If 100 homeless people were given $750 per month for a year, no questions asked, what would they spend it on?
That question was at the core of a controlled study conducted by a San Francisco-based nonprofit and the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
The results were so promising that the researchers decided to publish results after only six months. The answer: food, 36.6%; housing, 19.5%; transportation, 12.7%; clothing, 11.5%; and healthcare, 6.2%, leaving only 13.6% uncategorized.
Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered.
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Yeah, the problem here is the implementation: you and I and most people here would benefit a little from a higher tax on billionaires, enough to motivate us to send a letter to our Congressional representatives and send a few bucks to whichever campaigning politicians promise to do it.
Billionaires, in the meantime, stand to lose millions, or even tens of millions of dollars. Enough that it makes sense for them to start PACs, schmooze, and even bribe the Congressional representatives who’d be in charge of raising taxes. So even though there are hundreds of them and millions of us, they have greater means and motivation.
Fun fact, the economic disparity between the upper and lower classes in America is worse than when the French started cutting people’s heads off. I can’t legally say we should follow their lead, but it makes you think, you know?
But why? Why punish people just because they are more successful than other people? The government doesn’t need to steal from successful people to give to those that aren’t.
It’s called taxes, not stealing, and yes they do. It’s quite literally one of the functions of a government.
That’s literally not the function of government. Their only job is to protect me from you and you from me. That’s all. You may want the government more involved in your life. Not everyone feels that way.
How do you expect a government to function if it doesn’t collect taxes? Are they gonna run a weekly bake sale?
Believe it or not when you cut out all the superfluous duties and other bullshit, the government needs a lot less money.
You didn’t answer the question.
I’m sure there isn’t a single millionaire that made it on their own. They had other people making that money for them.
You got proof? Or you just ‘feel’ that way.
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I have problems taxing anybody.