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Comment by Turing_Machine | Hacker News Reader

The post below yours got flagged into oblivion, but I think it raises an important issue.

Nationwide, less than 30% of the money spent on welfare actually winds up as cash in the hands of the needy it's supposedly benefiting. Most of it is spent on other things (some of which are no doubt good, others of which may not be so good). Surely one can suggest taking a hard look at these other expenditures without being accused of taking bread out of the mouths of children?

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/most-welfare-dollars-do...

In California (one of the better states) only about 45% of the money supposedly spent to help poor people actually winds up in their hands. Some states are much, much worse.

The guy who got flagged suggested (in a rather combative manner, true) that too much of the welfare budget is spent on the salaries of bureaucrats. I don't know about you, but > 50% overhead seems like too much to me.

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And yet I meet social workers and other bureaucrats in this space that are clearly not making the kind of money I would require to work such a hard job.

I feel like societal investments in combatting poverty are so low that the inefficiencies we see are because we’re paying just enough to keep the lights on.

Flipping things around, imagine a startup that was only making < 50% more in profit than its total costs. We wouldn’t be so critical. We’d say, “Wow, you’re profitable? Congratulations!”

Flipping things a little further, imagine how much more quickly a startup could become profitable if employees were paid the same as social workers. I'd argue that the delta in pay is at least partly attributable to the delta in how much each class of worker truly believes in the mission of the organization. That’s a sobering thought.

The overhead is absurd yes. There is work to be done. My problem though is the Democrats just want to raise the budget, which technically works but means setting a good 70% of the money on fire, and the GOP just wants to cut the hell out of the budget, as they're doing now, as if this will make the bureaucrats take lower salaries in the name of helping people, despite having never had that happen before.

And all of this needs a solid, informed and rational discussion about how best to help people in need, which we cannot have because the narrative of this country seems to be locked in this mindset that the poor are the people who failed, the people who made dumb choices which apparently warrants a lifetime of check-to-check starvation, or in the most extreme cases people who have offended God or whatever and had their wealth taken from them. And that's not even going into the issues around everyone here being "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and not wanting to tax the rich, because when they get rich, they don't want to be taxed.

The whole thing is screwed, not even just in the Government but in the culture.

The post below yours got flagged into oblivion, but I think it raises an important issue.

My impression was that it showed up dead. I vouched for it, to no avail.

Assuming you mean this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15848548

History: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15754234

Ugh.

Thanks.

i've wondered the same thing about the overhead. the argument given to me by some friends in non-profits is that raising money is an art and they have to compete with profit companies for the same people. hence they offer high salaries for c-level positions who can bring in money. there are only so many people that are willing to do it for a under industry salary.

not sure i agree one way or another, but penny for your thoughts.

Do they set some kind of limit of how much of the donations can go to management and administration?

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