Why Means Testing Is A Terrible Idea
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 เม.ย. 2022
- You've probably heard about means testing during past presidential campaigns. Maybe you've even been on the receiving end of a liberal lecture about how important means testing is. But what exactly does this practice accomplish? In this week's video, we're diving into the philosophy of means testing and figuring out what it's good for, if anything.
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Why Means Testing Is A Terrible Idea - Second Thought
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SOURCES:
ProPublica report
www.propublica.org/article/st...
Texas TANF requirements
www.msnbc.com/opinion/welfare...
Universalism & solidarity
www.jacobinmag.com/2019/12/po...
www.jacobinmag.com/2016/11/do...
theweek.com/articles/601672/j...
MMT videos
• Your Taxes Pay for Not...
• The Deficit Myth: The ...
Beyond welfare
www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/be...
Policy feedback
www.annualreviews.org/doi/10....
Means testing
www.vox.com/2021/10/15/227224...
Means testing costs study
www.cepr.net/documents/public...
Programs that use the OPM
www.hhs.gov/answers/hhs-admin...
Drug testing for public services
www.ncsl.org/research/human-s...
Deaths from lack of social support/poverty
www.publichealth.columbia.edu...
74% American adults say no to cuts to social security
www.pewresearch.org/social-tr...
Trump cuts to housing, food, health for low- & middle-income Americans
www.cbpp.org/research/federal...
Mollie Orshansky and the OPM
aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-e...
Manchin on the radio
wvmetronews.com/podcast/talkl...
www.politifact.com/factchecks...
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Howdy, friends! I hope you enjoy this week's video! If you're looking for more casual, longer-form socialist content, check out my podcast, The Deprogram!
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hey JT , please make the next video about the first in a long time labor union in America.
Hey, did you say your videos were demonetized? Every video I watch is FULL of commercials! I don't mind, as I love your channel. But I would like for your channel to receive the benefits from the commercials I watch. Thanks for the excellent videos!!!! 😊👍
Heya, really love the videos but personally feel like you could maybe reduce the quips and jokes etc. A few are fine and probably help people to digest the video and stay engaged etc, but I feel the amount in this video at least is kinda undercutting the video and are a bit distracting. Anyway just some constructive feedback to an otherwise excellent video : )
Just a heads-up. The people from a libertarian channel are planning to make response video to your work. Here's a Playlist of their content, so you can study them and go on the counter-attack.
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Like the extra jokes and graphics in this one
A quick reminder for those who didn't actually watch the video: Means testing costs MORE than universal programs.
Yet it doesn't matter, because universal programs bring in less profits than means tested programs
@@mr.theking2484it doesn't benefit the rich.
@@mr.theking2484
"Yet it doesn't matter," ???
Why? Should government not do a thing that benefits its citizens if it is not "profitable"?
Should police, fire departments and the army be required to make profits? Surely you see the problem with that, right?
"...because universal programs bring in less profits than means tested programs" ???
Wait, do you think government is a business? And how are you calculating "profit"?
A welcome byproduct of universal programs is that (increased) economic activity washes through the real economy. By definition, this results in higher profits. That they are distributed throughout the participants of the real economy instead of centralised is a good thing, don't you think?
And what good is a "profitable means tested program" if it fails to ameliorate the problem it was created to address?
I wonder how you feel about government employment programs? Because "means tested social programs" are essentially that. You employ people to create a bureaucracy to gate keep access to a social service. Do you not see how circular, wasteful and counter productive that is compared to universal economic assistance coupled with redistributive taxation? I thought "profit" and efficiency mattered to you? 🤔
That doesn’t really clear anything up but ok
The hardest thing for me, was the calls every week to make sure you're still unemployed, still disabled, and make sure you feel bad about it. And what I've heard from other countries is that means testing almost always involves this kind of bullying. Which really makes you feel too depressed to look for jobs or perform well in interviews, which really is rediculous if their aim is to have less people on welfare.
If they can't make a buck exploiting you then you're not a person in their eyes apparently
*weekly harassment
It's an attempt to coerce people into performance because only your productivity matters
If their aim is to have less people on welfare. Almost there.
I don't know if it's still the case, but back when I was unemployed in the UK the government had privatised the unemployment system - I had to deal with a contractor who had the job of trying to minimise expenses, and they were infamous for using every dirty trick in the book to find a way to avoid paying. Really, really dirty tricks: They would send post you a letter on Monday telling you that your meeting on Tuesday had been rescheduled - knowing that it takes two days for the letter to arrive. Then you miss your mandatory meeting and they can penalise you two weeks payments.
@@vylbird8014 We have that bureaucratic shit in the US too. I was once denied my appeal for unemployment from a business that lied about why they fired me because, despite that every conference call to that point had been made to me, _I_ was supposed to call in on my last hearing.
The conversation around means testing in our society seems to be redirected so often into working class infighting, blaming and pointing figures at each other to carry our own weight… I appreciate this work greatly, you killed it once again my friend.
Most Americans are on the same page. Infighting is the smoke screen the bourgoisie uses to distract from the upward redistribution of wealth. The reason Republicans don't agree is because, according to 2020 presidential exit polls, about 67% of Republicans make 122% of the median income or more and 74% of them are happy with the economy. Republicans fight social programs because the vast majority of them have money and don't care about other people.
Only about 15% of Republicans make 30k or less, which is about 73% of median income.
And yet business owners(parasites) got tens of thousands, if not millions in free.government money through ppp that they pocketed.
Kill the rich
There is no "seems to be" about it, it's done intentionally by the wealthy and corporations to keep us fighting with each other instead of directing our rightfully gained anger at them, the real culprits for our suffering...plus they can steal more of our taxes if we are at each other's throats.
Don’t point your figures at me!
The wealthy elites are the biggest freeloaders in America. Socialism for the rich and capitalism for everyone else.
In 1996, my family lived in Illinois. My dad worked as a floor manager in a plant that made plastic cosmetic and toothpaste tubes, making at the time $20 an hour. From years of working on concrete floors, his feet went severely bad. Bones twisted, muscles constantly cramped, he could barely walk. He lost his job in 1997, and his very last paycheck was literally $0, as his work took out a cavalcade of fees and penalties against him. At this point, he could not work, and my mom, a housewife, had to get a job. The only one she could get was as a maid in a Super 8 hotel, and because of tipping laws, she was paid only $3 an hour, with the head maid of the firm constantly vacuuming up all tips before the maids ever got to clean the rooms. Our income plummeted, but because our income was higher the years before, we could get no assistance in ANY way. No food stamps, no welfare, and not even any form of unemployment. Soon after I got to live in a tent for a year and a half, homeless on an empty field that my family mercifully happened to own in northern Minnesota, with our only real income to survive being my mom buying antique dishes from garage sales and selling them for a couple hundred bucks each to antique shops. These systems need to be universal and help everyone. It's so easy in this world to go from relatively easy living to absolute hell, because I lived it.
A whole year in a tent?!
I’m sorry to pry but where did you go after that year and a half
I can’t believe this situation of yours. Your fathers situation should have qualified him for an injured workers comp. I know I’m stating the obvious but this is just absurd
@@KellogsR-ny7ug My mother is the savvy one, my dad wasn't. He had multiple injuries over his working years, and each time he was all 'manly' and would not take the money that he was duly owed for such things. Toxic masculinity at its finest. As far as the workers comp, a combination of living in Illinois and my dad signing papers at work that he never knew he signed (you can give him a stack of forms and he won't read a one of them) and essentially he was screwed out of everything. Truly my dad is eternally his own worst enemy. After that whole fiasco, my mother took complete charge of finances and won't let him see or sign a thing unless she reads it first.
If I may ask how is everyone doing as of now?
@@KellogsR-ny7ug Significantly better. I still live with my parents as their caretakers now, and we live on a small farm in Iowa. Not rich, but far from having everything snapping against us.
Tried to apply for Temporary Disability when I lost my second job due to PTSD, a congenital skeletal deformity and being diagnosed with ovarian cancer, but was rejected on the basis that I hadn't previously worked for 10 years (as a 23 year old). Then was harassed with threatening paperwork requests and phone calls every two weeks. Ended up working @ Cigarette Outlet a mere three days after major surgery to afford to do the laundry. Means testing is total bull!
That sounds so horrifying, I hope you are doing okay
I've had bipolar disorder since I was 15. I'm 33 now. I've never been able to hold a job down long enough to qualify for disability. I'm burnt out at my age. This system is so cruel.
@@MichelleHell Indeed. I also have bipolar disorder. It’s incredibly difficult to take care of myself in this capitalist system. I’ve never known someone with bipolar disorder who has been able to qualify for even temporary disability despite it being such a debilitating disorder for some:/
@@MichelleHellGo see a shrink, helps
@@henrycrabs3497 you think I haven't? You need to stfu.
The worst thing about "means testing" is that "Assets" are almost always added (and inflated), but "Liabilities" are almost never subtracted.
Every capitalist lender in the country could deny you a micro-loan because your Assets are negative and you don't have enough income to pay your existing bills/debts.
Every capitalist welfare office will still say you have $10's of thousands in "Assets," treat most of your income as expendable, and deny you a single food stamp.
It's criminal, even according to capitalist accounting. If a bank employee used the strange accounting of the welfare office to make loans they'd be arrested for defrauding their employer.
THIIIIISSSS. This is what makes being middle income working class sooooo hard! They only care about income. Nevermind the fact that you're supposed to live, buy multiple insurances, and save for your own retirement.
I had a baby at 24 weeks 3 days last year. Thankfully she qualified for disability through social security (and therefore eligible for for Medicaid) but we still had to disclose how much we made. The reason why she technically could qualify was because her residence was the hospital, not our home. As soon as she was discharged we had to notify the SSA. The good part is the government is so damn slow it's probably going to take them a really long time to reevaluate her Medicaid status. But babies born that young need to see specialists for some time after discharge, even if they look like everything is tracking normally for development. So technically if they were efficient we could be seeing GI, cardiology, Opthalmology through private issuance only which would get extremely expensive really quickly. All because my husband and I were both working at the time and therefore "made too much money"
I got denied food stamps during the pandemic because the fair market value of 2k for my shitbox car that I need because I live in a food desert was too much lmao
well put
@@roflscarf I'm on SSDI and am a single Mom of a teenaged boy. In Texas, we qualified for about $50 in food stamps a month and we get around $1500/mo from SSDI to live on in Austin, Tx where the rent is obnoxiously high. We moved to a small town outside of Austin and rent is not as high out here but the utility bills are. Thankfully the full benefits we SHOULD be getting is a federal mandate right now and I am able to actually eat everyday instead of skimping on food for myself so my son has more food to eat.
i never thought of this, but it makes sense. why do you think they prosper from having people in debt barely able to pay it off without losing their benefits? because they have an interest in various banks/capitalist enterprises doing well from the increased bottom line (interest gained).
why count assets and not debts? why, it's to keep the worker in the direst possible straits, saddled with a restrictive budget and no legal (cash in bank) way of earning enough to get themselves out of the hole. they benefit from the pain and plight of the worker, and keeping the worker in such a place allows for more possibility of lowering wages/benefits and still seeing the jobs taken, lest one starves.
i hate this corporate hellscape
Honestly I think it's so much worse than this video even says. I currently work for a state doing exactly this. The incredible list of exhaustive checks we must make is just insane. The cost is amazing, if taxpayers knew, they would be so pissed. I don't even think I can express it here in this comment but I'll try.
First of all we process 2 programs (tanf and food stamps) through a program based on cics, a technology developed in the 60s. I'm not kidding. We process medicaid through a new program that is still INCREDIBLY unintuitive and breaks constantly. And it's slow.
Do you have $12 in your pocket? I need to know and document it. Are the kids in your home yours? Where's the father? I need to know all of that. I need to know what actions you've taken to secure child support. The father is your rapist? You have to prove that to me. In fact there is guidance on what I can or can't take a customer's word on, like I don't necessarily need you to take the $12 out of your pocket to prove it, but if anything is suspicious (did your brother drop you off in a new car?) I need to investigate that. I absolutely need bank statements and paystubs. Did you get an unusual amount of overtime last month? You need a letter from your boss to prove it. Did grandma give you $300 for your birthday? Get a signed letter from her to prove it.
Now let me enter all of this information into 2 systems for some reason. Oh and we have two separate work requirements for some reason, got to find out if you're an exception to those. You had a drug felony? Drug test (yep I'm in one of those states) for foodstamps even if it was 20 years ago.
My favorite example in training was a homeless man who came in, applied for foodstamps, no job, no money. Comes back a full year later to apply again, still no job but this time reports having $600. They managed to make $600 somehow over the course of A WHOLE YEAR. That's maybe half rent on a studio apartment in this area (and not a nice one either). I have to investigate where that money came from. I have to get in their business over $600. Over a year.
They expect us to work about 1.5 cases an hour once we're fully trained. But we have scheduled meetings, training, etc, so while they say about 12 cases a day, it's not going to be that many. Millions of people who need help (not exactly a small state) with each employee able to work about 10 cases a day.
And thats when we're fully trained. I got this job Jan 24 was my first day, it's now April 8 and I will finish classroom training April 15. Then I have on the job training, where I will finally start working cases but very, very slowly for the next 10 weeks.
Think about the cost just to TRAIN ME so that I can work like 10 cases a day. And then I have equipment I have to use, a supervisor, he has a supervisor. All of that costs money. Plus the armed guards we need in every office, apparently.
Oh, and they don't pay us much, a little more than 15 an hour, so they have a special employee benefits unit so that we can also get benefits LMAO. But you know it's a job. It keeps us, the working poor dolling out benefits, working against the rest of the working poor.
We are spending SO MUCH MONEY to avoid spending money. It's insane and it increases human misery like you wouldn't believe.
Best Bug thank you for your input of how the system really works. I suspected as much, but wow that's just insane.
Good grief. Thank you for tell us just how stupid this entire setup is.
Thank you for telling what I, a gay single dad that went through a complicated separation, went through. This btw kept my son out of the mental healthcare he needed and cost me several jobs.
They don't care.
I worked in similar jobs and can confirm this. The community will also lose faith in non profit and county partnerships because they see “x million dollars rewarded” but the community only gets a fraction it it. So much is spent on staffing homeless shelters and paper checkers, enough to end homelessness if you just cut out the “case workers” and subsidized their rent. In one case the cost for housing a homeless person in a tiny house/shed with only space for a bed and shared bathrooms/no kitchen during the pandemic cost something like $1500 per person per month with staffing and insurance included for the shelter. Enough where we could have just covered full on apartments for each of them… but we “can’t” because of drugs or mental health excuses and the need for “services” (staff that often are not trained to deal with things like trauma informed care anyway and can retraumatize clients easily).
I also worked in a call center giving out pandemic aid and it was so understaffed, I was the only one doing the work -on top of doing my other full time job that just got back burnered for months- the paper checks and floods of desperate applicants meant 14 hour days sometimes over a computer with no breaks. I wasn’t always nice to applicants when they yelled about being frustrated needed documentation like a confirmation they were fired.
“But my kids and I are going to be homeless” was something I heard multiple times a day. If I fudged the paperwork and the agency was audited it would have meant the whole org possibly being shut down or sued.
If you’re dealing with a mean caseworker, consider they’ve been working a 60-70 hour week with little support or resources, and might be processing your paperwork on their own time instead of having a dinner or lunch break. This was the pandemic though I hope it’s better. So many social safety nets just crumbled then, they were never very fortified to begin with.
We absolutely spend more money hiring people to “make sure” the poor are absolutely destitute than we do giving that money directly to them. I’m glad I don’t work there anymore. It’s completely heartbreaking wanting to help and just embodying the inhumanity.
Your job sounds worse than being a Bill collector...at least in that job you _know_ that you’re a shark and you have to identify yourself as such.
The idea that working extra hours requires a letter from your boss so the system can decide whether to penalize you is so demoralizing in and of itself. I don’t even know how you folks manage to do this every day. It would be great if every legislator had to work in an office like yours to see the “system” in action and it’s effects. But few if any of them ever have, so they really are too removed from the process to have any compassion for people who are slaves to it.
As a retail worker I'm constantly exposed to and thoroughly disgusted by the endless vilification of the working class.
It's always "no one wants to work" or "you just need to work more/harder", never mind that as soon as you do start working harder, you immediately lose benefits and fall farther behind than when you weren't working. Never mind that many of the requirements to obtain welfare are prohibitive in nature. At the end of the day, if they see a store that's understaffed and overworked, it's always the fault of the workers - slacking off or not wanting to work - and never, say, the store which always schedules exactly one cashier for every shift because corporate won't give them any more hours to dole out.
Many of these people have been brainwashed to believe that the basic standards of living are something that can only be obtained by passing a nebulous and undefined bar of "working hard enough", but never seem to notice that this bar is almost always just a little higher than what you do. Do you work 20 hours a week? Get a second job. 30 hours a week? Still gotta work harder. Two jobs, 40 hours a week? Big shrug, clearly it must be your fault.
When technology makes work easier or faster, capitalism extracts that value added for itself, and never the employee. If you can assemble your widget 20% faster, you don't have to do 20% less work, you must instead now assemble 20% more widgets, and the company makes 20% more money of which you never see a single penny. Eventually technology will begin replacing workers entirely. When this happens, it will be the employee's fault.
Today I encountered a man who told me how he spent the past decade of his life working two jobs and felt like he had nothing to show for it. Another face in an endless sea of miserable people.
We live in a neoliberal nightmare where all the ills of capitalism are perversely blamed on the individuals, and never on the system itself. The system is horrendously broken. Work harder. Work faster. Work longer. Work through the precious, irreplaceable moments of your life. It's all your own fault.
I don't always read long comments, but I'm glad I read this one. I work retail as well - grocery - and this sums it up, unfortunately.
It is really telling of how screwed up the system is, when we are _scared_ of having less work to do.
All true, my sib! And we wonder why nothing changes when we’re all too tired and busy trying to survive. Who then had time to decipher what’s going on politically. That’s why the Republicans don’t waste time trying to make sense or staying on topic. They’re all about the shortcuts and culture wars are their way of keeping their base fired up. What do we, on the Left, have? The few PEOPLE-first politicians we do have try, but the status quo beast seems to always be too big to take down. And since we, on the Left, see what’s happening, we don’t have the patience to listen to excuses and so we give up and opt out. But we can’t and I hope you don’t. Sending you much love and abundance!
I completely agree. Just turned 21 and my landlord is selling the house.. I do not have any generational wealth or anything and my parents do not live close not to mention I live in one of the most expensive areas ever.. Long Island New York. Inflation is making working longer hours useless and honestly I’m finishing up school next month for a useless liberal arts degree… my associates I don’t know what the future hold but the system is to blame… That’s what I know for sure…
Thank you for this well articulated comment, you nailed it.
Back when my wife (back then girlfriend) and I first moved in together, we were both working in retail service jobs and barely scraping by. We decided to look into getting food stamps to help make ends meet since we were both making less than $12/hr at the time and had a lot of bills and such to pay. We were told that, because I was paying my student loans, we couldn't get food stamps. The state of FL deemed paying back student loans as an "optional expense" and that I could just stop paying those and buy food.
Yeah, tell that to the student loan company that will then garnish your wages so you can't pay the bills AND they take the money. Basically the exact same thing a loan shark does. They'll break your legs, but they still want that money.
wait, so your saying that the government can be predatory???? say it aint so!?!?! - conservatives.
Does students loans have interest on them?
@@lightingflow4203 Yup
That's so ass backwards.
as soon as you mentioned Florida my heart just dropped. They are especially callous.
Means Testing : A way for people ideologically opposed to social mobility to undercut social programs they don't believe in, all while trying to maintain a thin veneer of plausible deniability about their motives for doing so.
💯 👏👏👏
Eloquently and precisely articulated. I wish there was a faster way to turn out these posers, other than waiting to vote them out every 6 years…
Means testing was never about saving government money. It is, and always has been, about morality. It's about making sure that the 'wrong sort of person' doesn't get any of /your/ money. And making sure that if someone isn't supporting themselves, they are punished for their indolence. It's just the same old protestant work ethic that once fueled the workhouses, where people in poverty were set pointless mind-numbing tasks to carry out for hours upon end because any money given to them had to be earned through work.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet the thing is, is most people your age tend to have been taught that work and income are the same thing. which it clearly isn't, capitalists even have a word for it: passive income. the morality of passive income is justified all around us, but only if your class is the right one. born into the "wrong" family, passive income isn't moral. born into the "right" family? passive income is moral. if something is moral when one person does it, but immoral when another person does it, that morality isn't consistent enough to be a public morality, since it clearly is discriminatory and liable for manipulation and predation.
The way you described workhouses sounds like how a lot of minimum wage jobs are now, mindless busy work that workers are required to do in exchange for a meagre amount of money. :/
@@daniboy9198 The workhouses were worse than that. Sometimes there wasn't enough work to do even at the lowest pay level, so people were set to carrying rocks from one end of the yard to another and back, or walking an endless treadmill that did nothing. The thinking of the time - and to some extent, the thinking of today - held that work was inherently a route to moral improvement. The financially impoverished were also morally impoverished, and the way to fix that was to teach them the value of working hard and long hours.
Meanwhile this sort of thing is likely happening…. th-cam.com/video/xsuqHTZxtPU/w-d-xo.html
@@vylbird8014 "The thinking of the time - and to some extent, the thinking of today - held that work was inherently a route to moral improvement. The financially impoverished were also morally impoverished, and the way to fix that was to teach them the value of working hard and long hours."
Also known as the Protestant Work Ethic.
"Rich people shouldn't get support, they already have money!" Do people realise that most bailouts, subsidies, government funding, etc goes straight to million and billionaires?
...yes. are you new to this channel? if so, I suggest watching more videos.
@@LexYeen nope! i watch every week!
@@LexYeen haha L + ratio
@@LexYeen they just commented, nothing much to it
Every person receiving welfare while employed at Walmart, Amazon, etc. isn't really receiving welfare, the company's wage costs are being subsidized by the government.
One of the most sadistic features of these programs is the complete lack of phase out measures for the "Poor" cap. Like you stated in the video, if you make even $1 above the cutoff, you lose a whole Chunk (if not the whole) of the benefit you were previously entitled to. This creates a perverse incentive to get as close to that line as possible, but not cross it. The only people who make across that chasm are either people who have borderline masochistic tendencies and robust personal networks to be able to make ends meet while trudging through it, or have an opportunity come along that allows them to pole vault over it. A phase out system would ensure that make an extra $1 means more take home pay ALWAYS. That is really the bare MINIMUM for a humane safety net.
I wholeheartedly agree
This is exactly the reality I face every day. My pre-existing condition, Severe Hemophilia type A costs me about 55,000$ a month for the life saving medication I need to not die. The only chance I can get to afford such a medication is either Medicaid or finding a job that can cover 100% of my HC costs ( which doesn't come often in the small state I live in ). That means I can't make more than 1505$ a month or else I will instantly lose my ability to treat my genetic disorder which in turn means death or extreme debt of which I can never hope to pay back. This has been the case for me since I was born and my parents had to face the same reality I do today. I can't believe the system we have in place and this is a great video that dictates it's inability to provide basic care for the American people.
@@sovereignindividual2625 a quick Google helps:
"The cost of drug therapy for a person with hemophilia can be several hundred thousand dollars per year and annual treatment costs of $1 million or more are not unheard of for patients with the most severe forms of the disease."
That is so fucked. Honestly aside from universal and free, in this current system there should be some clauses. Like you can't lose it immediately(at least till people get a chance to be on the aca)
And maybe if you're life dependent on it, or currently undergoing treatment, you should keep it.
If it was that dangerous, it should be free. Wtf
@@sovereignindividual2625
its an american thing.
private healthcare jacks up prices, to maximize profits
Welcome to America.
Not sure if this has been mentioned by others in the comments, but the NHS in the UK is the best example I can think of. It was founded as universal for the very reasons explained in the video, and remains one of the most cherished instutions in the country precisely because (almost) everybody uses it and nobody feels like they are only paying for others. Of course neoliberalism is slowly chipping away at it and privatising any chunks they can get their hands on...
You guys can't kill the NHS, I was gonna use it! No fair!
This is EXACTLY the problem I'm facing right now! I was raised with good personal finance skills, so I've been able to save up a moderate emergency fund; not a lot, but enough to provide some security for rough times. Apparently, according to the State, that savings is more than enough to justify taking away my food income. Because apparently a lump sum savings is the same thing as continual income. That's like pointing to a duck pond and calling it a mighty river.
So now I'm forced to embrace consumerism, and spend that emergency savings on shit I don't really need and can't really afford to buy. It's forced poverty: I can't escape the system, because the system has no fucking off-ramp.
Oh no, anyway...
take a look into getting an ABLE account. i'm not sure if you would be able to qualify, but i've been able to save up at least a little bit, as i try to move in between states.
@@ethanstump you again
@@henrycrabs3497 me again.
How does the state know how much you have in savings??
Podcasts are great, as well as the videos, your videos are helping my conservative family get their head out of their Nationalist Education from the 60s and 70s
Thanks so much! That’s great to hear!
What's a good one to start them with? Prob need one convincing.
I'm still too scared to directly send this stuff to my family, kudos to you
My mom is a liberal but she still says dumb shit like "Reagan was a good president" for no reason and can't defend her point. I'm sure her education was super nationalist.
The first one-third of the video, you nailed it. Rich people is only a small minority, I don't care if they're getting welfare meant for people living in poverty. The real problem is that wealthy people have their own welfare programs (like corporate bailout) that's not accessible to most people, and that costs taxpayers far more than all destitute welfare recipients combined. Basically, I'm far less concerned about billionaires getting a $10 worth of welfare than them getting billions in corporate subsidies.
That’s a good way to look at it! Puts in yet another perspective. All these perspectives are needed.
I'm very sure hes addressed that issue. Just wasnt what this video was specifically about. Weird comment bc everything cant be fit into every vid
It is like all the businesses who took the PPP loans while complaining that unemployment and stimulus checks "made people not want to work anymore"
@@matthewmitchell6001 There's nothing wrong with their comment, they're providing supplementary perspective because yes, not everything can fit into every video.
If anything, it's your comment that's weird.
@@tonywalters7298 the problem with tht program is that the pay went to owners instead of the workers. Because "the owners know best how to distribute the funds". That is code for "free money for wealthy individuals."
I've been wanting to run for public office for a long time and this is an issue I want to tackle thanks for making this video
I wish you the most success, we need more people like you working in the government
Please do, we need the most possible people like you in power positions
Awesome to see someone running for public office that actually cares about issues in our society
@@se7enei8htnin97 well I am a populist so I'm a man of the people so I'll focus on issues that matter
Shit like this literally happened to my family at times. Once while living with my aunt, she got a raise at work, suddenly her food stamps were cut because she was making too much. We had LESS money for food after her raise than we would have if she'd denied it. Now I'm on disability and let me tell you that was a fucking STRUGGLE. A nightmare that quite frankly, is going to dissuade the actually disabled than it is anyone trying to 'fake it.' God only knows what I would have done if I didn't have a family to support me, give up and die I guess.
I quit my Social Services job (CA, Medi-Cal) largely over Means Testing. I couldn't keep telling people who can't make the rent that they "make too much," or that their $7,000 life savings (that wasn't even close to covering retirement) was over the line. Every year, the Social Security payments may or may not get an increase for cost of living, and the poverty line may/not go up; but they would rarely agree. People who'd had benefits for years, cut off -- mid-treatment, even -- because the same government reported two different changes in figures.
And way too many coworkers who genuinely believed they could fix mistakes in the computer at any time, with no regard for the damage the clients' lives could have suffered in the meantime, but that's less on-topic.
About to quit my state job because they want me to document if someone has $10 in their pocket. They put up all these artificial barriers on purpose.
@@misszombiesue - why don't you tell the people that you're supposedly there to help what NOT to say in order that they can receive the financial aid they so desperately need from your department?
[not having a go at you personally, just asking what the actual role of an employee, such as yourself, there to do; to help people or to save money? It seems as though someone like yourself on 'that' side would be able to tell people what they are entitled to as opposed to what they are not, and how best to go about it!?]
:)
@@WhoAmEye_WhoAreEwe There are 2 separate departments that read through cases and check them for accuracy and investigate them. There is another department that just listens to my calls. If any one of those three divisions finds that something had been misreported that caused an overpayment, they WILL demand that money back from the consumer, either by under-paying them for the next month (or months) or by just making the consumer pay it back out of their pocket. Also, if it's found that they intentionally misreported income or assets to the family assistance administration, they will never be allowed to receive benefits again. :( It's really a bad idea to do that, and not just because my job would be in jeopardy, but because they could get screwed over for life.
And all of those divisions just add even more to the astronomical cost of means testing, besides of course MY JOB.
@@WhoAmEye_WhoAreEwe There were those of us who had a... certain phrasing of the program requirements that would give away the secret with a wink and a nod, and others who put off case closing tasks for as long as they could, little things like that.
But supervisors pulled cases for random review monthly. The clients really can end up even more screwed if they're caught in a lie; it does vary program-to-program, but none of the penalties are any fun.
i gaurantee that there were other reasons higher up on your list for quitting... like possibly the pay. dont act like you give a shit. if you gave a shit you wouldnt have quit.
How bootstrap ideology and meritocracy ends up: those who don't have get even less, those who do have get more, all because they "earned" or "deserved" it. Even though luck, circumstance, and the presence or absence of support from friends and family are the actual by-the-numbers reasons.
Meritocracy is literally two letter changes away from aristocracy so even in that stupid measure meritocracy is two steps removed from aristocracy.
That feels like some sort of literary device one can use to argue against meritocratic systems.
Play Monopoly, it's literally based on who is lucky enough to land on certain properties. Everyone starts equal, works equal, until someone gets rich and starts brainwashing others into thinking that they are so much more deserving, or that they worked so much harder.
In episode 8 of The Deprogram, I love how they point out the BS. Oh the billionaire works so hard ....okay, but what about the African child in a diamond mine working 18 hour days? Oh the billionaire works smarter.....okay, so wage theft is working smarter? Oh well the billionaire took risks.......okay, but getting upwards of $300,000 from daddy's disposable coffers isn't exactly risky compared to say...... people who have to risk the roof over their head just to instead have food.
@@ah_libra The reason most people believe this is because it is true WITHIN a certain range. There is no doubt a typical manager works harder than the average worker under him. I've seen this over and over, that hourly workers somehow think because the manager isn't hands on he is lazy. You typically see this in jobs where it's the uneducated worker making such comments. No competent manager would say workers have easy jobs. The reality is everyone has hard jobs (if you were to do it right).
But your overall point is valid. There is no chance in hell that the billionaire "earned" it by working harder or smarter. Doctors are smart and they work hard, they don't earn billions.
I always laugh at the meritocracy argument. I live in naples florida...more multimillionaires per capita than almost anywhere else...
These are the dumbest and most vile sacks of shit to ever walk the earth. So fucking stupid...and i lived in arkansas, a place thats considered below average in intelligence (wasnt as bad as people say)
Our nation is rueld by 3rd generation trust fund retards. We dont need them and we outnumber them. I say we do something with that
@@dailyrant4068 every job ive ever had...mainly in aviation and automotive, the managers are fucking useless. They can be gone for 2 months and nothing changes. Lose one worker for a day and shit goes to hell
The main problem is nepotism in management. Gone are the days of working up the ladder. Its all full of family and friends of the owners(the absolute most useless people)
I was unemployed for almost a year in 2011. I was picking up odd jobs to do things like pay for my phone bill, mostly gogo dancing at some of the local bars. When I went to try to get food stamps, I ended up being hit with having to prove how much I was paid by the bar and given in tips night to night. Problem is, at least here, that's entirely in cash. And if I didn't provide proof of how much or little I got, the state would just assume that I made more than I needed, and so I ended up only getting food stamps for one month of the year I was out of work.
Our entire system to help those in need is a mess, and means testing is just one part of it. This is why I think the whole bureaucracy of it should be abolished, the systems torn down, and the entire thing replaced with a minimum basic income for all citizens regardless of income. That couple hundred or thousand dollars a month won't mean a thing to the wealthy, but it will be life changing for those who really need it. And not just that, but it will mean they can spend their time to caring for their children and looking for meaningful employment rather than spending hours in government offices just to continue to secure their governmnet assistance.
>rather than spending hours in government offices just to continue to secure their government assistance.
this. i've had experience attempting to get government welfare and it's hell, with weird hours, constant phone calls, and check-ins, and hours spent waiting in crowded lobbies and in appointments where none of the workers seemed to know what they were doing. if you have a full time or even two part time jobs, you'll find it hell having to take off the hours to go to prove your poorness. it's an entire new part time job taking the time to prove your suitability (poorness) for the bare necessities. if i didn't have to worry about that and could simply get a check that could cover food and utilities, i'd be happy as a goat.
but rn, the hours i could've spent getting my head above water, learning new skills, and simply not being stressed and depressed are taken over fully being neck deep in government bureaucracy.
Conservatives: we want small govt
Also conservatives: every social program needs extra bureaucracy
"And we also need a stronger president, and a larger military"
And now we have the ovary police too, because can't let women make their own choices. As god intended.
And if a woman leaves the state for any reason, we need to police her to make sure she's not going to get an abortion.
remember that liberals are also complicit in this system. both maintain the status quo.
Liberals just want everyone to be complicit instead of the exclusionary nature of conservatives.
"there is absolutely no way to make means testing work" - truer words were never spoken.
I am a single guy W/o kids & a few years back I became homeless - I figured out the shelter aspect (creative in its own
right) but I was in dire need for food. Not steak & grand desserts just *Food* & I can assure you that it is more difficult to get simple *FOOD* assistance then it is it is to buy a home.
EVERY single person is a simple fart at the wrong time away from needing that assistance and how We, as a society, look
at this assistance is disgusting and began when Reagan started his " Welfare Mom" trope.
Oh, it was there before... Linda Taylor just handed Reagan a PR goldmine.
Yes, the "Welfare Queen" did exist... but she wasn't even the "exception" of the typical welfare recipient. She was a career criminal - welfare fraud was the only thing they could actually pin her on, much like Al Capone and his tax evasion charge. How bad a criminal? Well, considering many of her family members were afraid to talk about her even after she died... that should give you a clue.
Government: Restricting money/aid makes people work harder.
Also Government: We have to give rich people money so they will work harder.
This. I grew up 'in the cracks'. We rarely if ever qualified for Food Stamps and the $0 fee for Kids Care. My mother was the sole breadwinner in our family (not explicitly through disability on my dad's end, he was too proud to 'flip burgers' and an office job would have driven him crazy, and he was injured and couldn't work in the field he wanted to).
Anyway, Mom was/is a substitute teacher in southern AZ, when mom applied for Aid, they first told her to use the Trust Fund my paternal grandfather left (which she did not have access to) and when she adamantly refused, they then insisted that she submit pay stubs every month... which would determine our benefits for the next month (without taking into account the cost of living). So, because of this monthly recalculation, we would not receive benefits the months we needed it the most (November, December, June, September). My Mother's best year on record prior to '08 was $15000 gross. We were poor, but we were blocked from services. Neither of my parents had health insurance, I was able to get on the sliding scale of 'Kids Care'.
As a teen when ACA rolled out, I opposed it, because my family still fell through the cracks. When mom tried to get insurance in the 'marketplace' they told her she was too poor and to get on ACCS.... who told her that she made too much and to purchase through the 'marketplace'... and then she got dinged on her taxes because she was too poor for insurance.
Now both of my parents are being taken care of through SSI & Medicare (both over 65), but by the time I get there... there probably won't be any money left.
You know...the conservative would say. "Shouldn't have kids you can't afford". While also making sure she can't get an abortion or birth control and pushing abstinence only education.
Yep. They arw disgusting af.
What they really mean, though, is “how DARE that woman have sex for pleasure? They’re only allowed to do that if they WANT a child.”
Because *for conservative POLITICIANS* , abortion isn’t about the lives. It’s about giving women a reason to be scared of sex unless they specifically want a child.
Wait a minute…
“No sex allowed before marriage.” Where have I heard that before…?
And now also complaining that people aren't having enough kids.
this is like the ATM all have braille, even the Drive-thru ATM, because it cheaper to just put them on all then to find out where they will not be need. Not because blind people are driving. it cheaper to give money to everyone.
There could also be a sighted driver with a blind passenger in the back seat
If your poor than you need to be miserable in the eyes of the government . This is possibly, partially because poverty is viewed as a punishment for some crime. That we did something to deserve it or at the very least are expected to give up all pretenses of basic human happiness in order to fix our lives. Let me eat my cake damn.
I would stop saying government this government that. It has nothing to do with the government. It is the damn people.
@@armamentarmedarm1699 was that a sarcastic statement? if so, use /s. if not, god is a lie, and a refuge for scammers, and murderers.
@@dailyrant4068 it’s has everything to do with both, you’re being undialectical by blaming this all on one group within a system of continually interacting parts.
@@tycko4 That's probably the dumbest answer you can come up with, because I'm literally saying it's all the people, not a specific group. The point I made was clear. it has everything to do with people in general. Governments are made up of the same people.
@@armamentarmedarm1699 Job, the guy from the bible who's life got screwed over by God to win a bet, might have a word to say about this logic.
I didn’t realize this was a theory. So much makes sense now 🤯🤦🏾♀️ Also, I have to admit I had no idea how racist this country is. I was so misled by what the media was calling ‘racism’ all the while never talking about the real crap like this. Thank you for providing the evidence my instincts have told me is messed up for years but I couldn’t prove it. Wow!
if you wanna know more about that first part, i recommend “the part of history you’ve always skipped” by knowing better
@@LiminalLinens I’m not sure I follow what your saying. History is really important and our real history- not the one I learned in school. But I’ve never come across something that broke down the specifics like this.
@@takyrica "Knowing Better" is another TH-cam channel, I'm guessing "the part of history you always skipped" is the title of one of his videos
I think all the people that think systemic racism dorsnt exist is a consequence of the media just showing racism as individual acts against minorities and not this type of racism that is made and enforced by our institutions
@@jeffersonclippership2588 it is, it came out a few days ago and is really good
You can't "fix capitalism with more complicated forms of capitalism."
wish you people would get it through your head. this has nothing to do with capitalism.
capitalism is simply the system which allows free trade and private ownership.
these are government policies implimented and enforced by the government which is probably half the reason why they work so badly.
there is no capitalist country where these policies and programs are mandatory or even expected as a result of being capitalist. these sorts of programs are exclusively creations of independent governments. in fact, these policies are more socialist than anything else. they are welfare programs, created by the government which divides people into classes, poorly and inefficiently run and expensive and wasteful in effect.
thats classic socialist.
@@slickstringsMeans testing exists to create a desperate working class that will accept poverty wages and bolster the profit line. This and policies like it are lobbied by the wealthy, to the wealthy politicians, to support the wealthy. Means testing would not need to exist in a socialist system because there would be no need to maintain a desperate working class.
TL;DR, yes it's capitalism, try again.
Our family couldn't receive any social services for many years for multiple reasons. The main reason was because we made just a little bit too much money. I'm talking within a couple thousand dollars. The income limits are hard limits with no room for negotiation. It didn't matter that me and my mother had no health insurance or the fact that my mother and father were spending a lot of their money on medicine each month. We lived month to month. We had little to no money at the end of the each month.
Another time we were denied because of having life insurance policies. I'm talking about the bare minimum life insurance policies to pay for funeral expenses. I believe they were $10,000 policies. They demanded that we go cash them in and spend the money. The crazy thing was that they wanted us to do this before they would even tell us if we qualified. The cash in value of these policies wouldn't of even been $5000. We told them no. What was we supposed to do if someone died?
Another time it was because my mother hadn't worked enough in the last 10 years. To even apply for disability in our state you need to have worked a minimum of 5 years (full time) in the last 10. There was no way she could of worked 5 years (full time). She was physically disabled. The person doing the disability interview said as much: "I'm sorry, you've got a lot more wrong with you than is necessary to qualify for disability. Sadly you don't meet the work requirements". Years later when it was too late for her to get on disability we found out that your disability claim is locked to the date you first applied for disability. When she first applied she had worked for 5+ years (full time). She had be denied multiple times for disability for various reasons.
Another time we applied, the value of our 3 vehicles was too much. I shit you not. These were 12 to 20 year old vehicles. At most each vehicle was worth maybe $2000. At the time they had a limit of something like $1500 value in vehicles total. Let that sink in for a minute. Your not allowed to own a vehicle that is worth more than $1500 or they will deny your claim.
They also didn't like that my dad had some money in a retirement account. It wasn't much money. We only received like $200 a month from his retirement. We needed this $200 a month to survive.
The last time my mother was going to apply for any social services in our state the information gathering was extremely thorough.. They wanted to know all your income from every source (work, side jobs, under-the-table, tips). They wanted to know about all your assets: cars, house, checking & savings accounts, retirement accounts, ira, 401K, life insurance polices, stocks, bonds, etc. They wanted copies of all your property deeds and vehicle titles. I mean everything. They wanted to make sure you didn't have any money saved at all.
Luckily, my mother did finally started receiving Medicaid after Obamacare expanded the Medicaid guidelines. I know for a fact that she would of died years ago if she wouldn't of got on Medicaid when she did.
As a type 1 diabetic on Medicaid I’m stuck in either a dead end low wage job or I’m crippled by medical bills. Merica.
Means testing is currently messing up my situation pretty bad. I've just recently bumped up above the cutoff for Medicaid in my state by about 100 a month. I have quite a few health issues, mostly with my joints as well as some mental health stuff. I had surgery to fix my elbows last year that ran about 25000 dollars, and paid zero out of pocket for it thanks to Medicaid! That was pretty awesome, but I didn't have enough cash on hand to meet my other expenses, so I had to pick up some more hours, and as a result I'm gonna lose my insurance on my next recertification. I'm likely going to need more surgeries in the next few years but without Medicaid, I'm just not gonna do it because I cannot afford the out of pocket costs, and the insurance plans on the health care exchange barely cover anything compared to Medicaid. Cool system USA.
Means testing: "You pay too much in taxes to benefit from your taxes."
😠
I was prepared to strongly disagree after the first few minutes. Just because a few states with obviously twisted motivations are blatantly abusing means testing does not mean the idea is bad. Anything can be abused if you try hard enough. BUT, the rest of your logic was too good. Spending $10 bucks to make sure a rich person doesn't get $5 they don't deserve is just petty resentment. Also, by making sure only the poorest people benefit insures that the program gets less support. I am amazed that never occured to me before.
It's way worse than that. We're spending $100 to make sure people don't get $1.
It's comedy to think about how scared we are of giving rich people that $5 when we give them bailouts and tax cuts. The working class can't take this for much longer
@@BigDeac Even crazier, large amounts of money is given to banks to loan to lowe.class citizens from the government, and the banks say F that, and give the money straight to the bourgeoisie.
It is not just a few states. It is all states and on the federal level.
Thanks for this. I worked in workforce development with people who received social services. I saw firsthand how ridiculous and dangerous our assumptions about people in need truly are.
I saw all kinds of people come through our programs. I learned a lot of about the many circumstances we humans can find ourselves in and how it can lead one to seek out social services. We had some success, but it was easy to see the scam mascarading as a necessary intermediary that would get the job done. We were tasked with getting people back to work and off of services.
As a non-profit, we attempted to fill in the gaps by offering trainings and establishing partnerships with employers to hire folx in our program. Some people found a way out, but more often than not, they’d end up back in the system because the very thing we were supposed to help them secure threatened to cut off their benefits. The available jobs for most folx did not pay enough to justify the loss of food or housing assistance or healthcare or daycare. The amount of running around to get and submit paperwork to get the support - the logging in of wages and hours of program time or whatever was exhausting and soul crushing.
Means testing tests everybody’s patience and pushes folx further into the welfare system or forces them completely out. Neither is good. Everybody’s just trying to survive! It’s time to think better of ourselves and our fellow human beings.
Imagine if we did do the universal benefits and we get that money to those that def don’t need that money by taxing them. And/or we offer options to donate the money for tax credits or something. I’m sure someone much smarter than me could devise something fair and logical.
I grew up in Maine. This is heartbreaking but typical. Brutal poverty and gross attitudes about those that seek or get help
Man I thought this was gonna be about statistical means. I’m a big stats guy. But this is just sad, like a fair amount of your videos. But hey, somebody has to say it. Thanks for what you do
Curious what you mean about statistical means, if you don't mind?
@@timothysatyr6674 means in maths means averages
Same here lol, I was like ooo they're doing a math video.
Not your average examination.
Math? Blocked.
In the UK there was an example of a welfare program that spent more on means testing than the amount the program gave out.
You live in Texas? That's kinda badass considering what Texas, well, is.
Sure do 🤠
@@SecondThought Yee (and I cannot emphasize this enough) Haw!
maybe a good place to get content ideas?
If only some people could wrap their minds around how much better UBI would work.
As someone who's lost my benefits at a critical time to pay for my mental health services courtesy of a letter that stated I made not 192.86, not 203.54, not 210.77, but exactly $200 too much a month to qualify, means testing is metaphor for suicide.
Man I love your content. You keep giving more fuel to fight the "do yer REEsearch" crowd, cause they're wayyy more likely to click a youtube link. You and your team do solid work.
If you find yourself second guessing yourself doing these videos, just know that I personally believe that your videos are having a great positive effect on America and I hope you continue doing this incredible work.
Let's gooooooo. Just want to to say your new humor angle is appreciated from me and I think it's a great way you approach such harsh subjects
My disability claim has been sitting in review for almost 5 months now even though I definitely can’t work and my psychiatrist agrees. If I didn’t have help from family in the meantime, I’d be dead right now from waiting to get some kind of assistance. I hate this country
Same exact situation.
@@nondescriptname it’s a shitty situation, I’m sorry you’re having to go through it too. Hopefully your claim gets approved soon, it’s so needlessly stressful and disheartening to be stuck on a waitlist for something essential
Here in Canada, where basic health services are free at point of service to all, the rich will usually *pay extra* for services just so they don't "feel poor". Like, when I was pregnant with my son, the maternity brochure I got from the hospital I was planning on giving birth in advertised the "deluxe suite", where for a few hundred dollars, you could reserve a hotel-like private room, instead of bed in a ward provided by OHIP (the Ontario Health Insurance Plan). I imagine quite a few rich people took advantage of those needless frills, which probably helped to pay for a few more stations in the NICU (which my son needed for his first two weeks). Oh, and that "ward" was actually a semi-private room, not fancy, but clean and comfortable. I got mine to myself, actually, since my "roommate" left just as I was transferred in. So, after my stay in the ICU and surgical recovery ward (due to very bad birth complications and an emergency c-section), I got a private room in the maternity wing for free. Oh, and even after I was released myself from the hospital, they continued to give me bagged lunches for as long as my son was in the NICU. Nothing too fancy, again, but free food is free food. The most I ended up paying for was some change for a donut from the hospital Tim Hortons.
So yeah, the point is, when you have a universal service, not only does *everyone* get that service, but rich people will actually pay more for that exact same service, when they don't have to, just so they don't "feel poor". And those funds from people who have more money than sense can help fund even more life-saving services. When I hear about Americans leaving the hospital after having children with tens of thousands of dollars in bills, I shake my head. It's frankly disgusting and horrifying. I don't understand why people over there have put up with it for so long.
Yo I love your videos! Thanks for helping me understand socialist ideas.
Glad to help!
Lol I arrived only 10 minutes after this was published, nice :)
Yes, I love these videos.
@@SecondThought funny how you can make such a video without once using the word UBI/universal basic income.;)
Ayo thanks for the mention man!! More people need to learn about Modern Monetary Theory
Means testing also encourages even forces people to work under the table. Some workers can get health insurance and family benefits from states only if they under-report their income. That is true especially for workers that individuals hire like gardeners, contractors, nannies. Even providing health insurance and covering their taxes by pay increase cannot justify reporting employment because their dependents lose health insurance and other social benefits. Ironically, paying them more and providing health insurance can make them poorer.
Spot on. This is why we have a huge underreporting problem in general in US. GOP's simply turn a blind eye to reality when it comes to this.
Centrelink here in Australia went from annoyingly means-tested to unreasonably obscured. i missed an appointment because of anxiety, the very condition i need the money to offset, and now i have to do it all on paper. and oh boy, i thought the website was evil in its obscurity, the paper forms are straight up ableist.
The website is a crime against humanity so I can only imagine how bad the paper forms are.
Wtf u mean Ableist?
@@henrycrabs3497 ableist as in you are assumed and thus need to be able to do tasks that your body isn't able to do. it's like assuming someone with colorblindness should be able to tell you what color the circle is. iT's NOt haRD.
L wheelchair users
Anyone notice that Second Thought has been getting a little more animated lately? Typically, quite stoic. Not that this is a bad thing! I just hope you are doing well :)
Yep, just decided it’s healthier for everyone if every video has a bit of fun
@@SecondThought I am happy to hear its strategic and not a sign of mental health (TH-cam Creators, I hear have a tough time with this) :) Love your videos
Worked in homeless prevention for four years it’s ridiculous the hoops they make ppl go thru for help and the eligibility requirements are laughable. Basically a revolving door
I'm starting to think having an economy based around standards from the 1800s - early 1960's might be a bad idea.
You completely changed my feelings about means testing. I used to think that means testing needed to be more humane and for more people but now I see it needs to be abolished altogether
Thank you so much for talking about this! As someone whose always teetered just over the poverty line, I knew all this shit already, but didn't know there was actual theory behind it.
Another thing that I think you briefly touched on is that taxes have nothing to do with affording social programs. The government basically throws away your taxes after they get them and just prints enough money to do whatever they want. That's why they were able to give us stimulus checks all of a sudden after griping the can't afford to help us for years. It all has to do with whether the government has the physical resources to back up the money they create. 1Dime has some excellent videos on this that I highly recommend. It really unwinds all the bullshit about "tax the rich" and "oh but your taxes will go up" you hear so much. The US government could give us all the help they need. They just don't want to.
Havent watched the full vid yet but i didnt fully understand means testing before your explanation but im on board now that you've explained it thanks for another banger Second Thought
Glad to be of service!
Omg this vid is actually monetized! Congrats bro, hope to keep it this way
Aren't well-fare systems, while needed, just damage control and not treating the root of the problem, what makes people poor in the first place, that being capitalism itself?
"Oh no, we can't have the 1% receive universal aid!"
You know who else will receive universal aid? THE OTHER 99%
The 1% gets plenty of universal aid.
@@sassy0010 Trying to figure out who the 1% are to keep them from being able to get an extra couple thousand dollars in welfare costs more than it would save, makes the system slower and more complicated for everyone, and opens cracks in the system that people who genuinely need the aid frequently fall into. At the end of the day, it's just not worth it.
Yep. It's just like the fraud argument.
"Some people will abuse the system! Look at the numbers!"
I can never remember if the actual numbers come out to 3%, or 0.3%, but even going by the higher number, that means that for every three people that cheat the system, the other 97 people (and/or families) get to actually eat, or be able to get medical care, and so on.
You know, I'm just fine with that.
We have thoses problems here in Europe, in Belgium too. It's harder to get access to things you're supposed to have access to.
And they want to make it even worse while attacking benefits for the poorest by "incentives to get back to work"
Great video, thx! I had to apply for unemployment benefits here in Germany many years ago and while I had to get all the documents proving that I really was applicable within 2 weeks, they dragged out reviewing my application for 4 weeks and then getting back to me, saying they'd need even more documents they didn't mention the first time. Since I got no money for that time, when they finally approved my application I got asked how I managed to stay afloat, implying I wouldn't really need any money. (I survived by moving in with my parents again and basically living on their pockets) That whole system is completely f***ed and needs a lot of resources to be sustained.
I don't have anything to say, but this is such an important topic and I want the TH-cam algorithm to rank it up.
Thanks.
Thanks for your support!
The only means we should test are the means of production we've seized
The state of Missouri claims my mom makes "too much" to be on food stamps despite us still being near poverty level and struggling to pay bills monthly.
I'm on Medicaid in my state because I'm trying to get my associate's degree & can't work full time at the same time. I am literally bleeding money every month, because if I work enough to come out even I will lose access to free insurance & paying for the lowest cost marketplace insurance (with high deductibles and copays) would completely negate the extra work I do. And I don't even pay rent!! If I didn't have a family that was able to help me with housing & a pal who stays with me & pays my bills, I couldn't even do this much. Oh yeah, I applied for food stamps (because, again, I have a negative monthly income) & they sent me about 20 pages of paperwork to fill out & i just couldn't handle it. Have I mentioned I have mental health disabilities? GOTTA LOVE IT.
Also...it's pretty funny that the ppl who are soooo concerned about rich people accessing social services that they don't need are the same ones giving billionaires massive subsidies and tax cuts. Very good capitalism!! /s
When I got a job and got off welfare, my wife made me a cake that just said "YES YES YES NO YES", which are the answers you need to fill out on the form in order to get money for two more weeks. Ahhhh, memories...
The idea that means testing is better and "more responsible" than universal programs is ludicrous. Because of means testing, we have a ton of people who are too poor to live without government assistance while simultaneously being too "wealthy" to receive said government assistance.
Conservatives be like: “u need help? Well you don’t need it hard enough”
this is literally the part of my final project, so the vid right on time, thanks for the hard work!!
I’ve been watching you for a long time and you’re content has been getting better and better and also a lot funnier for these serious topics. Thank you for improving and your work.
The problem with means-testing is that people who you're trying to exclude generally aren't trying to get on social programs anyway.
It can work if you have an effective bureaucracy but instead of reforming the bureaucracy, we're just adding more complexity when we means-test everything.
Depend on the criteria. You get the clientele you want.
Aren't trying, or can't navigate the system and gave up?
JT the work you do is invaluable, thank you so much. I learn something new from you every single week
Commenting for the algorithm and thank you for the new video comrade!🤗❤
I always find it so interesting when discussing with Conservatives, their proclaimed goal of a small government and reinforcing individualistic attitudes, that pull yourself up by the bootstraps mentality. They simply lack a foundational human empathetic response. Seriously, with Joe Manchin some of my right wing coworkers take his word from his mouth and support what he does and says, when in fact their own lives are governed by the very same legislation they are decrying and tearing down. In what world can you advocate for your own destruction? America must do better, for our own sake
on the spot!
means testing is for identifying the 'deserving poor' - a disgusting concept harking back centuries
I'm one of those "deserving poor" that started paying my taxes in the 1970's then became disabled decades later. Now I have to fight for every life saving measure while constantly being means-tested. It is offensive, degrading and dehumanizing to many that still try to preserve their integrity and dignity.
Loved the video amazing work per usual at explaining these important theories and concepts! Also out of personal knowledge the Texas HHSC agency pronounces the TANF program as TAN • F not TANF interestingly enough. Excited for the next video, keep it up.
Need so many more discussions and videos on this.
When a politician says "accountability" it means "blame." We blame the poor for being poor and punish them by restricting access to programs.
States should not be able to gatekeep access to federally funded programs to this extreme. At least let the federal government set minimum standards for eligibility.
Your work is truly important and positive for the well-being and future of the greater organism of humanity. While many great people have fought the good fight you're fighting, your presentation and success at spreading these important ideas cannot be overstated. I hope you wake up every day knowing millions of people are proud of you, and billions will benefit from your work even if they never know your name.
Thank you for making such great videos. You and Hakim have greatly helped me get into reading theory.
The thing that struck me was Minchin mentioning that people who earn "$40k, $50k, $60k" should have access to child tax credit because they need it. Here in the Netherlands this would be considered a modest to fairly decent salary where you can buy a house, raise a family, go on holidays, eat well, have some fun and still be able to save a decent amount. What's going on here?
Het is omdat hier in Amerika dingen zijn HEEL DUUR! Het maakt Nederland lijkt op een goedkoop plek. Hebben wij geen publiek zorg, transport, en zo. Het is privé en duur, en hebben wij auto's nodig. Ik kan niet wachten voor toen ik verhuizen naar Nederland of Spanje. Ik haat het hier : D
In the part of Australia that I live in I've heard too many times of friends who've lost a job but where denied access to Jobseeker because they had a merger savings. Not an income but maybe enough money to get them by for a week at which point they would likely be back at Centrelink applying for the same thing a week prior.
Also the idea that a De Facto/married couple somehow spends significantly less money then when they where not classified as such, it's any wonder that people feel the need to lie about their relationship status. Because a simple change in status that has no effect on your income can drastically reduce it.
Making social programs universal is the best solution to fighting poverty. Every US citizen, rich or poor should be entitled to basic income, food stamps and housing assistance subsidies and healthcare.
This is a great video for anyone trying to convince friends or family that we can afford better social services
This was very informative! Thanks for making the video.
Your videos genuinely make my Fridays 😁
Great video, though I feel compelled to also add that means testing when intersecting with disability is a particularly ugly and unjust phenomenon.
Every time we have a "war on..." something it always gets so much worse. The War on Drugs. The War on Poverty. The War on Terror. The War on Misinformation. There is definitely a pattern of 'screw the little guy.'
Turns out it's really hard to declare war on an inanimate object or abstract concept. It also turns out that the military and police are really bad at solving problems when shooting people isn't the answer.
This an amazing vid. I'm one of the many Americans who signed up for covid help during the lockdown and am now fighting a massive "overpayment charge". I'm so fucking stressed and I did everything they asked for to get help. I'm not a scammer and tons of other people are being hit with this as well. It's infuriating and I'm especially upset due to the fact that I was actually sick for many months during this period and still dealing with health issues from the fallout.
Thank you for making this.
Thanks for the explanation at the end on why means testing is used, very helpful to not just understand solutions but why they aren’t being implemented.
As someone that’s lived in WV my whole life, I’m real sorry about Manchin. Unfortunately he’s not going anywhere though and while I love my home state, I’m looking to move soon. It’s not gonna get better here
You're absolutely correct and it's totally turned Republican. After many years of being totally democratic with the same economic results.Rich West virginians getting richer the poor as usual getting poor. Truth + Wisdom = Peace ✌ 🙏 🙌. These poor southern states love corporate American crooked politicians. That's a part of their economic social religious culture. Stupidity can be fixed but ignorance can last a lifetime !! Lol Joe Manchin will easily be re elected.
Run for something. Be the change you want to see. ❤
@@carrieullrich5059 Exactly! Nothing will change if we don't do anything about it.
@@carrieullrich5059 the change i want to see is no permanent armies. 💕
Second Thought: Nice argument senator, but why don't you back it up with a source?
Senator Manchin: My source is that I made it the fuck up!
I love your videos! Great job, man...
I love these videos. Truly eye-opening