Yer gonna have to help an awful lot of little old ladies across the street to balance out the karmic debt you’re incurring here, bub.
tdn, if he meant “abusive” he can bloody well say “abusive”. It sounds to me like he thinks that “typical” welfare recipients are “abusive”. It sounds very much like a “All welfare recipients are evil – present company excepted, of course” type of thing, and I will not stand for that. My invective stands.
I’ve long since given up on insulting Shodan. He proved long ago that he is subhuman; repeated illustrations of this fact, while interesting, do not generally deserve a serious response.
How many people actually do this, though? I wonder if there are some stats out there that actually show how many people get out of the system on their own, versus how many get a letter in the mail that states they are doing well enough on their own and that they are going to have their benefits discontinued.
I can’t say enough times that I am not totally against welfare of any sorts, just against those who abuse it. My comments are not directly aimed at any one individual, just asking questions and bringing up points that I feel are valid.
I just don’t understand those who feel that they are entitled to it and should not have to prove anything. I also wonder if everyone in America felt this way and we were handing out aid to everyone and their dog, just how we would be better off? How much benefit monies would the poor really get if everyone was getting something? Who should determine who gets what and how much?
Let’s be clear on this. I called you a bully because you reverted to a “crybaby” tactic. That’s not your poor economic ideas, it’s your poor debating technique. Although I suppose it could apply to both.
I called you a busybody because you have the audacity to presuppose you know a stranger’s circumstances better than he himself does, and so you feel you must micromanage said stranger’s life.
How would you enforce the first three?
As for the fourth, you have been given many reasons why this is impractical and counterproductive. Do you have any more reasoned arguments, or will you just concede this point. It is, after all, the point of the thread.
I agree fully. They should feel obligated to spend frugally. In fact, I would bet that most do (and some do not). What I am arguing is what they feel obligated to do and whether they should be forced into compliance are worlds apart.
Does anyone here remember that time ODB (Ol Dirty Bastard) went with MTV cameras to collect his welfare check? Maybe it’s idiots like that who are creating the “welfare abuser” image that so many people have.
I don’t understand your question. Are you asking how many people go off welfare because they filed voluntary terminations as opposed to those who went off because they reported a change that resulted in ineligiblity? Why would that matter? As long as the individual reports their changes promptly, why does it matter whether the individual concluded on their own that they were no longer eligible, or if the state made the calculation for them?
Something which noone has mentioned yet is that if all people on welfare worked, everyone’s salary would decrease dramatically.
I for one am glad that about 6% of a population doesn’t work, it ensures my salary is an okay amount.
I don’t however, enjoy other peoples’ pain and sorrow (even though there are a few who are bludging) and so begrudge noone my tax dollars.
There is also that ‘there but the grace of god go I’ that has already been mentioned. Can’t remember the article but apparently most people are only two pay cheques away from needing welfare help.
But then again, I have lived in countries that provide welfare most of my life - healthcare included.
Probably, you would help your argument if you went out and found some statistics that actually support your position, rather than just bandying about the notion that they “might exist” and there could be “lots” of people who defraud the system.
Just a thought.
it always amuses me in these cases that the only welfare that sparks people’s “we must regulate down to the very rubbings of a penny” bone is direct cash welfare to needy families. things that apparently don’t spark that level of 'but that’s taxpayer $$, mine mine mine" include:
salaries for government officials, including the military (oh, but they earn it - but if your concern is that taxpayer dollars should only be grudgingly spent I’m sure we could find folks who’d work, fight, legislate for less $$ than we’re spending on the current folks).
corporate welfare, including tax incentives of all hues and colors
nonprofit corporate welfare, including tax breaks etc.
farm subsidies
etc.
For those desiring more intrusive measures to check on folks’ activities etc, please explain how one does this w/o incurring yet higher costs to the taxpayer?
I was around for the first round of “Work First” programming (designed to get folks off welfare). I currently work around that system still. The amount spent (and paid to various non profits, for profits, etc) to give assistance to people to get off welfare is substantial. Very.
The problems of poverty are varied, across the nation. IN some cases there simply are a lack of jobs that can sustain a family. IN other cases, the participants lack the skill, or means to get to work, or whatever. There isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ type of answer. and in some cases, it just wasn’t the best solution, either. So for the family of 4, with one adult, with 3 children requiring specialized health care, our state paid a company to ‘help’ this woman find a job. But since her children then required nursing care (Which she had been providing), since they were still on assistance (she couldn’t earn enough to get off), the state was then paying a home health agency more than this woman got in assistance. made perfect sense to somebody.
FWIW, during the years that I ran such a program in an urban setting, the great majority of the folks receiving aid were on assistance for a relatively short while (a couple of years at most), while they got back on their feet after a major catastrohpy (wage earner died, left; serious health crisis of some family member etc.). or were of the sort I just described above.
A brief lesson in social theory:
While arguing about the rights that should be accorded to the poor vs ‘The Rest’ (who have more claim to citizenship by virtue of their bank account), some of the mechanisms that encourage economic/social stratification might bear mentioning here.
Capitalism relies for its very existence on the presence of an ‘underclass’, a disposable labour force that serves to keep the capitalist cogs turning. Apart from being available for times of economic boom, the presence of an underclass tempers the value of wages for the working-folk by the implicit threat that “if YOU won’t work for these wages, there is always someone out there who WILL”. This keeps the value of labour down, and the profit for employers higher than it would otherwise be. Full-employment spells disaster for capitalism: it is best to have a compliant workforce AND a subjugated and pathetically grateful ‘reserve army’.
Having a ‘welfare class’ to scapegoat provides the function of averting criticism away from the ‘system’: it’s those damned poor people who are fucking things up for the taxpayer, not the phenomenal profits that are amassed by corporations and their stockholders. While you’re picking on the right to eat McDonalds or go to a movie, the real wastrels of collective wealth are those who ship their funds offshore to tax-havens like the Bahamas etc. They ‘suck’ the system dry, then return nothing (unless it is to reinvest so that they can repeat the process again). Or those that wreak environmental devastation, then move to another country without cleaning up the mess.
Poverty IS cyclic and it is very difficult to break the patterns. Just like wealth is cyclic, and is perpetuated generation after generation. That you, dear Shodan have managed to break the manacles of poverty is wonderful. However, opportunities for the poor are limited by a number of factors. I’m not sure what the situation is in the US, but here in Australia, there is an incredibly punitive effective-tax that applies to people trying to check out of the welfare system. The transition period can be so difficult (up to 70% ETR and without the resources to tide you over) that many people give up…NOT preferring to stay on benefits, but because they could not survive otherwise. It is very difficult to have foresight when you are just trying to survive day to day.
A decent social-security system is the hallmark of a civilised society. There are always some, who by virtue of disability etc, who will never contribute to the taxation system, and there are those who are there temporarily. But these people DO contribute to the economic well-being of the state. They consume goods and services that provide YOU with work, and by their absence from the work-queues, assures you some (relative) security of employment. YOU are able to maintain a job and enjoy some decent standard of living BECAUSE there are those who can’t.
;j
Hogwash. His emotional and mental preparations were JUST as crucial to his successful interview as his suit and internet search. Perhaps even more so if he’d spent a year and a half in an unsuccessful attempt.
Oh for CRYING OUT LOUD. People make stupid decisions all the time that effect all of us, not just those on welfare.
Some joker makes a wrong turn and crashes his car? He could be the richest person in the area, and he’s just cost everyone who got stuck in the traffic jam both time and money. We could go even higher, our lovely reps and congress cost us money all the time by making stupid decisions (I don’t think I’ll get slapped too terribly much by saying that they just might be the biggest offenders when it comes to wasting our money).
Much of what you’ve written regarding being poor, clawing your way up, etc is laudable, but you need to understand that the psychological element is JUST as valid and necessary as the financial ones.
And there IS difference between those that abuse the system and those that make choices to occasionally treat themselves, and give those that have the sense to make decent choices despite being poor and on the system, the benefit of the doubt.
Please note, I am NOT saying that I don’t agree with the imposing of restrictions for those on welfare, I do agree with it. I just don’t agree with the “those that are poor are scum who deserve only swill” mentality.
Welfare was intended to be a temporary assistance to help get people back on their feet after unforeseen circumstances, it was never intended to be a career. Since there ARE so many more of the people that abuse the system than those who use it for its intended purpose, making it as unpleasant as possible, at least at this point, seems to be an effective tool to begin weaning some “lifers” off of it and into a productive life.
I would like to see a cite for this please.
Cheers. 
OMG…I don’t think I would have been quite so polite about the request for a cite on such an assertion AiW. 
Hey Canvas, have you got ANYTHING to back this up…although stuff pulled out of your bum does not count, OK?
yeh, what Kambuckta said - I maybe simplified it too much in my post?
Cite please? As to how many are on the system legitimately, and how many are abusing the system, or using it as a career/lifestyle?
I too have been on the system, and my little sister worked in my towns welfare department for many years. If we are comparing what we, you and I, have seen in our personal lives, I can come up with just as many examples of the “bad ones” (note, the quotes are there for a reason), as you can of the “good ones”.
As to the rest of your statement, if you’d read ALL of my post instead of having a kneejerk reaction to one line, you’d see that NO, I wasn’t saying that AT ALL.
[QUOTEPeople with good life management skills tend, by and large, not to wind up on welfare, or not to stay there very long. Therefore, almost by definition, those off welfare will tend to know a good deal more about how to have a successful life than those on welfare.[/QUOTE]
You are unbeLIEVably wrong here. During my miserable experience with being on welfare, it was because I had a great deal of experience and education that I was put through hell on the system.
First off, I lived in a town in which there was 45% unemployment (that’s those that were still receiving UE benefits, and didn’t count those who’d exhausted their benefits and were turning to welfare, odd jobs, cripes, selling drugs for all I know).
Because of my education and work background, I was put on every blasted little “training” program that was available. The workers just didn’t believe that someone with my skills couldn’t find a job. They had me driving to idiotic classes that taught me how to write a resume (I’d actually TAUGHT resume writing at the company I’d worked at previous to this downturn in my economic status).
All the trainers kept sending back “overqualified” or “not necessary for this applicant” and they kept sending me to courses. I was working as well, part time, but in the area in which I lived, there weren’t many jobs. I finally ended up moving back to the city (which I was dying to do anyway, but that’s beside the point).
At any rate, I had EXCELLENT, by the words of the Welfare department workers “overqualified” job and life skills, and due to circumstances beyond my control (like the bottom of the market falling out of the industry in which I’d just spent 2 years of college) I ended up on welfare anyway.
I’m for welfare reform too, but your smug attitude is NOT part of the solution, it’s part of the problem.
From news, various psy today (one of my fave mags) studies, sorry no online links. I’m sure there are some, and I’d be more than happy to read if anyone else has those, but to answer your question mine are just from my personal experiences and what I’ve read.
Regarding the initial beginnings of the welfare system, I stated this earlier in the thread, but I’ll repeat it. IIRC it was initially started to help those who were financially devastated during the great depression ( I don’t remember if it was begun during, or right after).
What I meant by “what’s it’s turned into” is both that it’s been used by too many people as a lifestyle or “career” choice, and that in turn makes it horrible, miserable and shameful for those who ARE using it in the way it was originally intended.
I meant it as one who has GONE shopping at 3am because it was so horrible to use food stamps. At least in my experience.
according to this, less than 20% of welfare recipients are on for more than 5 years. Many are on for less than a year (19%), with over half (53.5%) staying on for two years or less.
From my experience working w/the system, the one who were on for multiple years had, (in addition to some catestrophic event, such as loss of major wage earner through death, divorce or incarceration/abandonment), children with disabilities of various ranges.
this does not suggest that there aren’t any people who misuse the system, but if more than half are only on for a couple of years, it does suggest that for the great majority, it’s a temporary stop gap, not a way of life.
Psssssssssst I’m a SHE! And thanks for pointing out that I was using quotes and explaining what that meant!!! Yes, I meant the quotes in the way that you’ve explained here.
Yep. While my resume got me in the door, the suit got me looked at and my attitude got me hired. And a bit of personal empowering the night before did a world of good in that last aspect. Shodan considers it a shameful waste. I consider it an investment that has paid off many times over.
And Shodan, if you’ve got some helpful hints on machine washing a suit so it looks like a professionally cleaned one (as opposed to looking like a used rag) there are many of us eager for your advice on that.