I have seen far too many people on Reddit argue that beggars and benefits recipients are literally richer than the average person because of the huuuuge income.
I think that’s people who have never experienced the welfare gap just extrapolating into nonsense. Fact is that, in the US, if you make a certain amount of money and qualify for certain services, you’re better off in the immediate term making less and staying on government assistance. They think everyone on welfare is homeless and that welfare is a single service that’s either on or off depending on the threshold, so they extrapolate that homeless people are moochers.
The reality is that most services have a progressive dropoff where, as your income rises, you receive less until you receive nothing. A lot of people will experience this as an immediate cutoff because they’ve changed jobs and had a sizable income hike all at once. And that can be scary if you’ve been on food stamps your whole life and suddenly your whole budgeting style has to change if you wanna eat. But that gap is relatively small in practice with the exception of things like social security and it’s related disability benefits. Stuff like crazy low amount of capital owned before they stop giving you disability cash assistance (like, if you own a car the government can consider you no longer in need of help). But that’s not a boon to homeless people. It’s an injustice to disabled people.
The “welfare cliff” I’ve seen discussed academically is actually focused on single mothers who lose much of their benefits when seeking employment, and must now pay for childcare, making the prospect a net loss for mother to enter the workforce after getting onto welfare benefits.
I hate all these fast-talking homeless grifters making billions in drug money from emptying out free water bottles and returning them for the deposit.
I once saw a homeless use the $20 I gave him to invest in bitcoin buy a pack of smokes instead.
It’s me, I’m out there converting EBT to drug money at an exchange rate of 6%.
Hell yeah I got $12 this month
a couple more months of this rise-and-grind and you’ll be able to afford 1 entire drug.
One of the all-time cumtown bits to be sure
Is that a real cumtown bit?
No but it’s uncannily believable as one
I have seen far too many people on Reddit argue that beggars and benefits recipients are literally richer than the average person because of the huuuuge income.
I think that’s people who have never experienced the welfare gap just extrapolating into nonsense. Fact is that, in the US, if you make a certain amount of money and qualify for certain services, you’re better off in the immediate term making less and staying on government assistance. They think everyone on welfare is homeless and that welfare is a single service that’s either on or off depending on the threshold, so they extrapolate that homeless people are moochers.
The reality is that most services have a progressive dropoff where, as your income rises, you receive less until you receive nothing. A lot of people will experience this as an immediate cutoff because they’ve changed jobs and had a sizable income hike all at once. And that can be scary if you’ve been on food stamps your whole life and suddenly your whole budgeting style has to change if you wanna eat. But that gap is relatively small in practice with the exception of things like social security and it’s related disability benefits. Stuff like crazy low amount of capital owned before they stop giving you disability cash assistance (like, if you own a car the government can consider you no longer in need of help). But that’s not a boon to homeless people. It’s an injustice to disabled people.
The “welfare cliff” I’ve seen discussed academically is actually focused on single mothers who lose much of their benefits when seeking employment, and must now pay for childcare, making the prospect a net loss for mother to enter the workforce after getting onto welfare benefits.