Research Belief in God has been overwhelmingly linked with do-gooders

[Syne]

Thanks for demonstrating exactly what I said. That welfare helps "within a short period of time," but not long-lasting, e.g. "many families return to welfare almost as quickly as they left, with about 45% returning within a year and 70% returning by the end of five years."

Welfare isn't meant to be long term. The long term is enabling them to get jobs and become self-supporting. And that 90% are off welfare in 5 years shows it works. If they need it again later on, so what? It's a major challenge getting out of poverty. That welfare can be there to lift them out of it is a good thing. Have you ever been so poor you had no food? Didn't think so.

So tell me in all your wisdom what other solution is there to helping the homeless besides getting them housed and providing addiction/mental health recovery and job services? Do you have a better solution?

  "Proven housing-based policies include: Federal housing assistance: Federal housing programs are one of the most successful housing-based solutions to reduce homelessness."

Who said welfare is meant to be long term? Welfare helping long-term means it allows the majority of recipients to leave it permanently. 70% returning to welfare means its long-term failure rate is 70%. If anything fails 70% of the time, it's an abysmal failure.

Again, I've been homeless, and I often went to day-labor so I could eat that day... maybe having a cheap packet of peanut butter and crackers to tide me over all day. Families that repeatedly enter welfare end up teaching that dependency to their children, leading to generational poverty. And many people find welfare pays better than any entry-level jobs they can find, literally disincentivizing them to get off welfare.

Most homeless are so by choice, whether due to substance abuse, mental illness, etc.. Housing assistance is not the same as providing free housing. Housing assistance helps the poor who are working enough to pay a subsidized rate.

No one will recover from substance abuse unless they decide they need to themselves. So no amount of free addiction counseling will solve that problem. Most people need to hit rock bottom, which is different for everyone, and this could include forced sobriety in jail. And people who are deemed a threat to themselves or others can be committed. One problem with mental illness is that many have sought to destigmatize it, which means there are fewer societal pressures for people to get treatment. Again, like substance abuse, no amount of treatment will work unless the individual realizes the need.

[confused2]

I'll get round to generational poverty .. but first..

In any society there's going to be a percentage that are unemployable - that is to say that the disadvantages of employing them exceeds any benefit they might be to an employer - setting a minimum wage excludes folks who may be willing to work but for any reason are significantly less productive than a 'normal' person. In the UK we give them 'benefits'. From time to time the government tries to reduce their number and we see headlines about people with no legs beings asked to prove they can't walk 100 yards without assistance .. and the purge is quietly forgotten.

There's bad luck poverty .. when one member of a two parent household is ill, dies or leaves and the remaining parent has the unexpected burden of property and children to maintain on their own. My mother managed 'somehow' .. exactly how I never asked and was never told. From her later attitude to christians I don't think they were part of the solution.

And generational poverty .. the UK is good at that.
To create a land fit for heroes a lot of houses were built by the state and let at nominal rents to folks who might not all have been heroes. Whole areas exist on government handouts, petty crime and sponging off a few folks (usually female) that are actually willing to work. One approach has had some success .. sell the house (very cheaply) to the occupant and as new capitalists they have a stake in improving the property and .. they don't get their rent paid by the state. The christian approach might be to cut out all subsidies and let them find their own path to hell - ?

Drug addiction is a different thing .. maybe another day.

State 'social work' .. to a timetable and budget .. not as effective as having folks actually engaged with the problem .. not least because one of the easiest ways to reduce the cost of 'social work' is reduce the number of social workers.

[Zinjanthropos]

If we all are inherently sinners then how can there be any do-gooders? Presents an interesting conundrum even God struggles with….

From Christians for Social Action:

Even though God never intended that there be any poor, he also knew that there would always be poor people as long as there are sinful people in the world.

Jesus’ statement about the poor always being with us is intended to shame us, to remind us that this is a true statement only because we have failed.

Always liked that lyric from Jesus Christ Superstar….
Paraphrasing: there will be poor always, pathetically suffering, look at the good things you’ve got…..

[C C]

If we all are inherently sinners then how can there be any do-gooders? Presents an interesting conundrum even God struggles with….

From Christians for Social Action:

Even though God never intended that there be any poor, he also knew that there would always be poor people as long as there are sinful people in the world.

Jesus’ statement about the poor always being with us is intended to shame us, to remind us that this is a true statement only because we have failed.

Always liked that lyric from Jesus Christ Superstar….
Paraphrasing: there will be poor always, pathetically suffering, look at the good things you’ve got…..

Barring it being used to hijack control of a country or feed revolution, capitalists (with Enlightenment values) actually shouldn't have a problem with there being some opportunism or self-serving reasons underlying do-gooderism -- i.e., incentives and hidden motives that still help hold civilization together and mitigate misery are contingently okay.

The disparaging of such compromised instances (the demand that they be wholly pure) comes from thought orientations that demonize capitalism (collectivism, socialism, Marxism, etc), and anything that might be construed as having been a precursor, ancestor, or predecessor to those. Since Christianity was a cohort of the "greedy" West, it doesn't [truly] universally frown down upon mild degrees of altruistic exploitation [and of course, even grand theft and subjugation concealed under that in the past]. Though to save face in public, its leaders might often have to outwardly condemn or criticize examples if they are served on an inescapable platter in front of the flock.

Of course, far-left ideologies have also been a paragon of hypocrisy and unscrupulous bureaucrats (secular priests) and literary intellectuals (secular prophets) in every country they have taken over.

[Magical Realist]

Who said welfare is meant to be long term? Welfare helping long-term means it allows the majority of recipients to leave it permanently. 70% returning to welfare means its long-term failure rate is 70%. If anything fails 70% of the time, it's an abysmal failure.

How are you defining failure? That it raises millions out of poverty and starvation and puts them into a position to get jobs and an education and counseling that they would not otherwise be able to get? Then its a rousing success. That it doesn't always keep the people who go off of it out of poverty in the long term? That's not a failure of the system. It's a symptom of the pernicious and long term effects of poverty itself. The myth that welfare programs enable people to take advantage of it and become dependent on it in the long run discounts this fact:

"The U.S. government provides welfare assistance through Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. Congress created the program to prevent recipients from abusing the welfare program by mandating that all recipients find a job within two years or risk losing their welfare benefits."--- https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/welfare.

That's two years to find a job or you're out. That certainly doesn't suggest that is a mere give-away program enabling anyone to manipulate it for their own long term benefit.

"Similarly, the poor are not becoming dependent on government handouts, nor are they tempted to stop working even when they are technically eligible for retirement. The idea that the poor are lazy is a long-promulgated slander. Since the Industrial Revolution required business owners to find ways to lure “the masses into their mills and slaughterhouses to work for as little pay as the law and market allow,” the word has gone out that the poor are “idle and unmotivated.” But researchers who studied cash welfare payments to young single mothers in the 1980s and 1990s discovered that most recipients gave up the payments within two years, sometimes receiving benefits again “for limited periods of time when between jobs or after a divorce.” The researchers concluded, “The welfare system does not foster reliance on welfare so much as it acts as insurance against temporary misfortune.” Temporary misfortunes are much more undermining for the poor than for the better-off, who often are able to turn to savings, helpful family members, banks willing to loan them money, and other resources that often are not available to the needy.

Further, the cash payments that were available under the welfare system of the 1980s and 1990s (Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or AFDC) have disappeared in the name of welfare reform. Only under very limited—almost nonexistent—circumstances are any governments in the United States now making cash payments to the poor under the current system of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, or TANF. TANF monies are supplied by the federal government to the states as “block grants,” and they are used to fund everything from relationship education to juvenile justice administration, but seldom are they aimed at reducing poverty. Desmond notes, “Nationwide, for every dollar budgeted for TANF in 2020, poor families directly received just 22 cents.”

The poor definitely are not milking the system for every available dime. Hundreds of billions of dollars annually are left unclaimed by people who qualify for assistance—food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and unemployment insurance. These forms of assistance are so difficult to get and keep that many poor families are unable to face the form-filling, line-standing, investigations into their meager finances and need to repeatedly guard their eligibility. For example, a worker can lose food stamps because she was scheduled for a few more hours on the job in one week or month (even though her hours were cut back again after that), resulting in the need to apply all over again for the lost benefit.

The idea that benefits make recipients “lazy,” a variation on the theme that government assistance leads to dependency, conceals other possible reasons why people may not be working: disability, lack of childcare or eldercare, lack of transportation, lack of medical or dental care that would make them attractive job prospects, lack of expected clothing, lack of literacy or language skills (whether they are native English speakers or not), or lack of computer or other skills needed to search for jobs."--- https://publicsquaremag.org/media-educat...n-welfare/

[Syne]

Who said welfare is meant to be long term? Welfare helping long-term means it allows the majority of recipients to leave it permanently. 70% returning to welfare means its long-term failure rate is 70%. If anything fails 70% of the time, it's an abysmal failure.

How are you defining failure? That it raises millions out of poverty and starvation and puts them into a position to get jobs and an education and counseling that they would not otherwise be able to get? Then its a rousing success. That it doesn't always keep the people who go off of it out of poverty in the long term? That's not a failure of the system. It's a symptom of the pernicious and long term effects of poverty itself....

Pernicious effects? Like the learned helplessness of dependency? Personal choices, like resuming substance abuse once they have money? That doesn't sound like any kind of success to me. The recidivism rate is certainly a clear indication of failure in the penal system, and relapse is an indication of failure in drug/alcohol rehabilitation. So why, exactly, is relapse into welfare not any indication of its efficacy?
If we're going to take this argument the least bit seriously, you're going to need to be a lot more specific than this vague arm waving.

...The myth that welfare programs enable people to take advantage of it and become dependent on it in the long run discounts this fact:

"The U.S. government provides welfare assistance through Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. Congress created the program to prevent recipients from abusing the welfare program by mandating that all recipients find a job within two years or risk losing their welfare benefits."--- https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/welfare.

That's two years to find a job or you're out. That certainly doesn't suggest that is a mere give-away program enabling anyone to manipulate it for their own long term benefit.

Now you're contradicting your own statistics:

  "People leave welfare for a variety of reasons, including finding employment, marriage, and other reasons. On average, about half of the AFDC caseload leaves welfare each year. According to Marca, most families leave within a short period of time, with about half leaving within a year, 70% within two years, and almost 90% within five years. However, many families return to welfare almost as quickly as they left, with about 45% returning within a year and 70% returning by the end of five years".

How can both of those be truth? Unless there's a LOT of wiggle room in the words "risk losing."

[Magical Realist]

mandating that all recipients find a job within two years or risk losing their welfare benefits."---

According to Marca, most families leave within a short period of time, with about half leaving within a year, 70% within two years, and almost 90% within five years.

How can both of those be truth?

People stay on welfare to supplement their income from their job. Most jobs that the poor get are low-paying, and don't always raise them above poverty level.

Pernicious effects? Like the learned helplessness of dependency? Personal choices, like resuming substance abuse once they have money? That doesn't sound like any kind of success to me.

Uh yeah, helping people with getting a job and raising them out of poverty and providing recovery programs for their addiction doesn't cause the problems it is attempting 'to solve. The problems were there before they went on the program. So it definitely can't be blamed for causing them. Oh and about rehab:

"The Butler Center for Research at Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation reports that roughly 89 percent of patients who complete alcohol rehab are still sober one month after discharge.

An estimated 76 percent of alcohol rehab patients who successfully complete treatment report still being sober at three months, roughly 69 percent are still sober at six months, and a little more than 70 percent are still sober at nine months.

Between 85 percent and 95 percent of all people who successfully complete drug rehab report still being abstinent from all drugs nine months after discharge.

Roughly 80 percent of patients report benefiting from improved quality of life and health after completing drug and alcohol rehab."---
https://www.legacytreatment.org/blog/reh...tatistics/

"While statistics on rising rates of addiction and overdose deaths often make headlines, many people find their way to recovery.

A study from the Recovery Research Institute revealed that roughly 22.3 million Americans (more than 9% of adults) are in recovery from some form of substance use disorder (SUD).

In a 2020 study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), 3 out of 4 people who experience addiction eventually recover."---
https://www.addictionhelp.com/recovery/statistics/

You were saying?

[Syne]

If they're still on welfare to supplement a job, they are still on welfare. How is that a success? It obviously hasn't solved the problem requiring assistance.

Where do you imagine I said welfare "cause[s] the problems it is attempting 'to solve?" I said "exacerbates." You do know what "exacerbates" means, right? Hint, it doesn't mean "cause." And where do you imagine I ever applied that to rehab? I notice your stats avoid giving any percent of permanent recovery. Again, relapse is a truer indicator of long-term failure.

Generational poverty occurs when someone is raised in welfare dependency and learns that as a habit of behavior. If welfare was more successful than a 70% failure rate, you would have fewer children learning that pattern of behavior.

[Magical Realist]

If they're still on welfare to supplement a job, they are still on welfare. How is that a success? It obviously hasn't solved the problem requiring assistance.

By providing them with enough money for nutritious food and a better apt in a better neighborhood and new clothes and a car and gas and a computer and maybe even going to college to pursue a long term career..etc. How is raising people out of poverty NOT solving a problem?

Where do you imagine I said welfare "cause[s] the problems it is attempting 'to solve?" I said "exacerbates." You do know what "exacerbates" means, right?

How is having enough money to get your life together "exacerbating" the problems arising out of poverty? Be specific now.

[Syne]

If they're still on welfare to supplement a job, they are still on welfare. How is that a success? It obviously hasn't solved the problem requiring assistance.

By providing them with enough money for nutritious food and a better apt in a better neighborhood and new clothes and a car and gas and a computer and maybe even going to college to pursue a long term career..etc. How is raising people out of poverty NOT solving a problem?

Where do you imagine I said welfare "cause[s] the problems it is attempting 'to solve?" I said "exacerbates." You do know what "exacerbates" means, right?

How is having enough money to get your life together "exacerbating" the problems arising out of poverty? Be specific now.

70% returning to welfare is not "raising people out of poverty" and not "get[ting] your life together." It's keeping them permanently dependent.

I'm guessing we're striking a nerve here. Are you on disability for mental problems or other welfare yourself?