Full Welfare or make people feel the urgency to work

A report in Sunday Times 06-Sep-06 caught my eyes when it reported about the progress of the US Welfare reform that was signed into bill by Bill Clinton in 1995. The reform was kicked started by Charles Murray, a US social thinker in his 1984 book "Losing Ground". The reform stipulated that welfare will be cut off after 5 years if recipient did not find a job although the US Social Security wasn't really serious about letting people starve to dealth. The deadline had howevered change people mindset and subconciously pushed them back to work. Social workers also change their advice from "you don't need to get a job because the state will take care of you" to "you have got to go and look for a job".

10 years ago, the socialist and nay sayer claimed that American children will be begging on the street soon and street of US will be like street of a 3rd world country.

At 2006, statistic overwhelmingly show that the reform was a success and many of those previously on benefit are now happier and prouder as they are standing on their their feets.

Among the statistic quoted are:

1994 - 5.1m American families were on welfare. By 2004, this number had been reduced to 2m and Teenage (aged 15-19) birth fell from 58 per 1000 to 41 per 1000 [this seemed to contradict UK Family Planning Unit figure which stated US figure is about 80/1000]. While part of the reduction was probably caused by economic boom, the trend has persisted over the 2001 recession.


The article also reported that a lady named Giddiens started with a job selling health insurance outdoor (not a really nice job, standing under rain and sun) for $10 an hour 3 years ago. Now she has been promoted indoors and now makes $15 an hour. Now she even wants to take an online degree in marketing and gets promoted to a manager. Her daugther was also inspired by her example.

I suppose the once the momentum starts rolling, people will want to be self sufficient and feed themself with their own effort.



Looking back to UK, recent Labour government policy has went further to make the social welfare system favours the lone parents where a well-planned family with 10 kids can end up doing much better than an IT engineer earning £30k per year. (Wellfare money are mostly untaxed, and such welfare provision usually includes a house which is very expensive to rent/buy with mortgage at the moment).

A recent BBC articles (http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=3341&&edition=1&ttl=20060907004151)
regarding EU migrants attracted lots of comment from British residents, some of those notably hostile, accusing the new comers from taking their jobs. The truth is (although many poster denied) is that the current welfare system means that it is simply no worthwhile UK resident to take up low paid job and if these jobs were filled by eastern european, it actually benefits the UK people (even those who claimed that they cannot find a job) because that keeps the cost of living under control. Several poster also said that if there weren't these EU immigrant, employers would be forced to pay more to hire local people. Well, that is true but that also means that their cost of living will shoot up and a Macdonald will cost £5 rather than £3. Unless Brits can demonstrate that they are much more knowledgable and efficient, demanding additional pay simply will not help improve their standard of living (unless they are the ONLY ones getting the increased pay while expecting others to still be paid cheaply so that their bigger wages can now actually buy them more things).

Looks like European and UK welfare state in its presence form (which is based on rights with no mention about responsibility) is there to stay and attempt to reform it would be a politicians' darkest nightmare....so, I expect them to leave it alone until the state can no longer afford such extravagance.