. But zooming out, so many of the jobs that we do either have no meaning or actively make the world a worse place.

I've worked in the latter category and hated myself for having to do so. That was the most toxic time of my life; I shouldn't have done it but I had no choice. Sociologically this whole question is a far more complicated scenario than just being annoyed at strangers for not working harder.

And all throughout human history the concept of the work ethic has been related to the idea of the 'dignity of labour'. That's another thing that's broken for many people today and needs to be solved if you want people to work more.

None the wiser? It’s pretty straightforward. If you think you’re above certain types of work, you have a dreadful attitude. I spent my teens and college years working in Lidl on the bottom rung. I never thought the work was too good for me. It paid the rent and bills. There’s no such thing as a meaningless job. If it was meaningless, it’d be cut.

Referring to any job as a “bull**** job” is snobby, irresponsible and downright idiotic.

At what point does a job become meaningful?

08-07-2020 9:38pm

gailforecast wrote: »

None the wiser? It’s pretty straightforward. If you think you’re above certain types of work, you have a dreadful attitude. I spent my teens and college years working in Lidl on the bottom rung. I never thought the work was too good for me. It paid the rent and bills. There’s no such thing as a meaningless job. If it was meaningless, it’d be cut.

Referring to any job as a “bull**** job” is snobby, irresponsible and downright idiotic.

Mmm, I did much the same at various times.

But I also had jobs where the company I worked for was the public face of a tax scam and it really didn't make a difference if we answered our phones or masturbated under the desk, or where the only work was done by a roomful of unpaid college interns who had their smoke break cancelled one day because the company owner was having his Merc valeted where they usually smoked, or where we were instructed to break the law to ship an illegal product or else the payroll wouldn't happen this month.

I did those jobs (and I reported offences as appropriate, with no action from the guards/Revenue/regulators). Now that I'm out of those environments I must say I am indeed above "certain types of work" and that I don't think this is a "stinking attitude problem" as you say.

There must be a point whereby "you have a dreadful attitude" is overtaken by "I'm enabling white-collar crime and I hate myself for being here". Yes, a work ethic is admirable and I think we agree on that.

But a lot of jobs make the world a worse place - imagine being the advertising account manager for an over-the-counter opioid, for example.

And a lot of jobs make people sick and unhappy in a way that work ethic just can't compensate for. It's a very harsh position to insist that people commit their lives to work-for-the-sake-of-work; if you're proud of your working life then of course that's a positive thing for you but that's just not a universal experience and solving the problem of workplace-withdrawal just won't come down to work ethic alone.

All the above is personal anecdote of why a cast-iron work ethic just can't be the be-all-and-and-all, but there's been a ton of social-science research on the topic that's worth delving into if you haven't already.

bfa1509 · 08-07-2020 10:02pm

Have a weekly 5k race for everyone on welfare. Whoever is in the bottom 10% gets no dole.

Eric Cartman · 08-07-2020 10:07pm

Deleted User wrote: »

People withdraw when they feel that the jobs available to them are meaningless and that the lads at the top are complete scam artists.

Both of those judgements are correct.

anyone not working because somebody is doing better than them really needs to be sent down a coal mine.

08-07-2020 10:09pm

Eric Cartman wrote: »

anyone not working because somebody is doing better than them really needs to be sent down a coal mine.

Your comment has nothing to do with anything I've ever written or thought in my life. A pathetic attempt at trolling.

08-07-2020 10:21pm

bfa1509 wrote: »

Have a weekly 5k race for everyone on welfare. Whoever is in the bottom 10% gets no dole.

What a clever idea. Of course you realise that in the first week the spina bifida kids in electric wheelchairs will have a huge advantage over the terminally ill hospice patients under heavy sedation as well as the quadriplegics who can't push their own chairs or communicate verbally.

I'll be backing the spina bifida team when it goes live on Paddy Power; I'd get on it. You heard it here first.

bfa1509 · 08-07-2020 10:27pm

gailforecast wrote: »

How do we stop generational welfare recipients?

Do CE schemes or other work programs work? Or is there another approach we can take which will be effective?

Deleted User wrote: »

What a clever idea. Of course you realise that in the first week the spina bifida kids in electric wheelchairs will have a huge advantage over the terminally ill hospice patients under heavy sedation as well as the quadriplegics who can't push their own chairs or communicate verbally.

I'll be backing the spina bifida team when it goes live on Paddy Power; I'd get on it. You heard it here first.

Not sure spina bifida or terminally ill hospice patients contribute much of the cohort of generational welfare recipients...

08-07-2020 10:36pm

bfa1509 wrote: »

Not sure spina bifida or terminally ill hospice patients contribute much of the cohort of generational welfare recipients...

bfa1509 wrote: »

Have a weekly 5k race for everyone on welfare.

Did you write this or not?

In any case, there's no shortage of studies showing that disability and terminal illness are huge factors inside households caught in welfare traps. Add to that factors such as addiction and sexual abuse within the home. So perhaps think of these welfare service-users before you declare your desire to chase vulnerable people around the place for five kilometres.

Looking forward to the betting on your 5K race though! Thanks for your helpful and intelligent contribution.

Eric Cartman · 08-07-2020 10:43pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Your comment has nothing to do with anything I've ever written or thought in my life. A pathetic attempt at trolling.

Not really though. Do you agree that there are a large proportion of welfare recipients who could physically work but choose not to or have actively caused themselves conditions which have led to them being unable to work ?

08-07-2020 10:48pm

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Not really though. Do you agree that there are a large proportion of welfare recipients who could physically work but choose not to or have actively caused themselves conditions which have led to them being unable to work ?

I've never expressed an opinion one way or another. What is the exact proportion?

screamer · 08-07-2020 10:50pm

We also need low skilled jobs back, from what I see there’s a good portion of the lifer welfare cohort who are just never going to be able to do intellectual work. We need manual roles again. I think Ireland trying to move to a knowledge economy has simply not served people who are not suited to such roles. Historically these people would have been labourers/ miners/ factory workers etc. If there are no roles suitable for their level of a ability, how can they ever get off welfare. Getting rid of our manufacturing industries was a huge mistake, even the Germans still have this.

08-07-2020 11:00pm

screamer wrote: »

We also need low skilled jobs back, from what I see there’s a good portion of the lifer welfare cohort who are just never going to be able to do intellectual work. We need manual roles again. I think Ireland trying to move to a knowledge economy has simply not served people who are not suited to such roles. Historically these people would have been labourers/ miners/ factory workers etc. If there are no roles suitable for their level of a ability, how can they ever get off welfare. Getting rid of our manufacturing industries was a huge mistake, even the Germans still have this.

I've a huge amount of sympathy for that position because manual work does carry its own dignity.

But in school were taught that 1) Ireland has very few natural resources and 2) we never really experienced the Industrial Revolution apart from pre-Independence Belfast.

So we didn't have the same working-class experience of mines and factories that the UK and Germany had and retain today. Because we had no coal or ore in the 19th century. That narrative says that we went from an agricultural economy to a services economy between the '60s and the '90s (it's often ignored that the agri element in the economy is still immense today).

Some say that we benefited from jumping straight into computers and services without having to wind down primary and secondary industries... hard to know. We didn't have much of that apart from farming.

Eric Cartman · 08-07-2020 11:07pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I've never expressed an opinion one way or another. What is the exact proportion?

Well aside from the over 43,000 working age people in Ireland who have never paid a prsi contribution , the massive fraud in the disability system, I would say that almost the entirety of the population who have been on JSA for over 2 years now are intentionally avoiding work.

Biker79 · 08-07-2020 11:15pm

Mcwilliams spoke of disability claims some years ago. They aren't included in the unemployment stats.

Very strange indeed.

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/the-mystery-of-disability/

conndeal · 08-07-2020 11:25pm

I wonder if there was some bonus built into the social welfare system for education - 1000 euros if your child completed their leaving certificate, 5000 for someone who got a degree. If a number of people from these areas completed third level education and hopefully got employment it would encourage others.

Eric Cartman · 08-07-2020 11:26pm

Biker79 wrote: »

Mcwilliams spoke of disability claims some years ago. They aren't included in the unemployment stats.

Very strange indeed.

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/the-mystery-of-disability/

was wondering why the amount of disabled people started rapidly climbing in 96, then I looked up the social welfare act 96 which talks heavily about this fantastic new disability payment...

shocking correlation there.

collywobble7 · 08-07-2020 11:35pm

osarusan wrote:

There's only three ways to spend the taxpayer's hard-earned money when it come to welfare reform. More walls. More bars. More guards.

But you write your letters...

08-07-2020 11:40pm

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Well aside from the over 43,000 working age people in Ireland who have never paid a prsi contribution

1: The disabled aren't generally in a position to pay PRSI contributions. 643,131 self-described as disabled on the last census in a population of over 4.7 million. 43,000 working-age-PRSI-non-contributors is an enormous win for your position in that context. You should be celebrating. That's an extraordinary tribute to the system, its administrators, and the restraint of your fellow citizens.

2: If your 43,000 claimants are on the weekly €203 for one year that will amount to less than €500,000,000 (half a billion). National expenditure last year was €77,500,000,000,000 (77.5 billion). You're complaining about a 6.45% item in the national accounts that is apparently bankrupting the country and corrupting its moral basis. That is either bizarre and obsessional or it is bigoted.

3: Your problem with these 43,000 people equates to 0.91489361702128% of the population of Ireland.

Eric Cartman wrote: »

The massive fraud in the disability system,

Please quantify this.

Eric Cartman wrote: »

I would say that almost the entirety of the population who have been on JSA for over 2 years now are intentionally avoiding work.

"You would say", would you? Again, please quantify. And factor in whatever proportion are carers who've been categorised as 'unavailable for work' and officially advised to use JSA as an easily accessible bridging method because of dysfunctionalities in the carers' allowance system; what proportion are the recently disabled who know they will never work again and have been waiting years to transfer over to the disability payment because they're waiting on the paperwork to come through; and all the other countless various distortions that occur in a bureaucracy in need of reform.

One thing stands out though: by your own stats you are whinging about 0.91489361702128% of the population of Ireland and saying that their behaviour is a national crisis.

Something about that is troubling.

***edit because I can't use a calculator***

bfa1509 · 08-07-2020 11:59pm

Deleted User wrote: »

1:

You're complaining about a 6.45% item in the national accounts that is apparently bankrupting the country and corrupting its moral basis. That is either bizarre and obsessional or it its bigoted.

3: Your problem with these 43,000 people equates to 0.0091489361702128% of the population of Ireland.

Please quantify this.

One thing stands out though: by your own stats you are whinging about 0.0091489361702128% of the population of Ireland and saying that their behaviour is a national crisis.

Something about that is troubling.

Your calculations are a bit off

but regardless: 6.45% is an incredibly high amount when you think of all the money needed for health, transport, debt bills etc. That's by no means a trivial amount

Jane98 · 09-07-2020 12:01am

TheDativeCase for your information, 43,000 is not 0.0091489361702128% of the population. Its 0.91489....% or almost 1% which is a sizable number.

09-07-2020 12:04am

Jane98 wrote: »

TheDativeCase for your information, 43,000 is not 0.0091489361702128% of the population. Its 0.91489....% or almost 1% which is a sizable number.

Ha, you're dead right, Jane. Serves me right.

micah537 · 09-07-2020 12:06am

Free compulsory 3rd level education and you can't collect the dole until the courses of 3 or 4 years are completed leaving you to be at least 21 years old, or complete a trade. If people realize they have potential they might actually do something with their life. I genuinely think some people from disadvantaged or toxic backgrounds have no belief in themselves and just collect the dole or work in a factory as they are brought down by people around them etc. If they had a qualification they would hopefully put it to use here or abroad when they see the earning potential.

I think a bigger problem is the growing population, which should be combated instead. Max of two kids per person from 2025. Once your second kid is born you either get tubal ligation or vasectomy or pay an extra tax if you want more kids. Stop paying lay abouts to pop kids out and expect the state to cover them. Decrease the population instead of it continually rising it will require less spent on infrastructure in the future.

Depression obviously exists. However if all you do is sit around doing nothing you are going to become depressed and stuck in a rut compared to if you had college or a job.

Cutting dole may force people to work or potentially rise crime rates. It's cheaper to educate people to keep them in prison.

Anyway, complaining on boards won't fix these problems .

Eric Cartman · 09-07-2020 12:06am

bfa1509 wrote: »

Your calculations are a bit off but regardless: 6.45% is an incredibly high amount when you think of all the money needed for health, transport, debt bills etc. That's by no means a trivial amount

and thats only the 'never paid prsi' doesn't account for all the other fraud.

09-07-2020 12:08am

Eric Cartman wrote: »

and thats only the 'never paid prsi' doesn't account for all the other fraud.

What exactly is the evidence base for "all the other fraud"?

09-07-2020 12:13am

Jane98 wrote: »

TheDativeCase for your information, 43,000 is not 0.0091489361702128% of the population. Its 0.91489....% or almost 1% which is a sizable number.

Lord knows how my maths teachers put up with me. Despite the pathetic attempt at crunching numbers, it would seem that the following two questions still stand.

-Are we really saying that the behaviour of less than 1% of the population, many of whom suffer extreme hardship, is a national crisis?

-And are we really saying that a 500-million-euro item in the 77-billion-euro national accounts has degraded the social contract more than all the other challenges facing our society?

How do we break the welfare cycle?

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