TEACHING COMPANION / NO ACCOUNT NEEDED
Who Catches You?
The same shock. Four lives. Who gets caught by the safety net?
Welfare states, inequality & the politics of redistribution · 50–70 min including reflection
Learning goals
- Distinguish need, eligibility, cash protection and unpaid care.
- Explain how ownership, returns, saving and tax rules shape wealth trajectories.
- Compare decisive-voter and organized-power explanations of redistribution.
- Use dated country evidence without treating a descriptive comparison as a causal experiment.
For Class means Full.
Complete the required activity and its final report action before assignment printing or downloads. Core and Full length choices, where offered, belong to For Fun. Progress backups remain available at every stage.
Before the activity
No advance reading. Concepts, model rules and dated country evidence are supplied.
Syllabus description
A missed pay packet. A clinic bill. Care that cannot wait. Step into four lives, follow how wealth accumulates, then discover why a majority wanting protection may still struggle to secure it. Test rival explanations and inspect real evidence from Sweden, the United States and Brazil. Students produce a field report with model comparisons, country evidence, a revised explanation and a transfer argument.
Discussion prompts
- Who qualified for help, and which needs remained uncovered?
- When did a preference for protection fail to become a funded commitment?
- What evidence could distinguish the two explanations of redistribution?
What to assess
Assess an explicit mechanism, accurate measures, relevant comparisons, a fair rival, evidence-based revision and the limits of inference. Completion checks presence and length, not argument quality or preferred policy.
Limitations
Households, wealth trajectories, voting and coalition rules are simplified fictional teaching models. Country evidence is frozen at 2024 and uses separately ranked income and net-wealth distributions. The comparison does not identify the causal effect of welfare policies.
Credit & permissions
Created by Yoav Duman. Free educational use, sharing and hosted embedding; software rights reserved. Software, artwork, branding and third-party materials are separate; see the full reuse information.
Suggested citation: Yoav Duman, “Who Catches You?: Teaching companion,” Possible States, https://possiblestates.com/teaching/who-catches-you. Include your access date.
ASSESSMENT & SUBMISSION
Grade the explanation.
The interface has no opinion.
Set an endpoint, ask for the activity’s readable report, and use your existing LMS. Students can use Print / Save as PDF where a separate download is not offered. A progress backup is for restoring work, not grading it.
A suggested 10-point rubric
For each criterion: 0 = absent, 1 = partial, 2 = clear and supported. Adapt the weighting to your course; this is guidance, not automatic scoring.
- Concepts / 2
- Use the relevant political concept accurately.
- Evidence / 2
- Support a claim with a specific record or comparison.
- Mechanism / 2
- Explain how the rule or arrangement produces a consequence.
- Revision / 2
- Address a rival account or explain a change of mind.
- Limits / 2
- State what the model or evidence cannot establish.
Say this before they begin.
- Choose For class and follow the instructor’s endpoint.
- Save a progress backup before moving devices or changing website address.
- Open the readable report and check the required responses.
- Upload it to the course assignment. Check the LMS submission confirmation.
Switching from exploration keeps the current work, but skipped class responses may still need completing. A local report cannot establish authorship or make an activity tamper-proof.
Prepare an assignment to share.
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Syllabus description & discussion prompts
Syllabus description
A missed pay packet. A clinic bill. Care that cannot wait. Step into four lives, follow how wealth accumulates, then discover why a majority wanting protection may still struggle to secure it. Test rival explanations and inspect real evidence from Sweden, the United States and Brazil. Students produce a field report with model comparisons, country evidence, a revised explanation and a transfer argument.
Questions for a discussion board or class debrief
- Who qualified for help, and which needs remained uncovered?
- When did a preference for protection fail to become a funded commitment?
- What evidence could distinguish the two explanations of redistribution?