Utah Makes Welfare So Hard to Get, Some Feel They Must Join the LDS Church to Get Aid
Utah Makes Welfare So Hard to Get, Some Feel They Must Join the LDS Church to Get Aid
Utah’s safety net for the poor is so intertwined with the LDS Church that individual bishops often decide who receives assistance. Some deny help unless a person goes to services or gets baptized.
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I don't have an issue with the fact that the church decides whom they help.
But that the state has so little in the way of social security that they instead have to forward people to a church instead, that's crazy.
3rd world country.
The LDS essentially owns the state of Utah, this issue is by design
Agreed - working as intended, and it's not just LDS. I'm in FL and churches here have been opposing publicly funded safety nets for my whole life, in favor of voluntary, often church-led, donations.
They appear to have set it up that way on purpose.
A single mother of one here is eligible for $399 a month in state assistance, and only if she has a net income of $456 a month or less.
Utah doesn’t do more for those in need in part because a contingent of its lawmakers, the overwhelming majority of whom are Latter-day Saints themselves, assume the church is handling the poverty issue; they also are loath to raise taxes to do the state’s share, a review of Utah’s legislative history demonstrates.
us$10k/year
I doubt there is anywhere in the US where that is an adequate amount to pay for food and shelter. That is monstrous.