Category: Social Welfare

Social welfare topics, such as single payer healthcare, public education, child care, pensions, etc.

Is Costa Rica a model for democratic socialism?

Readings: https://socialistproject.ca/2017/10/b1496/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/05/costa-rica-celebrate-70-years-no-army/977107001/   Costa Rican Socialism: Universal public healthcare system (“Caja”) The military has been abolished The police are kept to a minimum About 7,500 officers for the entire country For comparison: Chicago has over 11,000, MKE has about 6,800 Universal public education, k-college/trade school If you graduate from trade school, the government offers […]

Vacation

Reading: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/06/08/countries-most-vacation-days/2400193/ This topic is about non-monetary things capitalism takes away from us. Two questions for group; 10-15 minutes to discuss: What would you do if you had a month off? Two months? Three months? What was your favorite vacation? Have you ever had a time where you had a significant amount of time off […]

Student loans

Readings: Huffington Post / The Ones We Lost: Student Loan Debt Suicides People’s Policy Project / New Fed Data: The Rise of Student Debt (1989-2016) Demos / Why Education Does Not Fix Poverty Before anything else, we need to remember that a lot of people never go to college, that you don’t need to go […]

Universal public job retraining program

Readings: Matt Bruenig on Active Labor Force Management Policy in Denmark The government of Finland / Universal job training benefits for unemployed workers The government of Norway / Universal job training benefits for unemployed workers The government of Norway / Universal job placement benefits for unemployed workers   This topic–public programs to provide job retraining […]

Housing first

We started with an overview of some of the problems with mental health services in Milwaukee County. We also learned about Housing First programs for long-term homeless individuals. Readings: Mother Jones investigation into Housing First programs Milwaukee County mental health system traps patients in cycle of emergency care Nationwide Study Reveals Just How Broken the […]

Single payer

The best resource for a single payer discussion is the frequently asked questions for our single payer campaign. The readings for this discussion were: Adam Gaffney, How Liberals Tried to Kill the Dream of Single Payer Sarah Kliff, Obamacare’s double-digit rate hike, explained in 400 words, which shows how Obamacare’s central promise–that market-based competition for […]