The Welfare Trap -- 21st Century Slavery

[CriticalThought]

A lot of the people who stay in them are "supposedly" poor, elderly (understandable), have a disability (sometimes a bs disability).
I've visited these places several times, seen the inside of a few and I personally wouldn't call them poor or disabled, in the traditional sense.

Because you can tell a paraoid schizophrenic or developmentally delayed person by sight alone?

I have no doubt that there are people who fleece the system, but they are a very small minority in society. What Maggie was arguing was that the welfare system is a virtual utopia for any teenage girl who wants to live every working mother's dream of staying home with her children. Do you want to agree with her initial assessment?

Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and couple more, can't remember them all off the top of my head.
The IRS payment tables are listed on the internet.

Oooookay. I'll have to go look it up.

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

Because you can tell a paraoid schizophrenic or developmentally delayed person by sight alone?

No more specifically, I'm talking about the people who are morbidly obese, which is a problem than can be cured, but are further enabled by the system.
Something I take issue with.

I have no doubt that there are people who fleece the system, but they are a very small minority in society. What Maggie was arguing was that the welfare system is a virtual utopia for any teenage girl who wants to live every working mother's dream of staying home with her children. Do you want to agree with her initial assessment?

I don't think she's arguing that at all, but in my experience people use the welfare system, as a lifestyle and not an emergency safety net.
People frequently beat the checks on the system by, not getting married and hiding assets.

Oooookay. I'll have to go look it up.

This should be it for 09 taxes.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p596.pdf

 

[CriticalThought]

No more specifically, I'm talking about the people who are morbidly obese, which is a problem than can be cured, but are further enabled by the system.
Something I take issue with.

That is a specific issue with welfare.

I don't think she's arguing that at all, but in my experience people use the welfare system, as a lifestyle and not an emergency safety net.
People frequently beat the checks on the system by, not getting married and hiding assets.

Agreed. States need to do more to assess who truly does and does not need welfare. But does that negate the need for welfare? As I said before, no system is perfect. We can only find ways to make the system less imperfect or propose entirely new systems.

This should be it for 09 taxes.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p596.pdf

I'll give it a look over.

 

[MaggieD]

Because you can tell a paraoid schizophrenic or developmentally delayed person by sight alone?

I have no doubt that there are people who fleece the system, but they are a very small minority in society. What Maggie was arguing was that the welfare system is a virtual utopia for any teenage girl who wants to live every working mother's dream of staying home with her children. Do you want to agree with her initial assessment? Oooookay. I'll have to go look it up.

What I can tell you with certainty is that many teen-aged girls at Clemente High School in Chicago look at pregnancy as their career objective. This information comes from two family members who teach there. I trust their assessment, as they are both quite liberal. ;-) Maybe it's for a five-year vacation...? I'm not at all yet convinced that TANF is the only public assistance check available to children. That is very difficult for me to believe, Critical. Are you saying, just to clarify, that a mom with three young kids has five years to get her act together and she's through? What happens to the children? You seem to know whereof you speak, Critical. What's the deal? (Unfortunately, web-searching is fruitless unless one wants to wade through pages/pages/pages. Again unfortunately, the people who want to take advantage of all the public assistance available to them or to their children know exactly how to access it.)

 

[MaggieD]

I have no doubt that there are people who fleece the system, but they are a very small minority in society. What Maggie was arguing was that the welfare system is a virtual utopia for any teenage girl who wants to live every working mother's dream of staying home with her children. Do you want to agree with her initial assessment?

Actually, my point was that poor families are incentivized to remain poor. Whether on purpose or by accident...Go back and read my initial post again.

 

[CriticalThought]

Actually, my point was that poor families are incentivized to remain poor. Whether on purpose or by accident...Go back and read my initial post again.

I was going by this statement....

Do you realize that these welfare moms have what every working gal would cherish? The opportunity to stay at home with their kids? There's something wrong there, I think.

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

That is a specific issue with welfare.

Well, I also have a family member who is "disabled" but they have the ability to make trips to events that can be more abusive on your body than traditional work would do.

I encounter the "disabled" obese on a regular basis and I find it frustrating that we pay them to have artificial legs because their mobility is diminished because of their "disability."
Partially because obesity is becoming a protected class.

There is a lot of fraud and waste in this.

Agreed. States need to do more to assess who truly does and does not need welfare. But does that negate the need for welfare? As I said before, no system is perfect. We can only find ways to make the system less imperfect or propose entirely new systems.

This is a particularly big problem.
I know several people who are on food stamps, medicaid, etc but earn a dual household income.
They merely don't have to be officially married to get it.

The state never checks on their household status but instead takes their word for it, even if the numbers don't add up.

I also have guys that have access to company medical insurance at $20 a month, with free well child care but opt to get their children on medicaid, instead.
It's just wrong.

I'll give it a look over.

It's just the EITC table but there is another Child Tax Credit, which I think is worth an additional $500 per child.

 

[CriticalThought]

What I can tell you with certainty is that many teen-aged girls at Clemente High School in Chicago look at pregnancy as their career objective. This information comes from two family members who teach there. I trust their assessment, as they are both quite liberal. ;-)

Sounds like that high school has a problem. Why did you generalize it to the entire United States.

Maybe it's for a five-year vacation...?

Five lost years of experience, wage increases, payments into Social Security, building credit, and savings for retirement. Not to mention losing a lot of opportunity to provide the best future you can for any of your own children and living a very minimalistic lifestyle.

I'm not at all yet convinced that TANF is the only public assistance check available to children. That is very difficult for me to believe, Critical. Are you saying, just to clarify, that a mom with three young kids has five years to get her act together and she's through? What happens to the children? You seem to know whereof you speak, Critical. What's the deal? (Unfortunately, web-searching is fruitless unless one wants to wade through pages/pages/pages. Again unfortunately, the people who want to take advantage of all the public assistance available to them or to their children know exactly how to access it.)

AFDC was replaced by TANF. That was the biggest reform of the welfare system in like 50 years and it was done specifically to alleviate the kind of problems you are describing. I know of no other federal assistance program for what you describe. There is CACFP which will provide food for kids in homeless shelters, after school programs, and day care centers.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Every state is different. You are going to have to talk to someone in Illinois who knows the system.

 

[CriticalThought]

There is a lot of fraud and waste in this.

Agreed, but that is the reality of any entitlement program.

This is a particularly big problem.
I know several people who are on food stamps, medicaid, etc but earn a dual household income.
They merely don't have to be officially married to get it.

The state never checks on their household status but instead takes their word for it, even if the numbers don't add up.

That is true. The current system can incentivize young women to not get married. I have pondered ways that this could be reformed.

I also have guys that have access to company medical insurance at $20 a month, with free well child care but opt to get their children on medicaid, instead.
It's just wrong.

I'm not sure of their situation, so I can't comment on whether it is wrong or not.

It's just the EITC table but there is another Child Tax Credit, which I think is worth an additional $500 per child.

It's a tax credit. It's $500 you don't have to pay in taxes. How does that help people who are so poor they already don't pay taxes?

 

[Orion]

The OP is disingenuous. Welfare is not slavery. There is no requirement to repay, even through indentured servitude. Many entitlement programs come with job training and counseling to try and address the reasons why the person can't work. What is the alternative? No welfare? People being poor beggars in the streets and therefore "slaves" to actual poverty? The life span you talk about for blacks... it would surely be lower without assistance.

To make welfare unnecessary is to lower the financial barriers to things like education, job training programs, and make health care more affordable. When those things happen, welfare rates will decline. Social mobility is at an all time low in America (and much of the western world), and the divide between rich and poor is growing faster than expected. Corporations are becoming the only true global citizens, but humans are not allowed to move freely with them across borders. Jobs are being exported to where people can be exploited. Address that, and you will address welfare as well.

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

Agreed, but that is the reality of any entitlement program.

True, but there needs to be serious reform in it.

That is true. The current system can incentivize young women to not get married. I have pondered ways that this could be reformed.

That's the hard part.
You'd have to be pretty invasive to get it that way.

I'm not sure of their situation, so I can't comment on whether it is wrong or not.

I'm pretty familiar with their lives, costs of living and a lot of it is wasted on vice.
It would fume most people to know that, their tax money goes to that.

It's a tax credit. It's $500 you don't have to pay in taxes. How does that help people who are so poor they already don't pay taxes?

It's a refundable tax credit.

So if your tax liability is $0, any refundable credits your eligible for are payed to you, above that zero threshold.

 

[CriticalThought]

Yup, poverty is pretty much the key factor to every societal problem. If there were a magic bullet that could cure poverty, then everything from homeless rates to infant mortality would improve for the better.

 

[SheWolf]

Teenaged girls are incentivized to be a baby's momma in their teens to get their welfare checks -- which our government is very happy to hand out. Their families are destroyed because they don't want to get married....it'll effect their payday. The males are left without a family structure, goals and ambitions.

I am honestly having a hard time following this... You think the promise of welfare is the cause of teen pregnancy? I don't understand why somebody would logically forgo going to college and potentially earn 80,000 and up, just to live on welfare. I don't think many teens plan to get pregnant either.

Males don't have goals or ambitions if they are not married to the baby momma?

I don't know much about welfare either, but I thought married couples would get more.. because that is one more family member that is applying for gov assistance.

Job opportunities in these blighted neighborhoods are nonexistent. National food chains? They don't even open stores in these neighborhoods. Some have to drive 10-15 miles to get a "real grocery store."

I tend to believe that the best jobs are found in areas where the population are highly educated and professional working people.. Seattle, NYC, Atlanta, etc. I think the government has a strong role to play in education, it will benefit the country in the long term. People will be smarter, more productive, innovators, business savvy, and the GDP should start to rise.

Their schools are a shambles with cops patrolling the hallways, metal detectors at the doors. Gangs in complete control. Their test scores are abysmal -- and still we don't solve THAT problem.

It's not the governments role to try and fix everything.. the gov can't. I do believe that individual people are better equipped to help these communities than the government. Throwing money at a problem doesn't fix it. It will require somebody who really values a better community to change it..

The only thing government should do in these cases, is to help provide access to quality education and university for these people. But it will take members in the community to lead them to the water. The government can't even do that..

Is there anything you plan on doing to help this?

What do you think?

People need to stop waiting for the government to fix it, and fix it themselves... If you want to fix it, do something.

 

[CriticalThought]

True, but there needs to be serious reform in it.

Every generation tries to reform entitlement. There will always be humans who exploit the system. If you could figure out a system where that was impossible, then they would give you a Nobel Prize.

That's the hard part.
You'd have to be pretty invasive to get it that way.

Not really. In order to get on TANF you have to demonstrate the paternity of your child. We simply need to improve the child support structure of the country to the point that men will be scared of knocking up a girl out of marriage. It may even have to be criminalized. If you fail to pay child support, then we will lock you up, make you do labor, and give your wages to your children.

I'm pretty familiar with their lives, costs of living and a lot of it is wasted on vice.
It would fume most people to know that, their tax money goes to that.

And yet for every family like that, there are usually a dozen that aren't. We can make the system better but it doesn't mean it is a terrible system.

It's a refundable tax credit.

So if your tax liability is $0, any refundable credits your eligible for are payed to you, above that zero threshold.

Eh? I'm not so sure of that, but I'll take your word for it.

 

[MaggieD]

The OP is disingenuous. Welfare is not slavery. There is no requirement to repay, even through indentured servitude. Many entitlement programs come with job training and counseling to try and address the reasons why the person can't work. What is the alternative? No welfare? People being poor beggars in the streets and therefore "slaves" to actual poverty? The life span you talk about for blacks... it would surely be lower without assistance.

To make welfare unnecessary is to lower the financial barriers to things like education, job training programs, and make health care more affordable. When those things happen, welfare rates will decline. Social mobility is at an all time low in America (and much of the western world), and the divide between rich and poor is growing faster than expected. Corporations are becoming the only true global citizens, but humans are not allowed to move freely with them across borders. Jobs are being exported to where people can be exploited. Address that, and you will address welfare as well.

I don't think disingenuous is the right word. I don't have any problem with welfare. I do have a problem thinking that it holds people back rather than helping them do better. I think we're still there, even with the reforms. No! It's not perfect. Yes! We need it. But we also need to make sure that the people using it are using it as a hand up. That it's structured to truly help. That's my disingenuous point. ;-)

 

[SheWolf]

There's a book by John Taylor Gatto, about the creation of the modern school system.
It describes it as similar in design, where it was really started to pacify and nationalize the hearts and minds of people.

Basically though, a lot of welfare programs aim to do this.

I had to read a book in communications class in college.. I can't remember the author's name, but it was really good. According to him the creation of the education system correlated with the invention of the printing press and the mass spread of reading materials. Parents wanted more personal time away from their children, and many people were reading and working by the industrial age. It eventually lead to the restructuring of social organization in society, homes where built with more private space, more doors, more quite places.. and compulsory education was designed to basically hand the children over to a babysitter.

 

[SheWolf]

So the only black vote comes from the middle and upper class? The math does match the effort to gain their vote.

holy ****

Not all black people are on welfare.. and a lot of whites are too

I am sure black voters like dems for other reasons than they are simply on welfare..

 

[SheWolf]

Actually, my point was that poor families are incentivized to remain poor. Whether on purpose or by accident...Go back and read my initial post again.

I honestly don't think it's the government's fault though... the free market isn't going to place high value on their work, unless they are educated. They need to be motivated to make better choices in their lives than to make these decisions. I think that that can only happen on the community level, the gov can't do it.

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

I had to read a book in communications class in college.. I can't remember the author's name, but it was really good. According to him the creation of the education system correlated with the invention of the printing press and the mass spread of reading materials. Parents wanted more personal time away from their children, and many people were reading and working by the industrial age. It eventually lead to the restructuring of social organization in society, homes where built with more private space, more doors, more quite places.. and compulsory education was designed to basically hand the children over to a babysitter.

Actually at that time, most people were pretty pissed about it.
At least from what I read, I think there were protests in the street about it.

We adopted the Prussian style education system.

"The purpose of the system was to instill loyalty to the Crown and to train young men for the military and the bureaucracy. As the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a key influence on the system, said, "If you want to influence [the student] at all, you must do more than merely talk to him; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will."

Prussian education system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It was created in many ways, to pacify people.

 

[MaggieD]

I am honestly having a hard time following this... You think the promise of welfare is the cause of teen pregnancy? I don't understand why somebody would logically forgo going to college and potentially earn 80,000 and up, just to live on welfare. I don't think many teens plan to get pregnant either. Males don't have goals or ambitions if they are not married to the baby momma?

I live in suburban Chicago. I can only tell you what goes on in the inner city, according to two lovely people I know who teach them. That's my frame of reference. I don't understand why somebody would forego college either, but then I don't know how these people even live in the war zones they call home. I wouldn't live there for a DAY. If I had to be homeless. I would say that it has everything to do with their role models. These inner-city kids have very few of those. Unless young males "get out" of their environment by GOING to school, enlisting in the service, or otherwise catching a break, they have every likelihood of ending up in jail -- or dead. Poor moms aren't looking for husbands, imo. Many are looking for babies' daddies. In all likelihood, they were raised in a matriarcal home. It's what they know.

I tend to believe that the best jobs are found in areas where the population are highly educated and professional working people.. Seattle, NYC, Atlanta, etc. I think the government has a strong role to play in education, it will benefit the country in the long term. People will be smarter, more productive, innovators, business savvy, and the GDP should start to rise.

Well, yeah, that's not rocket science. But people need jobs where they live, especially young people.

It's not the governments role to try and fix everything.. the gov can't. I do believe that individual people are better equipped to help these communities than the government. Throwing money at a problem doesn't fix it. It will require somebody who really values a better community to change it.

I didn't ask the government to fix anything. My post questioned the value of what our government is currently doing. Throwing money at a problem? We're throwing quite enough, IMO.

 

[SheWolf]

Actually at that time, most people were pretty pissed about it.
At least from what I read, I think there were protests in the street about it.

We adopted the Prussian style education system.



Prussian education system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It was created in many ways, to pacify people.

He wasn't writing about America though.. he was writing about the development of education for children in Europe for the most part, because that is where the printing press was developed and where the Industrial Age started

 

[SheWolf]

I live in suburban Chicago. I can only tell you what goes on in the inner city, according to two lovely people I know who teach them. That's my frame of reference. I don't understand why somebody would forego college either, but then I don't know how these people even live in the war zones they call home. I wouldn't live there for a DAY. If I had to be homeless. I would say that it has everything to do with their role models. These inner-city kids have very few of those. Unless young males "get out" of their environment by GOING to school, enlisting in the service, or otherwise catching a break, they have every likelihood of ending up in jail -- or dead. Poor moms aren't looking for husbands, imo. Many are looking for babies' daddies. In all likelihood, they were raised in a matriarcal home. It's what they know.



Well, yeah, that's not rocket science. But people need jobs where they live, especially young people.



I didn't ask the government to fix anything. My post questioned the value of what our government is currently doing. Throwing money at a problem? We're throwing quite enough, IMO.

Sometimes I think they should get a bonus check if they get their tubes tied.. but that's just me

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

He wasn't writing about America though.. he was writing about the development of education for children in Europe for the most part, because that is where the printing press was developed and where the Industrial Age started

Prior to state education, most people learned through home study or through private schools.
Now I know that, typically, the wealthy went through the private system but looking back on the literacy rates, when can see a steady rise before the creation of the state education system, even before Massachusetts instituted the first.
(I think they had a 90%+ literacy rate, before formalized state schools were introduced.)

So it begs the question of, why where they created?

Most people think that prior to state involvement in schooling, that America was a mess of illiterate idiots, which isn't true.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Do you realize that these welfare moms have what every working gal would cherish? The opportunity to stay at home with their kids? There's something wrong there, I think.

You're entirely mistaken if you think that single mothers on welfare are in any sort of position that most "working gals would cherish."

 

[MaggieD]

You're entirely mistaken if you think that single mothers on welfare are in any sort of position that most "working gals would cherish."

Most working women would love to be stay-at-home moms. Of course they wouldn't give up what they have and are more than happy to work in order to have better lives. That's kinda' my point.