Denmark Taxes

America's welfare system is set up in a way in which people can get a lot of help, but the problem with this is that they don't always get every benefit they can have. People can go to the welfare office, go to the website or call in and speak with someone about their situation. They answer a series of questions such as where do you live, do you have a child, where do you work etc. Based on these answers, people are given a list of benefits they are eligible to receive. There are programs that enable people who are looking for a job to find work in various places to get them started. There are also benefits that allow single parents who have no one to help them care for their child find day care centers or send people to care for the child at the families home. Food stamps can help those on a tight budget. Not only does America have the welfare system, but we pay taxes. Americans pay taxes on clothes, food and annual taxes as well. These taxes depend on the income of the family and the amount of children a family might have. There are also health care benefits and social security etc. (to tell the truth I honestly know nothing about taxes and such).

In Denmark, there are some differences. Children go to school until about 10th grade and if they decide to continue school, they get paid to go to school (college) instead of paying to go to school. All education is free unless people decide to go to a private school. They also have specific cards that are given to people so they can show it to officials and those people don't have to pay taxes. The government helps their people as much as they can. There are health care benefits and daycare benefits where people can come to the families house and care for the children. Should a person be fired from their job, they would be given money by the government in order to help them live and get the essentials they need to survive. It seems to me that in Denmark, they try their hardest to make sure their people do not end up in poverty and homeless. The kids that spoke to us told us that there weren't that many poor people in Denmark and poverty wasn't big and those who did suffer from poverty were given a lot of help and it was not as visible as it is in New York.

In terms of having a "working" tax system, I think that a mixture of our system and the system in Denmark would work to benefit for everyone. If the government took care of its people like Denmark's government then we would have a better chance of decreasing the poverty rate, but I also think that it would be important to make the rich people pay more taxes than the poor people which we don't really do right now in America, but we do pay taxes. Taxes are good because it can help the government and the state, but I think if people are really poor then they should pay less taxes.