Danish Assignment

Recently in class I learned alot about poverty in the United States. Based on the activity done in class, it costs a minimum of $29,436 for a black single woman (Jill), with a 3 year old daughter and another baby on the way to survive. However the poverty line for a family of 2 is only $14,000. This is obviously not enough for a family to survive off of, let alone a single parent with a young child. The brightside to this is that if Jill makes less than this, then she is eligible to get help from the government for various things. Some people may think that Jill is unworthy of welfare, because she isn't really making an effort to help support her and her children. While a worthy person of welfare is someone who is trying to support themselves, but is still comming up short (as long as they make below the poverty line). In the U.S. welfare offers help in different areas such as child care, food, and healthcare.

Flat tax, regressive tax, and progressive tax are all types of taxes which can in someway effect Jill. A flat tax is a tax where everyone pays the same percent whether you're rich or poor. An example of a flat tax is sales tax. No matter how much money you have, everyone is paying the same percentage on whatever they bought. A regressive tax is when the poor pay more of a percentage of there income in taxes, compared to the rich. While a progessive is the opposite. A progressive tax is where the rich pay a bigger percentage than the poor. However a effective tax includes all taxes once they are calculated. . It is the total rate a person would pay in taxes.

The welfare in Denmark is considerably different than the welfare system in the U.S. In Denmark they pay higher taxes (approximately 63%), but they have free healthcare and free daycare. Something that is also different is there unemployment benefits. If someone loses ther job, they are paid for up to 4 years, after that you are forced to look for a job for about 2 years. If you are still unable to find a job, one will be "assigned" to you. In Denmark, because of these regulations it would be hard to become poor because it is rare for a person to be left without a job. As I spoke to the Danish kids, i realized that it is somewhat easy to be "poor" in Denmark. It seems like a lot of things are handed to the poor in there country.

I think that the United States should adopt some of the Danish customs when it comes to the welfare system. There system seems so much easier, and that it benefits alot of the poepl in the country. It eliminates alot of the poor people, and seems to make the country a lot mroe organized. I'm not really sure if I want the U.S. to go towards a social democracy because I'm not really sure about the whole thing. I know that the U.S. being a social democracy can help decrease amount of poor people, but I don't know what else it could do. Even though it could help the country in this way (with the poor people), I'm not sure in what way could potentially harm us. Basically i would need to know some of the pros and cons of this system to make my final decision