Mom ends up single (again). Might be because boyfriend/hubby was a worthless jerk, he might be in jail, have died, whatever.
Maybe he just got laid off and she, seeking help was told by the social services people that as long as he was home she wouldn't get any benefits, so she finds a reason to kick him out (easy to do or provoke).
She can't pay the bills. Goes to get help and they set her up. Subsidized housing, food stamps, medicaid, check every month. That's the needle.
Now try to work out of that.
If she makes too much, the benefits she loses are worth multiples of the extra she might make.
She can't afford to quit welfare, short of finding 'the right guy' and getting out of the projects.
She can't work, or she'll make too much.
Chances of finding the 'right guy': slim to none--she's in the projects, and few worthwhile guys are shopping there for a lifelong mate.
Add a couple of generations to that, with no guy there to serve as a role model, nothing to instill a work ethic, and surrounded by negative role models, and there is a parasitic mindset, determined to get the benefits they deserve. Multigenerational welfare recipients know the rule book better than the people who administer the programs. A work ethic, at that point, is for suckas, when there is cash to be made on the side dealing, pimping, whatever.
A different set of 'values' creeps in and takes root--and it has.
For those of us raised in families where going on Welfare is still considered as warmly as the plague, yes, the work ethic persists, but it is being bulldozed in sectors of America, along with the factories and jobs that used to be here, and in some areas, the parasitic mindset is endemic.
Yes, but there are millions of “negroes” who take advantage of their freedom and work, with millions in their own business. So Cliven generalized about a minority of blacks which sounded quite racist.