Welfare programs in the US

Food, yes. I did this for a period in San Jose as a study. But lodging, and other necessity, like toilet paper etc? No way.

Like I said, I’ve only ever see the fit-looking softball enthusiast chuckle amiably when asked about his “disability”. So if I’m correct, then he’s that sly even when nobody is taping him – and I don’t see why he’d suddenly get more talkative just because I’ve innocuously fumbled around in my pocket to switch my phone on.

At that, I don’t even know what his “disability” is supposed to be, let alone whether it’s real. Heck, if you want to play skeptic I’ll reluctantly grant that he may well be completely deaf – since, for all I know, he’s just incredibly good at reading lips and for some reason loves to act like he can hear what people are saying; that seems wildly implausible, but, well, hey, it could be, I guess.

I receive Social Security Disability and I and my family qualify for exactly zero. This maybe due to the fact that I was a high earner prior to being hurt on the job. I’m told I have a higher than average monthly benefit.

And a point that always bugs me is that Social Security Disability is NOT welfare. I worked since I was 14 and contributed to SS via taxes. Disability is, for lack of a better word, is insurance. You payinto the system with the promise that if you become unable to work you’ll receive a monthly benefit.

And for the record, disability does not afford someone a grand lifestyle. It helps and I’m grateful it’s there, but I can assure you I’d rather be working.

First off, every state is different- someone mentioned earlier that TANF is only available for families with children and for a limited time but that’s a restriction on Federal funding and doesn’t preclude states from providing benefits to childless adults or for a longer period of time with state funding. Second, my state is probably relatively generous with benefits, and you cannot “live well” solely on those benefits. You’ll survive, but that’s not the same as living well.
About the coworkers, though- it’s entirely possible that they are making this up out of nowhere. My mother once posted on Facebook about how terrible Obamacare was and how her granddaughter had to pay a fine because she couldn’t afford to buy insurance. After a whole lot of back and forth about why did I think it was that granddaughter* and she would have been happy if she ever made as much as $30K a year, my mother shut up. Because I checked the exchange in my state, and if she earned $30K, it would have cost her about $50/month after the subsidy. Made it up out of nowhere just because she was against the ACA.

  • She only has 4 granddaughters, two are young enough to be covered under their parents’ insurance, and my daughter has insurance through her job. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out there’s only one left- but most of her friends wouldn’t know that.

VA disability and Social Security disability are two very different different things. For one thing, “service related” is very broad:

http://www.benefits.va.gov/compensation/

As an example: I had a brain tumor removed while on active duty. While there is no way of determining the cause, it is still considered service related.

However, since the tumor was benign, and removed, I received a 0% rating. That means that I receive no payments, but my annual MRI to check for recurrence is covered by the VA.

Had I not had the tumor removed, I would have 60% disability, which is $1,062.27 per month.

The specific case I was thinking of was my dad, who was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam and later came down with prostate cancer. Now, prostate cancer is quite common even without exposure to Agent Orange, so probably a lot of Vietnam vets would have ended up coming down with it anyway, but the VA considered the link to be strong enough that they took responsibility for all of them. Meanwhile, while he didn’t actually end up beating the cancer, he did have several years after the 100% determination when he was, to all appearances, in fine health.

The first one that comes to mind for me is toddlers with bipolar disorder. :smack: That can’t be accurately diagnosed until puberty at the earliest, and adulthood in most cases.

Reminds me of the story about the busybody who berated some lady for parking in handicapped. “You look perfectly fine.” The lady lifted her pant leg, took off her leg, threatened to beat the person with it, and said “I’d kick your butt but I left my other leg in Afghanistan.”

Don’t assume too much negative about what you don’t know.

I work for a private charity that helps people get off public aid and it’s a vastly complex issue that I’ve dealt with for over two decades. I don’t go into details because it is not something that is really explainable via a message board, but I can leave you with this.

First off all you will never live well off of public aid PROVIDED you are doing it honestly. There are many ways to scam systems of public AID and legitimately receive more than you should because there are so many agencies that don’t cross check records.

You can also enter a gray area or a black market and get results as well.

You can also go through private charities, where I can place people in nice apartments because the law mandates so much low income housing with luxury housing mixed.

So yes it’s very possible to see people living large on welfare, but they are doing it by using gray areas, violating it outright or simply combining private help with pubic AID.

I have also seen that government sponsored AID is the worst and rarely helps anyone because it only happens once the person is already too far gone. For instance large cities like NY, Chicago and others have programs that will pay for a month’s rent. But it requires that you are behind in your rent, have been served eviction papers and your landlord agree to stop eviction and take a rent check for one month that my not be issued for 90s days.

Who’s going to agree to that? If a landlord has gone to all the trouble to have a court issue an eviction order, it’s highly unlikely they are going to stop it. And if they person is behind, what makes anyone think getting a check for a single month’s rent three months later is going to help anyone, landlord or renter?

This is what I mean when I say, once a person is in a position to need help, they most often are in a position where it’s too late.

As you can see I’m getting off track but most of the welfare where people are living large are at best gray areas or at worst, just taking advantage of government inefficencies and absolute worst, fraud mixed with crime.

There are quite a number of busybodies out there.

I had parked in a handicapped spot once, sporting a handicapped placard on my review mirror. I hopped out, and as I was going around the car, I got someone coming up to me, telling me that I couldn’t park there, as I was a 23 year old with no health problems.

I ignored them, and got the wheelchair out of the back seat for my grandmother.

Except, think about this- there are lost of scamsters with false placards. Or those who use Grandmas placard when Grandma is at home.

This is a big problem in some areas as legit users cant find a place to park. So, what to do?

Call the police and report the car and then be on your way?

They could have spent 2 seconds to see my grandmother in the passenger seat, or waited another 10 seconds and I would have had the wheelchair out.

Or, you know, mind their own business. If they want to report me to the police, then they could come by and give me a ticket if I was not using it legitimately.

But the getting in people’s face because you think that they are getting something that they do not deserve is just being a busy body to make you feel better about yourself, not in any way to make society a better place, and that’s when you are in the right.

If you are handicapped, and there are no spots available, and you see an able bodied person getting in or out of the car, feel free to yell at them. If they are truly able bodied, you are going to admonish them far more than when another able bodied person complains about parking, and if they are not, and their handicap is not too obvious, then they will not be nearly as offended as they would be when an able bodied person complains about their parking.

So only handicapped get to be busybodies. I see.

It’s just way too easy to be completely wrong about whether someone should or shouldn’t be using a placard. As a for instance, I have a sister with MS. For years she could walk perfectly well into the grocery store, but by the time she came back to the car, her legs would be extremely unsteady. Now she’s in a wheelchair, but she needed the closer parking space earlier.

Yeah, and? If a person feels the need to busybody themselves into what parking space other people are using, they should just report it to the police and go on their way. No need to embarrass a handicapped person or whatever.

Exactly.

If that’s what you took from my post, then sure.

Of course, I did point out other options, like allowing the police to take care of the situation, rather than confronting another person over something that you actually have no knowledge over, and absolutely no authority, in the best case scenario, making yourself look like an asshole, and in the likely case scenario, making yourself look like a stupid asshole.

My point was that if you have a legitimate need for the spot, and the spots are all taken, then you actually do have a legitimate reason to be upset about it.

So, if you want to tl;dr this post, it is that only people with a legitimate need to use handicapped parking spaces that will not come across as assholes if they complain to someone parked there. Anybody can be a busybody, but I don’t recommend it.

Can’t assume you know the whole story. After all, a perfectly healthy person parking in handicapped and going into the store could be going to retrieve grandma who’s been in there shopping for the last half-hour.

I’m pretty sure that where I live, using handicapped space and vehicle ID when the handicapped person is not involved in the trip is a ticket-able offense.

I’m on disability for chronic depression. OTTOMH I get $750 in combined payments from the state and federal governments every month. I get $194 in food stamps every month. I have low co pay for my medications due to medicare and medicaid. But my dental coverage stinks.

I do not have cable (for some reason, many folks think I do).

I do not pay for internet access. A friend gave me permission to use their account to log on to a nearby ISP hotspot. I have to call my sister as she keeps forgetting to set things up so I can watch movies on her netflix account.

It isn’t a terrible existence. But it is living below the poverty line.

I attend a day program for the mentally hilarious. I have been applying for jobs for several years now.