UK: 500,000 troubled families cost taxpayers £30bn/yr

Article here. Excerpt:

"Cameron set to announce extension to scheme to help them study unveiled scale of the problem.

Half a million problem families currently costing taxpayers £30billion a year 120,000 families each on average responsible for one police call out a month Prime Minister David Cameron to announce assistance scheme extension

Half a million problem families are costing taxpayers more than £30billion a year, according to a major study which reveals for the first time the true extent of the rise of Britain’s underclass.

Hundreds of thousands of households are causing a serious drain on public resources with ‘off the barometer’ dysfunctional behaviour, according to a Government initiative set up in the wake of the 2011 riots.
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‘The reality is that in the past the family just hasn’t been central to the way government thinks,’ he will say in a speech.

‘So you get a whole load of policy decisions which take no account of the family and sometimes make these things worse – whether it’s the benefits system incentivising couples to live apart or penalising those who go out to work, or excessive bureaucracy preventing loving couples from adopting children.

‘Put simply it means every single domestic policy that government comes up with will be examined for its impact on the family.’"

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It centers on a male exploiter of the UK welfare state (which has a hefty counterpart here in the US; the diff. is merely in the magnitude, but the principles behind it are the same: separate dads from moms and kids and move in for the political kill), but ignores the fact that the overwhelming number of welfare state policy exploiters are female. Meanwhile, despite the apparent benefit any given recipient of state largess appears to receive, she/he pays a big price: selfhood. The man in the anecdote may think he's gaming the system, but does so at great expense: his reputation, opportunities for himself and his kids, and lives in constant fear of state interference (justifiably) in his life, as prior convictions tend to send police investigations one's way when complaints emerge from the convict's neighborhood.

Welfare state policies differ from safety net policies. A safety net policy of public assistance is meant to protect those from the effects of poverty when there is no reasonable expectation of their ability to manage their circumstances: the mentally incompetent (as legally defined, incl. minors under a certain age and those born with or have acquired "mental defects", as legally-defined), and those medically incapable of pursuing ways of self-support via lawful work due to any reasonable impediment. I'd even include valid cases of serious/severe depression that hasn't responded to multiple treatment efforts, though as a condition to receive medical/financial support, I'd include that ppl with such/similar psych problems keep at pursuing a solution for themselves, incl. ppl suffering serious delusive conditions, hallucinations, etc. In other words, those who are genuinely insane in the classic sense are reasonably considered medically incapacitated.

However welfare state policies are typified by those that include safety net policies and then some. They can be spotted by asking oneself this: Can an able-bodied person lacking any significant impediment to lawful employment get a substantial subsidy from the gov't with relative ease? (Wait times betw. application and one's first check don't count!) Welfare state policies encourage ppl to avoid working by paying them enough to discourage pursuing a job even if the welfare state-provided money is less than what the recipient gets from the gov't. This is because most ppl would happily exchange some amt. of income for more "free time" during the week. Welfare state money recipients are just like the rest of us this way.

One way to break the poverty cycle/welfare dependency cycle is to consciously wean long-term welfare money dependents from it and to modify eligibility and increase-justification req'ts but to do so in stages, as no system responds well to sudden change. Actively explaining the rationale and forewarning such ppl of what's happening with their state-subsidized living and other expenses would help the process. But de-dependentizing ppl from state doles is hard when the state itself is in no hurry to do so, as a welfare-dependent citizenry occupying lower economic classes is much less likely to seek "permanent redress" vs. social and economic problems via good old-fashioned revolution/insurrection if they know their daily bread supply will get compromised if they do so. Paying off the underclass via dole has been a staple strategy of gov'ts for maintaining a docile pop'n for millenia. Problem is, the money only lasts so long and eventually, the strategy stops working anyway as ppl naturally become dissatisfied with what they have and keep demanding more and the state grows tired of the constant demands for more, not to mention those actually paying taxes and showing up at polling stations.

History. It's actually quite boring in its own way. It's always repeating itself, sort of like your typical feminist. :)

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