[fintstone]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

When someone gives me the objection that they'd be better off just putting the money in a savings account, I always ask them if they're doing that. Never. "Oh, well, when were you gonna get that started? You can't live long enough to save up $25k at $X per month, and one emergency can wipe that out in an instant." It's not really an issue with this crowd. They live SS check to SS check.

That is why "this crowd" is "this crowd." Poor choices. If one has been on any sort of government assistance (including the earned income tax credit) for more than a few months and is reasonably healthy...then they probably fall into one of two groups. Incredibly lazy and gaming the system, or made such a massive series of incredibly poor choices that it is almost impossible to recover on their own...ever. We encourage both by rewarding their bad behavior (those poor choices and laziness). There is much more incentive (with income based social welfare) to accept failure than to dig put of it. Recovering from life's mistakes is hard...whether it is losing weight or learning the crap you should have learned in school (and teachers/schools allowed you to fail to do so). If you have a child you cannot afford, no one tells you to stop...they reward you with tax credits, WIC, SNAP, housing, etc., encouraging more of the same behavior which turns a relatively temporary problem into a lifelong one (where other that worked harder and smarter (made wiser choices) must support you and your progeny for the rest of your lives.

Any program where making a few more dollars results in losing "free money" taken from someone else teaches those near the bottom to quickly reduce hours/effort as not to exceed levels that would cause loss of that benefit. The earned income tax credit is a good example as it grew a whole class of seasonal workers who previously would have worked the entire year (like those that lifeguard n the summer or are ski instructors in the winter)...as well as many that cut heir hours late in the year (when demand for retail Christmas workers are the highest).

Most folks start work before 20 and live past 60. That is 40 years. If stupid enough to only get just 1% return, $42.38 a month would get them $25K. At 5%, just $16.38 a month. They could get to the same point even easier by dropping their income tax return (as many poor get back more than they pay) or buying a home for the same payment as their rent or less) as it would be long paid off and would quickly gain them $25K in equity. That is how I started. I took a second job to buy a home that I could not afford otherwise. Not only was that a great investment, but doing so and making my payments on time resulted in a high credit rating which made any purchase with credit (like another house or a car) much cheaper.