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As I said, in the original post, the beggars in the states and the beggars in the Philippines are of a totally different species.
I realize the way I figure out which ones I give to and which ones I didn't, wouldn't work here in the US.
The major difference is that most of them in the Philippines are children, and in some cases, very young children. In the US nearly all of them are adults and perfectly capable of holding down a job.
In the Philippines, there are quite a few street kids that live strictly off of begging.
One time when we were still living in Alaska, but visiting in the Philippines. We were eating at a chicken place at a table out on the sidewalk. I witnessed a street kid walking past the tables and scooping the tips that were intended for the waiter/waitress. When the waitress come back to my table, I informed her that the street kids were stealing tips. She looked me straight in the eye and said forcefully. (I know that!). I then realized it was her way of helping the poor street kids. I realize that I was the ignorant foreigner from Alaska.
That was just one of the many lessons I learned about Filipino customs.
A lot of the older street kids act as parking attendance. They will stand out in the middle of very heavy street traffic stopping the flow. To let you back out of a parking spot or pull into it. The compensation they get for doing that service is nothing more than tips usually 5 or 10 pesos. That's about $.08 and $.16 US.
I did have an SUV knocked me off my motorcycle that was backing into a parking spot. That was because the full grown man in a rent-A-cop uniform was trying to do the same thing these little kids do. It is my opinion that the kids do a far better job than a rent-a-cop.
Are these parking kids actually working for a living? Probably yes. And even if they had a place to live like with their parents, they were helping their parents in a very good honest way of learning some pesos.
And then there are old ladies well past menopause with a brand new baby at her breast. They rent those babies just for the purpose of trying to get foreigners to drop some pocket change in their tin cups.
(Professional bagger that's easy to spot.) that is if you know what your eyes are seeing.

It is getting out of hand here in the US. They are going to have to put work requirements on welfare benefits.

Gene

It's just like any other government organization. When it first starts up, it is actually doing a good job and doing it for the people that needed that help. For example; vet centers in the United States when it first started was run by volunteer combat veterans. Most of those volunteers were combat veterans. They were actually helping the people that needed to be helped like me. When the government took over the organization called vet centers. It's soon went to shit. It went from a low budget old building in Wasilla Alaska to a brand new expensive building in Wasilla Alaska. The very first attempt at conducting a combat trauma group. After the government took over, I signed up. It was run by one of those so called VA trauma nurses. After the very first group meeting, I was asked not to come back. I was kicked out because I asked a question that made the trauma nurse look ignorant, and she was. At the start of that meeting, she said if we had a question we could cut in anytime we wanted to. But I waited till she had finished her speech before I asked the question. Sometime later after the next group, which I did not attend, I asked one of the veterans that was there how it went. He said that she reported to the group that I had quit as to why I left the group. I did not confirm or deny the truth because I didn't want to disrupt the group in the hope that might actually do some good. I had another Vietnam combat trauma group nurse that I got cross threaded with. That was on 7 West in the VA hospital right here in Seattle. She was another one of those well trained well educated people that knew absolutely nothing about combat. But that would take another three pages on hear to explain.

Kinda like trying to explain to someone what it is like to shovel shit out of the barn, if they had never seen a barn, or shoveled shit.

Gene

You got that right Gene. I've shoveled plenty of shit myself. I also burn shit in Vietnam. But I won't go into details anybody that's been in Vietnam knows the smelly business of burning shit.

I have read lots of stories about he shit burning. I guess sometimes they could get the locals to do it for them, but maybe there was a safety issue giving them lighters and diesel fuel. I for one, cannot imagine getting a barrel of 98% moisture mix of shit and pee to burn, no matter how much diesel you poured on it.

Gene