For John, BLUF: The Danes are rethinking their welfare state. Nothing to see here; just move along.
At the International Herald Tribune today (dated 20 April 2013) is an an article by Suzanne Daley, titled "Danes Rethink a Welfare State Ample to a Fault"
“In the past, people never asked for help unless they needed it,” said Karen Haekkerup, the Minister of Social Affairs and Integration, who has been outspoken on the subject. “My grandmother was offered a pension and she was offended. She did not need it.What can't be sustained, won't be sustained.“But now people do not have that mentality. They think of these benefits as their rights. The rights have just expanded and expanded. And it has brought us a good quality of life. But now we need to go back to the rights and the duties. We all have to contribute.”
But, the Danes seem to have a plan.
Instead of offering disability, the government intends to assign individuals to “rehabilitation teams” to come up with one- to five-year plans that could include counseling, social-skills training and education as well as a state-subsidized job, at least in the beginning. The idea is to have them working at least part time, or studying.It is not a bad plan. It might work here in the US, if we were serious about ending our own homelessness problem.
Regards — Cliff
2 comments:
The Danes are not impoverished by their welfare state. The typical complaint of conservatives regarding government social support is that it saps the will to be productive. Well for the Danes that doesn't prove out. More of them work, although they do work fewer hours.
"What is true is that the average employed Danish person works about 16 percent fewer hours than the average employed American person. Not coincidentally, GDP per capita in Denmark is about 16 percent lower than in the United States. The median Danish household consequently has less disposable income than the median American household, and in exchange it has more vacation and public services. Debating whether it makes sense to rebalance that tradeoff is healthy and appropriate. But this idea that Denmark is being somehow impoverished by a national outbreak of shiftlessness is totally unsupported. "
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/21/danish_welfare_state_employment_population_ratio_highest_in_denmark.html
I did not think that the statements quoted in the original post spoke to "impoverishment" of the Danish state. It seems more likely that the idea was to restore "unproductive" or "marginally productive" Danes to some level of productivity and therefore, citizens who recognize and comply with inherent "rights and duties" as citizens.
Besides, nobody suggests, or has suggested, that the US somehow replicate what the Danes are doing. However, their idea has merit. Because percentages have become wholly unreliable measures in the US (for reasons I won't belabor here) I will offer only that we have a substantial portion of our citizenry who have interpreted their "rights and duties" as being good wards of the state. In point of fact, large majorities of those folks simply don't WANT to go to work. Oh, if you corner them on the sidewalk with a film crew and ask them why they are on welfare, they'll recite a cock and bull story that is expected to bring a tear to the eye, but in fact, they don't want to work...won't work.
Importantly, our social welfare mentality and resultant programs DO impoverish our state and it has to stop. If you are working age (whatever that is) and you aren't, and you want to be "supported," that support should be tied to several duties. The first duty is to become re-employed as soon as possible, and that re-employment programs must be in the form of an ACTIONABLE plan. If lacking the requisite skills for available employment, then training should be provided FOLLOWED by employment in the field trained. The Danes have apparently recognized that providing what is essentially welfare at some point begins to absolve the recipient's responsibility to contribute to society......to perform the duties that underlie rights.
America needs to take notes and learn some lessons.
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