Category: Welfare

In a piece that was mostly about something else, Freddie deBoer had this to say about socialism, the welfare state, and decommodification: Since I am a grumpy old man, I will not relent in saying that anything that calls itself socialism must, as the end of the day, point towards decommodification. That is, what separates… Continue reading Is Decommodification Socialism?

I am not that interested in arguing about UBI on a day-to-day basis, but I’ve now seen one silly argument against it enough times that I feel compelled to intervene. The argument is this: In fact, workers may not even see much of the benefit of their UBI check: if their new gains are simply… Continue reading Weird UBI Argument About Rents

Terrence McCoy has a long piece in the Washington Post about multi-generational disability. Or, more accurately, a piece about one family McCoy spent a few days with. The only parts of the piece that try to quantify multi-generational disability make very little sense. Households with multiple family members on disability From the article: As the… Continue reading Why would rich disabled parents spoof their kid’s disability?

There is coverage today of a new report from the California Senate Appropriations committee estimating the budgetary implications of a proposed single payer health plan for the state (Sacramento Bee, LA Times, Vox). I’ve not yet been able to access the report directly, but the coverage of it is pretty encouraging. After the implementation of… Continue reading California’s Surprisingly Cheap Single Payer Plan

The way journalists report on the fiscal costs of spending programs is extremely unhelpful. The norm is to give some dollar amount projected over a decade. The problem with this norm is that a raw dollar figure does not tell the audience a whole lot. Is $100 million a lot? Is $100 billion a lot?… Continue reading The US Should Spend at Least $15 Trillion More on Welfare