The War on Work | 5 Minute Video
The U.S. government has spent trillions of dollars in recent decades attempting to combat poverty, yet the poverty rate has remained virtually unmoved. Why? As social economist Michael Tanner explains, the “War on Poverty” has both discouraged work and ensnared people in hardship. The “War on Poverty,” it turns out, is actually a “War on Work.” In five minutes, learn the truth about government’s counterproductive efforts to eliminate poverty.
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Script:
In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson famously declared a War on Poverty. Half a century later, the poverty rate, the percentage of people the government declares to be living in poverty, has barely changed. Why? Are we not spending enough money?
The federal government funds 126 separate anti-poverty programs. Seventy-two of these provide benefits either directly or indirectly to individuals. The cost? $680 billion in 2013. Add in state and local government spending on poverty programs, another $280 billion, and the total comes to nearly $1 trillion. That’s for one year.
If just spending money was the solution, our poverty problem should be solved. But clearly it’s not. We need a better answer. And that answer, upon a few moments of reflection, should be obvious. Work.
Only 2.5% of Americans working full time are, by government standards, considered poor. Given, then, that work is the road out of poverty, shouldn’t we be doing everything we can to encourage people to get on that road? Of course, we should.
Unfortunately, however, we are doing just the opposite. Our welfare benefits are frequently so generous that they discourage people from working. We have created, perhaps with the best of intentions, what economists call a perverse incentive – in this case, against work. This is not to suggest that poor people are lazy. Most certainly aren’t. But they also aren’t stupid.
In a recent study for the Cato Institute, we looked at what a typical family on welfare could receive in benefits and compared that to what that recipient would need to earn in wages to maintain the same income. Our study looked at a typical welfare family with two children under the age of five. We assumed that this family receives benefits from the 7 most common welfare programs: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) – a straight cash program, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Women Infants and Children nutrition program or WIC, public housing vouchers, utilities assistance, and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program or CSFP which provides staples such as cheese, milk, canned vegetables and other basic dietary items.
Of course, not every welfare recipient gets all these benefits, but some get benefits from even more programs. With 72 programs involved, there is a buffet of options. For example, if our hypothetical family had children older than 5, they wouldn’t receive benefits from the Women Infants and Children program, WIC. Instead, they would get free school breakfasts and lunches. Our study found that the value of these benefits vary from a low of $16,984 in Mississippi to an astonishing high of $49,175 in Hawaii.
And keep this in mind: welfare benefits are not taxed, while wages are. That means that in many states welfare recipients would have to earn even more by working than they receive in benefits for not working in order to come out even.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/war-work
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bro how shit of an idea, trying to spread it around is even shittier
War
1,000,000,000,000
1,000,000
1T
The conclusion he draws right at the beginning is wrong. Only because poverty levels haven't declined doesn't allow you to conclude that government spending and programs don't work. It could be that poverty would have increased by a lot without the programs. PragerU makes problems Look a lot less complex than they are and that is the opposite of education actually.
Minimum wage is around $870/ month assuming $7.25 an hour, and that they take 25% in tax. A studio apartment is $400, so "just get a job bro" dosent work.
I come from Spain, Europe. We have far less wealth than the U.S.A. However, we also have far less poverty, why? Because health care is for free for everyone, it's a constitutional right. University is very cheap for everyone and for free for those who are middle class, you don't necessarily need to be poor to be exempt from paying fees, you only need to more or less study, because they don't demand neither As nor Bs, although they reward everyone who gets marks with distinctions. On the other hand, unemployment benefits are very low and temporary, as well as family allowances.
This is the European recipe…And we are not communists.
It’s called buying votes!
0:42 that’s $25,000 per person. (Roughly 40,000,000 people ~Census.gov)
on my momma this aint right
That is Socialism for you – it has no other name. It started in Europe after WW2 – and now its effects are felt everywhere.
And yet y'all are against raising the minimum wage
This is why we must replace the income tax with a Land Value Tax. Earning should not be punished.
Government is the problem, laissez-faire is the solution. Let's get back to a rational interpretation of the Constitution, dramatically reduce the size and scope of the fed gov and things will fix themselves.
All by design. Keep them on the government teat and they continue to vote in one way.
Actually, this is slightly inaccurate. Almost all Welfare discourages benefits to families where the father is present. Additionally there are penalties if one actually has the temerity of getting a job. If it was possible for people to keep SOME of their welfare benefits whilst working, then people would have the incentive to go to work. Mostly the loss is in the medical benefits. However the Welfare programme has a tendency of quite strongly discouraging their beneficiaries from either seeking work or going to school. I did both and was threatened with legal prosecution for fraud, even though I reported every penny of income I made. They constantly called me into the office to disabuse me for going back to college, even though no money was ever in my hands for said schooling. It was entirely held by the school and dispensed only to the school as needed. Thankfully the school counselors in charge of these programmes worked with me on this and also worked with the welfare office in my area. The programme I was involved with was designed specifically to get people off public assistance. Not a word of it at the Welfare office and CONSIDERABLE harassment from them when I enrolled. They went ballistic when I went looking for work and then secured it! Now that was thirty years ago and I'm sure not much, if anything, has changed. The whole idea of Welfare is not to get people back on their feet. The purpose of Welfare is to keep people dependent and controlled. VERY controlled. It's a truly evil enterprise.
Here in Illinois, when my mom was on food stamps, she was mandated by the state to "prove" she was searching for work. This required her to apply to at least 3 places a week.
How do you "prove" you submitted an online application? Or turned in a paper copy? Or walked into an establishment and ask?
You can take a screenshot, but that only proves you have an image – not a document.
You can make a photocopy, but this only proves you made a copy, not that you turned it in.
You can have someone vouch that you walked in, but this only proves you arrived, not that you inquired.
The state fought her at every step, and threatened to reduce and remove her food stamps of only $700 a month. Now, fully disabled and on Medicare, the state only grants her $13 a month in food stamps.
Thirteen dollars a month. If she doesn't use it, they revoke her card for "not needing" the benefits. So, she buys essential a gallon of milk and a carton of eggs, once a month.
And by "fully disabled", I don't mean like oh she's obese or has arthritis. She has degenerative disk disease. Her spine can't support her bodyweight. She is effectively bed ridden, except for when she spends the afternoon trying to shower.
This is why I think welfare needs to be abolished and replaced with a UBI, which will not be taken away regardless of anything.
Regarding the war on poverty you're right to question is effectiveness however I would argue that getting people to work doesn't necessarily move them out of poverty. Full time workers can still be considered "poor" based on their income. If we want to change poverty we have to look at factors such as transportation and housing which eat up a large part of someones income. I'm not saying give everyone a luxury house or car but provide more ways for people to save more money ie. smaller units, better public transit to help people save and invest more money. We act surprised when people don't want to work when most of their pay goes to just surviving. Yes we all need to be accountable for how we spend but we also need more options for people besides building more suburbia and endless highways with no public infrastructure.
Instead of stringing benefits out the minimum at a time for a few years , use
Entire allotment to get a car, home, clothes, resume. And case worker. Gets you back on track. Then…..stop destroying churches, who gave 90
% of all help until 2007.
Wow…….excellent discussion.
Please keep up this necessary work.
All's I'm sayin' is somebody didn't pay attention during the Death of a Salesman lecture in English class…….. on the real though what it sounds like is that y'all really gotta be targeting wages and benefits from working — if companies were less heartless in how much they're willing to give employees then maybe Iunno welfare peeps would go oh wait that's actually a more profitable incentive — JUST SAYIN
The people I know on welfare are trapped due to medical conditions, not conditions that prevent them from working, but ones that are expensive so they need Medicaid to pay for them. They can't find jobs that will give them enough pay and benefits to live and cover their medical expenses. The problem is that they need mid to high level jobs but it takes time to move to those jobs and they can't afford to live in entry level pay in order to move up. They're stuck in a catch 22.
Work or you don’t eat… sorry…. I’ve been working for 47.5 years…. I’ve never taken benefits….get a job or 2….. there are only a few people who can’t work….
then maybe you should do what the ussr did and ban extended periods of unemployment and always guarantee lob opportunities.
Just because you are classified as "in poverty" does not mean working is a better choice When you say the single mom "earns" more than $25/hr she will still be classified as impoverished at yet have a higher standard of living than the median salary in my area AND they get to raise their own children talk about incentive
"Work!" Maynard G. Crebbs
A lot of this 60's mentality apparently seeped its way into government. I'm on welfare, and, as my friend says, you end up working for the government. The government put me onto drugs, since they said I'm 'mentally ill.' Now, because of the drug, and because of the government doing things I better not mention, I CAN'T work!! I'm basically not allowed to! People ridicule me for not working, I'm sure; people call me 'lazy'; but I'm working on my education while I'm getting my stipend. I can't go to school. I'm too weak and sickly from the drug!–almost to the point of being bedridden at one point.
I was raised to work! I was ALWAYS very diligent! I prefer to work, and do what I can now! I'm tired of 'working for the government'–i.e.: filling out paperwork, going to meetings, sitting on my butt, waiting for something else to come in the mail that I'll have to fill out. I have a university degree and speak four languages. I can't go into all that's happened to me,…because the wrong people might read this!
Pay them
The biggest issue with the taxpayer funded "help" is the difficulty getting it in the first place only to have them lose it all in the blink of an eye making it very fearful to even try to get a job when the jobs tend unreliable income. That was not even discussed in this video… 8 yr old video with only 4k comments?
Cite sources. You're dumb. These numbers are false/misleading. You dont address companies using welfare as subsidies to pay their workers. You are doing a BAD FAITH ARGUMENT. You got all of the counting as unemployment criteria wrong. Actually I just cant go on anymore you are just so dumb or lying….one of those????
Conservatives make welfare sound amazing why aren't they taking advantage?
its not that benefits are to high but that wages are to low to make working more viable or viable at all in many cases
This is half the problem with this country.
And the vicious ⭕️ continues … 😱
American government is so generous that even the poor people are fat 🙂 i live in a country where unemployment is very low because now one can afford to stay unemployed for too long 🙂
I spent over 40 years working! I barely earned enough to survive on. Now, Disabled and age 70, all I've go is Social Security. And that won't even pay the rent on a one bedroom apartment!
Yet, young healthy people can get three to five times that each month just sitting home?
WHERE IS MY SHARE OF THIS ???
It won't be In 2023 because unemployment will be at record levels
We have exactly the same issue here in England. I have a sibling who has been on benefits all her life and she has a better standard of living than we had as children growing up in the 1960's with our father working full time all his life.
i overheard a story from when i worked construction
Guy was making money to try and get out of poverty, but the administrator told him since he was making more money he qualified for less food stamps
he said "Are you trying to keep me broke?"
Maybe there wouldn't be a war on work if employers would make working worth it
Best argument I've heard yet for raising the minimum wage.
how about we get rid of the benefits completely. if your sick (diabetes cancer other types of illnesses) or injured (surgery carpel tunnel)these should
prevent you from working. but sadly people get free money take advantage of these free programs and become lazy getting checks of around 1000 dollars a month.
WE NEED A TERRORIST ATTACK ON THE BBC.
Im so glad this didn’t age well, and people are starting to see through the lies. Unfortunately, some people still buy into this nonsense, but as more people learn the you can lie with statistics propaganda like this works less.
To anyone reading this: act your wage and don’t let the elite turn us into China, where the people there work to death to starve. Rich people want us poor people to fight amongst ourselves to perpetuate a system that will do to us what China does to their people.
Great video.
Time to update the numbers.
My guess is Welfare pays more with a higher % of the population using it.
Your heartless!