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Comment by runawaybottle | Hacker News Reader

I can’t explain it to you, and from my first hand observation this is exactly what it creates.

Without going into details, people know how to get every type of aid from the government and live under virtual welfare for extended periods of time (well before retirement age). The total aid amounts to well over 10-30k easily.

I know people that take advantage of it and honestly I can’t believe we all foot the tax bill for it. It’s free money, people will find a way to get it, the same way corporations find tax havens.

The incentives aren’t right, and the loopholes too many. We cannot pay for freaking everything as there really is a moral hazard argument to be made here, especially when it’s obvious it’s misallocated.

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Whenever I see a comment like this, it's hard not to take it personal. When my parents came to America as refugees, they wanted to come to CA specifically because there was already a community and an understanding that the social programs were better than the alternative of TX.

Of course they tried to take advantage of programs like food stamps. They took advantage of it because they met what the government considered as qualified. The alternative, which my parents did have to do at times, was skipping meals so their kids had enough to eat. It's not taking advantage of a system if the people meet the requirements. No one says they're taking advantage of a coupon at a grocery store, it's there to be used.

I think some mean "take advantage" to mean abuse of the safety net system (by some, not everyone). Which takes away from truly desperate people.

This argument doesn't really work without data/numbers to back it up. I'm pretty relaxed about some percentage of welfare going to people who are gaming the system and don't want to work as long as the people who need it are getting it.

In the UK: "A poll conducted by the Trades Union Congress in 2012 found that perceptions among the British public were that benefit fraud was high – on average people thought that 27% of the British welfare budget is claimed fraudulently; however, official UK Government figures have stated that the proportion of fraud stands at 0.7% of the total welfare budget in 2011/12."

Hard to know what percentage the people would accept in practice, but I've gotta suspect it's higher than the actual percentage that exists.

Not sure if you are talking about PPP loan fraud, loss carry forward, or some other scam that the extremely wealthy are able to pull but I'm interested to know which one!

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