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Stopping the Cycle of Poverty
Imriaylde
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'd like to preface this with saying that I haven't scoured all the recent political threads to see if this has been covered before, but did a quick search and didn't see any in-depth discussion on the topic. If I'm repeating something, many apologies.
This past weekend I was discussing welfare reform with my parents. They tend to be a bit more conservative, and my father was harping on how people abuse the welfare system, and how it needs to be scaled back. It got me thinking about the cycle of poverty, and how if we just stop helping the poor, it's really only going to punish the next generation.
If a woman gets pregnant while already on hard times, her options are very limited. Taking care of a child is costly, both time-wise and money-wise. Abortions are expensive. The odds are stacked against her - if she's in school she'll most likely have to drop out in order to provide for her child, and if she's working she'll need to cut back on her hours to take care of her child. If she hasn't already, she'll need to turn to welfare to make ends meet, but even then, odds are that she'll never be as successful as she could have been, and there's a good chance her child will be dependent on welfare when they reach adulthood(Source).
The welfare system as it stands is easily abused, and perhaps through no fault of the recipients. It's doled out based on the number of mouths to feed (among other things), and provides limited support for mothers of newborns. I know it varies from state to state, and I'm certainly no expert on the specifics of how much time or money they're granted before being expected to go back to work, but I'm sure many would agree that it's not enough. And with the process of getting pregnant being the cheapest form of entertainment around, along with women getting more money and more allotted time off if they have more children, it's understandable that those dependent on welfare would do what they could to continue receiving their welfare checks. However, this system will lead to more children stuck in the cycle of poverty.
The idea I had was, in order to both help the mothers on welfare and ensure that the system isn't just creating another generation dependent on welfare, was to require women receiving welfare checks to be on birth control while on government assistance. I was envisioning this being in the form of the shot, and it'd be free to the recipients. It's not permanent, so as soon as they got back on their feet they'd be able to have children again, and it would alleviate the worry of becoming pregnant while already financially strapped. It would also ensure that fewer children would be born into poverty, and it would hopefully stop - or at least lessen - the cycle of poverty. This isn't to punish the people that "abuse the system," it's to take one of the things that could make the lives of those on welfare harder financially, and make it a non-issue.
I realize that this can be seen as taking away the rights of a woman to decide what happens to her body. That isn't my intention. Firstly, if there were a similar sort of temporary birth control for men, I'd be all for putting them on it as well if they're on welfare, so this isn't a sex issue. I would hope that anyone struggling to make ends meet on their own would see that bringing a child into that environment would only add more stress financially, and would welcome the free birth control while they try to get back on their feet.
I know the conservative arguments against this - they're similar to why they're against Planned Parenthood in general, pro-life arguments and foisting the irresponsibility of the poor onto the hardworking taxpayers. But I presented this to a very liberal friend of mine last night, and he was opposed to it as well, for reasons he couldn't articulate. I honestly can't see a problem with it - yes, it'll cost taxpayers more initially to pay for the medication, but I think it would lead to less welfare recipients in the long run, as it would give people the opportunity to pull themselves out of their dependency on the government. And it's not a permanent sterilization - I can certainly understand the aversion to that - it's just temporary until they're back on their feet.
So please, PA, tell me where my reasoning is off?
TL;DR - I had an idea that putting welfare recipients on birth control would be a good way to stop the cycle of poverty (or, at least slow it down) and it's pissed off people on both sides of the aisle.
This past weekend I was discussing welfare reform with my parents. They tend to be a bit more conservative, and my father was harping on how people abuse the welfare system, and how it needs to be scaled back. It got me thinking about the cycle of poverty, and how if we just stop helping the poor, it's really only going to punish the next generation.
If a woman gets pregnant while already on hard times, her options are very limited. Taking care of a child is costly, both time-wise and money-wise. Abortions are expensive. The odds are stacked against her - if she's in school she'll most likely have to drop out in order to provide for her child, and if she's working she'll need to cut back on her hours to take care of her child. If she hasn't already, she'll need to turn to welfare to make ends meet, but even then, odds are that she'll never be as successful as she could have been, and there's a good chance her child will be dependent on welfare when they reach adulthood(Source).
The welfare system as it stands is easily abused, and perhaps through no fault of the recipients. It's doled out based on the number of mouths to feed (among other things), and provides limited support for mothers of newborns. I know it varies from state to state, and I'm certainly no expert on the specifics of how much time or money they're granted before being expected to go back to work, but I'm sure many would agree that it's not enough. And with the process of getting pregnant being the cheapest form of entertainment around, along with women getting more money and more allotted time off if they have more children, it's understandable that those dependent on welfare would do what they could to continue receiving their welfare checks. However, this system will lead to more children stuck in the cycle of poverty.
The idea I had was, in order to both help the mothers on welfare and ensure that the system isn't just creating another generation dependent on welfare, was to require women receiving welfare checks to be on birth control while on government assistance. I was envisioning this being in the form of the shot, and it'd be free to the recipients. It's not permanent, so as soon as they got back on their feet they'd be able to have children again, and it would alleviate the worry of becoming pregnant while already financially strapped. It would also ensure that fewer children would be born into poverty, and it would hopefully stop - or at least lessen - the cycle of poverty. This isn't to punish the people that "abuse the system," it's to take one of the things that could make the lives of those on welfare harder financially, and make it a non-issue.
I realize that this can be seen as taking away the rights of a woman to decide what happens to her body. That isn't my intention. Firstly, if there were a similar sort of temporary birth control for men, I'd be all for putting them on it as well if they're on welfare, so this isn't a sex issue. I would hope that anyone struggling to make ends meet on their own would see that bringing a child into that environment would only add more stress financially, and would welcome the free birth control while they try to get back on their feet.
I know the conservative arguments against this - they're similar to why they're against Planned Parenthood in general, pro-life arguments and foisting the irresponsibility of the poor onto the hardworking taxpayers. But I presented this to a very liberal friend of mine last night, and he was opposed to it as well, for reasons he couldn't articulate. I honestly can't see a problem with it - yes, it'll cost taxpayers more initially to pay for the medication, but I think it would lead to less welfare recipients in the long run, as it would give people the opportunity to pull themselves out of their dependency on the government. And it's not a permanent sterilization - I can certainly understand the aversion to that - it's just temporary until they're back on their feet.
So please, PA, tell me where my reasoning is off?
TL;DR - I had an idea that putting welfare recipients on birth control would be a good way to stop the cycle of poverty (or, at least slow it down) and it's pissed off people on both sides of the aisle.
Imriaylde on
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If you want to just make sure it's provided for women in general though that would make huge strides on its own.
People in bad financial situations should be able to have the peace of mind to have safe sex if they should so choose, and condoms are typically pretty freely available. Adding the pill to that list (obviously there'd be more to it than just a bowl full of monthly horomone dosages) would likely do some good as well.
Politically, it would probably draw a ton of fire from both ends of the spectrum. If there wasn't an absolutely horrible history of governments forcing sterilization on people considered unfit to breed, this idea wouldn't be so controversial.
On another thread, someone posted an article where it turned out that for whites with a college degree, the illegitimacy rate is something like 2%, whereas for blacks who drop out of high school, it's 96%. If you find yourself in the latter group (unmarried, black, with a kid) your chances of getting out of poverty are pretty low.
Edit: Also, your proposal would put people with moral/religious objections to birth control, but who needed public assistance, in a really difficult position.
Rigorous Scholarship
Yes, the educational system, particularly in poorer areas, definitely needs to be improved. I'm not saying this would be a fix-all for the poverty problems, but it could help.
Yeah, those morally/religiously opposed to birth control do throw a wrench into the plans. In a perfect world, people like that would either not engage in premarital sex (in the case of single mothers, obviously) and be able to turn to the church for aid in the case of couples down on their luck.
Nor is there any obvious crisis to be solved that this solution would address. However, that being said, food stamps (or modern equivalents) are not a universally bad idea, but it does seem that the cost of implementation of the scheme from scratch would seem to be about $11k per targeted beneficiary, assuming the educated guess work of various groups is accurate (official government figures are still in the same category). So the cost is going to be rather high compared to the total monies disbursed to the beneficiaries and the expected benefits not so obvious as to require such a solution. Noting that people below 18 cannot buy alcohol, cigarettes or lottery tickets.
So what is the point of this? Is it a trial for a wider roll-out? This seems likely, but apparently it isn't the case. It therefore seems to be a matter of ideology. To me, in a period of widespread austerity (NZ is currently very big on this too), spending large sums for a point of ideology seems a little rank. Anyway, the election is in 3 months, so I guess I'll get my say then
But in reality your plan would starve people.
We could try that.
The root of this was your dad being upset with people abusing the welfare system. It's really hard to know what is up and what is down on some of these issues. On these board I repeatedly see people claiming that the % of such cases is small and often that trying to eliminate the few who do would cost more than you'd save and/or just end up hurting people who truly need it. I'd like to believe that, but even if they provided a survey or study on the topic that agreed with them I'd still be hesitant to fully buy in for some reason.
I then find it odd how we focus so strongly on such a thing as abuse of the welfare system, when low taxes on the rich and big corporations is such a bigger loss of money for the government and seems like a better place to focus.
It is worth noting that there exist no means of birth control which lack annoying side-effects.
But I have some other questions first. Like, what defines poverty? Is welfare really the reason poverty seems to be inherited? Is welfare even really a big issue here? What is included in the umbrella term "welfare"?
Also, lower taxes are not the same thing as bigger handouts. Not letting that go by. Two very different things.
"You need to be on BC."
"No."
"Then no money for food for you."
That was easy.
People will hate it because:
1) Its making a judgement that poor people shouldn't have kids.
2) it strikes of some of the various sterilization campaigns carried out against minorities in the past.
3) birth control =killing babies=sin.
4) Her body her choice.
5) Having to do stuff to get food stamps is too much of a burden.
6) Having to do stuff to get food stamps defeats the idea of the program(aka not letting people starve in the streets).
Even if you made it a purely incentive based aka heres $1000 for getting this shot 1-5 still apply.
And honestly there's a host of other issues that would make this much less effective than you think it will be. Mostly because a lot of the people in poverty with kids are there because they had the first kid when they were 16/17 etc. All this does is keep the count at 1. And then there's all the cultural issues, where some groups think its a really great idea to have multiple kids by the time they are 20....good luck trying to get them to buy into the program even with incentives.
All of this costs money and time and adds another layer of bureaucracy to the welfare system. And it kind of misses the point. You want to discourage poor, unmarried, uneducated people from getting pregnant in the first place, rather than focusing on damage control down the road.
Rigorous Scholarship
Also, what, exactly, do you mean by "easily abused?" What programs are easily abused, and what form does this abuse typically take?
The "mandatory birth control" thing is known as "eugenics," a practice mostly associated with the Nazis, in order to control the breeding of society's "undesirables." You're going to get hit on all sides from that, everyone from the ADL to the NAACP to NOW to the ADA on the left, and the religious conservatives and "fiscal conservatives" (who don't want to spend federal money on birth control) on the right.
Why're people poor? Without actual statistics to back this up, I'd go out on a limb and say it's because they were brought up in an environment with few opportunities -- I know this happens, because I grew up in a working-class neighborhood.
Your school sucks. Your teachers are embittered because they have to teach to a state-wide test (and nothing else). The administration has no funds to work with because the property tax collections in your area are low because everybody else is poor too. You're generally getting a bare minimum education because enough of your classmates are really far behind so it makes more sense to spend time on remedial material for their sakes than to try and challenge you.
You live in a bad neighborhood. It's rife with crime and violence because no one has an education, and drug use / dealing is an attractive alternative to spending years getting a degree that you may not even be able to do anything with.
There's a lot more, but I have to go to work.
tl;dr: Having lots of children is a symptom of poverty (and in fairness, also one of the contributory factors in a perverse feedback loop) and not the sole cause.
EDIT: Also, hi2u Imri! Tell Zebdan that Ozark says hi!
Rigorous Scholarship
Ronya - yes, the annoying side effects are an issue. In my brain I'm imagining a wonderful drug that has no side effects at all, even though I've been on BC and the side effects can be pretty awful. Hopefully if something like this ever implemented it'd be after such a drug is developed.
tinwhiskers - Your checklist isn't wrong, but if a person is having trouble making ends meet without a child in the mix, won't it be even worse if they're taking care of a baby as well? This woul alleviate that.
Modern Man - I was envisioning their case worker keeping track of when the shots were required, and the recipients would have to get the shot in order to recieve their money. I'm not sure how much this would cost; it'd probably be expensive to start up. Better sex education would of course be required, but this would at least help.
Hamurabi - Hi Ozark
That would be what I said. :P
But I don't think telling women to "get on the pill, or else" is the solution here; I feel like only education can help. Pakistan has this problem on a national scale, pretty much across the socioeconomic spectrum. Telling people there to "stop having kids" isn't going to work either.
But, like you said, the only way to fix this is education.
Rigorous Scholarship
I do see the emotional argument of this taking away control of a woman's body, I mentioned that in the OP. I'm looking at this logically, that if a person or family can't make ends meet without a baby, adding a baby to the mix would only make things harder.
So, are we just talking about TANF and food stamps here? Because the Great Society kind of welfare we had for a while went away with Clinton. And, ignoring other factors, it looked like clamping down on welfare led to huge decreases in poverty and unemployment.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
How so?
Citation Needed
First off, if you're going to legally force poor women to undergo a medical procedure with potentially lethal side effects, you really need a basis that's more solid than a completely unsupported "them welfare queens keep pumping out babies to get that sweet welfare cash" cliche.
If you think free birth control will help poor women, make free birth control widely available and trust that women, yes even poor women, will decide to use it.
Also, blaming welfare for creating or extending the "cycle of poverty" ignores both the history of poverty before social welfare programs and the "reforms" of the '90s that drastically limited the availability of welfare benefits.
See, without money for food, this person can now no longer purchase food with which to feed themselves. If they are not able to feed themselves, they starve. Because they don't have food with which to feed themselves.
I didn't think you needed the concept that money for food was used to buy food with which to fee oneself explained to you.
First off, this idea would go over socially like a lead balloon, especially among blacks. There's a well-documented mistrust of medicine among poor blacks, and it's not totally undeserved. There is a sizable population of people who genuinely believe that there are still organized eugenics projects trying to trick black people into taking birth control or getting abortions in order to thin their numbers, and pro-life lobby groups who deliberately stoke that suspicion to erode abortion rights.
Second, what do you do about welfare recipients who already have babies? Or who wait until after they've given birth to receive welfare?
Third, what happens when birth control fails?
Fourth, what if somebody can't take birth control due to a legitimate allergy? What if they don't have a legitimate allergy but they just tell you that they do because they don't want it?
Five, you suggest "the shot" which I assume you mean Depo-Provera. I'm guessing that you don't know about the osteoporosis-inducing effect of Depo-Provera. Great, you saved on welfare, but you just gave poor women osteoporosis.
Six, what about the men?
All told, here's what you're going to have:
1) A population of people who refuse to get on welfare because they don't want shots. Those people may turn to crime, abandon their children, become homeless, or otherwise present major social burdens. They will end up having babies.
2) A population of people who already have babies.
3) A population of people whose birth control fails, or who can't take it because of genuine medical issues. They will end up having babies.
4) A population of men who file on behalf of their families. They will end up fathering babies.
1+2+3+4 = lots of poor babies being born anyway.
So you need a program that will work with those poor children to break what you call "the cycle of poverty." What we're looking for here is something called "intergenerational mobility." The ability of one generation to exceed the economic success of the prior generation.
Well, guess what? That's already a very popular topic among social scientists, economists, and policy thinktanks (like this one!). There is no single magic bullet solution to the problem. But what does seem to work? Education (as long as you can get people to go) and job opportunities (again, as long as you can get people to go). Income inequality seems to be bad for economic mobility - as wealth accumulates at the top, it's harder for people on the bottom to get a leg up. But there are a lot of people working on this - read some of the white papers on the economicmobility.org site I just linked.
So instead of spending money on a medical intervention that most assuredly won't work, why not spend money on some programs that will?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
No way should that translate into specific government requirements, though, for all the reasons already mentioned.
If this was seriously suggested, the NAACP,NOW,Christian Coalition and Focus on the Family would band together and curbstomp the politician in question. They would be right in doing so.
This has a sorry history and does not work in practice. Remember that some ethnic groups are trapped in poverty for historical reasons, not their own fault. It's essentially subtle ethnic cleansing in practice.
If women have hope for the future they are generally happy to delay childbearing via contraception, voluntarily. If they see no time when they will be in a better economic place, they have no reason to. The problem is hopelessness, not feckless women who can't be arsed to use condoms.
Negative income tax and mandated high quality government schooling.
Done.
Its putting conditions on receiving government assistance. Several states are adding requirements for mandatory drug testing in order to receive aid. which I guess could also be discussed, but I'm too lazy to dig up links for everyone.
Which is also dumb.
What happens when a person fails the drug test? Do they just not eat?
I suppose if we're headed back to the gilded age anyway we might as well go whole hog.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
It's both.
Advocating that the government actively discourage poor people from having children through the use of mandatory birth control is the dictionary definition of negative eugenics.
Mandatory drug testing as a precondition for government aid is also equally stupid and counterproductive, but it's not eugenics.
I wish logic wasn't positioned as some form of righteousness in so many of these arguments.
Extracting the social implications of such a matter as this is illogical, is it not? As others have suggested, externalizing peoples locus of control too much will cause unhappiness or discontent. A large aspect of poverty is confidence and emotional well being. The more people feel they are oppressed or directed by unseen forces, the less capable they may feel. In a more collectivist society this may operate in a different manner, but in the individualistic society we dwell in I believe it wouldn't go over well.
Yeah, and the name for it is Eugenics. The name for the practice you are looking for is Eugenics. How often do we have to repeat that?
Its denying people the right to reproduce because you don't think they should(or are not good enough) AND unlike drugs reproduction is perfectly legal.