One political narrative is the tale of the poor defrauding government programs. The (alleged) grifter Donald Trump, for example, claims that the poor commit a lot of fraud. Fox News consistently claims, usually without evidence, that government programs aimed to help the poor are exploited by the poor. In most cases, the “evidence” presented in support of such claims seems to be that they feel that there must be a lot of fraud. However, there is little inclination to look for supporting evidence—if they feel strongly enough that a claim is true, that is good enough for them.
The claim that such aid is fraught with fraud is often used to argue that it should be cut or even eliminated. The idea is that the poor are “takers” who are fraudulently living off the “makers.” While fraud is wrong, it is important to consider some key questions.
The first question is this: what is the actual percentage of fraud that occurs in such programs? While, as noted above, some claim fraud is rampant, the statistical data tells another story. In the case of unemployment insurance, the rate of fraud is estimated to be less than 2%. This is lower than the rate of fraud in the private sector. In the case of welfare, fraud is sometimes reported at being 20%-40% at the state level. However, the “fraud” seems to mostly errors by bureaucrats rather than fraud committed by the recipients. Naturally, an error rate so high is unacceptable—but is a different narrative than that of the wicked poor stealing from the taxpayers.
SNAP (Food stamp) fraud does occur—but it is mostly committed by businesses rather than the recipients. While there is some fraud on the part of recipients, the best data indicates that such fraud accounts for about 1% of the payments. Given the rate of fraud in the private sector, that is exceptionally good.
Given this data, the overwhelming majority of those who receive assistance are not engaged in fraud. This is not to say that fraud should be ignored—in fact, it is the concern with fraud on the part of the recipients that has resulted in such low incidents of fraud. Interestingly, about one third of fraud involving government money involves not the poor, but defense contractors who account for about $100 billion in fraud per year. Medicare and Medicaid combined have about $100 billion in fraudulent expenditures per year. While there is also a narrative of the wicked poor in regards to Medicare and Medicaid, the fraud is usually perpetrated by the providers of health care rather than the recipients. As such, the focus on fraud should shift from the poor recipients of aid to defense contractors and to address Medicare/Medicaid issues. That is, it is not the wicked poor who are siphoning away money with fraud, it is the wicked wealthy who are stealing from the rest of us. As such the narrative of the poor defrauding the state is a flawed narrative. While it does happen, the overall level of fraud on the part of recipients seems to be less than 2%. Most of the fraud, contrary to the narrative, is committed by those who are not poor. While the existence of fraud does show a need to address that fraud, the narrative has cast the wrong people as villains.
While the idea of mass welfare cheating is unfounded, a good faith debate can be had as to whether people should receive support from the state. After all, even if most recipients are honestly following the rules and not engaged in fraud, there is still the question of whether the state should be providing welfare, food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid and similar such benefits. Of course, the narrative against helping citizens in need does lose much of its rhetorical power if you know the poor are not fraudsters. That dishonor goes to a wealthier class of people, which should be no surprise. After all, if the poor were engaged in the level of fraud attributed to them, they would no longer be poor.
” the poor commit a lot of fraud”
And so, ALL the poor get to be blame for the frauds. Just because they are poor. A classic example of causal fallacy. We (the poor, although I consider myself richer than the poorer, yet I am certainly ‘poor’ according to common and general views) keep hearing these dumb arguments over and over. To those who demonize us, there’s no difference between being poor and being a fraudster: it amounts to pretty much the same thing. We get demonized just because we take the benefits we are legally entitled to.
Surely there’s fraudsters in the welfare systems, but these people would be probably fraudsters regardless of if they’d be poor or richer, for what they are is driven not by a system, which they are willing to exploit illegally regardless of which system; they are driven by their greed and selfishness and their indifference to law and order.
These intelligent people who demonize the poor for being poor and by blaming us for the fraudsters, should ask why, for every fraudster in that system, there’s several others who are as poor (or poorer) who aren’t not fraudsters?
As a welfare claimant myself, I think it’s actually stupid and/or insane to defraud the very system that allows me to survive, for I risk to have what I am getting being taken away and be prosecuted and probably even jailed on top of that. That’s really, really, REALLY stupid (or insane: often, I can’t tell the difference between being one or the other).
I assume that to most people with a working brain, these things are evident and obvious. I assume most benefit claimants are NOT stupid or insane.
To these OTHER intelligent and wise people such as Trump, that heavyweight intellectual par excellence, who whine and moan all their lives until they finally give up the ghost, about us supposedly having a laugh and having a great life full of joy and partying, at the expense of those saints of society who work eight hours a day (who pay the taxes not because they really care for anyone, but because they must, which is as it should: again, criterias), it should be known that there’s fraudsters everywhere, not just festering into the welfare system. Why would the welfare system not be expected to be defrauded by some people who live by no morals? Fraudsters look for opportunities for fraud: they don’t care about what they are defrauding. The ones who defraud the government are the same ones who are ready to defraud anyone else, should the opportunity arise for them. No actually they create these opportunities most willingly.
So I am poor, and I get whatever I am legally entitled to: if I fit the criteria and what I get makes my life easier, I would be a complete idiot to refuse it, since it even allows me to actually survive.
The welfare system is a system that stipulates that if you fit certain criterias, you are legally entitled to X benefit. If you don’t fit these criterias, you don’t. Same as taxes: if you earn this much, you pay that much, if you don’t you pay a different amount. These criterias, I assume, were not devised by idiots, but by law makers who knew what they were doing.
Unfortunately, systems can be exploited by some. As you said about technology used for sex, will be used for sex, we might just say the same about systems: any system that can be defrauded by fraudsters, will be defrauded.
I would propose the harshest punishment to fraudsters. These people are giving a bad name to the rest of us, but I suppose this is none of my concern: my concern is what I do and how I think, not what others do or think. That’s none of my business. Just what the Stoics said, right?
By the way, no one ever mentions the fact that government frauds mean only one thing: there will be less money for the ones who did NOT commit fraud, for money don’t grow on trees, right?
So it’s ironic how these wise, knowdgeable and understanding people make such a leap, for it amounts to be saying that all poor people want the government to have less money and resources to help them.
But to those who demonize us just for being poor and being welfare benefits claimants, I can’t help by imagining Epictetus answering to them: ‘If you don’t like the fact that there’s fraudsters in this world, and you are no law maker, not even a philosopher (for at least a philosopher has to make an effort to train himself in thought), then go hang.’.
Thank you for your essay.
And by the same token: I’ll always be grateful for my benefits, not to the taxpayers, for most of them would probably not care much if any of us lives or dies, but to those law makers, to those who devised these systems. To them I owe my life, literally. I have been homeless for almost ten years, I know what poor is. Not saying that I have slept on a bench in the parks for ten years, although I have done that too; ‘homeless’ meaning, at least today, ‘having no fixed address’. I never knew where I was ending up in a few days.
These people, are my saviours: I would never stab them in the back. Years ago I disputed an ending to my benefits, at a tribunal, and the judge decided in my favour. She even said to me: ‘And if you get better or well, you might consider doing more work.’. But she didn’t say it in a harsh or patronizing tone, in fact she vouched for me all the way. She didn’t require a promise, but to me, it was as if I had made a promise. I kept my promise, and did more work as soon as I was able, but could not keep up with that after a while, and got back to my ‘normal’.
Whilst I’ll be grateful to anyone who helped me and I never forget them, and I wish them well for the rest of my life, I am certain I have done nothing wrong and don’t owe anything to Trump, taxpayers, or anyone. It’s quite simple: legal criterias.
Yes, I myself marvel at the help I get, it astonishes me, but this is because my expectations are way lower than for most people. I feel rich with 400 bucks, because I am very thrifty and I don’t live like most people do. Still, I am not wrong in my judgement: the current system in my country is a literal life saver. I have read many autobiographies of remarkable people who lived long ago, and I continuously imagine how bad and extremely difficult would have life been for the poor. For one thing, I am saved from the horrifying and self- demeaning act of begging. For another thing, I have a rook on my head, a bed to sleep on, basic food in my fridge. And leisure, that great wealth of which every great philosopher was proud of. (to those who don’t know what I am talking about: leisure doesn’t mean ‘doing nothing’, it means not being constrained by societal obligations and still doing some kind of work)
What more can I wish for, other than as much health as possible, the most precious wealth of them all. I am lucky not to have been born in 1820 !
”…leisure doesn’t mean ‘doing nothing…”. Even less, it means doing stupid things, such as wasting time (I do waste some, but I try hard not to) or engaging in self-sabotage, such as taking drugs, drinking alcohol, etc.
I am no philosopher, as I say always, I am an idiot who tries to be less stupid than last week. But I am not, I think, a bad student: a philosopher doesn’t numb his mind with drugs or alcohol, no matter how desolate and loney is the landscape he looks at. I do like alcohol, which is why I never, ever buy it or keep it around. Besides, I never had 5 bucks for a bottle of wine, this is unnecessary luxury.
Ironically, I give to the poor. I mean money, whenever I had more. What do you say, eh, Trump and these other ignorant fools like you? I guess one poor bum (I won’t even say me) could be, if not better, a more decent human than a rich, petulant, spoiled, semi-literate fool like you.