Poor America - BBC Panorama Documentary

[Nosi]

Anecdotal experience: When my employer declared bankruptcy and laid off everyone in Omaha in Dec 2009, I applied for unemployment after 4 weeks (thankfully found a job the very next week, never collected benefits). Nebraska requires that I put in two job applications per week to qualify for unemployment, so I need to be actively looking for a job.

Since the US was shedding huge numbers of jobs at that time, Obama passed a law extending unemployment benefits from 26 to 52 weeks in a year. If I remember correctly, the federal PRWORA law puts a lifetime 5 year maximum on welfare and unemployment benefits. States may legislate lower lifetime maximums.

I don't know a huge amount about unemployment legislation, will be happy to be corrected.

Arizona under kindly Republican leadership is ditching Medicaid (AHCCS) for the childless poor. The unemployed ill are suffering of maladies with preventable causes. I know of two diabetics with out funds simply doing without insulin. I know of at least one death.

Judge allows cuts to health care coverage for poor Arizonans

A judge gave the go-ahead Wednesday for the state to deny free health care over the next year to about 135,000 poor people.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Brain acknowledged that voters mandated in 2000 that the state must provide care for everyone below the federal poverty level. And the Voter Protection Act, a provision of the Arizona Constitution, prohibits lawmakers from altering or repealing anything approved by voters without taking the issue back to the ballot.

But Brain said that does not preclude lawmakers from refusing to provide enough money to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's Medicaid program, to cover everyone who is eligible to enroll.

 

[Beerina]

A long time ago I worked with a guy who would work six months then get the people to fire him, and he'd go on unemployment for the six months allowed, then go get another job.

This lifestyle was more than fine with him. What an idiot! He could be working 12 months a year instead.



If it was only the sob stories listed in this thread, I suspect the bills would be significantly smaller. That's also part of the Republicans' resistance to extending unemployment benefits to 2 years in a row (it was 1 year, then only 6 months, but kept getting extended in exchange for votes.)

Supply and demand -- people will not try as hard without running out of cash staring them in the face. Some need it. Some do not. How to separate them, especially since merely appearing to try hard is sufficient?

 

[crimresearch]

A long time ago I worked with a guy who would work six months then get the people to fire him, and he'd go on unemployment for the six months allowed, then go get another job.

This lifestyle was more than fine with him. What an idiot! He could be working 12 months a year instead.



If it was only the sob stories listed in this thread, I suspect the bills would be significantly smaller. That's also part of the Republicans' resistance to extending unemployment benefits to 2 years in a row (it was 1 year, then only 6 months, but kept getting extended in exchange for votes.)

Supply and demand -- people will not try as hard without running out of cash staring them in the face. Some need it. Some do not. How to separate them, especially since merely appearing to try hard is sufficient?

Where was that? Because in the USA, you usually don't get unemployment for being fired, or if you've only worked for a few months.

 

[AlBell]

It contained film of shanti town style tent communities for people who can't afford propper walls etc. That's not anecdotal.

Most likely that's ********, unless the footage was after Katrina or Andrew (S.FL) and before FEMA etc mobilized.

 

[crimresearch]

Most likely that's ********, unless the footage was after Katrina or Andrew (S.FL) and before FEMA etc mobilized.

What is *********? A magic incantation for He whose name cannot be spoken?

Or the whooshing sound of facts flying right over a head?

 

[N1ghtNinja]

I'd be tempted, but Scotland's basically a capitalist free-market hellhole just like the rest of the UK. I'm radical like that...I want a planned economy.

The UK is less free market than both the USA and Canada.

I might like it in Cuba I reckon, but I'm not the splitting type...yet.

The fact that people still believe Cuba to be a good place to live, compared to the States or the UK, just shows the power of propaganda. I don't know how the Cubans do it. Please, tell me how better the Cuban healthcare system is, I need a doze of ignorant right now

 

[Information Analyst]

No, not connected to the English democrats, they seem to be reviving the idea now though.

Are you in the south? They didn't hold a referendum there, presumably because the north of England voted 'no'. If any part of England could have been expected to vote 'yes' for their own regional government I think it would have been 'the north' as they feel almost as alienated from Westminster as the Scots.

I presume the UK government didn't do further ballots as they expected that the result would have been the same. The northern rejection was resounding, well over two thirds said no IIRC. There were a lot of opinion polls all over England at that time that indicated the same thing. It's a shame that the voters couldn't envision the autonomy it could bring.

I think you're getting confused with the rejection of the idea of elected mayors in certain areas.

 

[Information Analyst]

Arizona under kindly Republican leadership is ditching Medicaid (AHCCS) for the childless poor. The unemployed ill are suffering of maladies with preventable causes. I know of two diabetics with out funds simply doing without insulin. I know of at least one death.

In the UK, no diabetic who requires it has to pay for insulin, or any other medication, for that matter. It's a exempted condition for prescription charges. They also get free eye tests.

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

After six months on IB JSA (which I hopefully won't be!), it's no longer payable,

Why is that? I've heard of lots of people receiving Income Based JSA for more than six months. Do you have large assets or savings perhaps? Or does your partner earning money make a difference?

UK IB JSA does not have an automatic six month cutoff point; what you wrote seems very misleading.

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

The fact that people still believe Cuba to be a good place to live, compared to the States or the UK, just shows the power of propaganda. I don't know how the Cubans do it. Please, tell me how better the Cuban healthcare system is, I need a doze of ignorant right now

There are other important things beside healthcare, and Cuba's healthcare isn't too shabby anyway. The desemating spectre of anthropogenic climate change looms large - only planned economies avoid the unnecessary emmisions caused by unnecessary economic activity, not to mention other externalities such as unemployment and astronomical wealth inequality.

I've called wikipedia a tool of propoganda before when it disagrees with my views.

Cuba has a 99.8% literacy rate,[3][13] an infant death rate lower than some developed countries,[14] and an average life expectancy of 77.64.[3] In 2006, Cuba was the only nation in the world which met the WWF's definition of sustainable development; having an ecological footprint of less than 1.8 hectares per capita and a Human Development Index of over 0.8 for 2007.[15]

 

[Nosi]

One of the problems of the poverty in the USA, according to the teachers interviewed in the documentary, is that a lot of kids can't concentrate on their schoolwork because they don't know where they're going to spend the night/they're hungry/they haven't got any shoes that fit; and that effectively removes them from the future workforce which restricts the supply of labour - that would mean the free market capitalists should support their being looked after in order to maintain competition in the labour markets.

The "perfect" economic system has elements of the three; communism, socialism, and capitalism. When a government becomes off ballance that is when we get into trouble. America is suffering an acute case of crony capitalism which is not true capitalism as large numbers of Americans are forced out of this type of capitalism. True capitalism allows all a chance to get a bite of the apple.

 

[Nosi]

They're mostly catholics...mostly. Maybe that's why I hate them ...and maybe I'm jealous of them for being free from the rat race.

Travelers have their own version of the rat race.

 

[applecorped]

The "perfect" economic system has elements of the three; communism, socialism, and capitalism.

Which country is currently using this perfect economic system?

 

[brodski]

Why is that? I've heard of lots of people receiving Income Based JSA for more than six months. Do you have large assets or savings perhaps? Or does your partner earning money make a difference?

UK IB JSA does not have an automatic six month cutoff point; what you wrote seems very misleading.

I think that IA was talking about contributions based JSA rather than income based. Everything he said makes sense and is accurate if you make that one change.

 

[brodski]

I think you're getting confused with the rejection of the idea of elected mayors in certain areas.

There were also a small number referendums for regional government, not an English parliament but 9 regional assemblies throughout England. Only one of them is in Existence- in London. The idea crashed and burned at the referendum in the north east and the plans for elected regional assemblies outside London were scrapped.

 

[Bad Lieutenant]

Think you have the wrong brother.

Wow, you're right, I guess Ed Miliband (the current leader of the UK labour party) is so lacking in charisma I actually can't be bothered to remember his name.

 

[Halfcentaur]

A long time ago I worked with a guy who would work six months then get the people to fire him, and he'd go on unemployment for the six months allowed, then go get another job.

This lifestyle was more than fine with him. What an idiot! He could be working 12 months a year instead.



If it was only the sob stories listed in this thread, I suspect the bills would be significantly smaller. That's also part of the Republicans' resistance to extending unemployment benefits to 2 years in a row (it was 1 year, then only 6 months, but kept getting extended in exchange for votes.)

Supply and demand -- people will not try as hard without running out of cash staring them in the face. Some need it. Some do not. How to separate them, especially since merely appearing to try hard is sufficient?

You will not be allowed benefits if you do not actively search for a job, with 2 applications per week minimum. You are not allowed to refuse a job you've been accepted for.

A person could in theory lie and not do their job searches, but they risk being discovered with a random audit. Is this what you mean but "not try as hard"?

Should a person who made their job searches to no avail lose benefits?

 

[AlaskaBushPilot]

I would agree that much defence spending is waste (not everyone would).

But that means that if the US didn't divert so much of its resources into this, it would be richer, not poorer.

I'm not sure what logic you are trying to use here. Our excessive defense spending is counted as income. So it is included already and therefore overestimates standard of living.

If the US didn't do this, and produced more housing or whatever instead then our standard of living would be accurately reflected in the current statistics. You wouldn't add it in there a second time and say we are even wealthier than the current statistics imply.

Purchasing Power Parity would be accurate in a theoretical world where the same basket of goods is sold in every country. But the problem is that just isn't the case, with huge variations in prices for the "same" commoddity across countries because they are novel in one place but common to another, and because there are import duties or excise taxes discriminating against foreign commoddities, and because a local good that is perfectly substitutable doesn't have to be shipped across the world to get there. You have potatos in the U.S., Rice in Asia, and teff in Africa for example. Depending on which the "base" country is for the selected basket, you get wild diversions in PPP measures. So it isn't "more accurate".

But neither are direct GDP estimates, adjusted by exchange rate, perfect measures of standard of living - and the excessive defense spending of the US is an example of that.

 

[rwguinn]

You will not be allowed benefits if you do not actively search for a job, with 2 applications per week minimum. You are not allowed to refuse a job you've been accepted for.

A person could in theory lie and not do their job searches, but they risk being discovered with a random audit. Is this what you mean but "not try as hard"?

Should a person who made their job searches to no avail lose benefits?

Bolded part is not entirely true.
You are not required to take a job at a salary significantly less than what you had at your previous job.
I had offers at 40% of my previous salary at one time when I was unemployed. I was allowed to ignore them...

 

[joolz]

No, not connected to the English democrats, they seem to be reviving the idea now though.

Are you in the south? They didn't hold a referendum there, presumably because the north of England voted 'no'. If any part of England could have been expected to vote 'yes' for their own regional government I think it would have been 'the north' as they feel almost as alienated from Westminster as the Scots.

I presume the UK government didn't do further ballots as they expected that the result would have been the same. The northern rejection was resounding, well over two thirds said no IIRC. There were a lot of opinion polls all over England at that time that indicated the same thing. It's a shame that the voters couldn't envision the autonomy it could bring.

I think you're getting confused with the rejection of the idea of elected mayors in certain areas.

I was referring to devolution. Just traced a link. 78% rejected it.

"North East votes 'no' to assembly"/"regional devolution"
​

info here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3984387.stm

I couldn't remember for sure, but I was right in my assumption that there were no further referendums because of this big rejection:

"John Prescott told MPs last week's "no" vote in the North East meant plans to allow the assemblies would not go before Parliament this session."
​

info here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3992435.stm