Talk:Welfare spending

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Welfare vs Charity

I think it's an important distinction that money given voluntarily to a charitable organization is far different that money being taken from you with the threat of violence. I think the reference to the Catholic Church needs to be removed from this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frontier teg (talk • contribs) 18:43, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Merge?

Could this be merged with Social welfare? -- Zoe

Isn't the "productive/unproductive" comment a little contentious? A working man with a low wage may be more "productive" than a man living off inherited wealth. Exile

Just to clarify that comment - not all welfare payments go to the unemployed.

Also, some welfare is "in kind" eg free health care and education. In the UK, the majority of the population both pays taxes and receives welfare. Also, most people in the UK, regardless of circumstances, will be net gainers from the welfare system when in childhood, in old age and in periods of illness and unemployment, and will be net losers during periods of paid employment. Welfare acts as a kind of socialised insurance scheme. So, to characterise welfare as a payment from the productive to the unproductive deserves deletion, or at least putting in quotes, I feel. Exile

Don't forget childcare, at least in the US. Hyacinth 04:12, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

---

Currently, the Further Reading section occupies a full half of the article! Perhaps some trimming is required? -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 14:10, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

article split

I thought I would split the article welfare into welfare (disambiguation) and welfare (financial aid). The reason is that I thought the description of different possible things that welfare could mean was beginning to get a bit long, and that welfare as financial aid is a big enough subject area to deserve a separate article to general welfare.

Okay I know there's already the Social Security (United States) - but I think that a separate article about welfare can be expanded to compare different welfare and financial aid systems in different countries - or, rather, the things in other countries that might be called welfare in the US.

However - admittedly I didn't look at the list of articles that link to welfare before making the split. And there's loads of them. Checking the relevancy of all the links and editing them will be a lot of work. I've changed a handful already but before doing lots of them, I want to get some feedback to see if people think this is a good idea, or if we should just go back to the single article we had before. Thanks. Squashy 23:15, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh yeah - the original article at welfare has got a very long edit history. By rights I should have moved that over here - I realise that now but didn't at the time. Whoops. Sorry. Course, I've also created a talk page here, so I can't do it myself now. So I shall be requesting a administrator manual move of the welfare history to here. Squashy 10:04, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Above comments predate this being a disambiguation page

Corporate welfare

Corporate welfare is not a pejorative to everyone -- just to anarchists and few joking conservatives.--Chuck (talk) 00:01, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Reorganisation

I've turned this back into an article, merging content from welfare (financial aid) and social welfare provision, which are now both redirects. This article is still in very basic shape, but the previous situation was an absolute mess, with terrible duplication across multiple articles. There is still social security to merge into this.

This is still missing a theory and policy section to discuss sociological and public policy approaches to welfare, and similarly the history section needs expanding. Summaries of various national welfare systems should help to flesh out the general overview sections also. A terminology section might also be useful to discuss some of the various names that are used, as well as specialised terms like welfare state (which can probably exist as a separate article but also currently duplicates much material and should be trimmed and then summarised here).

The disambiguation material is now at welfare (disambiguation), which was previously a redirect. Once you take out the duplicated articles and the dicdef stuff, all that's left is the movie, the ships, the economics topic (which is unrelated to this topic) and animal welfare, which is related to a different dicdef. This topic is appropriate for primary disambiguation, those other topics beng not sufficiently important to dislodge this one in my view. --bainer (talk) 16:03, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Good bold move, but though you apparently incorporated almost everything from one article, you incorporated almost nothing from the other, whose last version is here. --Espoo (talk) 17:40, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

It was mostly unsourced generalisations (on forms of welfare, and on circumstances in which it is provided), not that they were incorrect but it would probably be better to start from scratch. --bainer (talk) 23:21, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Pogey?

I like typing odd-sounding and (often) made-up words into the wikipedia search function just to see where they take me. I was redirected to this page when I entered "pogey." I could find no reference to "pogey" at all in the article. Can anyone here tell me what the connection is?165.91.65.2 (talk) 03:15, 27 September 2009 (UTC)RKH

According to this prior revision in the redirect's history, apparently it is "A Canadian term used to describe unemployment payments." The Wiktionary entry for the word also says the same thing. Although I'm Canadian myself but have never heard of the word <shrug>. Anyways, I've decided to redirect the word to Social welfare in Canada instead and tagged the redirect with {{R from alternative name}}. -- œ^™ 05:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Add this?

"In requiring reports of a beneficial interest in Trust funds and of holdings of a trustee, the law reveals a portion of the social security system of the rich. It is an excellent system, and provides much security for its beneficiaries. But in considering it, one wonders about the oft heard thesis of many conservative and ultra-conservative spokesmen and newspapers that the federal Social Security System, the Family Welfare System and the trade-union system all carry great danger of destroying the characters of the participants. They might, among other things, become mercenary or lazy. The rich themselves very evidently do not believe that being the beneficiaries of huge trust funds has undermined their characters, or that establishing trust funds for their children will distort the children's characters. No case has come to light where the children of the wealthy have been left penniless for their own benefit... Why, if drawing benefits without labor from a big trust fund does not destroy character, will drawing benefits in old age from Social Security or a pension system do so? Why would a true Welfare State be injurious to the general public when a private welfare system of trust funds is not apparently injurious to its limited number of beneficiary heirs?" Ferdinand Lundberg, "The Rich and the Super-Rich" Stars4change (talk) 05:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Template added today and later blanked.

I blanked the template recently added to this page because it seemed to me to be potentially highly contentious. There should be a good reason for adding this kind of template because there are already categories and related links as a way of getting further information.

I'd be grateful if editors would take a look at the template as it was before I delted it and also at the discussion I started at the template's talk page and provide some feedback.

I just have a sense that visuality of the template and some of the subcategories could have had a politically unbalanced presentation not in the spirit of Wikipedia. For instance the linking with articles about the negative side of the welfare state (fraud, dependency, etc.) without equal linking to articles on the positive side (alleviation of stress, social cohesion, etc.). Also some of the articles where the template was placed seem to me to have very little to do with the welfare state per se. --Hauskalainen (talk) 18:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The goal is to help users find related articles in Economics and it should be kept for that reason, so I'm putting it back. Economics is a pretty well established field, and welfare economics is a major part, so it seems not very controversial. Please don't erase material without getting a consensus first. Rjensen (talk) 09:23, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the fields are non-controversial. But the use of the sidebar is. There is a risk (as I have mentioned here and here for sidebars such as this to be misused.Firstly, there is the danger are that if you, as an editor, only have the article on your watchlist, you will NOT be aware of changes made to the template which feeds into the article you are watching; and secondly that edits made to the sidebar may feed inappropriate material into the main article thru sissociated connections. The one I witnessed was a connection being drawn between Universal Health Care and Sociialism. As far as I am aware, there is no such connection. There are socialist societities without UHC and capitalistics ones with UHC.

If the goal is there to help users find other articles, what is wrong with using Wikilinks and the "See Also" section? This would completley get around the objections that I have raised and the reader equally well able to find related articles. --Hauskalainen (talk) 15:47, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

we should look at the article as not just about welfare, but about a branch of economics, alongside other branches. I do not see anything at all controversial or misleading about the Economics sidebar, and it will draw econ students to this article because it appears on many other articles as well where they start from. Rjensen (talk) 16:07, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

We are not discussing the economics sidebar but the welfare state sidebar which, on the surface, was about the welfare state, but which had serious problems because of its contentious content politically charged content and because of that content flowing onto many inappropriate pages even without watchers of that page being aware of it. Do you really think serious students of the welfare economics should be directed to articles called Nanny state? This is a politically charged term which has a rightful place in the encyclopedia but not in a way that it can appear prominently in potentially a hundred or more different articles. Please tell me what is wrong with using Wikilinks and See Also. You have avoided this, the most pertinent question that I posed.--Hauskalainen (talk) 19:17, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Misusing of refs

Jagged 85 (talk · contribs) is one of the main contributors to Wikipedia (over 67,000 edits; he's ranked 198 in the number of edits), and practically all of his edits have to do with Islamic science, technology and philosophy. This editor has persistently misused sources here over several years. This editor's contributions are always well provided with citations, but examination of these sources often reveals either a blatant misrepresentation of those sources or a selective interpretation, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent. Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jagged 85. That's an old and archived RfC. The point is still valid though, and his contribs need to be doublechecked. I searched the Welfare (financial aid) page history, and found 4 edits by Jagged 85 (for example, see this edits). Tobby72 (talk) 14:12, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

U.S. Welfare

The welfare discussion under the subsection of the United States is very minimal and simplistic. Unlike other countries, the U.S. is an extremely diverse country, with many different languages, ethnicities, and immigrant groups. This diversity makes the welfare system very complex and, particularly, racialized. Therefore, it is imperative that a discussion on misperceptions of welfare be included, as well as a presentation of how welfare, a program designed to assist the neediest, has become to be closely associated with specific races/ethnicities (primarily Hispanics and African Americans). Unmdgs (talk) 02:01, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I support a split, this subject needs to be developed in a dedicated article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 02:32, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

I would just like to point to this quote and then talk about it. " In the 1970s, California was the U.S. state with the most generous Welfare system.[18] In 2012, the states with the highest percentage of people using food stamps were Mississippi (20.7%), Oregon (20.1%), New Mexico (19.8%), Tennessee (19.8%), and Michigan (19.7%).[19] California, with 12% of the U.S. population, has one-third of the nation's welfare recipients.[20][21] " here, I take issue with California being called the most generous state. the word generosity implies a wilful kindness, which, as we can see by the reality in california, has 1/3 of the nations people living in poverty. the state also has one of the highest rates of income inequality, leading me to suggest that the cause of poverty is not from giving welfare to those who need it, but not giving those on welfare enough to achieve economic mobility and absolve themselves of poverty — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.222.240.56 (talk) 05:08, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Confusing phrases with no source

The sentence quoted below is currently in the article. I can't make sense of this sentence and I'm especially confused by the phrase "black T-ford" (is the something to do with cars?). I suspect this is country specific colloquialism and as such needs some explanation if it is going to be used in the article. Is this describing a system to preserve "a good life" at various levels between a minimum and average (the current grammar seems to suggest this), or is it describing a system to raise quality of life from a minimum to average?

It is also a systematic infrastructure to protect a good life, from a minimum up to (today) just about average (like 'one size fits all' or 'black T-ford').

Anonymous watcher (talk) 13:12, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

The explanation on vouchers is quite confusing because of the diction and syntax. Here is how the article explains vouchers:

"In a budget constraint between ‘all other goods’ and a ‘voucher good’ our budget constraint will shift out parallel to an amount equal to the amount of the voucher but the money we have to spend on ‘all other goods’ remains capped at the same amount we had to spend before the voucher. Voucher programs can make us worse off because of the cap on our ability to spend on ‘all other goods’ our indifference curves could limit us."

I do not completely understand what the author wished to convey. He or she may have been trying to argue that when people receive vouchers for one service, they change their spending habits with respect to other services. There are much clearer ways to express that message. Ibnsina786 (talk) 9:56, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

History of Social Welfare page needed

This is an important topic and yet the history section is weak. Worth adding a History of Social Welfare page? Nathangeffen (talk) 06:38, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Tagging for primary sources (POV, Neutrality) in Ethnic heterogenity

"Voucher programs can make us worse off because of the cap on our ability to spend on ‘all other goods’ our indifference curves could limit us." This sentence seems slightly bias and there is no reference. Should this be removed? 64.222.254.25 (talk) 22:11, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

The new section Ethnic heterogenity, appears to be based on primary sources. Please help improve the section by locating independent secondary sources which establish the weight of views expressed in the primary sources. aprock (talk) 20:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The source is a literature review and not a primary source. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 20:56, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The content you added just cites primary sources through the review. In fact, the actual synthesis of the review is ignored in the content you added:

However, our main conclusion from this survey is that most studies do not point to a quantitatively important role for ethnic diversity in shaping natives’ preferences for redistribution. In most studies, the association is much weaker than for other factors such as own income (current or expected) or beliefs about the role of effort versus luck in determining this income. Moreover, it seems that the sizeable negative association between ethnic diversity and support for redistribution that is sometimes found in U.S. studies does not generalize to Canada or Europe. However, the evidence for countries other than the U.S. is scarce so far, and there is certainly need for further research.

. Based on this, it appears that the section has significant POV issues. aprock (talk) 21:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

All reviews cites primary sources so that is not a reason for exclusion. I have mentioned that the effect is weak. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 21:19, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Picking and choosing which of the reviewed primary sources to highlight is WP:SYNTHESIS. Ignoring the actual conclusion (most studies do not point to a quantitatively important role for ethnic diversity) to instead promote your own interpretation (statistically significant but relatively weak negative relationship) is a perfect example of POV editing. aprock (talk) 21:22, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The introductory statement also states that the effect is sometimes quite strong in the US which I have not mentioned. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 21:26, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Do you have an alternative formulation? We could quote the actual text if you prefer.Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 21:32, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Probably the best way to approach a technical review would be to use the Non-technical summary on page three as a basis for the content:[1]

excerpt from paper
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
There is a large literature on the costs and benefits of immigration within a given system of social security. More recently, economists have begun to address a related question: does immigration and, more generally, ethnic diversity change this system of social security in turn? A number of empirical studies suggest that ethnic diversity does indeed matter for the extent of redistribution. First, there is evidence that actual public spending is associ- ated with the degree of ethnic diversity. Second, studies that attempt to explore the mechanisms behind this aggregate relationship have found that individual attitudes and behaviour are affected by ethnic diversity. The purpose of this paper is to survey this empirical literature. We cover the studies that have appeared since the survey by Alesina and La Ferrara (2005) in the Journal of Economic Literature. In particular, we review the fast-growing literature that uses controlled experiments to study the effects of ethnic diversity on redistribution. Our main conclusion from this survey is that although numerous studies document a negative and statistically significant relationship, most of these studies do not point to a quantitatively important role for ethnic diversity in shaping natives’ preferences for redistribution. In most studies, the association is much weaker than for other factors such as own income (current or expected) or beliefs about the role of effort versus luck in determining this income. Moreover, it seems that the sizeable negative association between ethnic diversity and support for redistribution that is sometimes found in U.S. studies does not generalize to Canada or Europe. However, the evidence for countries other than the U.S. is scarce so far, and there is certainly need for further research.

It's difficult to imagine that we can improve on the authors own lay summary. aprock (talk) 21:40, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure, as a basis, but it is not particularly clear in places like how individual attitudes and behavior are affected. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 21:45, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

If those details are not mentioned in the lay summary, they don't need to be in wikipedia. aprock (talk) 21:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

No such rule. If something is unclear it should be clarified. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 21:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

When you pick and choose what parts of a source to include, and what parts to exclude, that is synthesis. Using generally accepted summary sections of a source as a basis for content is the straightforward way to approach the issue. Comparing the content that you inserted with the lay summary above, there is a clear disconnect indicating POV issues with what you added. Instead of advocating for highlighting whatever portions of the review that you are most interested in promoting, I suggest you start from scratch with the lay summary. aprock (talk) 21:59, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Using your argumentation everything except a complete quote of the whole paper or the whole summary is a synthesis. There is no policy that states that only certain portions of a study are allowed. A summary should be a basis but if it is unclear this should be fixed. Acadēmica Orientālis (talk) 22:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Odd sentence.

In the end, this term replaces "charity" as it was known for thousands of years, being the act of providing for those who temporarily or permanently could not provide for themselves.

...does it, though? Charity is still used in this sense, welfare refers more to the systems in place than the act itself, and I'm not sure what the sentence is getting at overall, exactly.Twin Bird (talk) 04:47, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree, this sentence has no logical or etymological basis and should be removed. BlueSalix (talk) 05:39, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Wrong title

This article is in the English Wikipedia not the American English Wikikipedia! The word welfare in most English speaking countries (England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and in others such as India where English is a secondary language) do NOT use the word WELFARE to mean a system of government aid. Only American English spoken in the United States uses the word WELFARE to mean WELFARE PAYMENT. I do not deny that some writers in countries outside the U.S. will occasionally refer to welfare as shorthand for welfare payment (i.e. "those living on welfare"), but it is not normative to do so.

I went to government web sites in Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, and searched using the word WELFARE as the search term and what came back were, as I expected, references to WELFARE in the normative sense of WELLBEING. Examples were child welfare (the wellbeing of children) and animal welfare (the wellbeing of animals). References in non government websites to WELFARE STATE also do so in the normative sense of being a government that ensures the welfare of its citizens. And this can be done by law (such as preventing exploitative child labor, providing basic education, employment rights etc., and not just guaranteeing wellbeing through government financial aid for the poor.

From the comments in sections above, I see that this issue has come up before. If the article is to be about Social security systems then it should be renamed as such. Welfare means wellbeing, but only in the United States does it also mean government financial aid to ensure welfare.--84.250.230.158 (talk) 10:39, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I see that there used to be a more appropriately titled page, [[Welfare (financial aid) (now redirected to Welfare and in the talk there, there seems to be several other people who have made the same observations as I have had, that WELFARE on its own does not mean a financial aid program outside of the United States. Here for example are the comments from that page: (See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Welfare_(financial_aid)&action=edit&section=8)

Could I just point out that the bold opening statement "Welfare is financial assistance paid to people by governments" is incorrect. 'Welfare' in this context is specific to North America. European English (UK & Ireland) uses terms like 'social security' as does Australian English. While we understand what Americans mean by 'welfare' and 'being on the welfare', the use of this word is culture-specific and not simply a global term as the article imples. A simple clarification to point out that this is a north American perspective would help here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toxteth o'grady (talk • contribs) 13:42, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the very word welfare has such a vastly different meaning in the US than in, for instance, Finland, I think there should be separate articles (i.e. Welfare in the United States, Welfare in Nordic countries, Welfare in Europe, Welfare in Latin America, etc.). Welfare in Europe would only need a hatnote to indicate the Welfare in Nordic countries article, which is sufficiently distinct to have its own article, as is Welfare in the United States. Wilhelm_meis (talk) 15:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

It strikes me that we really must address this problem. I am sure an American editor can come up with an alternative title to plain vanilla Welfare which offends the sensibilities of people in other countries where welfare means WELLBEING.--84.250.230.158 (talk) 19:58, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Usually you can tell from an article's lead what its topic is, and try to make the title reflect that. Here, however, the lead was mangled in this diff of last August to say the welfare is "broad discourse"! If you look what it was before, it seems clear that the topic would be better described as Welfare program, which already redirects here. If somebody has claimed at some point that this topic is WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for Welfare, I'd dispute that. So make a WP:RM and let's fix it. Dicklyon (talk) 20:58, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I still think (as I have indicated in the past) that we need to review the whole series of welfare program related articles with a comprehensive approach, and either make welfare a dab page listing related articles or use summary style where the welfare article sums up and ties together the various branch articles (such as Universal welfare, Welfare in the United States, Welfare in Nordic countries, Welfare in Europe, etc.). The biggest problem I see with the way WP has handled "welfare" to date is that "welfare" is a huge topic with many interpretations (which vary among different countries/regions/cultures) and yet Wikipedia's content has been strongly influenced by the controversial politics of the American welfare system as if that has any bearing on welfare elsewhere in the world. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 22:21, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I think you're ignoring the point that in most of the world, even though they may be very familiar with welfare states and welfare programs (often by other names), this word just doesn't come across as recognizably conveying those concepts. Dicklyon (talk) 00:43, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Dicklyon, do we disagree in some way? I thought we were both pointing out that the term welfare means dramatically different things in different places outside of the USA, and that the wiki does not seem to reflect a world-wide view of the topic. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 04:18, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, let's see if we do. Your option to "use summary style where the welfare article sums up and ties together the various branch articles" still contains the ambiguous title welfare, which is the problem I felt you were ignoring; this is not a good title for a summary of welfare programs, any more than it is for an article on such things all together. On the other hand, welfare as a disambiguation page is not a problem. As for whether there's a whole suite of articles needing overhaul, I take no position; I'm just responding to the immediate title question. The simplest first step is to just move it to welfare program, though it's a halfway step, I agree. Dicklyon (talk) 06:12, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

As the person that has seemingly come around to reviving this question again I want to make a few observations about the above comments, and at least one other observation. Firstly. the diff did remove reference to the very different treatment accorded to the meaning of WELFARE in the US verses EUROPE (though as I have found out, Canada does not refer to social programs as WELFARE) but the text before that change still referred to welfare as a social program in Europ but claimed (wrongly IMHO) that the difference between Europe and America was universality. My point is that in Europe, welfare is NOT a social program of ANY KIND. It is a word which means WELLBEING (as in animal welfare, child welfare, the welfare of the elderly etc.). As such, outside of the U.S., the word WELFARE has overwhelmingly positive connotations. The word WELFARE outside the US does not equate at all with social program. The general term used outside the US for a program untended to provide a minimum level of welfare is SOCIAL SECURITY (but unfortunately, this LAST term has a special meaning in the United States, meaning a particular social program providing a pension in the case of old age or disability). Secondly, creating further articles such as Universal welfare, Welfare in the United States, Welfare in Nordic countries, Welfare in Europe, etc.) just exacerbates the problem! Welfare means WELLBEING and only in the US does it also mean social program. In the past there was a welfare sidebar which included linked all the associated articles in which it was placed to articles on communism and socialism, which frankly is ridiculous. It seemed to have been done with the sole intent of further damning the very word WELFARE by association away from its true meaning of WELLBEING.

As to what to do, I think Welfare should be a disambig page with a reference to the two usages of the word and a link to Social security which is a lead-in article to the general topic (with links to national program articles). Those looking for the US program known as social security can easily get to that article from there. I think a disambig page is better than a simple redirect because Welfare does generally mean WELLBEING even though there may not be any articles yet on the subject of wellbeing. There ought to be one I think because it is undoubtedly measured differently in different places.--84.250.230.158 (talk) 05:37, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

More American misunderstandings in the lede to Right to social security. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights did refer to social security but meaning the general security of the person (having a right to provide for themselves and their family) but it certainly did not mean that people have the right to maternity, employment injury, unemployment or old age benefits!!!! It left it to signatories as to how to guarantee this security. How wide is this problem in Wikipedia?????--84.250.230.158 (talk) 06:00, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay, anon, I can see the merit in your approach. I will say that while I was studying in Sweden, I wrote a 10-page comparative essay on "welfare programs" in Sweden, Finland and the United States, and that's what they called it in the class - "welfare programs" - so it's not like Europeans have no inkling of that sense of the word (this was a "Nordic Politics" class at a Swedish college, with a British instructor and mostly European students). While many of the European words for such programs more closely translate as social security or pension and few of them carry the stigma attached to welfare in American usage, most of the English language materials I have seen on European social programs do tend to use the word "welfare". Nevertheless, taking a college course in Europe certainly does not make me an expert on European social programs, and I do see a certain functional elegance in the approach you described above: Welfare should be a disambig page with a reference to the two usages of the word and a link to Social security which is a lead-in article to the general topic (with links to national program articles). I think that may be the most neutral and unambiguous approach. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | Special:Contributions/Wilhelm_meisx270D; Beiträge) 20:53, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

OK. I will think about the content to be moved over before doing the redirect.

I find it no surprise at all that the term "welfare programs" was understood in a European context because they are programs that are intended to bring about the welfare (or wellbeing) of their citizens. But the single word "welfare" on its own in Europe means "wellbeing" or "doing okay", and not a social program. That's why to me, as a European, the current article title and its content do not align. Brits in common vernacular use term like "being on the dole" or "being on the social" but newspapers and politicians say "living on social security". The gutter press might refer to people who try to defraud the social security system as "welfare cheats" but I think that is headline abbreviation and neither common nor particularly encyclopedic. --84.250.230.158 (talk) 22:19, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

This IP seems to have some linguistic beef with the word "welfare", but nowhere in any of this soapboxing have I seen any indication of an alternative meaning, or indication that, outside of their assertions of "European" usage, (a Finnish IP btw), that the term is used incorrectly. This is a commonly used term, obviously in the U.S., but in Europe as well, and by most English speaking countries. The IP has the burden to prove otherwise. There's clearly some ideological issues at play here as well. Shadowjams (talk) 10:30, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Try this. Google the Australian government web site for the term welfare (i.e. enter "welfare site:australia.gov.au" as the google search term). For every use of the word WELFARE in the hit pages try substitution WELLBEING and then GOVERNMENT AID and see which makes sense. I have done this and it shows that WELL BEING is the meaning of the word and not GOVERNMENT AID. You can do the same for South Africa (gov.za) and the UK government portal (direct.gov.uk). If you find an exception where GOVERNMENT AID fits better than WELL-BEING, do please let us know. --84.250.230.158 (talk) 17:04, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

WELFARE as Financial Aid

I just reverted an edit which added into the article a large tract of information about the United States welfare system. The problem with this is that this is NOT the main meaning of WELFARE in the English speaking world. It is fully understandable that WP users in the United States who understand WELFARE to be social programs will be surprised NOT to see this article discussing this matter. A similar argument at one time affected American readers with the article on corn which redirects to maize, the more common name used outside of the United States. It is for this reason that the disambiguation has been added at the top and the additional section directed at surprised readers in the U.S.

Under WP rules of local English spellings and names. it would be perfectly okay to have an article titled Welfare in the United States and for it to focus on social programs in that country, because welfare id the common term used in that country. However, for a general view of social programs in a global context, the proper place for this is in Social security which is about the general idea of welfare (i.e. wellbeing) in a social context and the systems built to ensure welfare is enjoyed by everyone.

The simple fact is that WP already has too many overlapping articles on this subject and it has been made worse by the language confusions which means that articles may be found under the title welfare and social security. Welfare and social security mean different things to US Americans than they do to Europeans, Asians, Australians, and for all I know South Americans too. Canadians I am sure understand the American usage but it is not the accepted term in their own country. As you can see if you search for Welfare on government websites in those countries what comes back is welfare meaning well-being. Animal Welfare and Child Welfare are examples and hardly any reference to a social program called Welfare. Welfare is the AIM and not the MEANS of social programs in most countries outside the U.S.

I have only just scratched the surface of this problem within WP but it has clearly been raised before if you read the history on the Discussion page. This article really ought to deal with the issue of Welfare (the objective of the social programs) and how it is measured and defined. It is absolutely impossible to do so if the article continues to treat welfare as meaning something quite different. I would be curious to know how it came to be that WELFARE SUPPORT became just known as WELFARE in the U.S. because it seems that Americans have lost sight of the object of WELFARE as WELL BEING. --84.250.230.158 (talk) 23:58, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Same issue as the thread above. Let's keep it to one thread. Shadowjams (talk) 10:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Article's been essentially rewritten

I didn't realize how extensive the 84. IP has rewritten this article. I first came across this as part of Huggle patrolling because huge swaths of it were being removed. I didn't realize how large these were. This article was whittled from a 43k document about the general concept and its application around the world, to a 3k article of 4 paragraphs.

The IPs ideas about what the term welfare means are synthesis or original research at best. While it's quite acceptable to discuss that the term may vary across countries, the IP has tried to rework the article about this concept into a discussion of what he/she thinks the word welfare means. This is not a dictionary.

I didn't appreciate the scale of this change before, and that it's kept going since I last looked.

This is simply unacceptable.

• This is the initial changes the IP made
• This was what was done after the initial discussion.

I'm going to be bold and revert this back to what it was, and then readd the new sections the IP added about the name. I'm sorry if this catches other, useful, intermediate edits in the path. I'll try to add those back as well. Shadowjams (talk) 15:27, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Part of that series of previous edits included moving sections of this artcile into Social programs in the United States. I'm perfectly fine with that idea, although it needs to be done in a much more restrained manner, not the wholesale slashing of this article.

But if I read the impetus behind this correctly, it's that there are some uniquely American features covered here. As the IP was told eariler, WP:Requested Moves is the right place to deal with this. We shouldn't be rewriting a whole topic (a rather notable one). It is possibly though to keep the current article's meaning though, while making it more international. So, with that in mind, I'll try to incoroporate most of the history into the U.S. specific article. Shadowjams (talk) 15:38, 21 April (UTC)

The changes may be large but I did discuss them on the talk page and I did put most of the important history section into the other article which appeared quite comprehensive but lacking any historical context. But the general principle of the move is right. This article is about WELFARE and in most countries of the world that means WELL-BEING. That being so it was wrong for the article to be about a completely different subject.

If you can demonstrate by some logical means that there are other countries that officially use the term welfare on its own to mean "government support" I would be please to be corrected. But as I say, I went to Australian, South African, Canadian and more recently to the irish government portal and in none of these is it possible to substitute the term "government financial aid" for the word "welfare" and with it making any sense. I daresay if you look hard enough you will find some ordinary people who might use it in the American way (as a short hand way of saying "welfare system") and some newspapers, but I would venture to say that you will not find any official government websites using it that way and if you look carefully you will find that it is much more common to speak of "benefit fraud" instead of "welfare fraud". Is this OR? Not in the WP sense because I am not citing it as expert citation in any article. But if we get together a collection of WP editors whose mother tongue is British English, Australian English, South African English, Irish English etc.. I think they will tell you that what I am saying is correct. Doing counts of Google Searches and testing (as I did above) whether the word WELFARE stands up to substitution is a pretty good indicator that what I am saying is correct. There is nothing WRONG with the American usage of saying WELFARE instead of WELFARE SYSTEM. Its just not normative in most countries and that is quite easy to verify. We can do the hard way (by getting together some editors as I have suggested) or the doubters can simply do the tests I have suggested to discover if what I am saying is correct. And I do not want anyone to DISTORT what I am saying. Its not that people outside the U.S. do not understand American usage . its just that we mostly do not use it ourselves. And that is why I think it is best that an article dedicated to the title WELFARE should be about what WELFARE is in most countries. That is WELL-BEING and how it is defined and used. The American usage is valid and should be discussed, but it should NOT dominate the article (as per Wikipedia policy).

I was looking today at the article Individual mandate. Every government law mandates all or some of us to do something - pay out taxes on time, insure our motor vehicles, ensure our kids are educated, arrange for our garbage to be collected.... but instead this article is focussed almost 100% on a tiny section of one U.S. law !!!! If you want to be useful you can go and tell those guys editing that article that they are abusing WP!!! I am only trying to follow WP policy by making this article chiefly about the subject of WELFARE (which means WELL-BEING) in most countries of the world. I am happy to take this to dispute resolution if you like.--84.250.230.158 (talk) 17:04, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

The conceptual impasse here is that you're thinking of this as though it were a dictionary, not an encyclopedia. There are things, concepts, nouns, etc., that have different meanings in different regions or styles of English. That's a long understood part of Wikipedia. We have policies to deal with that. Often, when there's no other clear choice, the first meaning is adopted. That's the case with Maize. The discussion about that, if you're interested, is at Talk:Corn (disambiguation)#Fix the corn - maize mess.

That's essentially what's going on here. You're asserting, (and I'm not sure the sources back you up on this... but let's assume for a moment they do) that because the American term "welfare" means means-tested social assistance, but the other English speakers use it to mean general welfare (not sure if this is more than a dictionary definition), or Welfare as in Welfare State (which we have an article for), then this page should be changed.

Your use of individual mandate is particularly apt. As far as I know, that term is not used regularly in political discourse in other countries, and if there are examples of it, those are massively overshadowed by its use in the U.S. That's why "individual mandate" is entirely appropriate for that article. If there is confusion about its usage, then that's what hatnotes are for, or in extreme cases, disambiguation.

Wham! can also mean a sound, but we have a different target for it.

The appropriate way to do that is this: 1) You need to provide sources that there are these divergent versions of the term "welfare" in contemporary use. 2) You then need to say why that new usage should be preferred over the current one. If there's consensus on both of those things, then we'll move the article that's here to some other name, and then create a new "Welfare" article that covers the meaning you're discussing. Or perhaps create a Welfare disambiguation page that then points to one of these two articles.

The answer is never though to wipe out the previous article. Shadowjams (talk) 00:02, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Shadowjams (talk) approach here is in keeping with Wikipedia's goals, policies, guidelines, and best benefits all the readers. This approach keep the text before the person using IP 84.250.230.158 (talk) modified this article, while working toward adding text with WP:RS that showed the non-American variants in the use of the term Welfare. This new text could include a general paragraph/section, as well as adds to each country's/region's sections, IF and only if WP:RS can be found to support the adds.

The person using IP 84.250.230.158 (talk) support for their changes is WP:OR, which is not allowed here on Wikipedia. Lentower (talk) 11:14, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

This is complete nonsense. Just look at the article's history!!

• June 2003 Article created by User:Vroman expressing strong POV against the concept of social welfare
• Nov 2003 Article changed to a disambiguation page in which the meaning of WELLBEING is stated and the alternative meaning in the UNITED STATES is given.
• For SIX WHOLE YEARS the article remains as essentially the same disambiguation page with a manin meaning and a loal meaning until
• Aug 2009 when this verion undoes this.

I am not doing some terrible change to the article or acting outside policy. It is not WP:OR to have given published dictionary references, one showing that WELFARE did not mean government aid for the the poor in 1913 and another showing that the meaning of government aid to the needy is predominantly North American English. Why don't you criticize the user who removed those valid references?--84.250.230.158 (talk) 10:58, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

My reply to the editor using the IP 84.250.230.158 questions at User_talk:Lentower#English_language_dispute_at_the_article_Welfare is also sufficient answer here. I'll add that this editor does not understand that the way they used the citations they added is WP:OR, and doesn't follow that policy. Also that the length of time something is on Wikipedia, has nothing to do with whether it's following WP's goals, policies and guidelines, and whether it can be improved. Lentower (talk) 12:09, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

My point is that you seem to think that my changes were something terrible to behold and non-compliant with policy and/or factually incorrect that they must be undone immediately and the status quo defended. My point is that the article was a disambiguation page for six years and the main content was in Welfare (financial aid) so the idea of this being valid structure for the content is hardly so bad otherwise it would not have lasted in that condition for so long. And as I pointed out, the change away from this structure seems to have been done by a disruptive editor and if you look, you'll see that it was done with no prior discussion at all!!!. At least in my case I discussed the changes there first and there were two possibilities .. make it a disambig page or take the issue to WP:MOVE. I chose the former because it seemed sensible, and now, having looked back, I see that this was how it was structured earlier. I'll be happy to have the content moved over to Welfare (financial aid) as that seems logical, traceable, and linguistically neutral in that is not ascribing a meaning to the word welfare that is not the main meaning and is used in this way mainly in North America (as per my reliable sources).--84.250.230.158 (talk) 18:14, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Shadowjams two part approach

Shadowjams two part approach is sensible. We do need to identify whether there is a main usage of the term and then we need to choose the most appropriate title.

Part 1 Sources for welfare as mainly "wellbeing with "welfare payment" as a secondary, mainly U.S. English interpretation

The Oxford Dictionary

1. "health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group"
2. "chiefly North American financial support given to those who are unemployed or otherwise in need

The Longman dictionary

1. "health and happiness"
2. "help for people with personal or social problems" (welfare benefits, welfare services, welfare programs etc)
3. American English. "money paid by government to the poor or unemployed"

The Macmillan dictionary

1. the health and happiness of people or good care
   1. good care and living conditions for animals
2. care provided by the state or another organization for people in need
   1. Mainly American money given to people who do not have work or who are in need. (The usual British word is benefit)

The searches I made at government websites on the word welfare did not generally bring back references to government financial support.

The fact is that if you search for "welfare" as a term in Australian and South African web sites, what comes back are references to Animal Welfare and Child Welfare, which are all examples of the meaning WELLBEING and thus indicative that the original meaning is predominant in those countries. --84.250.230.158 (talk) 17:40, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

This fails WP:OR. In particular, WP:PSTS and WP:SYN. You need to find several secondary and/or tertiary sources that make your point.

You could try adding a sentence or a paragraph using these primary sources, but it would have to include Shadowjams's counter-examples below, from his and your's discussion on his talk page.

The way you have used search engines also fails WP:SET. Among other points this one is important to understand: WP:SET#Search_engine_limitations_.E2.80.93_technical_notes.Lentower (talk) 06:57, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Part 2 Which meaning is more significant and what should be the title?

I think the dictionary definitions already answer that question. I think more to the point is that we should find a more neutral title. I am not against an article about government programs for the poor having the word welfare in the title because that is clearly one of the meanings. My contention is welfare on its own really does mostly mean WELLBEING outside the United States and connections to government assistance only comes when the word is used with others to complete that meaning, as in Welfare State, Welfare payment, social welfare etc. Except of course, as the dictionaries tell us, in the US welfare can mean financial aid. But that is not global usage. Which is is why I argue that the welfare article OUGHT to be a disambiguation page so that the main topic of "government financial aid for the poor" is held in a more appropriately titled page. Here we do hit another problem because social security is also ambiguous, and as I discovered looking through the dictionaries and government web sites, different countries have different terms for this and Wikipedia has at times reflected this. See for example Social security, Social protection, Social welfare provision (as it was before User:Stephen Bain re.directed it to his modified version of Welfare or Welfare (financial aid) (as it was before User:Stephen Bain redirected it). Personally I would be happy if the article about welfare as government aid was in the article Welfare (financial aid) and that Welfare was much as it was before Stephen Bain altered it. As I see it, that was very similar to the version I produced a few days ago. The title does not seem to be at all ambiguous and anyone looking for the subject will quickly find it.

What do the others think? --84.250.230.158 (talk) 17:40, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to copy over some of what I wrote on my talk page in response to 84... I'd be better if you kept this discussion in one place 84... instead of carrying out the issue on everybody's talk pages separately.

"Welfare" is not an exclusively North American term. Supposedly Churchill coined the term saying "welfare not warfare." It was used first by the British, not in the U.S. See also Social welfare in Japan, Social programs in Canada#Usage, Italian welfare state, Social welfare in Sweden... there are others.

A Welfare (disambiguation) page hatnoted from Welfare would be fine, if there are sufficient articles that could be confused with Welfare and otherwise meet the MOSDAB criteria.

The ENGVAR point and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is that when there are multiple uses of a word, the first "style" used in an article, or the first use of the word as an article title, is preferred, unless there are strong reasons otherwise. In this case "welfare" describes means tested government assistance around the world and the article's been describing that since 2003. You're asking to shift the meaning of a highly read article (averages around 1,500 per day) dramatically.

As I said before, first, prove the word "welfare" is so unreasonably out of context for commonwealth speakers that they would be astounded when they find this usage, and not the one you prefer, then demonstrate that "welfare" as meaning general well-being, or whatever way you're using it, is sufficiently notable to warrant a standalone article. If all of those criteria are met, then we can go to WP:Requested Moves and consider rearranging the order of these articles. Shadowjams (talk) 22:19, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I again concur with what Shadowjams has written just above. Especially: "I'd be better if you kept this discussion in one place 84... instead of carrying out the issue on everybody's talk pages separately." I made the same point on my talk page in response to the editor using IP 84.250.230.158.

Editing on Wikipedia is NOT about making an editor happy.
It's about producing encyclopedic content that meets WP's goals, policies, and guidelines.

To prove your contentions would take a lot of work to produce the equivalent of an academic paper that references many reliable sources from most, if not all, English speaking countries. That would pass muster in a peer-reviewed journal, as well as meet WP's goals, policies, and guidelines. Or the equivalent of finding sufficient secondary and/or tertiary reliable sources. Providing a few primary sources does not meet WP's goals, policies, and guidelines.

Though the USA is just one of over 50 English speaking countries, it has about a seventh of the English speaking people in those countries.

At this moment, there are 33 redirects to this article: http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=Welfare. This means care has to be taken that any reader who follows one of those redirects, find sufficient text and links to enable the reader to find the information the reader is seeking. Lentower (talk) 06:57, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes I now see that a WP:move would be the best way to do what I tried to do. Thanks.84.250.230.158 (talk) 09:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

User:Shadowjams makes a lot of points. Let me answer them in turn

• "Welfare" is not an exclusively North American term. Supposedly Churchill coined the term saying "welfare not warfare." It was used first by the British, not in the U.S. See also Social welfare in Japan, Social programs in Canada#Usage, Italian welfare state, Social welfare in Sweden... there are others.´´

• • The above distorts my position. I have never said "welfare" is an exclusively North American term, but that its main meaning is "WELL BEING" and through that meaning it became attached to terms such as social welfare, welfare state because these things are about "social well-being" and a "state in which everyone enjoys wellbeing". I did say that welfare on its own does not mean "government aid" outside the U.S., meaning welfare is usually used as an attribute attached to another word such as "welfare assistance" with the meaning "assistance to achieve wellbeing". Clearly, in the U.S. terms such as "welfare to work" and "welfare fraud" emerged which shifted the meaning there (because "well-being to work" and "well-being fraud" are otherwise nonsensical". Churchill would never have meant "government payments to the poor not warfare" because he led the Conservative Party which opposed the Labour Party policy to implement a welfare state (and lost the 1945 election because of it). Churchill's usage is much more sensible when it is understood as "wellbeing not warfare" because welfare *(as well-being) is a good thing and warfare generally is best avoided. "Jaw jaw not war war" was the more famous Churchill quote on this subject.

• A Welfare (disambiguation) page hatnoted from Welfare would be fine, if there are sufficient articles that could be confused with Welfare and otherwise meet the MOSDAB criteria.
  • You are simply burying your head in the sand by arguing that Welfare should be about its North American meaning. That is against WP policy against local use of that terminology in anything other than articles about the topic in that locality. What's wrong with Welfare (financial aid) with the Welfare page giving the main meaning and its local meaning as supported by dictionary references?

• The ENGVAR point and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is that when there are multiple uses of a word, the first "style" used in an article, or the first use of the word as an article title, is preferred, unless there are strong reasons otherwise. In this case "welfare" describes means tested government assistance around the world and the article's been describing that since 2003. You're asking to shift the meaning of a highly read article (averages around 1,500 per day) dramatically.

• • WP:PRIMARYTOPIC tells us to focus on usage and long term significance and ENGVAR says we should NOT prefer one national variation over another. IMHO (and this is supported by the dictionaries) the main meaning usage of welfare is "wellbeing" and that has meant this for thousands of years, EXCEPT in the United States where another meaning has emerged in the last 70 years or so. How is changing the article title back to Welfare (financial aid) and making Welfare to a disambig page "shifting the meaning"? It is simply honoring the traditional meaning of "welfare" which it retains in most countries including the United States and allowing readers to easily find the topic as financial aid. You seem to be ignoring this suggestion which to me seems eminently sensible and compliant with policy.

• As I said before, first, prove the word "welfare" is so unreasonably out of context for commonwealth speakers that they would be astounded when they find this usage, and not the one you prefer, then demonstrate that "welfare" as meaning general well-being, or whatever way you're using it, is sufficiently notable to warrant a standalone article. If all of those criteria are met, then we can go to WP:Requested Moves and consider rearranging the order of these articles.

• • Well I have suggested ways we can do this and I have tried and it proves my point. But all that happens is that I have had thrown back in my face accusations of WP:OR and WP:POV. Here is a suggestion. We need to get more opinions from other users whose English is not primarily North American. How about if we find articles about social welfare systems in other countries like for instance Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain, Ireland and get opinions from editors that edit those articles? We can summarize our issues (we cannot ask them to read this whole section). I'd suggest we ask them to choose between two options. The first being Welfare article being about WELFARE AS FINANCIAL AID with a hatnote to Welfare (disambiguation) (i.e. Shadowjams suggestion) and the second being Welfare written as a disambig page with WELFARE AS FINANCIAL AID being written into an article Welfare (financial aid) (i.e. the IP 84 user's suggestion).

What do you think about this idea? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.250.230.158 (talk) 09:56, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Please be courteous and remember to sign your posts!!! Sinebot doesn't catch all missing signatures.

Duplicating large blocks of text to respond to them point by point is regarded as a discourteous here on WP - it makes all readers of this section in the future re-read, or at least take the added time to distinguish what they have already read from what is new. The courteous thing to do is to copy the signature at the bottom of the block to the end of each sub-block you wish to respond to. Then at the end of each point, indent and sign your response. I did this above with your response to Shadowjams two part approach. Could you be courteous and do this now? Lentower (talk) 15:20, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Your responses here mostly repeat arguments you have already made, while not showing an increased understanding of WP's goals, policies, and guidelines.

The best solution to this dispute would be for you to find secondary and/or tertiary reliable sources, and use them to improve the current article. The article needs much work, much content development. Wouldn't our time as editors be better spent developing and improving content of all articles, than trying to find the perfect title for this article?

The canvassing you propose has a number of potential pitfalls. Why not use one of the established procedures for issues like this, as Shadowjams suggested above. WP:CANVASS shows some of the pitfalls. Making sure the editors contacted are not a biased sample is one of the pitfalls, and the way you suggest could introduce bias. It is customary when this is done your way, to also give notice of the canvass on the User Talk page of each editor who has edited the article. It is also customary to contact a wide variety of editors. Summaries aren't used. Something like this is used: There is a dispute about the proper title of Welfare. It would help build consensus, if you review and discuss the dispute to help generate consensus at Talk:Welfare#Wrong title. ~~~~

The dictionaries you have used in WP:OR as primary sources, are inherently biased for the assertion you are making. All three of them are edited in England, only one of the 50 plus countries where English is a major language. Mostly by college educated people, who are not even widely representative of all people using English in England.

The government web sites you have searched have these issues:

• Governments often create titles for programs for political purposes, that are not the phrase their citizens would choose. That is, trying to use a government web site to prove what the usage is for those governed is not conclusive.
• You have only checked a handful of the 50 plus countries. You need to do around half for your research to become credible, and get beyond personal knowledge.
• Australia is one of the web sites you have claimed to check. Australia is a federation of states, where each state has significantly more power than they do in the USA. That is, perform a larger share of the governing. So to properly do this WP:OR you would have to check these state's web sites as well. This expands the websites that need to be checked to hundreds.
• Many web site searches do not check affiliated web sites. That is, the main national web site might NOT search the web sites of the departments/agencies/etc. that actually provide welfare. So you have to find all of the relevant web sites for a governement and check then. This expands the websites that need to be checked to thousands.

On our user talk pages, you asked Shadowjams and me five questions. Shadowjams did you the courtesy of answering then one-by-one. I did you the courtesy of answering them in general. In the this section I have asked you several questions. In the next section, I have asked you three questions. In the spirit of co-operation and understanding,[2] could you please do us the courtesy of answering them? (This is one of the questions.) Lentower (talk) 15:20, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

There was also a discussion back in 2008 that ended with Social welfare provision being merged, and exactly the question of whether "welfare" was exclusively North American came up. Talk:Welfare (financial aid)#Merger proposal came up. Useful for reference. Shadowjams (talk) 19:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes I saw that. Social welfare provision is quite a good title because not all aid comes in monetary form. In the UK or Finland, an elderly couple, a man say, living with a wife in early stage dementia, might be assigned a social worker who would visit periodically and be a point of contact in the event of a crisis. This is a social welfare service provided by the community and funded by taxation. It would be put in place whether the man asked for help or not. Its hard to see how that could be called Welfare (financial aid as the aid given is not really financial. In the UK and Finland few people would know the cost - certainly not the beneficiary. Its just something that the community decides should be done and the cost is not the main issue. But in the USA, are services like this offered by civic society? And if so, would the elderly couple be said to be in receipt of Welfare? And as one of the early commenters says, health care is free of cost to everyone in the UK paid from taxes. So in this way the poor are really well helped (because they pay lower income taxes) but its not regarded as charity or poverty relief because the same service is available if you are a millionaire or a pauper. Again I don't think Americans would call this Welfare, though it is certainly the government taking responsibility for the welfare of the people. 84.250.230.158 (talk) 21:59, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

All of these rhetorical questions aren't pertinent to the issue. And that is, is the term "welfare" so distinct outside of North America that it needs to be separately indicated (previous discussions have suggested it is not), and if so, is the separate concept of "welfare as well being", sufficiently notable for a stand-alone article. As for the latter, I don't think there's much in terms of an article beyond a dictionary definition. Shadowjams (talk) 22:26, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

You two stages towards a renaming of the article were 1) to provide sources that show there are these divergent versions of the term "welfare" in contemporary use and 2) to say why that new usage should be preferred over the current one. Do you accept that 1) has been now shown? 84.250.230.158 (talk) 09:35, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I don't. I think that the term welfare is used in other countries outside of North America. It may not be as common as it is in the U.S. and Canada, but it is certainly used. Looking at the prior discussion on social welfare, or whatever talk page it was, the editors there seemed to reach the same conclusion. The only evidence presented to the contrary is dictionary definitions, and I think there was a website article you linked earlier. Welfare can mean "well being" in all varieties of english... that doesn't mean that the other, widespread use of the word needs to be pushed aside. Shadowjams (talk) 21:52, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Please don't distort what I said. I said that the main use is "wellbeing" and in conjunction with other words it has become associated with the aspects of government policy in terms such as "welfare state", "child welfare", and "welfare system" where it clearly means "wellbeing" but that it sometimes used outside the U.S. in circumstances in conjunction with other words where "welfare" is more or less used instead of "welfare system" as in "welfare fraud", "welfare dependency and "welfare reform". But I did say that welfare on its own (i.e. not in conjunction with other words as an attribute) never means "government aid" as it does in the United States. In the U.S. welfare used in this way can mean "money from the government to the poor" but in other countries it generally does not. Brits and Canadians even mostly use the word "benefits" to describe aid money in this way. We have had advice from other editors at WP:Reference_desk/Language#April_26 which says the word on its own is at most ambiguous because there are two meanings and it needs context in order to understand it. This is why I argue welfare as a title is needs to be a disambig page at best. Usage of the term in Canada is relatively minor. Here for example is a 139 page official government report on the subject of assistance to the poor. There are not many usages of the word "welfare" in the document and I'd say that those that are about 50/50 whether the term means "well-being" or "government aid". More to the point the word "benefits" is used liberally throughput in the context of "government payments" and "social assistance" and "income support" are used everywhere are synonyms for the general concept of lifting a person's or family's income to a decent level. To me, this demonstrates quite clearly that Welfare is not the generally used in Canada to mean either the payment or the general idea of assistance. It is the same in the UK where, as in Canada, "income support" is the last resort way to raise incomes to that needed to ensure the welfare of the individual or his/her dependents. It seems to me that you wish to ignore the clear indication in three dictionaries that the meaning is regional to North America (and I would say mostly the U.S). That seems unreasonable to me. I still do not see what is wrong with making the article Welfare a neutral disambiguation page along the lines of football and making the general article something really generic like social welfare which can then link off to various examples of provincial, regional, state, or national programs of the various types such as means tested income support and universal assistance such as certain health care programs (which fit the meaning of social assistance without being directed only at the poor, and which do not meet the definition of Welfare as it is understood in the narrow confines of the United States. "Social welfare" as a term is perfectly understandable to me as a Brit even though it is not much used in the UK. For most people it would be like the redirect that exists on Aeroplane and [Airplane]]. The meaning of the redirected article is understandable even if it is not instantly used as an article search term. How do you justify (a) ignoring the evidence and (b) your seeming refusal to agree to the idea of returning Welfare to the disambiguation article it used to be? 84.250.230.158 (talk) 20:07, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

One of the problems of having "welfare" as the title of the article is that tries in a cack-handed way to acknowledge that the term is used in both sense but then it goes on to pretty much ignore the main meaning and focus on its limited meaning in the US. For instance it begins by saying "Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications....".. Who amongst our readership thinks that Welfare refers to a broad discourse? Maybe certain right wing politicians in the US wants there to be a "broad discourse" but the simple fact is that Welfare had two meanings. A main meaning and a an associated and a common usage related to that meaning, and a distorted meaning which is has arisen in and still largely confined to, the United States. The lead continues "Welfare is largely provided by the government, in addition to charities, informal social groups, religious groups, and inter-governmental organizations". This is U.S. usage of the term (we cannot substitute "wellbeing" for "welfare" with it being meaningful, but the article makes no attempt to acknowlege this. It is a prelude to the next, even more political point. The lead continues "In the end, this term replaces "charity" as it was known for thousands of years, being the voluntary act of providing for those who temporarily or permanently could not provide for themselves." Again, this is using the minor meaning of "government aid" and in particular "aid to the underprivileged". In fact much of welfare assistance coming from government is not "aid to the underprivileged" but is in the form of social insurance, as it is in other countries. In America through payroll taxes you pay into the system and you get the benefit back when you retire or get ill in retirement. Charity is not like this. So, No No No No!!!! Welfare is not charity. The UK's National health Service was born out the idea of welfare state. It is a universal service, and millionaires like H.M. the Queen use it as well the poorest of the poor. It is NOT charity any more than the Fire Service in America is a charity. But it is, undoubtedly, part of the governments Welfare responsibilities because it ensures the welfare of its citizens. But I suspect that U.S. based editors would strongly object to the Fire Department services being regarded as "welfare" because the usage is not normative. This is why the article has to be turned into a Disambig page to show the variety of usages of the term and then link off to articles such as child welfare, animal welfare, Welfare State and social welfare because this would simply avoid the huge cultural-linguistic clash that otherwise is created when an article has an ambiguous title such as football or faggott.84.250.230.158 (talk) 11:40, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I again concur with what Shadowjams has written above. I apologize for any repetition in the rest of this post.

The only Wikipedian evidence to support the changes IP 84 want to make are the three dictionary cites, we have discuss throughout this section and it's sub-sections. The comments, to date, on IP 84's canvasses are all personal knowledge, and are not evidence that can be used to edit articles. They have muddied the waters though, on exactly which English speakers use the term for, and what the differences are between countries, ancestries, dialects, classes, etc.

Those three cites are not sufficient for a separate article here. Such articles belong in Wikitionary. So going back to a disambig page here is not possible at this time.

Why? You seem to be ignoring (a) perfectly valid published academic sources (dictionary compilers are academics and two are indeed oublished by university presses) and (b) advice taken not from me but coming from other wikipedia editors from different countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Language#April_26 (including the U.S.) who all basically agreed that one cannot determine what "welfare" means without some context and (c) the comments of other editors that the source is OK and I am not engaging in OR by using these sources. And just today I have shown that a number of randomly chose articles which link here are linking here rather spuriously when the original article is using welfare to mean "wellbeing". And why do you say separate article?If the article is about social welfare why not just rename it social welfare and tidy up the lead paragraphs. People looking for welfare as social welfare can find it when once again when Welfare is made a general disambig page much as faggot or football are.84.250.230.158 (talk) 17:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Those three cites are not sufficient to change this article's title. As I have pointed out before.

Before? Show me diffs. I only see your claim here(which I think is not proper) that sources published by University Academic presses and another British publisher have got it all wrong and are inherently biased. You can look at government websites in Australia which refer to this kind of support as "Income support" or "benefits" (terms which are also used in the UK), but not "welfare" except in proper terms such as "welfare assistance" and "welfare benefits" which give the word context and its original meaning of "well-being". Your claim that "Governments often create titles for programs for political purposes, that are not the phrase their citizens would choose" is curious? Which part of WP policy tells us to ignore academic sources and reject any terms used by government? Are you saying that what the government in the UK calls "welfare benefits", the people there call it "welfare"? Where is your evidence? Which part of WP policy tells us to ignore the official names for things? Frankly it seems slightly cranky to me.84.250.230.158 (talk) 17:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

As I have said above, what are needed are more Wikipedian quality references from a variety of source types (not just dictionaries) to support this change.

84.250.230.158: Please go and find them, and then come back here. Lentower (talk) 16:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

OK. Here goes with two more from published books I have in my home library

Source number 4 is Roget's Thesaurus (published by Penguin) with (ISBN 0 14 051.007 9) and copyrighted to Longmans Green & Co. Its index entry listings are as follows

weld

join 45 vb.

agglutinate 48 vb.

welfare

good 615 n.

prosperity 730 n.

welfare state

sociology' 901 n.

welfare work

sociology' 901 n.

well

greatly 32 adv

and so on

Neither good nor prosperity relates to what you seem to claim is the general meaning of "welfare".

Source number 5 is Chambers Everyday dictionary (ISBN 0 550 18000 X) Its entry is as follows:

welfare,wel'fãr, n. state of faring or doing well: satisfactory standard of living. -welfare state a country with a public health service, pensions, insurance against unemployment, &c; welfare work, efforts to improve conditions of living for a class (e.g. the very poor) or group (e.g. employers or workers).[well, fare]

Yes these two books were published in the UK but the Thesaurus I guess was also available in Canada as it has a price on the back in Canadian dollars as well as British pounds. User:Lentower is quick to dismiss British sources but they do indicate that the claims that he and User:Shadowjams make that the usage of welfare as "government aid" being universal English is not actually true.84.250.230.158 (talk) 09:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

And a further reminder, nobody has answered my question as to why we should not make welfare the disambiguation page it once was. If you think you have already done so, please repeat it below in summary ('cos it is now hard to track all the comments above); and please give reasons why that should override the other evidence I have presented. At some stage we will have to agree a summary of the argument to be presented in another forum with more editors. 84.250.230.158 (talk) 09:22, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

User 84.250.230.158 is a new editor

Special:Contributions/84.250.230.158 and http://toolserver.org/~luxo/contributions/contributions.php?user=84.250.230.158&blocks=true show that the editor(s?) using that IP have done just over 200 edits in less than five months. Inexperienced compared to the many years and thousands of edits of Shadowjams, me, and many other editors commenting here. Lentower (talk) 16:07, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

But I do know that WELFARE means in most contexts and it means WELL BEING. Its the origin of the term Welfare State from which we get Welfare payments etc. It is only in America where Welfare on its own means the same as Welfare System. And it actually offends my ear to hear its meaning turned upside down in this way. What is wrong with titling the present article as Welfare (financial aid) as it used to be and making Welfare a disambiguation page? --84.250.230.158 (talk) 17:48, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Personal knowledge, by itself, can NOT be used to create or modify a Wikipedia article.
You have yet to meet Wikipeida's policies in proving your assertions.

Have you read WP:V? If yes, please show us how that allows what you did and are trying to do.

Have you read WP:OR? If yes, please show us how that allows what you did and are trying to do.

Have you read WP:NPOV? If yes, please show us how that allows what you did and are trying to do. Lentower (talk) 06:08, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I could answer your questions but before doing so will ask you the courtesy of answering mine that I posed above "what is wrong with titling...etc." and those I posed at your talk page. What you are trying to say is that I am wrong but you are right, but your answers are just nebulous. Yes I have read V and have given you dictionary definitions that show the meaning is secondary and particular to the U.S. That is not OR but V compliant. And in my opinion the article name breaches POV. Calling the social safety net WELFARE is an American POV. I am trying to understand why you are so strongly opposed to re-titling the present article to Welfare (financial aid). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.250.230.158 (talk) 08:15, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

"Concentrate on the issues, not the people/editors." is a maxin here on WP. Another is to "Keep your langauge neutral." (which IP 84 hasn't. e,g, their use of the word terrible above--there are others above and perhaps elsewhere). Many new editors do not. It be refreshing if IP 84 understood and used both.There is probably a quideline or essay on both, but I'll let others chase them down. Lentower (talk) 14:38, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Editor Assistance comments

I intend to begin asking editors from other articles about the topic of "government aid to the poor" whose native language is English but NOT American English interest to come to this page and contribute their thoughts. This is because there appears to be some contention about English usage outside North America. Please leave the rest of this section free to receive the comments from the editors of those other articles.--84.250.230.158 (talk) 18:57, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Please see our WP:CANVASSING policy. Shadowjams (talk) 23:51, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I already have pointed this out above via the redirect WP:CANVASS. Lentower (talk) 03:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Pot calling the kettle black seems to apply here. See this diff for which Lentower got a genuine warning over last year. I wouldn't mind but he is actually the topic of the very article he was trying to influence! At least I have followed policy as far as bringing in a wider audience and not picking off individual editors to swing a decision in a particular way.84.250.230.158 (talk) 11:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

That was a request by me to an editor to come work on the article, as he saw fit. I had intended to invite more editors to do that. If I had WP:CANVASSING would not have applied at all. But the editor who issued that warning was impatient and acted much too quickly, so I let it go.

Neither Shadowjams nor I were accusing you of anything. Just granted the WP editing mistakes you have made (common mistakes for new editors), we wanted to help you become a better WP editor. Lentower (talk) 14:52, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

What I did was quite in line with policy. The situation here at Talk:Welfare is that we have two U.S. based editors who seem to be arguing with an editor outside the U.S. about what "welfare" means outside the U.S. and who seem to wish to ignore published WP:RS (dictionaries no less) which say that the meaning of the word as "financial aid" is primarily regional to the North America. If ever there was a case for broadening out the discussion, this is it. As WP:CANVASSING says "In general, it is perfectly acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it is done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion by broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus." If you guys are right, then you would expect that the responses from Wikipedians outside the U.S. would support you. I presented the case there very neutrally just to see what would happen. So far the responses, left at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language rather than here, seem to be mixed. Editors in the U.S. say the meaning of "well-being" is fully understood in the U.S. (contrary to my thoughts) but equally the consensus seems to be both meanings are known outside the U.S. but that it needs context to know which meaning is being applied. I personally would a´say that is true inside and outside the U.S. One person said it sounds like "right wing talk radio" and another has said that "welfare" as a term for government assistance " it's not used that much even in the States anymore". Taken together, to me this would make the approach of renaming the article Welfare (financial aid) eminently sensible because it address which of the two meanings is being applied. It will also enable an article Welfare (State of well-being) to be written to discuss the use of the term in the U.S. constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its definition in government programs to ensure the welfare of the the population. Could Users Lentower and Shadowjams please explain their objections (if they have any now) to renaming the present article Welfare (financial aid) and making the Welfare article a disambig page? This I think will enable us to move forward a bit towards consensus if I can understand the objections (if there are any).84.250.230.158 (talk) 08:51, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

You're mostly repeating yourself again. You're again engaged in narrowly quoting WP: and other sources to support your narrow POV. Shadowjams and I obviously disagree with your analysis here. I'll let him comment further. Lentower (talk) 14:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

IP 84's Canvass at WP:Reference_desk/Language

IP 84's canvass is at WP:Reference_desk/Language#Is_.22welfare.22_aspirational_or_non-aspirational_in_your_country.3F. Perhaps someone else can point out the bias, lack of neutrallity, POV, etc. in her text, and her approach. Lentower (talk) 15:13, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I really would be interested to see whether other experienced editors see my raising the issue as approriate or as [[Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate_notification]|inappropriate]. Personally I thought my approach was fully within the rules and certainly not deserving of the an ip block as Lentower has threatened. It was limited, presented neutrally, and to a non-partisan audience and was fully open (I gave the link to this page). I notified other editors in a neutral way at a few national (Non-UK and Non-US) based government related articles in the hope that we could get some input from editors not in the UK or the US to as for them to assist. This is hardly mass posting with a biased message to a partisan audience without being transparent (which is how canvassing is characterized. Please desist from your attempts to bully me into submission. I still want to to know what is wrong with renaming the article Welfare (financial aid) as suggested. You have not answered this as far as I can tell. If I am wrong, please repeat your reasons below because I genuinely cannot see where you have addressed the point.84.250.230.158 (talk) 16:32, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Again repetitive of prior posts above. Again mis-representing what has been posted above. Again, over-reaction to an informational post for other editors. Perhaps Shadowjams or someone else will comment further. Lentower (talk) 18:45, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

This is getting silly. The reference desk question is probably ok because it's not aimed at a particular group. This edit, however seems very close to canvassing. There's other examples of seeking opinions from tangentially related forums, including: Wikipedia:Editor assistance/Requests#English variation dispute over the article, Wikipedia talk:No original research#Dictionary as a source, Talk:Social programs in the United States, Talk:Demographics of New Zealand, Talk:Social Security (Australia), and Talk:Economy of South Africa. Shadowjams (talk) 19:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you about sillyness. I don't see why you think the other places where I went to for editor assistance was close to canvassing. I have no way of knowing how the editors would respond and the question was posed neutrally and openly in accordance with the guidance at WP:CANVAS. I just went to the closest pages I could get to the subject in several English speaking countries that are not my own or yours. But I'll let that drop (meaning that I don't expect you to answer provided we leave this as just a difference of opinion not to be taken a step further).84.250.230.158 (talk) 21:14, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

The problem is you're going to a select group of discussion places where people are inclined to agree with you. That's the problem. It's like if I was having a political dispute then went to the respective political party's talk page to tell them, "oh by the way... there's this argument tangentially related over here, check it out." Shadowjams (talk) 22:18, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

How could I predict the answer? I don't get it. All I was doing was to get editors from other countries with an interest and knowledge to help us to resolve the differences. They might all agree with you. As it happened, the only answers we have had back seem to show that everyone "sees" the "aid" connection but they also see the "well-being" connection regardless of being in the US or outside. The answer I got at talk WP:OR seems to indicate (I think) that if the title is ambiguous in two directions there should be two articles. I guess something like Welfare (social assistance) and [[Welfare [social well-being)]]. Judging by the variety of social aid programs I think that even the social assistance version ought probably be a list of national programs and a list of types of assistance (financial, in kind, charitable, governmental, universal, means-tested, etc) with links if needed to more in-depth articles. I fail to see how we can produce a meaningful article when there is so much variation around the world. The Australian system of welfare support had a name very unfamiliar to me and so unmemorable that I have forgotten what it is. Even Britain now, it seems is really motoring ahead with plans that have been afoot for many years to merge the tax and benefits systems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.250.230.158 (talk) 22:52, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I again concur with what Shadowjams has added. Lentower (talk) 15:57, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

IP 84's Canvass at WP:Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research

IP 84's canvass is at WP:Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research#Dictionary_as_a_source. Perhaps someone else can point out the bias, lack of neutrallity, POV, etc. in her text, and her approach. Lentower (talk) 18:45, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

You really are hell bent on trying to down my reputation and I have hardly started out as an editor. You told me that I am engaging in OR by producing a dictionary source and you said its not acceptable because it is either OR or it is a primary source and therefore not a valid source as far as WP is concerned. I don't see it that way and I don't see how it is SYN either, which you also said it could be. I went to the OR talk page to ask if what you are saying is right and you then begin this tirade again claiming that my going to that page is canvassing! I am just trying to validate whether what you are saying is true. Is that a WP crime? As far as I read policy, if you produce a citation from a RS, which is not a Primary Source but a secondary one, that ought to be enough. I really don't see how you can think a dictionary is a primary source because professional dictionary compilers are language experts who use lots of independent sources before determining whether they warrant an entry and whether the entry details are accurate. I don't see how it can be otherwise. If I have this wrong, please tell me PRECISELY where I have gone wrong. 84.250.230.158 (talk) 19:04, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

The place to discuss your reputation is your User Talk page, not here.

Editors who actually read all of this section with it's sub-sections, will see that my first post in this sub-section is true. An example is that I pointed out above that: your three dictionary sources above all from publishers in England, and all from the same educated class, which makes them biased for the change you are trying to make. You did not add that or other things pointed out above to your inquiries elsewhere. Lentower (talk) 15:13, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Confusing discussion to follow

At the risk of making this more complicated, this discussion so far has been really difficult to follow, partly because of inconsistent indenting, lack of sigs, and other formatting things, plus that some of this has gone on on separate talk pages. I don't think any real progress has been made in convincing 84 that this proposed overhaul of article names is not necessary or appropriate. However, I'm willing to wait before we do something like RfC, which seems like overkill. In the meantime, it'd be nice if future comments were indented in response to the one before them, and didn't skip around too much. Shadowjams (talk) 00:13, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I yet again concur with Shadowjams. Though I hope the discussion that follows is less confusing to follow than what has preceded. : - )

I've given up on re-formatting IP 84's confusing and uncustomary style. I tried to show by edit and example, what we do to be courteous to one another. For whatever reason, IP 84 has yet to get it.

But one more try: WP:Talk page formatting shows how to indent Talk pages to assist Editors in reading them easily.

WP:Etiquette would be useful to understand, if anyone hasn't already done so.

Hopefully, we won't have to go to RfC, though IP protection might be less overkill. Lentower (talk) 03:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. Banning my contributions (and by default I suspect, my husband's though he uses a proper account) sounds quite dramatic. I was not aware of talk page rules that don't allow copying text to answer points raised higher up but separated from the response by later comments by other users but now I am. I thought the User talk pages were meant to ask questions directed specifically at that user, but you seemed to object to that. I am sorry if my doing that offended you. I think your apparent objections to my trying to widen the discussion to other users as being WP:CANVASSING are wide of the mark. What I did was quite neutrally attempt to bring in editors with a wider geo-linguistic perspective. If you contentions were right, you might have expected the responses from to support you. I was not picking and choosing editors to bring in to the discussion which really would have been canvassing. 84.250.230.158 (talk) 09:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

You obviously don't understand how to use Article Talk vs User Talk pages. Often the case for new editors like yourself. Please find and read the relevant WP: articles. If you have already, please go back, re-read them, and understand them.

Neither Shadowjams nor I were accusing you of anything. Just granted the WP editing mistakes you have made (common mistakes for new editors), we wanted to help you become a better WP editor.

I'll let Shadowjams comment on the rest of your paragraph, if and as he chooses. Lentower (talk) 14:29, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Please honor the many #REDIRECT [[]] and links to this article.

At this moment, there are 33 redirects to this article: http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=Welfare. This means care has to be taken that any reader who follows one of those redirects, find sufficient text and links to enable the reader to find the information the reader is seeking. Lentower (talk) 06:57, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes I now see that a WP:move would be the best way to do what I tried to do. Thanks.84.250.230.158 (talk) 09:27, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Many of those articles that redirect to welfare are really not appropriately directed even now. I suspect that many of the redirects date back to when this was a disambiguation page or when this article redirected to social welfare. Social welfare for instance would include the services of social workers, a whole range of health services provided in countries such as Canada, UK, the Nordic countries which are run for the community by the community, and even the work of charities and churches. In no way is Welfare as it is now written an appropriate redirect for articles such as social welfare. 84.250.230.158 (talk) 16:53, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Links to this title "Welfare" need to honored too. For example, Template:Economics_sidebar which is a major sidebar on WP.

By honored, I mean each link and REDIRECT[[]] has to be looked at, and either kept as is, or pointed to a different article, according to WP's guidelines. Lentower (talk) 15:38, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Quite a large number of the redirects are wrong. I started out by looking at the articles which link to welfare currently to see whether they were doing so with primarily with the main meaning of "wellbeing" (Meaning 1) or terms clearly linked to that meaning, or whether they were linking from a meaning fundamentally linked to the U.S. American meaning of "social support" (Meaning 2). In doing this I came across some very dubious redirects.

I started making a list of how and where the links to welfare come from. I did this by going to the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere and entering Welfare. I took the first two entries from the list (which is very long) and then analyzed them so see whether the meaning is fundamentally from Meaning 1 (well-being) or Meaning 2 (government aid). I stopped after the first 17 or so articles because a clear pattern was emerging.

Here is the finding

• Direct Links

1. Direct Links to welfare with the meaning 1 of "well-being"
   1. Libya
2. Direct Links to Welfare with meaning 2 of "social assistance"
   1. Felony (United States section of the article) Note: Felony is primarily a U.S. English term
   2. George H. W. Bush - a reference to welfare as "government programs" in an U.S. article about a U.S. topic

• Indirect Links (i.e. originally linked to another primary article which is now itself being redirected to Welfare

1. Articles linked to social welfare (=social measures to assure well-being and wrongly being redirected to Welfare
   1. Barcelona‎
   2. Economics
   3. Progressive education
2. Articles linked to welfare economics (=techniques in economics to evaluate economic well-beingand misleadingly being redirected to Welfare via other links
   1. Economics
   2. Gross domestic product (article also uses welfare unlinked as meaning 1)
3. Links coming only from use of the Economics sidebar which has links to both Welfare economics (meaning 1) and welfare (meaning ambiguous)
   1. Adaptive expectations
   2. Capitalism
   3. Econometrics
   4. Game theory ‎
   5. Keynesian economics
   6. Labour economics (article also has welfare used twice unlinked. One with meaning 1 and the second with meaning 2
   7. Microeconomics (article also has welfare used unlinked with Meaning 1 ("optimal welfare" as a behavior driver)
   8. Monopolistic competition
4. Articles originally linked to social assistance (the term used in the citation) but which now redirects to Welfare
   1. Latin America

A lot of the links here are coming from the economics sidebar and that uses links to both welfare economics (which is not about government aid) and the plain term welfare which is ambiguous. The fact that welfare is often used unlinked and with both meaning 1 and meaning 2 just re-iterates what we have been told . the term welfare on its own is completely ambiguous. You need context to understand its meaning. Interesting also to note that the list above (random selected as the top articles linking to welfare from the toolserve program) demonstrates that it was American articles that refer to welfare (as a single word term) as meaning social programs whereas the others all relate to terms which merely include the word "welfare" (and seem to have largely roots back to welfare as "well-being" Hence, the article welfare really ought to be a disambiguation page once again so that people getting linked to it can choose the meaning the best fits the circumstance in the text where the link came from. 84.250.230.158 (talk) 15:48, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the research, but it's pre-mature as there is no consensus yet that the title, etc. will be changed.

Granted your POV, it would also have to be carefully checked. Lentower (talk) 16:00, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Just doing that myself. Here was how I compiled the list. Searched for links to Welfare. Took the first 17 items and reached the article for uses of the word Welfare and for the link that gets directed to the article "welfare". Welfare Economics is a good example. The article is not talking about welfare as a social program at all but economic well-being. It makes tons on references to social welfare (=social wellbeing) but that article now redirects to welfare which mostly talks about social programs and not well-being, which is not the same thing at all.84.250.230.158 (talk) 16:46, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with those who consider that the current article is based on the US conceptual systems and does not adequately cover the situation and concepts used in the EU countries. I consider also that defining welfare (even in the US context) as the provision of a minimal level of well-being is unnecessarily normative and it would be possible to refer to more neutral definitions. The sidebar on Economics is fully appropriate for the article on Welfare economics, but the arguments for retaining it here are not convincing. While the concept of welfare is indeed used in welfare economics, its is equally used in social policy discourse (welfare benefits) as well as political science and sociology discourses (welfare state) etc. Hence reference to economics alone without equal reference to other disciplines where the concept is used distorts a neutral view on the concept.

I agree also with those who consider that there shall be a separate article on social assistance, which is not merged/redirected to welfare. The concept of "social assistance" has at least some content not covered by the current article. For example, Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union Article 34(3) refers to the right to social assistance in the following meaning: "In order to combat social exclusion and poverty, the Union recognises and respects the right to social and housing assistance so as to ensure a decent existence for all those who lack sufficient resources, in accordance with the rules laid down by Community law and national laws and practices." The concept of social assistance appears in a number of legal acts of the European Union and on several occasions the Court of Justice of the European Union has interpreted its meaning. European Social Charter Article 13 stipulates the right to social and medical assistance, whereby states undertake: "to ensure that any person who is without adequate resources and who is unable to secure such resources either by his own efforts or from other sources, in particular by benefits under a social security scheme, be granted adequate assistance, and, in case of sickness, the care necessitated by his condition." ESSPROS (The European System of integrated Social PROtection Statistics) 2012 Manual [3] considers social assistance as part of social protection separate from social security, while Appendix V lists (among others) various social assistance schemes in the EU Member States.

None of the above is adequately covered by the current article on welfare and it appears inappropriate to add it there as Wikipedia shall not alter the conceptual systems used by significant actors (like the EU) and "translate" those concepts into its own (or rather the US) concepts. If that were the case, a group of Wikipedia editors/administrators would effectively attempt to place themselves higher than a union of 28 European states.

Hence my proposal is to recreate an article on social assistance. It would still be possible to make cross-references (with See also) between welfare and social assistance. --VillaK (talk) 07:12, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Forbes magazine source

'In a 2011 article, Forbes reported, "The best estimate of the cost of the 185 federal means tested Welfare programs for 2010 for the federal government alone is nearly $700 billion, up a third since 2008, according to the Heritage Foundation. Counting state spending, total Welfare spending for 2010 reached nearly $900 billion, up nearly one-fourth since 2008 (24.3%)".[27]'

The source cannot be found on the website, and I'd question Forbes' magazines trustworthiness on issues like this to be honest. Forbes is a magazine by bourgeois for bourgeois. I even bet the article was a column, because these are giant, ridiculously high numbers that right wingers always like to wave around without checking whether it's true or not. So I'm nominating this sentence for removal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.21.3.240 (talk) 19:50, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Forbes quoting the Heritage Foundation, a highly POV right-wing source, is plenty suspect, but the figure seems generally about right. B^e——C_ritical 16:44, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Section on charity in Jewish tradition lacks citations, omits reference to Psalm 72

The section on welfare in the Jewish tradition lack citations, and it omits reference to Psalm 72. I find it uncontroversial that Jewish tradition encouraged voluntary charity. But Psalm 72 indicates too a tradition of public charity. Specifically, it prays for Solomon in his conduct as king to "defend the afflicted," "save the children of the needy," to "deliver the needy who cry out," to "take pity on the weak and the needy," and to "save the needy from death."

This prayer illuminates understanding of charity's full role in the Jewish tradition, at least according to Jewish scripture. Omitting reference to Psalm 72 therefore creates a false impression that Jewish tradition supported only voluntary charity. Given the importance of Jewish tradition in contemporary American debate over the role of the state, the omission also calls into question the neutrality of this section. The lack of citation makes it doubly suspect.

I will leave this up here for a day or two to invite further discussion. If none proceeds, I will amend the paragraph by deleting all uncited material, and replacing it with a brief section on Psalm 72. If discussion proceeds, I will take it into account before making any changes. Though I don't see how a discussion of charity in the Jewish tradition is complete without mention of Psalm 72.

Note: when I've discussed the concept of "public charity" in the past, certain ideologues have harped on the meaning of "charity," and whether the concept of "public charity" can exist. Let me pre-emptively settle that discussion with reference to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary. In pertinent parts, Merriam-Webster defines charity as "an institution engaged in relief of the poor," and "public provision for the relief of the needy." State provision for the poor is "charity" within the word's ordinary meaning.

64.251.145.68 (talk) 17:00, 29 May 2013 (UTC)Dan

Two days I ago I called for discussion on charity in the Jewish tradition. The post I wrote is immediately above this one. It called for a citation for the information presently in the article, and for discussion of Psalm 72. At that time I said I would make edits if no citation for the existing material issued. At this time, neither citation nor discussion have come. I will therefore delete the current section, and begin thinking about ways to write a new section on Psalm 72. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.251.145.68 (talk) 23:47, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Should not be Economics

This article talks about welfar not as a subfield of Economics. The sidebar of Economics should be removed.218.253.55.162 (talk) 13:24, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

i would say that welfare is part of economics11:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.172.96.95 (talk)

This is your personal point of view, while the burden of proof is on you to show that it is a neutral perspective, which is a Wikipedia requirement. While it cannot be questioned that the concept of welfare is used in welfare economics, its is equally used in social policy discourse (e.g. welfare benefits) as well as in political science and sociology discourses (e.g. welfare state). Hence reference to economics alone without equal reference to other disciplines where the concept is used distorts a neutral perspective on the concept.--VillaK (talk) 06:26, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

NOTE: This could be solved by creating two different articles: one for "welfare" as used in social policy (welfare state, to be on welfare) and one for "welfare" as used in economic theory (welfare economics, measuring welfare, welfare versus wealth, etc.). That could clarify things (disambiguation).

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Entitlement versus welfare

In this article, welfare is defined as "Welfare is a government's support for the poor citizens," but then includes Social Security, which may in fact be government support for rich citizens. I'm looking at other articles like Basic income, which define BI, as a "welfare" program. The problem is, BI and SS are not exclusive to the poor, but welfare is defined as "support for the poor citizens." Any help on solving this conundrum would be appreciated. In the context of entitlement programs such as BI and SS, calling them welfare creates a POV, as many people are biased against welfare, while at the same time feeling positive toward entitlement programs. B^e——C_ritical 04:06, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Edited to avoid contradictions. B^e ⊢ C^ritical 18:33, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Welfare Check

Currently "welfare check" redirects here, but I think a welfare check usually means the police checking on a person's well-being, i.e. something quite different from Government welfare. A disambiguation page might be needed to resolve the double meaning w.r.t the other kind of "welfare check" (cheque)? Olaf Klischat (talk) 17:15, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Welfare (Payments) vs Social Security (Payments)

I'm a bit lost here as to where the articles Welfare and Social security differ. The leads of both articles describe their subject as payments to those with little or no income for the purpose of subsidising/paying for/assisting with basic human needs. Even in this article, the terms "welfare" and "social security" are thrown around as synonyms for each other. When you strip down the topics to their core subject, surely welfare and social security are one and the same? If not, there needs to be serious work done on both, as they are indistinguishable right now. I also think it's worth considering the influence of americentric bias in these topics; they seem to focus quite heavily on only the US' system of welfare (or lack thereof), and truly, don't fairly or equally explore other countries where welfare is significantly more important. Even the term "social security" points to the United States - In Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and many many many more countries, it's called welfare, Germany and parts of Europe calls it social care, the UK calls it state welfare. You can even see on this Google Trends map that "social security" is almost exclusively American: https://ibb.co/zSxrBHq. ItsPugle (talk) 11:51, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Americans and the formal use of Social Security

This isn't an defense against the observation that there is American referential dominance on many topics, as that is a true assessment. I just wrote something below called "To Answer Question About American "Social Security" (Aug/1/2020)". It answers the question about social security (as a concept) and Social Security (as in a U.S. Federal program/benefits). When Americans say "social security", they mean "Social Security" (whole or in part). The principal Social Security is a social insurance program, not a welfare. We have long names like "Old-Age (Retirement), Survivors, and Disability Insurance OASDI" (often called "Social Security Disability Insurance", "Social Security Benefits", "Social Security Income", etc), "Temporary Assistance for Needy Families TANF" (our replacement program for "welfare" or "welfare-reform"), and "Supplemental Security Income SSI" (often called "Social Security Income", "Disability Benefits", "SSI", "Social Security Benefits"), etc.

If you'll notice, the public aid and the social insurance programs under the Social Security moniker get referred to the same way, which can get confusing. Americans will use words like "welfare" or "assistance" (public, general, needs-based) to discuss public aid benefits. "Social Security" is mainly used as a formal name. It may surprise some Americans other countries would use "social security" as a generic term like social care or state welfare.

We have formalBold text names like Social Security cards, Social Security numbers, Social Security Act, Social Security Office, Social Security Benefits, Social Security Income (also Supplemental Security Income), Social Security Retirement Insurance, etc.

I wonder when other countries began to use the phrase "social security", as the use is primarily American. Refer to: What is the origin of the term "Social Security?" from the U.S. Social Security Administration website. During the mid-1930s, had been working on a "Economic Security" plan. They changed the name to "Social Security" along the way, in what even the SSA historian is uncertain other than to name the meeting in which it happened. The origin of the term does appear to be wholly American, making the American-bias entirely reasonable, since we have so many things named 'Social Security'.

And, as a bit of a side note, where exactly does Unemployment benefits come into this? Surely Unemployment benefits is so closely tied to welfare payments that they're indistinguishable for the most part. ItsPugle (talk) 12:37, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Unemployment Insurance is insurance, not welfare.

Unemployment insurance keyword is "insurance". Insurance isn't "aid" or "assistance". It is not welfare. Insurance is a scheme in which people pool money together to help offset financial losses of individuals. As a principle of insurance, there needs to be more people paying "premiums" than those eligible are receiving benefits. In most countries, there is some form of private insurance, whether it be insurance for car, health, home, liability, life, travel, etc. (Government health insurance can be a misnomer, as can unemployment insurance.)

Some points about insurance:

- With governmental insurance schemes, the insurance program cannot go insolvent (usually). Private insurance programs must be careful to ensure that they hedge their risk to avoid paying out more than they receive. An insurance program may restrict access or raise premiums. When it is the government, that may not be an option, and the government will fund any resulting liabilities. There may also be an assistance program where the government pays the premiums on behalf of needy individuals that cannot afford to. These factors can make a social insurance program seem like 'welfare' when its actually a supplemental support program.

- Welfare are government payments to support the basic care of needy individuals. Welfare is a needs-based program, usually requiring people to be in poverty in order to receive assistance.

- Generally, insurance programs do not restrict eligibility based on someone's income.

- Insurance requires participation in order to receive access to benefits when eligible. Government insurance programs may mandate participation through taxes to directly pay the premiums. Welfare eligibility does not depend on paying into a program beforehand.

Unemployment insurance (UI) schemes are not just run by governments. Worldwide, there are private insurance programs to cover the risk of when someone becomes unemployed. People may receive unemployment benefits due to job loss from illness, accidents, disability, etc.

Welfare payments are not limited to a specific time-frame, they are need-based. The reasons why someone is poor usually will not influence receipt of the pubic aid. Unemployment insurance will have a certain conditions, usually that the job loss is not due to the fault of the employee. There usually is a short-time frame to receive payments, with the expectation the person is seeking work. Insurance benefit will be received regardless of the financial status of the recipient. Welfare and Unemployment insurance usually won't be paid concurrently.

In the United States, UI is not a federal insurance program and is operated in each of the state's differently. It is often operated alongside state disability insurance (short-term disability). In most cases, employers will pay for the unemployment and the employees will pay for the disability insurance. The disability insurance is for income losses due to severe illness/accident and paid only while someone cannot work due to their condition. Confusion with permanent disability programs, like Veteran's Assistance and Supplemental Security Income, can create a confusion that the UI/DI is a welfare benefit.

In Australia, unemployment insurance is known as "redundancy insurance" (looks like it is a private, supplemental insurance). In German, it is called "Arbeitslosenversicherung" and is part of a governmental social insurance program (compulsory). In Japan, it is one part of a government "Labour insurance" scheme that combines unemployment with workers accident insurance called "roudou hoken".

In some countries, there are socialized benefits to people who are not employed for different reasons. Payments could go to those unemployed because of parenting, youth, school, or special status. Other countries may make a distinction that unemployment insurance/benefits must be to recent job loss due to no-fault reasons, excluding disability or accidents. Short-term and long-term disability insurance can be both public and privately operated and issued in lieu to UI.

The proper response is that unemployment insurance (benefits) cannot be grouped as welfare, worldwide. Roxanne-snowden (talk) 19:49, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned that this RFC is outside the guidelines. What exactly is the question? If this is a merge proposal then see WP:RFCNOT. Jschnur (talk) 22:37, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Hahaha, this isn't a merge proposal, simply a feeler in terms of helping to guide the development of these two articles and make their difference, if there is any, more clear. For a merge request though, see the below :) ItsPugle (talk) 12:45, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

To Answer Question About American "Social Security" (Aug/1/2020)

The American use of the "Social Security" relates to our Social Security Administration SSA programs. The principal program is our retirement benefits, which is designed as a social insurance scheme (along with the retirement healthcare Medicare). This makes it an entitlement, as people pay into a required system with the promise that they will be reimbursed with benefits at a later date (regardless of financial need). For this reasons, "Social Security and Medicare" will often be paired together. Employers and Employees in the U.S. will pay a specific tax (OASDI) as an "insurance premium" on all income. At retirement age, the Social Security Administration will issue "Social Security benefits" - i.e. retirement income and medical benefits. If long-term disabled, the retirement benefits can be petitioned early, known as "Social Security Disability Benefits" called SSDI. These are not welfare or public aid.

If ineligible for the above programs, the permanently disabled or aged can apply for "Social Security Benefits". One program is the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) which is often referred to as "Social Security Income (or Insurance)". This is a welfare, need-based program. It has a companion health insurance called Medicaid.

Employers and Employees payments into OASDI and Medicare for future access (insurance) to these benefits. Through the income taxes, the public aid programs like Medicaid and (Social Security) Supplement Security Income (SSI) will be funded but distributed under Social Security.

The SSA also has numerous other public aid programs that it manages. These welfare programs will generally be referred to by their names, or referred to as "public assistance", "welfare", "needs-based assistance" or "general assistance" (keyword = assistance rather than security). Those programs do not use, or generally regarded by the term Social Security (but may be referred to it in context of the Social Security Administration.

The method that tracks a person's payment into the "Social Security System" is the Social Security Number (Card). Over time, the assigned number is an identification method.

The basic idea is that Americans are not generally referring to "public aid" as "social security". "Social Security" is specific to our programs named or operated under the Social Security office. Americans aren't being philosophical when they say "social security", and they are not using it as synonymous with the term 'welfare'.

Suggested reading is above reply to ItsPugle discussing the term 'social security', including the history of the name in reply "Americans and the formal use of Social Security" (Updated) Roxanne-snowden (talk) 16:54, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Merge with Social security

Already merged by various uninvolved editors; assumed consensus as a result. Thanks for your contributions! (non-admin closure) ItsPugle (talk) 23:21, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I'm proposing merging Social security into Welfare (following on from the discussion started above by ItsPugle). As noted in the article already, "social security" can refer to a variety of things but is generally interchangeable with or a subset of welfare, except in the United States where it's a separate but related system which has its own article already. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 11:47, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support. They're synonymous, there's no fair reason to have two articles. ItsPugle (talk) 12:36, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support. While not always identical the terms are often synonymous and there is a large overlap when they aren't. Thryduulf (talk) 12:44, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Welfare and Social security is not the same thing. The words are of Germanic origin and should be read literally. Welfare comes from "well fare" and means to "fare well." That is, to live a good life. A Welfare state is thus a state in which the state is tasked with providing good lives for its citizens. Social security should also be read literally, protection against "social" threats. That's were the allegory of the Social safety net comes from. For example, insurance against unemployment and disability are forms of social security and is also welfare. But, say, subsidized summer camps for poor kids is welfare but not social security. ImTheIP (talk) 20:49, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

With all respect for the etymology of the words "welfare" and "social security", the current articles describe indistinguishable 'programs' or systems of support for individuals. Welfare is also used interchangeably in conversation (or at least in my experience) and is used by government agencies interchangeably with "social security". While the linguistic roots may have difference, the words' modern applications are the same as far as I can see. ItsPugle (talk) 13:22, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Redirects (Public Support, Social Support, Public Aid, Welfare, Fundraising)

(The following text was posted at the Public Support Talk Page. It has relevancy here, too.)

Question, should "public support" be redirecting into "fundraising"?

"Social support" makes a mention (in the text) some people associate the meaning with "public aid". "Public aid" redirects over to "welfare".

Maybe "public support" needs a disambiguation page that offers directory over to: fundraising, social support, public aid and welfare. (maybe a few others, too)

My opinion is 'public support' is not answered by a redirect over to fundraising. In that same vein, we've got some other redirects that aren't fully addressing people's inquiries. Roxanne-snowden (talk) 16:18, 31 July 2020 (UTC) Please send me an FYI on my talk page if you respond here, ty.

Welfare definition

Definition of a welfare 157.44.190.112 (talk) 15:55, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Social security articles?

Should we rename/merge Category:Social security and subcategories (ex. merge that category with Category:Welfare, and rename articles like social security in India, to welfare in India? Right now some articles are named welfare in Fooland, and others, ss in Fooland, and we have to separate category trees as linked above. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:12, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Following up on the merge of social security to welfare from few years ago: @ReconditeRodent, @ItsPugle, @Thryduulf, @ImTheIP _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:14, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Not sure about categories since sometimes the two are synonymous and sometimes not but article titles should definitely use whatever the more common term in the country is per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:TITLEVAR. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 08:41, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Most countries do not use English terms... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:48, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Welfare (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 19:17, 19 December 2024 (UTC)