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Document comments on Rationality Quotes August 2013 - Less Wrong
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I can't parse your post, but that may be partly because I don't understand how subsidizing status markers would produce character traits to begin with.
I think the point is that it wouldn't. You can have character traits, i.e. conscientiousness, that result in status markers, i.e. having saved a lot of money. If you make it easier for people to get the specific status marker, i.e. welfare, the causal arrow doesn't go in reverse and increase conscientiousness. You could expect it to have no effect, i.e. if conscientiousness and other traits are innate and entirely determined by age 4. (That's kind of my default). Or, in a slightly more complicated world where conscientiousness can vary depending on environment , i.e. there are a bunch of causal arrows bouncing around in confusing ways, "diluting" the status marker by making it easier to acquire might reduce the incentive to have the underlying trait, and make people less conscientious over time. I've heard the argument that this happens to people on welfare, although I'm tempted to say "correlation not causation"–>who ends up on welfare in the first place already depends on conscientiousness.
At least in the US, saving money can disqualify you from welfare.
When my best friend was on welfare, they would take what she had earned at her part-time job the last month and subtract half that amount from her welfare. So there was still an incentive to work, albeit less. I don't know to what degree she had to submit her budget or expenses to them (i.e. that they would actually know if she was saving money), but in general they seemed to make it as hard as possible to actually stay on Welfare.
That's about income, not savings.
I don't know what the policy was on savings-i.e. to what degree, if at all, they would reduce her monthly amount if she submitted her budget each month and was spending less. I get the impression that it's kind of a basic fixed rate for, i.e., adult not in school with one child...and that it's realistically not enough to save, even if you spend nothing on discretionary purchases or fun. She got around $900 a month, of which $550 alone went towards her part of our rent.
If she'd, for example, made $500 per paycheck (25 hours a week at Canadian mininum wage), that would make $1000 a month, so they'd take $500 off her welfare payment, for a monthly total income of $1400...which is enough to save at least a small amount per month, given our shared living expenses. In the US welfare system, would they cancel your welfare if you were able to save $200 a month of this total?
They did keep cancelling the welfare for unrelated reasons. (Example: her parents had had an education fund for her of about $10,000, but they'd spent it all on her wedding, and they sent her a letter saying her welfare was cancelled until she could submit documents proving this. Not a warning-cancelled. She missed a month or two before submitting the documents, and eventually gave up and just worked more hours.)
http://cfed.org/assets/scorecard/2013/rg_AssetLimits_2013.pdf
Short version: it varies quite a bit by state, but some major benefits in a fair number of states have a personal asset limit of two or three thousand dollars.
Thanks! So it looks like there's a limit but at least someone thinks it's a bad idea and some states are changing it...
According to this, the asset limit to qualify for Ontario Works (welfare) is $572 for a single adult and $1,550 for a lone parent. So, worse than is the US... (But it was $2500 for a single adult in 1981...) The 50% earning exemption is new from 2003 though.
Wow I have learned things today!
I've never provided any information about savings when applying for welfare. What organization has that policy?
Eugine_Nier's comment has the suppressed premise that status usually results from character traits (alone, or primarily). NancyLebovitz's response contradicts this suppressed premise.
If you get rich by being exceptionally virtuous, then redistributing the wealth will make it less obvious who is virtuous.
But if you get rich by having a rich dad, then redistributing the wealth will merely make it less obvious who had a rich dad.