‘Poor people don’t plan long-term. We’ll just get our hearts broken’

General Article
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This is an interesting read if you’ve ever wondered why the poor make “bad decisions”. We might think of the poor as people on welfare but the life of the working poor can also be very brutal and almost unbelievably constricted.

For my two cents, if you want to know whether a change in the treatment of the poor will work, look to whether it expands or contracts the choices they can make. I think a fair TLDR for this article is that what the poor desperately need is the ability to make more choices. Deprive someone of choice on the basis that they haven’t chosen well and you make them a hostage of those bad choices forever. We should empower people to make different choices instead.

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Think we need to update our negative income tax policy to make it indexed or something (may be a better way to fix it I haven’t thought of). We stopped it dropping below the current level of welfare payments at the last congress by including rent assistance where the original policy had removed it. That isn’t a solution that will work longer term.

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I’m sure there’s a line in there somewhere about it being indexed, we just to have to remember to update the base number now and then.

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Ensure adequate income, by all means, but it might actually prove more cost-effective to provide opportunities.

My own thoughts, based in part on the Guardian article, are on Facebook. Briefly; ensure everyone has the education and training to optimise their potential, then ensure everyone is employed (by government, if markets fail) to maximise that potential.

It would mean engineering both society and economy to levels that might not be practical. In these times of the hard right-wing, probably ideologically unpalatable.

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There was a comment about adding to the motion that the PDC can update the figures, but i dont think it ever actually got put. Partly because there was also a comment that such figure updates could be presented at each congress and/or policy meeting.

Also it was mentioned under the question:
Is the basic income too low?
that:

  • “Possibly policy needs adjustment to keep pace with the CPI change
    (which is what had contributed to ‘better offness’ via rent
    assistance indexing)”

I think arising from all that there was an idea to revise it and include some sort of indexing at some stage, but it was kind of a ‘well, the PDC can deal with this over the coming year’ maybe?

The policy text does also say:
"Adjust the tax threshold in line with changes in the consumer price index."
But I don’t think it mentions indexing the amounts recieved etc

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According to this analysis our welfare systems have become complex largely because we’ve moved away from having a simple goal (alleviating poverty) and substituted other priorities:
http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2014/09/arthur.html

This probably reinforces the problems cited in the article, though.

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I don’t think that it would necessarily be ideal to force everyone into employment.

There are plenty of professions that don’t pay until after the work is done. Every form of art requires countless hours or preparation and payment comes once the work is complete. The same goes for investigative journalists, programmers etc. The idea of a negative tax rate is to provide a basic income to these people and once they earn enough to pay tax, they pay it. Giving people the space to pursue their dreams makes society richer for their production.

There are also many socially useful activities that don’t have a wage attached, such as volunteer work, being a carer for someone who can’t care for themselves etc. A living income can give people the option to contribute to society in a way that isn’t necessarily profitable in financial terms.

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Definitely the liberal response that the poor should have the ability to make more choices.

I’m not a fan of trying to force everyone into employment either, especially through government programmes, which would imply the creation of a large state bureaucracy that would determine what was appropriate work. The idea of a ‘swing employment’ policy (ie government provides ‘socially useful’ work to everyone who is unemployed) is something some sections of the Greens have been trying to get adopted, and we had a guest speaker at a party conference about two years ago promoting it. I can’t say I found it too convincing, sounded like a massive increase of state control over the economy to me (which obviously some Greens like). The PPAU policy just makes far more sense to me.

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It seems we have different concepts of “employment”. To me, employment doesn’t necessarily attract a wage. A volunteer is employed. A carer is employed. An artist is employed.

Beyond financial necessities, income is insignificant (at least to me; I understand that some rank it rather highly). The negative income tax policy takes care of those necessities.

For years, I worked in employment services. I was struck by the demoralising impact of idleness; the knowledge that nothing one did was valued. Applying for jobs only takes up so much time, then you’re left to ponder failure. It doesn’t take long to suck the vitality out of a person.

The nation loses untold wealth, simply by being unable to make use of that energy. Once gone, it doesn’t come back; the person is lessened forever. They might pick themselves up, but they’re less than they were; certainly less than they could have been.

Not everyone has artistic talent. Few are carers.

Voluntary work can be satisfying, but it doesn’t fill a life. I’ve been told that finding voluntary work that suits is as difficult as finding a paid job. Voluntary employment is just another market, which can and does fail.

To me, the grinding life outlined in the Guardian article is a product of market failures. There are opportunities here, but I don’t see markets as solutions. When markets fail, if solutions don’t lie with government, then what?

The other side of the coin is education and training. There’s much to be learned there as well. One of particular interest to me is the low rates of school attendance in Aboriginal communities. Kids just don’t see education as relevant. Why? How can it be made relevant?

There’s motivation in the knowledge that there’s always something to do that will be valued. Markets repeatedly fail, so government must provide. Unless someone has a better idea. Unless we want to put up with the failure.

My starting point was free education and training. How far could that go? How well could we do it? What would be the economic impacts of a workforce educated, trained and tuned to its optimum? What would be the impacts on morale and poverty?

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I suspect the different definitions of “employment” come from having dealt with Centrelink and how they deal with the unemployed. They certainly don’t consider art, writing etc as employment. The coercive approach they adopt in getting someone a job puts a halt to the welfare recipient’s personal pursuits, whatever that may be.

Inventing roles to be fulfilled doesn’t lead to meaningful work from my experience. Some friends who have been in work for the dole programs found them worse than idleness. They felt like they were being treated like criminals being made to do community service. It was seen as punitive rather than helpful. It would probably work better with an award wage and the removal of the coercion.

If there is structural unemployment, a better idea would be to reduce work hours across the board. From a 38 hour week down to 35 for e.g… Technology enables society to do more with less, more leisure time is the unrealised promise of an advanced society. The reduction in hours would create more jobs, reducing the structural unemployment.

I think it would be great to have free access to education for anyone who wants it. The debts currently incurred by students puts a limitation on people’s willingness to learn something new.

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[quote=“Frew, post:10, topic:300”]
I suspect the different definitions of “employment” come from having dealt with Centrelink and how they deal with the unemployed. …[/quote]Funny you should mention that. I spent 1986 through 1992 in the Commonwealth Employment Service. Saw too much of what doesn’t work and the impacts on people (on both sides of the counter).

[quote=“Frew, post:10, topic:300”]
Inventing roles to be fulfilled doesn’t lead to meaningful work …[/quote]Make-work doesn’t work. People should be encourage and helped, but that seems always to degrade into coercion. I guess we need to be vigilant to guard against it.

People need to feel that they’re part of something meaningful. For some, that might be as simple as building walking trails or clearing weeds, but not for most. I’d think bigger; for example, the NBN. It’s expensive, complex; demands high-level education, training and skills. That’s why the “employment” (given that that term is so loaded, perhaps we should substitute “meaningful occupation” - clumsy, but the best I can come up with) is a necessary component. We need projects that justify the investment (by government and every participant).

Meaty projects, with real potential, that demand substantial commitment. How about an Australian manned space program (we were once in the top league - Woomera is there for a reason)? A space elevator (one was once proposed; to be anchored to a ship, north west of Perth)?

[quote=“Frew, post:10, topic:300”]If there is structural unemployment, a better idea would be to reduce work hours across the board. …[/quote]If there is unemployment or underemployment, then both the market and the government have failed. I don’t see increasing underemployment as a solution to unemployment. Some people seem happiest when every waking hour is taken up with work. Others would quite happily play their lives away. Most are somewhere between. I retired at 58 and I’ve never been busier; you could say I’m unemployed, but I’m working my arse off and enjoying every minute of it. Ideally, people should be free to work as much or as little as they want.

I reckon there’s a human rights angle in there, but I can’t quite put it into words. Could it be said that we have a right to feel that we’re meaningfully occupied?

[quote=“Frew, post:10, topic:300”]I think it would be great to have free access to education for anyone who wants it. The debts currently incurred by students puts a limitation on people’s willingness to learn something new.
[/quote]Given the pace of change, the nation needs residents to be educating and retraining, virtually non-stop. If they can’t afford to do that, then society and the economy suffer. There are some interesting responses in the [Quora piece][1], to which I linked from my [Facebook post][2].

Of course, someone needs to do the educating and training. That goes some way to reducing un(der)employment.
[1]: http://www.quora.com/Germany/How-did-Germany-manage-to-keep-education-free-for-all-including-foreigners-while-the-United-States-burdened-their-young-with-heavy-college-debt
[2]: https://www.facebook.com/david.boxall.963/posts/600480663394336

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The only time “idleness” actually hurts the economy is when we have jobs that aren’t being filled and significant numbers of unemployed doing nothing. Everything we know about our economy right now suggests we have the opposite problem - a surplus of job applicants over jobs. Work for the dole and other types of compulsion solve the problem we don’t have. The solution to the problem we do have is job creation. The evidence suggests the best option is to draw overseas investment by reducing business costs, which leftists may not be keen on but hopefully see as preferable to torturing the unemployed.

A basic income removes barriers between people and education. Education really is critical and I’d like to see PPAU come up with more ideas on that front.

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‘Reducing business costs’ is a loaded term. It can mean things that I would be okay with and things I would oppose violently. In Liberal Party speak it means cutting workers wages and conditions, allowing carte blanche to destroy the environment because environmental regulations are costly and reducing consumer protections etc. All of which I oppose. Stuff like reducing taxes I am wary of, but can be convinced to support if I still feel they are paying their way. Companies get access to all sorts of services provided by governments and get truckloads of cash in profit, it is fair that they pay taxes.
I don’t understand why you would need to reduce business costs to stop persecuting unemployed, it seems like a false dichotomy to me.

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Yes it is rather loaded. Take it to mean abolishing direct costs imposed on investment and hiring (like payroll tax) and also abolition of fossil fuel subsidies and other things that bind our growth model to environmental wreckage. The amount of tax collected shouldn’t change too much if you do it right.

I don’t mean to imply a dichotomy, just an alternative approach to what we’re seeing now.

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[quote=“MarkG, post:12, topic:300, full:true”]The only time “idleness” actually hurts the economy is when we have jobs that aren’t being filled and significant numbers of unemployed doing nothing. …[/quote]My experience teaches otherwise. Unwanted idleness crushes the spirit.

The harm done to individuals has lifelong personal, social and economic impacts. It could be argued that the impacts can be intergenerational.

[quote=“MarkG, post:12, topic:300, full:true”]A basic income removes barriers between people and education. Education really is critical and I’d like to see PPAU come up with more ideas on that front.[/quote]A basic income removes some barriers.

Education is a national investment. There’s no denying that the educated benefit, but so does the nation. I’d argue that the educated pay the cost through their efforts. The Conservative focus is biased toward the costs, ignoring the benefits.

Without “meaningful occupation”, that investment is wasted. Traditional market totalitarianism consistently fails, which is why I fall back on government. Socialistic it might be, but I have no problem with that. It’s a question of balance.

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What you call underemployment I call restoring the work/ life balance. I know a few workoholics who want as much overtime as they can get. I know many more people who would like to work shorter hours, but their full-time job requires them to do 9-5 (or equivalent), 5 days a week. Reducing mandated hours across the board removes the pressure from employers to work longer hours than the employee wants. Reducing the pressure to work long hours gives everyone the space to pursue their interests, which depending on the work requirements, can be severely limited. People wanting to work longer hours can always get overtime.

That is all good then.

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[quote=“Frew, post:16, topic:300”]
What you call underemployment I call restoring the work/ life balance. I know a few workoholics who want as much overtime as they can get. I know many more people who would like to work shorter hours, but their full-time job requires them to do 9-5 (or equivalent), 5 days a week. Reducing mandated hours across the board removes the pressure from employers to work longer hours than the employee wants. Reducing the pressure to work long hours gives everyone the space to pursue their interests, which depending on the work requirements, can be severely limited. People wanting to work longer hours can always get overtime.[/quote]From one perspective, that’s attractive. This thread is about poverty. The poor are generally unemployed or underemployed. At that level, what you propose would probably lead to a more equitable distribution of misery. While that’s not a bad thing, I’d rather change the amount of misery than its distribution.

From your comments, I gather that you work in an area with a healthy labour market. In regions where that’s not the case, we need to do more than shift hours around. Working at the CES, I came to the conclusion that we couldn’t create jobs. All we did was move them around; influence who got work. Training one person or motivating an employer to put one on just meant another didn’t get the job. We need an integrated approach. Market capitalism’s history of failure to provide meaningful occupation for all shows that government has an indispensable role.

Meanwhile, the OECD has come to pretty much the same conclusion as I: education is a net positive investment.

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This seems an opportune point to link to another interesting article, “What prospects do Burnie’s young unemployed really have?”

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What do we think of opt-in community service programs like the green army? Are they a good way to fill the gap between jobs and people?

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I’m suggesting a modest reduction in hours, say from 38 to 35, which could either be used to accrue flexi-days, start a little later in the mornings or finish a little earlier in the afternoons. Hours could be reduced at the same time as a one off boost in minimum wage to make up for the few hours a week loss of work. It hardly puts someone in a “miserable” position.

Technology is meant to liberate us from the drudgery of long hours of work, we can make it happen.

I’m actually from a high unemployment area, and have been long term unemployed on two occasions. My experience of unemployment doesn’t gel with your observations. I am a musician by vocation and having spare time to rehearse is important to me.

I was lucky there was decent access to training so I did a couple of courses which helped me get work. I fully support free or very cheap education being made available (preferably free).

Every full-time job I ever had required 3 hours travel a day. Work completely consumed my life due to 12 hours a day being taken up with traveling, waiting for trains or working. I now work part time locally and despite the lower income I am much happier than I was working full time.

If they get paid minimum wage and its voluntary, I am all for it.

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