The average crazy check isn’t that much; maybe $300-$500 per month. It’s from Social Security disability, and SSD is based on how much you put in during your working life. You can go to the Social Security Administration website, and if you have an account you can look up what your expected monthly disability payout would be if you were declared disabled.
Since most of the urban recipients never paid in a dime, their payouts are fairly low. However, you have to look at the loosely associated “welfare unit” as it exists in the inner city. The “welfare unit” membership varies over time, but you can look at it as the same family unit as a herd of elephants. It is a matriarchy run by the grandmother, and the female membership will be fairly constant of the grandmother and one or more of her daughters, and the associated grandchildren. When the male grandchildren reach a certain age, they will begin moving around to different “herds.” They bring their crazy money with them as additional income to the “welfare unit.”
I know I will be missing some benefits, but look at a typical situation:
1. Grandmother, who receives social security and medicare or medicaid.
1a. Current male companion of grandmother, who either also receives social security or disability.
2. Daughter #1; who has four children, and for each child she receives TANF, Medicaid and Food Stamps. She may also receive her own disability. The children also get free/reduced breakfast and lunches, year round. She also has subsidized housing.
2a; Current male companion of Daughter #1, who receives disability check;
3. Daughter #2; who has three children, all receiving the same, including her own allotment for subsidized housing;
3a. Current male companion of Daughter #2. He may not receive a disability check, but he gets money from drug dealing or from the occasional cash odd job. Or he participates in a theft ring and brings in additional cash that way.
4. Two older male grandchildren of another son or daughter who receive crazy money.
Add up all the different people and the various sources of income, all either government, illegal, or unreported, and you get a fairly sizeable monthly income. It’s not a nuclear family. It’s not even tribal. It’s more like an animal herding relationship.
And you pay for it.
Right.
Because only a chump would keep working at a low-wage job that requires no skill or education. That would be degrading.