This is correct. For scammers this will be a new gold mine. But I guess it will be a gold mine for everyone. It's 2.8 trillion every year injected into the economy. If you look at it like that than the question is, how can I divert some of that money into my own pockets?
A 'fool them once, shame on you... but it won't happen again!' policy would be a welcome thing.
Services? This sounds more like a legislative than a marketplace problem. Pardon if it’s forward to ask, but what service do you envision could have helped protect your mother?
It was in the gap of finding this out and getting myself back in the loop that the home visitor managed to get checks cashed that she didn't know about.
The services are already in existence, just not consistently or as comprehensively as they could/need to be.
A legislative issue to stop nickel and diming social assistance, for sure. These kinds of services should be available for anyone who needs them, not just whatever narrowly defined criteria in current funding mandates.
We as the public just don't care enough.
The ones I knew working minimum wage lived cheaply. They didn't worry about losing their jobs because they were hard workers who could be counted on - the type of person who gets the maximum raise until they top out the pay scale. They were also the type of person to be offered job in management and have the potential to make as much as anyone with an engineering degree (we haven't kept in touch - typically the requirement to move for the job every few years catches up and they decide the next promotion isn't worth it and so stagnate at nice wage that is better than average)
I knew people who sit around drinking bear and working part time. Everybody knew they were losers. It wasn't lack of opportunity that is keeping them down it is lack of following up on it. They would abandon their kids even if you paid the a million dollars a year (even assuming they don't overdose on some drug)
I also know mentally ill people. Their abilities vary, but UBI won't help them as they will just waste it on some other scam. (I know someone who lost money to the Nigerian prince scam, and a dozen others - the family is careful to lock down his money now so he can't do that)