🚀 go-pugleaf

O'Neill wrote:
> My understand is that the european countries provide a lot of services
> that aren't means tested, i.e., health, education, etc.  I don't know
> whether payments to the poor (i.e., welfare benefits) as such are more
> generous than those provided in the US, which benefits of course vary
> from state to state.

They are. Unemployment entitles anyone (including single males) to some
money indefinitely (in the UK this is called Income Support) and usually to
special benefits for the first period they are off work. I think (not sure)
that both benefits require you to be seeking work, and not to have a
partner who can support you. Families get special benefits, often in the
form of something like EITC. For the long-term unemployed training schemes
are often available and sometimes a condition of claiming benefits.

Simon

> Albania is abysmally poor, and I doubt it has any real safety net for
> its citizens.  I wonder about other countries in the Balkans as well.
> Serbia doesn't seem to be doing much for its ethnic Albanians at the
> present apart from trying to kill them.  Maybe they aren't poor, I
> don't know.

I think Serbia is quite poor, especially with current sanctions, but the
lifestyle is probably better than say Mexico.

> I think I would rather be poor in the U.S. than in most European
> countries.  

From what I've seen of American poverty I'd rather be poor in Bulgaria than
the USA.

Simon