To what extent should the poor in a society receive help from the government

To what extent should the poor in a society receive help from the government?

Tay Linna Lynnette 03S21

It is inevitable that in every society, there would be poor people. These people are physically or mentally inadequate in comparison with the average person in the society. To be poor is to lack something that other people have, be it wealth, health or intellect. The large portion of the poor comes from the people living in poverty. Most of the time, the government focuses on helping this portion of the poor and more or less neglects the rest of them. Of course, there are also some governments which provide too much help to the poor and this results in over dependence and lack of will.

Many governments who try to help people living in poverty provide their people with the commodities needed for survival, which are food and water. However, the pressing problem that needs to be addressed is to help the poor escape the vicious cycle that they are caught in. The lack of basic organizations like schools in the rural areas result in these people not having an education. The lack of money and the need for young children to help out in earning a living exacerbates the problem of a lack of education. Without proper education, most of these children end up as unskilled labourers for the rest of their lives. They are then trapped in the vicious cucle of poverty. However, no matter how much effort the government puts in to provide them with affordable or even free education, very much still depends on the people's willingness to be educated or retrained. Most of these people, especially in the African nations, prefer to stick to their austere

way of living. Efforts put in to try and make these stubborn people budge is more or less wasted.

In some countries, where land is so unsuitable for habitation, farmers in the rural areas live in poverty as nature works against them. Recognizing this, the government should try to relocate these people to more fertile agriculture areas or simply try to equip them with new skills so that they might make a living doing something else. In India , many poor farmers still live in the arid desert lands because their government is unable to relocate them in the overcrowded capital city.

Another group of people who receives a lot of aid from the government is the unemployed. In developed countries where business cycles are established, it is common for economies to sink into recession and leave about four percent of the working population unemployed. In many countries, the unemployed receive unemployment benefits from the government to make up for their loss of income. However, this facility that is supposed to benefit largely people who have difficulty tiding over the recession has been abused by many. In the United Kingdom , which is still well known for its welfare system, unemployment benefits are so attractive that people willingly stay

unemployed, not making genuine efforts to find themselves new jobs. But the system in North Carolina , America seems to be more effective. The unemployed from the garment industries find themselves employed again as the government starts subsidizing the industry to protect it against foreign competition from

China . This is not a direct help to these people and the government encourages them to equip themselves with new skills to eventually move on to a more prospective industry.

Aid from the government should only be received if it is greatly needed. The

government also needs to make sure that their aid is given to deserving people who are not taking advantage of the system. Ideally, there should be as little dependence on the

government as possible.

Physically inadequate people and people lacking in health should also be given aid. The handicapped have started to contribute significantly to the

economy in many parts of the world, especially in Europe . This is due to the friendly infrastructure that some European governments have installed to enable them to conveniently get on with life like normal people. However, in many Asian countries where the society is mostly elitist and utilitarian, the handicapped are still denied a place in the workplace. Even the public infrastructure is mostly unfriendly for their use. Examples are Singapore and Thailand where the fast pace of life is regarded as unsuitable for physically disabled people. The government in these countries should seek to increase the maturity of their societies to instill tolerance and acceptance of these people. The invalids can earn a living for themselves if they were given the chance and that would be better than mere

dependence on tax-payers money. To help these people, governments need to create for them a friendlier environment. The government should also encourage the handicapped to contribute in the workforce as far as possible instead of allowing them to fully depend on the government.

Another group of people is the group suffering from chronic diseases like kidney failure. In Singapore , the kidney failure patients are supported by the National Kidney Foundation, which is a non-government organization. However, other patients who cannot afford medical bills are allowed to use their Medisave accounts which are provided by the government. Again, the government needs to make sure that such welfare benefits are not abused.

People who are lacking in skills and intellect also need to be helped. Instead of merely supporting them by outright monetary support, a good system of education and retraining has to be set up to gear the people up for contribution to the economy. With the help of experts, the government is able to forecast the growth and decline in certain industries. With that, the government can actually provide training for unskilled workers or workers without necessary skills. The education system also has to be able to integrate the needs of the less able students. Schools which are less academic-based have to be set up to train these students in non-academic skills. In many countries, extra curricular activities are encouraged to allow students to realize their potential in other fields. In elitist societies, tolerance and acceptance of less able students have to be instilled. Above all, the government should make education and training affordable.

In modern society, where the promise of equality has to be kept by governments, governments try very hard to provide equal opportunities for all. To accomplish that, it is essential to place the comparatively poor people on level ground with the rest to ensure equal advantages and fair competition. However, there is a limit to what government can do, as much still depends on the beneficiaries' mindsets and society's acceptance and

acknowledgement of the poor. It is also important for the rest of the society to understand and respect the rights of the poor, or it would be another case of a failed welfare system.

You focus a little too much on who the government should help rather than the issue of the extent to which the government should help. Your mention of a level ground appears only in the conclusion. Largely relevant content though lop-sided in focus and sharing awareness of the issues involved. There are clear and apt examples used to support your points.

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To what extent should the poor in a society receive help from the government?

Yang Yunxin 03S21

In the present world where many economies are thriving, there are still two-thirds of the world living in poverty. Looking at just society itself, there are

various reasons why people are poor, and this includes their being uneducated and unemployed, their choosing to be unemployed for their personal reasons and also the government's inability or lack of aid. Whether they should receive help in the form of benefits from the government depends largely on the reasons leading to their situation, and I feel that they should be given help but only to a certain extent.

The poor should receive help, if they are poor involuntarily. Being poor constitute the lack of education, and the lack of a job, or holding a low-paying job. All are closely related, as the absence of education leads to the difficult of obtaining a job or high-paying job. It is a vicious cycle that gets passed on for generations, unless they are given external help. In such situations, they should be given aid, perhaps in the form of subsidies or sending them to courses to better equip them with skills sufficient for them to find proper-paying jobs.

Another group of poor peoples comes from industries where there is high foreign competition. Their inability to fight such competition would lead to the lack of revenue or profits from their jobs. For example, farmers in America are given high government subsidies. Also with the aid of high technology, their extremely low cost of production allows them to sell their agriculture goods at a much lower price than their foreign competitors. Thus, farmers from less well-off countries who receive less or no aid at all would find it difficult to compete and thus are unable to earn revenue. In a situation like that, the government should give help to these industries, such that these poor people are able to climb up the social ladder.

To a certain extent, poverty is the root of crimes. It leads to many social problems for example, juvenile delinquency and petty crimes like theft and pick-pocketing. These problems are due to the lack of education, which is a result of poverty. Thus, to solve these social problems, an attempt can be made by giving aid to the poor, giving them the opportunity for better education.

However, the poor should receive help only to a certain extent. It is essential that they are given aid in areas like health and housing, which are the basic needs for survival. They should also be given subsidies for education and for adults to go for courses to allow them to get better jobs. However, they should not be given aid once they have obtained a certain economic ability, as this might lead to their over-reliance on government aid and not putting in effort on their part.

And, help should not be given to people who are voluntarily unemployed. These people do not work and hope to rely on government benefits, and definitely should not be encouraged. However, it is difficult if not impossible to determine whether or not they are voluntarily poor. A method might be to just give minimum aid to everybody, but then that would be unfair for those who cannot help their own situation.

If conclusion, government aid should be given to the poor, if they are really in difficulty, and if it would also help in the social problems in the society. However, aid should only be given to a certain extent to prevent the people's over-reliance on government benefits, and also to prevent people from bring voluntarily poor. Whether or not the government has the ability to give aid and whether the funds

could be better used in other areas, is another issue altogether.

Your discussion flows and is fully relevant. You could have discussed if governments should give a major role to private or voluntary organizations. A little bit on what sort of help governments can or should give would not be out of place.

To what extent should the poor in a society receive help from the government?

Daniel Yap 03S16

A constantly recurring issue in the political forums of many countries is that of the extent to which governments should render “help” to the poor in society, to elevate their living conditions, if not, to pull them out of poverty. This was an issue that emerged during the tenure of the former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who at that time, vehemently opposed the creation of a welfare state, citing the failure of the United Kingdom's system as a classic example of the disastrous consequences of rendering too much help to the poor and needy.

What constitutes the poor differs across geographical boundaries and societies. In developing countries, the poor are those who are unable to jump onto the bandwagon of industrialization and they live in appalling conditions with a lack of potable water, access to proper sanitation and access to healthcare and educational facilities. The “poorest” of the poor in these less developed countries may even be suffering from starvation. In contrast, the poor of developed countries are relatively better off, the cause of their predicament being

their inability to keep up with the rapid rate of economic progress. Generally, the poor in any society are those who do not have access to opportunities which could lift them out of poverty. Help from the government could come in many forms such as monetary rewards, rebates, building of infrastructure for the poor and even free job or skill retraining.

Generally agreed is the notion that a government's main role is to care and provide adequately for its citizens in areas such as security, food and water supplies and economic arena. Hence, the government should attempt to alleviate poverty, on the basis of the noble aims of governance or at least, on the rationale that having a significant group of impoverished and discontented denizens might be potentially disastrous to the nation in the long run. Hence, the question lies in just how much help is considered enough. The immediate or eventual aims of providing assistance to the poor should be firstly, to elevate their living conditions and secondly, to enable the poor to eventually gain access to tools or opportunities for self-improvement so that they can be productive citizens and contribute to the economy.

In rendering help to the poor, the government should balance its needs and the general needs and welfare of the public with the needs of the poor in society. Hence, the extent of help the government should give to the poor should be a limited one and not prolonged assistance, but rather just the sufficient amount of help needed to “push” the poor out of the track of poverty. The government should withdraw or scale down when the help it gives is bordering on the unnecessary and lavish. An infamous and widely cited example is that of the

welfare state system in the United Kingdom , where the government gave too much monetary help to the needy and as a result, was burdened by fiscal woes due to an acute shortage of funds. This has led to the UK government compromising on the interests of the society at large, by cutting down on its education and military expenditure in lieu of the welfare state system. Hence, a rational yardstick regarding the extent of help that should be given, should be that the help is non-excessive and does not compromise or unnecessarily burden the government. In addition, the interests of the greater society should be attended to. As such, the government needs to exercise prudence and judge for itself the “right” amount of help it should give. This is exemplified in the case of Singapore , where stringent guidelines are in place for people claiming to be poor and wanting to receive help from the social welfare organization.

Providing help to the poor thus means creating or allowing them access to opportunities to upgrade and uplift themselves from poverty. A practical example is seen in how non-government organizations like World Vision, teach poor farmers in sub Sahara Africa new and improved methods of farming in order to alleviate poverty, rather than giving them free loads of crops and building high-tech farms for them. This example summarises the approach governments should take. The main reason why governments should adopt the suggested approach of prudence and giving limited but sufficient help is that it is not beneficial for governments to render too much assistance as the danger that they will eventually create a welfare state is always present. Following the creation of a welfare state come the problems of citizens becoming over dependant on the government for a livelihood and hence losing their economic resilience and

jeopardizing the economic growth of the country in the long run. Furthermore, it is not beneficial to the poor themselves if too much help is rendered as the poor will then be forever trapped in the quagmire of poverty and not acquire a means of supporting themselves, should the government in the future, choose to withdraw its assistance.

The essence of the extent of help that should be given lies in the phrase, “teach them to fish but do not fish for them.” Clichéd it may be, it nevertheless offers words of wisdom required for successful governance and alleviating poverty.

Relevant and insightful.