Illinois Link Card - Let's get real in here (Chicago: apartment, lease)

[urza216]

Originally Posted by lenniel

Sorry for getting your panties in a wad. I was asking an honest question about link cards. I didn't realize you could get them if you were employed.

So, does every min wage person have access to a link card? How is it determined who is 'affording to live' and who isn't?

If someone loses their job, can they get a link card and unemployment benes?

Unemployment is different than LINK cards. I've never been unemployed for over a month since I was 18 but my understanding is that it actually comes out of the pocket of your previous employer not the gov't. LINK cards are for low wage earners who need to eat, lol

[emathias]

Originally Posted by urza216

Unemployment is different than LINK cards. I've never been unemployed for over a month since I was 18 but my understanding is that it actually comes out of the pocket of your previous employer not the gov't. LINK cards are for low wage earners who need to eat, lol

And for the record, the most a single, childless person can get from SNAP is $200/month. Assuming you eat 3 times a day that's about $2.22 per meal, probably sufficient but not at all luxurious.

[urza216]

Originally Posted by Aleking

doublenickles and lenniel are such trash

I don't agree. But good work using their own attitudes about people against them.

It must really get someone's panties in the wad when they have a snobby holier-than-though mentality but then they good looked in the eye and called "trash". It's like, "Wait, I thought it was my job to decide who in our society is trash! Did someone just call ME trash? What?"

[lenniel]

Originally Posted by urza216

I don't agree. But good work using their own attitudes about people against them.

It must really get someone's panties in the wad when they have a snobby holier-than-though mentality but then they good looked in the eye and called "trash". It's like, "Wait, I thought it was my job to decide who in our society is trash! Did someone just call ME trash? What?"

yeh, it bothered me for about .00053 seconds and then I moved on.

[ChicagoMeO]

Originally Posted by emathias

And for the record, the most a single, childless person can get from SNAP is $200/month. Assuming you eat 3 times a day that's about $2.22 per meal, probably sufficient but not at all luxurious.

Yeah but if you work for cash, (not reported earnings to the govt), people supplemnt their criminal lifestyle with foodstamps... like that surfer dude on tv who is living the "ratt life" and going to the store choosing lobsters and proud of his lifestyle and thanking america for paying for his foodstamps and surfer lifestyle where he proudly admits he does not work, does not want to work and plays in a band and bangs chicks all day.. it was on the news this week. (check out Drudge report for example or Google)

[jwaiter]

Originally Posted by doublenickels

Illinois Dept of Human Services should initiate a program where people who use those blue "Link Cards", be subject to mandatory community service assignments.

1) What is a community service assignment?

2) Why should LINK card receivers have mandatory community service assignments? How would that help anyone?

[Prost]

Originally Posted by jwaiter

1) What is a community service assignment?

2) Why should LINK card receivers have mandatory community service assignments? How would that help anyone?

I imagine he is thinking of picking up trash, cleaning graffiti, etc

[ChicagoMeO]

Originally Posted by jwaiter

1) What is a community service assignment?

2) Why should LINK card receivers have mandatory community service assignments? How would that help anyone?

People ought to work for themselves. It gives one a sense of pride and accomplishment and skills, and something other than wandering aimlessly and goofing off. And it can lead to something else.

Any time you have a lifestyle of living off handouts, you get weak, dependent, and susceptible to people taking advantage of you. the worst - you become dependent on the hand feeding you - which can use you to their advantage. You now become weak and dependent and then atrophy whatever energy you had to drive yourself (and i dont mean driving = car). I mean the actual drive/will to live and succeed.

Remember - I said "lifestyle" ... I am not talking about emergency/temporary times when you really do need the help, but then one day you should get yourself up out of there and do for your self.

And for the people paying taxes, it would give us some joy knowing that we are not supplementing sponges who would rather be a loser and having the taxpayer fund their slacker lifestyle. I'd rather the person temporarily take the money in order to get him/herself to a better place so that they too can be independent and free - and freely earn their right to be an American, and earn the things they want and need rather than have it handed to them like sucking the government teat for life. no way to live really.

[urza216]

Originally Posted by ChicagoMeO

People ought to work for themselves. It gives one a sense of pride and accomplishment and skills, and something other than wandering aimlessly and goofing off. And it can lead to something else.

Any time you have a lifestyle of living off handouts, you get weak, dependent, and susceptible to people taking advantage of you. the worst - you become dependent on the hand feeding you - which can use you to their advantage. You now become weak and dependent and then atrophy whatever energy you had to drive yourself (and i dont mean driving = car). I mean the actual drive/will to live and succeed.

Remember - I said "lifestyle" ... I am not talking about emergency/temporary times when you really do need the help, but then one day you should get yourself up out of there and do for your self.

And for the people paying taxes, it would give us some joy knowing that we are not supplementing sponges who would rather be a loser and having the taxpayer fund their slacker lifestyle. I'd rather the person temporarily take the money in order to get him/herself to a better place so that they too can be independent and free - and freely earn their right to be an American, and earn the things they want and need rather than have it handed to them like sucking the government teat for life. no way to live really.

Man, this sure seems like a horrible horrible problem that would be fixed overnight if wages were higher.. The problem is that many people don't earn enough to indepently roam free as an American, right?

I agree that it's no way to live. So why not start paying living wages already!! I will gladly take that raise so I'm not a "slacker" anymore. You're preaching to the choir, lady. This is no way to live!!!

[JacksonPanther]

Originally Posted by ChicagoMeO

Yeah but if you work for cash, (not reported earnings to the govt), people supplemnt their criminal lifestyle with foodstamps... like that surfer dude on tv who is living the "ratt life" and going to the store choosing lobsters and proud of his lifestyle and thanking america for paying for his foodstamps and surfer lifestyle where he proudly admits he does not work, does not want to work and plays in a band and bangs chicks all day.. it was on the news this week. (check out Drudge report for example or Google)

You brought this up, so now you need to defend this apocryphal story. I don't know what to search for on Google - "Surfer Dude ripping off the government?"

There must be more to the story that you are telling, or that "surfer dude" is telling. As we showed, SNAP benefits of $200 per month are nowhere near enough for anyone to be choosing lobster.

If you're saying "surfer dude" makes enough money in cash that he can pay for his home, lobster, and wooing "chicks", and then supplements that cash income with government benefits, then that makes him a criminal, guilty of fraud. If he pays taxes on his income then there is a clear paper trail of his fraud. If he doesn't pay taxes then he is also a tax cheat. And you're saying he was on television admitting to these crimes?

More likely he's on "disability." Whether his ability to play guitar in a live band means he could do his job, that's between him and his former company.

As I said, there must be more to the story, otherwise he would be in handcuffs already.

I don't doubt the existence of a cash-based underground economy. It could be drug dealing, prostitution, whatever. But does that mean no one gets SNAP because some hookers get SNAP? That's not a problem with SNAP, the problem is with the prostitution (or drug dealing, or whatever).