Welfare Bums

Tecumsehsbones

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Mar 18, 2013
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When work isn’t enough to keep you off welfare and food stamps


By Emily Badger April 14

We often make assumptions about people on public assistance, about thewoman in the checkout line with an EBT card, or the family who lives in public housing. We make assumptions about how they spend their resources (irresponsibly?), how they came to rely on aid (lack of hard work?), how they view their own public dependence (as a free ride rather than a humbling one?).

We assume, at our most skeptical, that poor people need help above all because they haven't tried to help themselves — they haven't bothered to find work.

The reality, though, is that a tremendous share of people who rely on government programs designed for the poor in fact work — they just don't make enough at it to cover their basic living expenses. According to the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, 73 percent of peoplewho benefit from major public assistance programs in the U.S. live in a working family where at least one adult earns the household some money.

The problem, according to this picture, isn't that poor people won't work — it's that the work they do can't sustain them. The problem is that more than half of people who work on the front lines of fast food, and nearly half of child-care workers and home health aids, still need government help buying their groceries or covering their medical bills after they get their paychecks.

Share of workers receiving public assistance for the poor, by industry


Share of workers in each field who rely on at least one program among Medicaid/CHIP, TANF, the EITC or food stamps. UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education


That chart, from a new research brief by Ken Jacobs, Ian Perry, and Jenifer MacGillvary at Berkeley, shows the share of workers in each field who also rely on at least one of four major government programs for the poor: food stamps (SNAP), Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, the Earned Income Tax Credit, or income supports through welfare (the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program).

This picture casts the culprit in a different light: Taxpayers are spending a lot of money subsidizing not people who won't work, but industries that don't pay their workers a living wage. Through these four programs alone, federal and state governments spend about $150 billion a year aiding working families, according to the analysis (the authors define people who are working here as those who worked at least 10 hours a week, at least half the year).


This is true of more than half of people on Medicaid, and a third of families on food stamps:

UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education


This data may be its own Rorschach test: Maybe you look at it and see not the third of families on welfare who work, but the two-thirds who don't for various reasons. But the important point here is that it is quite possible to work hard in this country and still need help buying dinner — a fact that says more about the nature of work in America than a shortage of work ethic.

When work isn’t enough to keep you off welfare and food stamps - The Washington Post
 

Tecumsehsbones

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Cliffy

Standing Member
Nov 19, 2008
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I sure do wonder how humanity ever possibly managed to survive before the introduction of the myriad of social services
I'm sure that is a statement by someone who has never seen a hungry day or been incapacitated a day in his life. In the good old days, people starved to death and died horribly agonizing deaths or spent their short lives as slaves. I'm sure you would love to return to those days before humanity dragged itself screaming out of the dark ages.
 

damngrumpy

Executive Branch Member
Mar 16, 2005
9,949
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kelowna bc
Many suffered in silence others just starved to death that is how they got along.
We often talk about the wealth of the the country but most don't see tangible
benefit. WE own the resources of Canada and the people should share the wealth
by means of dividend checks for the sale of resources. In one sense we do they
are called social programs but the amount government receives in nowhere near
the real value of what should be received
 

Tecumsehsbones

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 18, 2013
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Many suffered in silence others just starved to death that is how they got along.
We often talk about the wealth of the the country but most don't see tangible
benefit. WE own the resources of Canada and the people should share the wealth
by means of dividend checks for the sale of resources. In one sense we do they
are called social programs but the amount government receives in nowhere near
the real value of what should be received
I don't know (I mean generally, how Canada divvies up the goodies is up to Canada). I kinda like the "suffer in silence/starve to death" model.
 

EagleSmack

Hall of Fame Member
Feb 16, 2005
44,168
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USA
Many suffered in silence others just starved to death that is how they got along.
We often talk about the wealth of the the country but most don't see tangible
benefit. WE own the resources of Canada and the people should share the wealth
by means of dividend checks for the sale of resources. In one sense we do they
are called social programs but the amount government receives in nowhere near
the real value of what should be received

An old boss of mine decided to strike out on his own and start a new electrical business. He brought a few of the workers with him and they invested a little in the company. Not nearly as much as the boss did but he offered them a stake in the biz. After a couple years the business folded. Why? Because the workers that invested looked at the new company as if they were pre-teens mowing lawns together. When they finished the job they wanted to know the profit margin and divvy it up between them. The boss said that is not how it is done, there is overhead, there is money for supplies, new tools, etc. He told them the profits from the company had to go back in the business for awhile before they start enjoying the profits. The guys all quit together and took all of the tools and supplies with them.

Kapeesh?
 

Twila

Nanah Potato
Mar 26, 2003
14,698
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An old boss of mine decided to strike out on his own and start a new electrical business. He brought a few of the workers with him and they invested a little in the company. Not nearly as much as the boss did but he offered them a stake in the biz. After a couple years the business folded. Why? Because the workers that invested looked at the new company as if they were pre-teens mowing lawns together. When they finished the job they wanted to know the profit margin and divvy it up between them. The boss said that is not how it is done, there is overhead, there is money for supplies, new tools, etc. He told them the profits from the company had to go back in the business for awhile before they start enjoying the profits. The guys all quit together and took all of the tools and supplies with them.

Kapeesh?

so what happens in one instance will happen in every instance?
 

captain morgan

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 28, 2009
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A Mouse Once Bit My Sister
Largely by living in multi-generational families, or in many cases tribes or clans. That structure mostly don't exist these days, so we need other arrangements.

Please don't go Angstrom on us.

It sure begs the question; why has the nuclear family divested itself of being a support mechanism for itself?

PS - In many regards, Angstrom isn't wrong (in my opinion)

I'm sure that is a statement by someone who has never seen a hungry day or been incapacitated a day in his life. In the good old days, people starved to death and died horribly agonizing deaths or spent their short lives as slaves. I'm sure you would love to return to those days before humanity dragged itself screaming out of the dark ages.

You have no clue about me, my past, present, future or the road that has lead me to where I am today.

You can piss and moan all you want about the inequities in life, but that will never be a substitute for taking command of your own future and responsibility for the decisions you have made.

There is nothing more pathetic than an attitude that blames everyone and anything else for the problems that they have either brought on themselves or a lack of vision that now represents regret and anger
 

Cliffy

Standing Member
Nov 19, 2008
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Nakusp, BC
You have no clue about me, my past, present, future or the road that has lead me to where I am today.

You can piss and moan all you want about the inequities in life, but that will never be a substitute for taking command of your own future and responsibility for the decisions you have made.

There is nothing more pathetic than an attitude that blames everyone and anything else for the problems that they have either brought on themselves or a lack of vision that now represents regret and anger
You are right and the same goes for you about me. I am neither angry or destitute. I am doing fine but I still have empathy for those, who through no fault of their own, find themselves in dire straights because I have been there and know what it is like. I do have difficulty understanding someone who seems to have no empathy at all, or at least, that is how your posts come across.
 

gore0bsessed

Time Out
Oct 23, 2011
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36
It sure begs the question; why has the nuclear family divested itself of being a support mechanism for itself?

PS - In many regards, Angstrom isn't wrong (in my opinion)



You have no clue about me, my past, present, future or the road that has lead me to where I am today.

You can piss and moan all you want about the inequities in life, but that will never be a substitute for taking command of your own future and responsibility for the decisions you have made.

There is nothing more pathetic than an attitude that blames everyone and anything else for the problems that they have either brought on themselves or a lack of vision that now represents regret and anger
seriously with this personal responsibility , pick yourself up by your bootstraps horse**** again?
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
108,912
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You are right and the same goes for you about me. I am neither angry or destitute. I am doing fine but I still have empathy for those, who through no fault of their own, find themselves in dire straights because I have been there and know what it is like. I do have difficulty understanding someone who seems to have no empathy at all, or at least, that is how your posts come across.

How does someone end up destitute through no fault of their own?