Gentle reminder: Whenever someone is trying to sell you a story about welfare fraud, they're actually just trying to make it harder for deserving applicants to get the help they need.
Stories about welfare fraud are 100% about making it hard for people to get help.
Measures to combat fraud all amount to making the walls higher.
There is absolutely zero effort made to check whether it reduces valid applications, and also zero effort made to check whether it reduces fraudulent applications.
So, next time someone wants to tell you about "social scrounging" or whatever fancy-ass vocab they've made up for their bullshit, just tell them to go fuck themselves, in the nicest possible way.
@androcat Talked to a lady who worked for the tax authority here in Norway once. She told me straight away that welfare fraud is such a minor phenomenon that it has zero effect on the welfare budget. She followed that up by saying, "So we need to decide what kind of society we want - one where we're so afraid that someone might get some help they didn't qualify for, at the risk of depriving many others who need that help? Or one where we help folks through tough times and help them become tax payers again?"
A year or two later, I read a study that showed a significant amount of "welfare fraud" cases are folks who genuinely believed they qualified.
The more accessible benefits are, the better for everyone, ultimately.
@souvlaki @androcat I think that the blame problem arises from exploitation of economic castes by oligarchical elites. People who are struggling just a few economic steps ahead of those eligible for services are primed to focus their resentments downwards rather than towards the idea a more equitable system would offer them benefits too.
