🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 14 Oct 1998 12:02:40 +0100, Simon Kinahan <simonk@cadence.com>
wrote:

>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.
>

Unemployment benefits in the US are not payments to the poor.  They
are not means tested, and they are not subject to some of the
limitations for Income Support.  For example, it makes no difference
whether your partner can support you or not.  We also have training
schemes and the lot.

As for generosity, you don't mention numbers.

>
>> 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.
>

Actually I was commenting not on the lifestyle of the average Serbian
but on the situation of its Albanian citizens.  Having spent a lot of
time in Mexico recently, I tend to think by and large that things are
better there.

>> 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.
>

That's interesting, but I don't know what you've seen of American
poverty.  I haven't seen anything of Bulgarian poverty, either.  So
it's hard for me to make direct comparisons.

In the US, it's sometimes hard to separate "poverty" from other
influences, like social class and cultural factors.  Real grinding
poverty, where people are hungry all the time, doesn't really exist
here.  Our poverty is more spiritual, call it desperation, fractured
family structures and undo pressures from negative elements.  From a
purely material point of view, I have no doubt the average "poor"
person in the US has an advantage over his Bulgarian counterpart.
Modern plumbing, working telephones, cable TV, color television,
public education, medical care, food, all this is provided to the
american poor.  With food stamps, any welfare recipient can go into a
supermarket and buy fresh vegetables, dairy products and grains from
all over the world, the likes of which I would say are hard to find in
Bulgaria at all, much less if you're poor.  

I could go on, but I'd like to hear why you would choose to be poor in
Bulgaria, and what your conceptions of American poverty are.