What Are my neighbors having for dinner?

[gritsar]

There are a few states taking steps to stop the abuses of the welfare system. Florida wants to drug test welfare recipients. I'm all for that. I don't know how many times I've been drug tested in order to qualify for a job. And one that I consider even better - Michigan's legislature just recently passed a 4 year cap on welfare benefits. Four years seems like plenty of time to pull yourself up by your boot straps and stand on your own two feet if you ask me.

The first year I lived in Arkansas I lived on $600 a month, with no food stamps, no welfare benefits, nothing. And yes, now I am receiving SSDI - that's social security disability insurance which is different from SSI (supplemental security insurance). The difference? I qualified for the SSDI by paying into the system from the time I was 16; actually started working at 14. With SSI you don't have to ever pay into the system to qualify. I know alot more people on SSI than on SSDI; including a friends common law husband that has never worked (it would cut into his beer drinking time). He gets SSI, medicaid, food stamps, utilities and housing assistance (they got his sister to sign a paper saying they are paying rent to her when they don't). The government doesn't consider friend's $14/hr. wages because they aren't legally married.

If the system is ever going to work for the people who really need it the abuses have got to be stopped, somehow.

 

[Tanichca]

And there's another thing... It matters who you marry. I would think that if you shack up or marry someone with no desire to work... Well, you are pretty much doomed to be on welfare, because if only one person is workig, and both parties are uneducated (as is often the case with couples who start living with each other fresh out of high school, or anyone without at least a diploma) than the amount of money they get is not nearly enough to support them and the inevietable children that will come along. Which is why one should always wait until you can stand on your own two feet, have a college degree, and a way to make enough money to support a family, before one gets hitched. Just MHO.

 

[ladyride]

I think what hurts me the most welfare original design was setup for temporarily assistance, but we currently have generations living on it. I really hate grocery shopping on the 1st of the month. I watch our geriatric population with skimpy amts of food in their carts often having to put back some things they cannot afford, while folks are filling their carts with junk food 12 pack sodas , cookies , chips, no meat, pasta, veggies using food stamps. Here is folks who paid for the system they can not even use, it is a shame really. On more than one occasion I have told the clerk to run it thru & pay the extra for them, it usually isn't more than 5 bucks.
I know there is people are out there who really need assistance especially now in the current economic environment we currently live in. The shame of it is alot of these people have worked for most of their lives paying into & can't get any kind of benefit. Where is the justice in that ?? I know there is abuses of our social systems but in many ways we are cutting off our noses to spite our faces. You can't keep giving benefits to people who have never paid into it or come here just to get them. ( But that is another rant ).
There needs to be a definite overhaul of the system to eliminate some of the abusers. But this is indeed complicated matter to even begin to start. The business model needed to do so is way above my capacity to understand.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
Some states have flimsy laws in effect to address part of that problem. You can't get public housing because you are convicted felon? That's okay, just shack up with someone that's not and you can live in public housing together. In the small town DH works in the police handle at least one call a week concerning trouble in the public housing complex. The majority of the time it's not the qualified resident that's the problem; it's their ex con boyfriend, girlfriend, friend, whatever that's living there without being a registered tenant.

 

[xchairity_casex]

Quote:
yup thats welfare for you it took us FOREVER to get off and be on our own and i do mean forever for those very reasons and i totally agree with drug testing! people on welfare should NOT be allowed to be on drugs (exception for people with illnesses like cancer patients)
when we were on welfare all we needed were food stamps toward the end but in order to be on food stamps you had to go thru what was called MI works program where every week you had to turn in a list of places you put in your application untill you found a job. that was fine by me even though i was 16 and most people wouldnt hire me ok i did it i went out every week to ask about aj ob and put in my application. we didnt own a car and pretty soon the bussinesses in town started yelling at me for coming around every week becuase this is a small town so pretty soon i was getting in trouble for not leaving town but i didnt have ANY transportaion then pretty soon instead of 10 places every week i HAD to have 20 places there are not even 20 bussinesess in this town! i explained that to them EVERY WEEK i was critisized i was called lazy by the women in charge who i took my paper into every week i was 16 rember and i would walk in and explain to her that i was not allowed back into some places i still am not for that i was even trying to applicastion into the bars. and every week i would turn in my paper and every week i was told things like "really? you expect this to be good enough? your so lazy i better not call this place to hear your lieing to me about this, this is disgusting your disgusting......." if i talked back to ehr she could report me and have my whole family kicked off food stamps so i kept my mouth shut and did the best i could but eventually we were kicked off anyways becuase i could not get a ride into another town to get job reports.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

The system was originally designed to help women with children because it was universally accepted that women whose men had left or died needed society's help. Then women with children began working in droves and they got mad at the welfare women who "got to be home" with their kids.

Look at the real stats of people on welfare - most people do not stay on it for life, very few states even have welfare for longer than a few years anymore. Most women on welfare have 2 or 3 kids, most were married at some point and most do get back on their feet again.

EVERYONE knows people who abuse "the system" Name me a system and I will find you some one who will abuse it. Bad teachers, lazy union employees, rotten bosses and shyster banksters.

When you throw all of the corporations who are getting tax welfare off those roles then I will worry about Rosy down the block ripping off the system for a couple hundred a month. Look to the corporations that rip off the system for millions of dollars a year. Talk about eating steak and lobster on your dime! Free market my aunt fannie's bonnet.

 

[Orchid]

I have WHAT in my yard? :

The system was originally designed to help women with children because it was universally accepted that women whose men had left or died needed society's help. Then women with children began working in droves and they got mad at the welfare women who "got to be home" with their kids.

Look at the real stats of people on welfare - most people do not stay on it for life, very few states even have welfare for longer than a few years anymore. Most women on welfare have 2 or 3 kids, most were married at some point and most do get back on their feet again.

EVERYONE knows people who abuse "the system" Name me a system and I will find you some one who will abuse it. Bad teachers, lazy union employees, rotten bosses and shyster banksters.

When you throw all of the corporations who are getting tax welfare off those roles then I will worry about Rosy down the block ripping off the system for a couple hundred a month. Look to the corporations that rip off the system for millions of dollars a year. Talk about eating steak and lobster on your dime! Free market my aunt fannie's bonnet.

 

[ChickenAlgebra]

I have WHAT in my yard? :

The system was originally designed to help women with children because it was universally accepted that women whose men had left or died needed society's help. Then women with children began working in droves and they got mad at the welfare women who "got to be home" with their kids.

Look at the real stats of people on welfare - most people do not stay on it for life, very few states even have welfare for longer than a few years anymore. Most women on welfare have 2 or 3 kids, most were married at some point and most do get back on their feet again.

EVERYONE knows people who abuse "the system" Name me a system and I will find you some one who will abuse it. Bad teachers, lazy union employees, rotten bosses and shyster banksters.

When you throw all of the corporations who are getting tax welfare off those roles then I will worry about Rosy down the block ripping off the system for a couple hundred a month. Look to the corporations that rip off the system for millions of dollars a year. Talk about eating steak and lobster on your dime! Free market my aunt fannie's bonnet.

x2

I worked in Unemployment. Yes, there are people who abuse the system. No doubt.

There are also many more people who do NOT abuse the system and are using the services provided to get by until they can find a job. UI in my state paid 1/2 of your weekly income.

Yes, DH and I have 10 biological kids and 1 foster kid. We get told frequently we could qualify for assistance. Sure, by the numbers, we can. But we also don't NEED to, so we don't apply. However, given the twins are newborns, we are strongly considering WIC for the first year or two. I can't physically nurse the babies, and I don't pump that much - I'm all but positive we'll need formula, and that's just going to make it VERY tight.

But we are just considering it.

Also, having worked in UI - you commit fraud, you will get found out. Yes, it may not be tomorrow, but it will get out there. Either the wages show up or you piss someone off who reports you.​

 

[australorpchick]

Quote:

x2

I worked in Unemployment. Yes, there are people who abuse the system. No doubt.

There are also many more people who do NOT abuse the system and are using the services provided to get by until they can find a job. UI in my state paid 1/2 of your weekly income.

Yes, DH and I have 10 biological kids and 1 foster kid. We get told frequently we could qualify for assistance. Sure, by the numbers, we can. But we also don't NEED to, so we don't apply. However, given the twins are newborns, we are strongly considering WIC for the first year or two. I can't physically nurse the babies, and I don't pump that much - I'm all but positive we'll need formula, and that's just going to make it VERY tight.

But we are just considering it.

Also, having worked in UI - you commit fraud, you will get found out. Yes, it may not be tomorrow, but it will get out there. Either the wages show up or you piss someone off who reports you.

Okay, I'm probably going to be very disliked by this, but since you put it out there I've got to respond. I applaud that you have resisted receiving any support, but I completely disagree with you even considering receiving any now. You chose to have 11 kids. The rest of the taxpayers had no choice in the matter.

 

[Orchid]

Quote:

x2

I worked in Unemployment. Yes, there are people who abuse the system. No doubt.

There are also many more people who do NOT abuse the system and are using the services provided to get by until they can find a job. UI in my state paid 1/2 of your weekly income.

Yes, DH and I have 10 biological kids and 1 foster kid. We get told frequently we could qualify for assistance. Sure, by the numbers, we can. But we also don't NEED to, so we don't apply. However, given the twins are newborns, we are strongly considering WIC for the first year or two. I can't physically nurse the babies, and I don't pump that much - I'm all but positive we'll need formula, and that's just going to make it VERY tight.

But we are just considering it.

Also, having worked in UI - you commit fraud, you will get found out. Yes, it may not be tomorrow, but it will get out there. Either the wages show up or you piss someone off who reports you.

Okay, I'm probably going to be very disliked by this, but since you put it out there I've got to respond. I applaud that you have resisted receiving any support, but I completely disagree with you even considering receiving any now. You chose to have 11 kids. The rest of the taxpayers had no choice in the matter.

So WIC is only for people who chose to have one or two kids? I guess we could try limiting people to one kid per family but that hasn't worked out so well in China.

I also feel obligated to point out that ChickenAlgebra and her husband were well prepared to provide for ONE more child, but instead they got TWO. Surprise! Twice the formula costs!