Comment by petesergeant
2 years ago
Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the Child Care and Development Fund, housing assistance, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program, Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children
Those safety nets have huge gaps. The government doesn't want to be accused of harboring freeloaders (or, perhaps more accurately, a significant chunk of the population would rather people be homeless than a few "welfare queens" be permitted to cheat the system), so many who are genuinely in need can't get it.
That’s true of most rich countries. The big difference between the US and most rich countries is universal healthcare.
Life and death kinda difference innit
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That is a very, very big difference.
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The US in fact has a gigantic welfare state support system. The US spends more of its GDP on social welfare than either Canada or Australia, and we spend it poorly unfortunately (our return on investment is not great, we spend too much for too weak of results, as with healthcare).
To add to your list: housing, healthcare, food programs exist at the local + state + federal levels. The US state government system is huge unto itself, like having an entire other federal government nearly.
There are thousands of government support programs between the state + federal levels of government.
People outside of the US are almost entirely ignorant of how large the government systems in the US are. They're not as big as in France or Denmark obviously, they are still sizable compared to the median peer nation (on a GDP % basis).
Mostly because the help is provided too late.
We do some stuff (often not the right stuff) to prop up people struggling as adults. We do very little, relatively speaking, to enhance people's childhoods (or even just ensure that it's OK).
Also all the non governmental safety nets. Food banks, charities, mutual aid networks, shelters and religious orgs.