Why the Poor Don't Work, According to the Poor

The Atlantic ^ | 09/24/2013 | JORDAN WEISSMANN

[kabumpo]

“cut and dried”

[kabumpo]

Again, for you suburb and farm dwellers - many people living in cities do not have access to cooking facilities or refrigeration.

[GeronL]

??

[TangoLimaSierra]

How about we tell all welfare recipients that their benefits will be cut by 75% in 6 months. However, a recipient can donate their benefits to another. We'd have wives, mothers, parents, etc. pressuring the ones who can work to get a job. Since the benefits would not be enough to live on there would be incentive to do just that.

Of course, knowing who we're dealing with it is just as likely the sponges would make their folks/wives go get a job.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I think he meant take away the vote from those receiving public assistance checks from the government, not employees or military who do actual jobs and get paychecks for their work.

[robowombat]

.one reason government is to be feared. Once dis-robed of self-respect (think New Orleans & Katrina) the government takes over.....welfare is an awful cancer if misused.

Worse than you think. I live in the Swamp State and one has to actually live here a few years to realize the deeply ingrained pathologies that stateism and paternalistic regimes engender. The ghetto blacks in South Luisiana (not just in NOLA but Houma or Baton Rouge) are absolutely the most depraved and dehumanized lot of people imaginable. However the cultural poison is very widespread among whites. This is the anti-achievement society where individuals grow up being programmed by their families and culture to be ambitionless and expect some larger group whether it is family, state or the feds are supposed to ‘help’ them s they are just ‘poor folks’ and ‘can't do no better’. One fairly prominent figure in the parish i live in described it as ‘many people here spend a lot of time and effort to become failures.’ The culture informally but strongly teaches reliance on family, church or state rather than oneself along with a heavy dose of self pity and most disturbing a complete or pretty complete lack of sense of boundaries. People I have dealt with regularly mix business dealings with persona relationships. The recent and ongoing massive scandal in the US Attorney's Office relates directly to this lack of sense of boundaries. The ranking assistant US Attorney Judy Mann and a very senior attorney Sal Perricone contributed thousands of blog posts to the Ne Orleans Times Picayune blog site devoted to comment on ongoing criminal prosecutions they were handling. This has blown up and the verdicts in the Danziger Bridge shootings have been overturned and retrial will be very difficult as prosecutorial misconduct was so gross it also sank the prosecution of the real kingpin of corruption in Jefferson Parrish Fred Hebe and will probably do the same to the prosecution of former NOLA mayor Ray Nagin.

This is what three centuries of stateism does to a population. This is a south Louisiana phenomenon. Visit Shreveport and its like being in east Texas. None of that nonsense there.

[fredhead]

I know, was just yanking a chain.....yank,yank

[Oatka]

If you're a liberal, your answer is probably pretty cut and dry, and these days likely involves the word 'recession.'

What was their excuse before the 'recession'?

[Yaelle]

I’m not reading the article. I know how Atlantic plays the violin.

Look, when you ask someone what the reason is that they don’t work, they will look to find an excuse. Of course they have a health problem, everyone does! Not pooh-poohing people with true disabilities that keep them from working. But some will make an excuse for the same shoulder injury that doesn’t sideline many other people. Or ADHD. Or PTSD. Some are genuinely disabled and I want to pay for their safe upkeep!!

Also the family reason. I can’t work because I care for children or parents or siblings who n need care. Well, are you Being supported by a different relative? Then you shouldn’t count in this study! And if not, are you in a terrible bind? Then I want to help with my tax dollars. You are alone to care for a handicapped son and a parent with alzheimers? I want to help you. But if you have a few young adults hanging around, not working, and you have a three year old from a wild affair you had, I’m less sympathetic. Three kids from three baby daddies, plus substance abuse? Not sympathetic. And there are hardworking people who have those same setups that still work somehow. These hard workers are being punished when you get your goodies.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: What was their excuse before the ‘recession’?

Didn’t the Obama administration tell us that the recession ended sometime in 2010?

[dglang]

I was forced to retire at 55 due to injuries I had received in the army back in the mid 60s. I am very smart and even owned my own consulting company at the time. however since I am under heavy narcotic pain medication I am considered unemployable by any company which requires drug testing and even though the law makes that illegal to do, it still happens anyway.

I am a very talented individual in my field holding such titles as Systems Specialist (equal to Senior Systems Analyst), and Systems Engineer.

Unfortunately due to both my health problems and extremely poor employment opportunities it is impossible for me to even try to be employed. My current age of 68 also precludes me from getting a job.

When I was forced into retirement at 55, I was eligible to receive Social Security Disability but it took FIVE years of fighting the Social Security Admin before an Administrative Law Judge declared me totally disabled and I was finally awarded benefits back to the last day worked. When I received full retirement age I was converted to regular Social Security retirement pay.

Even though I have been living in constant pain for MANY years now both the SSA and the VA have totally dedicated themselves to not giving me the benefits which I am entitled to.

I first filed for both Social Security disability and VA compensation back in 1992 when I was out of work due to being disabled for over a year.

[imardmd1]

“cut and dried”

I agree. Though I didn't write the original text, I was a little perplexed, and decided not to make that change inasmuxh as already liberties were already being taken. But if I were seriously quoting, it would gave been ", , . cut and dry (sic) . . .", n'estce pas?

Grammar, idiom, and syntax Naziism is OK with me. I like good expression.

[imardmd1]

Anh I really ought to recheck my own through before posting . . .

[kabumpo]

Then please don’t call it Nazism.

[imardmd1]

Then please don’t call it Nazism.

I think it is when it is forced on someone else.

Your comment was in reference to the author's writing of the article. So was mine, but in a different way. I was employing a little sarcasm on the author's line of thought, not his/her proficiency in writing as yours was.

What you were doing offerinhg an unsolicited editorial correction, which here bears the connotation that I gave it. Capisce?

[kabumpo]

Proficiency in writing is the same as a line of thought.
Critical commentary does not constitute Nazism - or even being mean - except to the quasi-literate, who have no critical faculties.

[imardmd1]

Proficiency in writing does not constitute incisiveness in thinking. In fact, they may perhaps not even be correlated. And the commenter in FR who wishes fame based on proficiency in spelling, punctuation, or colloquialism is likely to be greatly disappointed.

That is why my original little squib was germane to the thrust of the article, and your response to that was not.

Sieg heil!

[imardmd1]

Then please don’t call it Nazism

Because of the pronunciation, I prefer to use the alternatively acceptable spelling Naziism, eh? Take your pick.

[kabumpo]

There can be no proficiency in thinking without proficiency in writing. Only an apologist for semi-illiteracy would characterize having standards about the use of the language we speak and write as having to do with Nazism.