andyt wrote:
Gunnair wrote:
"Welfare and Disability Support are two different things. It is important to help those with disabilities. If your on welfare it should not be comfy, it should help persuade you to become a productive member of society."
An interesting comment. Although I'm for making welfare a safety net and not much more, I do think that living beyond the subsistance level is a better opportunity for being a productive member of society.
There's welfare for employable people, and that should be a minimum (which it is in BC) but with lots of help to get them jobs. Also in BC an employable person can only collect welfare 2 years out of 5 - it's not much of a free ride.
Then there's welfare for people who just aren't employable - at least on the open job market. Boost welfare for them, but maybe it makes sense to have them work for it in a sheltered sort of setting. Then there's the single parents - either give them enough money for daycare, or give them decent welfare so the kids don't suffer. It's all very good to say they brought it on themselves (many didn't) but if you don't give them enough money the kids just suffer and grow up to be problems.
Agreed. For those with disabilities that prevent them from working, there should be improved benefits as well as a regular assessment of their disabilities with an effort to find them gainful employment.
I rather like the idea of workfare myself, especially for those on a permanent disability - not in a punitive way of course, but to give them a feeling of accomplishment as well as ensure the government gets a bit of productivity out of its investment. Community service I think would be great.
I do agree about the single mom as well. It costs a lot to put kids into daycare these days (although the government will kick in for that) but still it's pricey.
In the end, I have no issue raising welfare rates, however, I also expect more accountability from the recipients. They need to have their feet held to the fire so that if they can find a job that pays better than welfare ($8.00/hr gets you $1280 before taxes and BC's minimum wages are going up so that $1600 before taxes will not be hard to earn)
Welfare should be below that lest the recipient opt to sit at home and do nothing.
That being said, I will also agree with you that we need affordable housing and that's an issue. Frankly, people are better off mocving out of the high cost areas but that also means fewer work opportunities and potentially lower pay.
No easy answers nor cheap ones, sadly.
CKA Uber 
