If public employee salaries are public, why aren't people's welfare benefits?

Question

If you work for the government, its all public knowledge how much you make. Anyone in the world can ask and find out (since its tax money).

Why can't you ask how much a specific person gets in welfare, rent assistance, food stamps, etc? Since that is public money shouldn't you have the exact same right to know how much tax money is being spent on those things? It doesn't make sense to me.

Answer 1

The specific salaries of all public employees in not public.  You can find out the workers of a certain grade and years make a certain amount.  The salaries of Mary Smith and Tom Jones are confidential.  The exception would be appointed high level positions.  

Answer 2

The reason we see public pays is not because of the public dollar, it is because they are actually part of the government! Welfare is an entirely different thing, it is tax money that goes to private citizens, not members of government.  

Answer 3

How much money is spent on the food stamp program IS public but who it goes to is not public. It's the same with your salary. It doesn't say John Doe makes $40,000 per year it says The Governor or the Executive Secretary makes $40,000 per year. People on welfare deserve some privacy as it is quite embarrassing for them.

Answer 4

You make an excellent point my friend!  Indeed it SHOULD be publicized, in fact the WHOLE budget, state and local towns and cities should be publicly displayed.  MAYBE if welfare recipients were publically displayed it would deter A. fraudulent welfare claims and B. serve a a way to sort of, well.... embarrass those who take welfare money and use it for purposes other than what it was intended to be used for.  

Answer 5

Because even being on welfare is embarrassing to most people - it would be cruel to divulge that sort of thing, most people on welfare don't want others to know they are.  

The public has a right to know how much is allotted for each program - you can find out through the budget how much the government is spending on welfare.  Those are your tax dollars right there.  You could probably find out through a state office or even Google how much the average person on welfare receives.  

But the individual, the public has no right to know that sort of personal information.

Also, being a public employee means you voluntarily subject yourself to that - you're working for the government, you know the amount you make is available to the public.  A welfare recipient is not a public employee.  If they started divulging that information, less people would want to go on welfare- which sounds like a good thing to a taxpayer, but the people who actually NEED it would be deprived.  That's not good.

I don't see it as a double standard at all.

Answer 6

For the same reason your tax returns are not public.  Simply because people need public assistance does not mean we deprive them of their right to privacy and not have their financial records open to public scrutiny.

If you want to know how much "someone" receives, you can view your state's guidelines on line or in person at the appropriate office.  If you want to see how much "a specific person" receives, it's really not anyone's business.  As far as the previous poster suggesting we "use" this information to humiliate people - when you choose to live in a country that recognizes our collective obligation to help those who are in need, you also recognize that, yes, sometimes a small portion of those people will attempt to use the system......the answer is NOT to penalize all in need and deprive them of basic human dignity.

edit:  Am very much NOT ok with it....believe FOIA has gone to an extreme that is outrageous....should know salaries but think identity of person should not be published....voter registration info & whether people vote or not is ridiculous...far as your ?, understand your thinking but it's like schooling-do you have right to student records because it's your taxes?  public hospitals-do you have rights to medical records of patients?...like the previous poster, the FOI has turned us into peeping toms who now believe we are "entitled" to know everything about everybody and to "judge" who is worthy and who is not and to band together to "shame" those we believe unworthy