Posted on 01/28/2013 1:40:39 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Those who work for a living might want to put away shoes, hammers, and other hard objects to keep from throwing them through the computer. A new study shows that on average the government spends $168 per household on various assistance programs, one-fifth more than the median income of $137.
As the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee reported (after all, who else in government is going to do it?), welfare spending per hour per household in poverty is $30.60, which is higher than the $25.03 median income per hour.
The Weekly Standard points out that direct welfare payments are not taxed:
"After accounting for federal taxes, the median hourly wage drops to between $21.50 and $23.45, depending on a household’s deductions and filing status. State and local taxes further reduce the median household’s hourly earnings. By contrast, welfare benefits are not taxed.”
Welfare recipients never had it so good. This is not to say that poor people are rich, or that life is easy for everyone on food stamps or on some other form of government assistance. It’s just that conservatives would rather poor people be working, rather than paying their way through life on other people’s dime (which at this point, is their children’s dime). Work is not only more economically productive, but it offers more opportunity for people to improve their own lot — not to mention that working people are more likely to feel dignity and self-importance.
If welfare is inherently compassionate, then there is a Pavlovian ego-stroke for Congress passing even unsustainable spending programs. On the other hand, conservatives get demonized for suggesting there is so such thing as a budget, and that you can’t keep looting the private sector without negative consequences — like systemically high unemployment...
(Excerpt) Read more at ijreview.com ...
That’s exactly why you don’t leave that choice up to them.
The people paying for the food gets to make the choice as to what they are willing to pay for so you can eat for free.
Families don’t prepare food lay out a “Buffet” so everyone can have their choice of what they want to eat. You eat what’s put on the table. Don’t like it, buy you own food and eat what you want.
Added benefit, that entitlement mentality will disappear.
The associated costs of having our current crop of *cheap laborers* is more expensive than most businesses know or care about. Hard work, self responsibility and self reliance are no longer encouraged or looked up to, by our gov't and 47% of the population.
It wasn’t so much of an entitlement society they were hoping to create as a dependent society.
They also honestly believed only blacks would ever be on welfare and become dependent on the govt.
With all the blacks leaving their jobs to go on welfare there was going to be all these jobs for whites.
My old man was an FDR dem. Voted repub for DED then went back to. dem.
LBJ was the last dem president my old man ever voted for.
Tell your friend to move to Wisconsin. She could truly be a Welfare Queen here.
During my 15 years at the state unemployment office I helped veterans find work about half that time and taught job-seeking classes for welfare and food stamp recipients the other half. I could tell you stories that would curl your hair. And this was in a state with VERY LOW unemployment.
I have bad news for you. They really do hand out free laptops, with a full complement of software and free Internet. And they work just fine. I used to hand them out all the time as a supervisor at the Texas Workforce Center in Dallas. I also gave out gas credit cards, bus passes, Wal-Mart and Target gift cards, cash money, free child care and more...
I understand that you have worked hard and made sacrifices, as have I. My friend also worked hard and made sacrifices, and accomplished some meaningful achievements. She suffered a tragedy when her husband emptied their joint bank account and ran off with another woman. No one saw it coming. They were a great couple, had been together for twenty years.
My friend was left with no assets. Her husband essentially not only took their money, but demolished the business that they built together. She’s in her mid 50s. She had no place to live and is renting a tiny room with no cooking facilities and no appliances, so you see, she can’t cook. Which is quite sad, because she was an excellent cook - I ate at her house often.
You shouldn’t think you know all the answers and be so quick to judge. She is a smart, educated person who is still reeling from the shock of this blow. I hope nothing like this ever happens to you.
None of the above. This is an educated, highly literate person.
Actually, as a person in the arts there were many years that I lived way below the level of welfare.
No, as I wrote in my earlier post, her husband left her and took all their money. She has no pets or tv. She didn’t even have a winter coat, because she had donated the one she had before her husband ran off.
Try to imagine living in a city in a tiny room with no cooking facilities.
Then I don’t see how it’s possible you think no one would choose welfare over work. It’s so common a phenomenon that I feel silly having to explain it. Think of the other end, where people stop working just before their marginal rates go up, so as to avoid jumping brackets. Welfare works the same way, only as a mirror image.
People would break their legs not to have to work, were malingering not so easy under disability and workers’ compensation law, and ever the easier under soon to be Obamacare.
“One of my pet peeves is the first things on the chopping block are defense, military pensions, medicare.”
One of my pet peeves is expecting the taxpayer to tell the difference.
Well, as I wrote, it may be that in the abstract there are more benefits on welfare, given what I see my friend going through, I’d prefer to earn “less” and be able to stop for a bowl of soup on a cold day and be able to buy toilet paper and toothpaste versus trading basic everyday necessities for medical care I might never need or some other alleged benfit.
Well, as I wrote, it may be that in the abstract there are more benefits on welfare, given what I see my friend going through, I’d prefer to earn “less” and be able to stop for a bowl of soup on a cold day and be able to buy toilet paper and toothpaste versus trading basic everyday necessities for medical care I might never need or some other alleged benfit.
She can't work? I'm sorry her husband took off, but sh!t happens. She'd be a lot worse off if she had some catastrophic illness or injury. Sorry good fr buddy, but I'm nearly 70 and I'm still working full time. I see no reason why an able bodied woman in her 50's can't get a job rather than living on the dole.
Very difficult to obtain employment in NY now for anyone over 40. All the menial jobs go to third world immigrants. The jobs that require actual qualifications are scarce. This is a person who ran a business with her husband and made a contribution to society. Overnight her world was destroyed with no warning. I know she will eventually get back on her feet. It seems that you would prefer that she commit suicide if she couldn’t find a job right away.
Why is it that some of the tootsie rolls on FR (like you) can't resist attacking me when I disagree with something you say. Nope . What I would prefer is for her to get off her dead ass get off public asistance and get a job - any job. "All the menial jobs go to third world immigrants." Simply isn't true.
You have to be willing to work for the same wage as our Mexican guest workers, but the jobs are there. I know for a fact that you can find employment if you're willing to lower your standards; your "friend" COULD find work if she were willing to pound the pavement looking and willing to work for less than her previous expectation. She's not looking hard enough and not looking wide enough
The other thing that strikes me as strange is when her husband left did he pack the house in a suitcase and take it with him? What about the business did he pack that up in a suitcase and carry that along too? These are significant assets to which she is entitled to a portion.
Do you live in NYC? Because it is impossible for an educated white woman over 50 to get a menial job - they only hire Hispanics and Asians.
Her husband demolished the business they had - he was an integral part of it, so when he played dead it all fell apart. She had invested everything in her life in what they had - 20 years of total dedication to create what they had.
I guess some things are beyond understanding if you don’t want to understand them.
Not any more. I lived in the north Bronx for a couple of years. I was never so happy to leave a place. Can't get a job in NYC (which I seriously doubt)? MOVE. Oh and BTW I checked the jobs web sites for verizon and AT&T just as a random sample. Quite a few in NYC and I didn't see conditions of minorities only on any of them.
I guess some things are beyond understanding if you don’t want to understand them.
I love unintentional irony.
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