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Old 04-15-2014, 07:39 PM
 
Location: USA
30,430 posts, read 21,652,521 times
Reputation: 18760

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Quote:
Originally Posted by LowonLuck View Post
Why do some people take every opportunity to verbally attack people on assistance? I am constantly reading posts on forums and social sites that indicate that anyone one welfare or food stamps is a greedy, lazy freeloader.

That is not the case. As a single mom of two children, we are on welfare. I work 40-50 hours a week in addition to maintaining a household and raising children.

I know way more people that work full time and get assistance, then I know that do not work and get assistance. Help me understand.
If that is the case you are the working poor and not abusing the system. I know a couple of people who are on the Dol that are sitting on their butts all day doing nothing, when they are qualified to work. They are the problem.

 
Old 04-15-2014, 08:39 PM
 
Location: Floyd Co, VA
3,513 posts, read 6,347,096 times
Reputation: 7625
Quote:
Originally Posted by Labonte18 View Post
"We" also generally take the excess animals and destroy them. Advocate that for the people with 10 kids as well?
NO, I advocate that the adults act responsibly and only have as many children as they can reasonably afford to care for without resorting to expecting other people to support them for years and years.

When a female dog gets pregnant it is because she does not have the means to make a choice about it, it is up to the humans to care for her and get her spayed.

I have no problem with society, via the government, providing a safety net for those who have fallen on hard times and need short term assistance until they are able to get back on their feet again and become self supporting, as well as those who due to illness or injury become permanently disabled and can not support themselves. I have a dear friend who began working and taking care of herself at 18 and at 45 did become permanently disabled. Walking from the bedroom to the kitchen is about as much as she can mange without supplemental oxygen but she would be overjoyed to have her health back and to be fully functional and able to work, take a dog for a walk around the block, etc. I do not in the least begrudge her the SSDI she gets and it does not come close to what she used to earn.

Last edited by zugor; 04-15-2014 at 08:55 PM..
 
Old 04-15-2014, 09:04 PM
 
Location: Kansas
25,581 posts, read 21,764,305 times
Reputation: 26155
Quote:
Originally Posted by d from birmingham View Post
What your little link fails to tell you is that the majority of those on food stamps are working full time jobs.

Walmart loves to underpay it's workers so they have to be on food stamps.

Oh btw the majority of those on welfare are white and live in rural areas.
Do you have a link to support this?

Quote:
Originally Posted by aquietpath View Post
It wouldn't bother so many people if the recipients didn't waste their food stamp allotment on junk or make extravagant purchases. I have been behind people who have loaded carts with candy, sodas, chips and convenience foods. The most upsetting was one customer who had five packages of filet mignon and paid with her food stamp card.
This is more typical than not. Now, I have seen wise shoppers after a major layoff load their carts with basic items but not the regulars. I have a friend that worked in the grocery store and when she told the man that he had to buy generic cheese slices instead of Kraft, he threw the cheese package at her and said he deserved the same thing she ate. With the wages she made, that would not have been the Kraft item!

Quote:
Originally Posted by d from birmingham View Post
Yet such abuse is like 1% of all ebt recipients. The majority of the ebt fraud is actually done by the supermarkets owners and managers.
Do you have a link for this?

Quote:
Originally Posted by LowonLuck View Post
Food stamps and entitlement programs are a small amount of the total money collected from taxpayers.
So, I shouldn't mind forking over the money when too many times I watch them buy the items we have to leave on the shelf?

Quote:
Originally Posted by LowonLuck View Post
My circumstances are very common. Divorced, single mom of two. I make ok money but not enough to cover all our basic needs.

Winning the lotto or marriage are my only hope of getting off assistance. I don't play the lottery, or date.

For what it is worth, I do make a little more than twice minimum wage. I coupon to stretch foodstamps. I don't smoke, do drugs, or even drink. I make my coffee and home and drink tap water.

My situation is very common and getting more common by the year. I do not get why My situation should anger anyone, let alone bring out so many negative comments.
You said you were on "welfare". I'm wondering what that entails. Are you getting a check, food stamps, housing, day care all provided? Are you getting child support and if not, I'm surprised that the state has not went after the father of the children since I thought that was a given these days. Have you considered joining the military? When I couldn't find a job after leaving school, I joined and lots of others were there for the education and benefits for themselves and their families.

Hopefully, you aren't spending money on the lotto or you may get some additional face-to-face comments on that. It does seem at more than twice the minimum wage that you might do better living somewhere else. That would be common here of a family of four. Not sure where you are living.

The anger comes because most people are working hard and for less. They see carts loaded up with snack cakes, frozen pizzas, soda pop and candy and instant/quick everything. They are asked to contribute to the food banks because, obviously, these people won't have enough benefits to last the month. We pay for health insurance, many of us a high deductible and someone on welfare has medical care for free.

So, what about the father of the children paying his share and just exactly which of the benefits I listed are you receiving?
 
Old 04-15-2014, 09:50 PM
 
Location: Down the rabbit hole
863 posts, read 1,189,407 times
Reputation: 2741
We have the relatively new, right wing media to thank in a large part for the vilification of the working poor. With a clever turn of phrase and some sleight of hand, they manage to blame our country's woes on the poor while distracting everyone from the real enemy - the Uber-rich. I marvel time and time again when I see a senior citizen who exists on SS and food stamps, rail against the evil liberals that are destroying the country........they're seldom sure why they hate these so called liberals and when questioned, their reply inevitably begins with: "well I saw on Fox news............."

Meanwhile, corporations get loans and tax breaks totaling mega millions and no one bats an eye. I think that's partly due to the media's influence and partly due to America's demand for a scapegoat. It's so much easier to look down on a neighbor, relative or friend........or the even more common "friend of a friend" who abuses the system than it is to understand the complex system of corporate welfare.......like it's OK to help the rich out. After all, they're rich or were at one time, so they must know what they're doing with the money.

Another thing that those against welfare often overlook is the leg up that got them started. The house inherited from mommy and daddy, the influential relative who put the right word in the right ear at the right time, marrying into money and plain old dumb luck are but a few of the factors that come into play. That's not to say that there aren't self made millionaires out there who got where they are by hard work and perseverance....there are plenty of those too, but even among them there will often be a time in their past, a make or break point where luck or some other outside force lent a hand. Case in point - I had the chance back in the early 80's to get in on bottled water......I didn't have the money at the time but more importantly, I didn't think that the craze would get past the point of being a West Coast fad. Knowing what we all know now, back then, I would have begged and borrowed from everyone I knew to make the investment. I'd be a millionaire 10 times over today.

I'm not complaining, just trying to make the point that at the time I knew the right people that could have made me rich.......had I made the right decision. That opportunity never would have arisen had I not been in the right place at the right time.


Sadly, as we watch capitalism spiral out of control, it's becoming too late to help the working poor. People like the OP are almost doomed to playing a life of catch up. When companies like Walmart post a 17 Billion dollar profit, but pay their employees minimum wage.........there's something very wrong. When company X moves operations out of the US and their costs go down yet cost to the consumer continues to rise, there's something wrong. When we reward banker's reckless lending and investing with bailouts and no one pays the price....something's wrong. When we spend 100 times as much on waging un-winnable wars than we do on starving children.........yes, something is very wrong. The powers that be are too entrenched with their money and too occupied in it's protection to ever willingly allow things to change.

Unfortunately, at this point, this federal republic's experiment in unrestricted capitalism has failed, fallen victim to greed and a lack of morals and ethics on a massive scale. Practically nothing short of a complete revolution in human thinking or cataclysmic natural disaster will affect change. In the End, America's tombstone will read, "If it wasn't for greed, She could have been great".
 
Old 04-15-2014, 09:59 PM
 
35,095 posts, read 50,966,863 times
Reputation: 62660
Quote:
Originally Posted by thefragile View Post
Pedro, why are you even wasting money by hiring people to clean your house & do yardwork when you can do it yourself? Instead of complaining about people who wouldn't bother to clean for under $25/hour (and frankly, I wouldn't either), take it upon yourself to clean your own house and do your own yardwork. Then you wouldn't find the need to complain about what people won't work for.
Have you thought perhaps Pedro can't physically clean his own home or do his own yardwork?
I can't most of the time because I have an incurable auto immune liver disease that keeps me from doing 99% of the things I could do myself until about 4 years ago.
At times it is best to ask before making an assumption.
 
Old 04-15-2014, 10:04 PM
 
Location: Tucson/Nogales
23,068 posts, read 28,783,425 times
Reputation: 32336
We will always live in a penny-wise dollar foolish world, it's unavoidable!

Take away welfare, food stamps, they then commit crimes, go to prison, and then we're looking at $50k a year in prison costs!
 
Old 04-15-2014, 10:30 PM
 
17,381 posts, read 14,919,159 times
Reputation: 22609
Quote:
Originally Posted by zugor View Post
NO, I advocate that the adults act responsibly and only have as many children as they can reasonably afford to care for without resorting to expecting other people to support them for years and years.
So, the punishment is to let the kids go hungry? What, exactly is your solution here? take the kids away from the parent? Let the kids and parents starve because it's their own fault? Sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes.. You just have to bite the bullet and do a thing because it's the right thing to do.

Paying a fast food working $15/hr? No.

Universal health care? Not really.. Though I don't have a problem with that one, if we can get someone to administer it that is NOT the US Government.

Expanding welfare? No.

We're not a damn Robin Hood society. Nor should we be. However.. We do need to be, and frankly are, one of the most compassionate societies in the world.

When there's a disaster.. Who's the ones sending money, people, help with no questions asked? We are.


Anyone who blames the problems on the rich.. That's just as bad as the people who blame the poor for being poor. And, remember.. Rich people can't take it with them. We have one of the highest death taxes around.. That's why you see all these professional sports teams, once the owner dies, the team has to be sold to satisfy the estate taxes. So.. Each generation the wealth is redistributed.
 
Old 04-15-2014, 11:23 PM
 
Location: Illinois
4,751 posts, read 5,406,599 times
Reputation: 12999
Quote:
Originally Posted by CSD610 View Post
At times it is best to ask before making an assumption.
The same could be said for every darn poster on here jumping to conclusions about people on assistance.
 
Old 04-15-2014, 11:32 PM
 
Location: Illinois
4,751 posts, read 5,406,599 times
Reputation: 12999
ALL of you posting about how awful people are on assistance, how many kids they shouldn't be having, what food they shouldn't be buying, etc. should REALLY be complaining about how few of the father's of these children are paying child support or are paying more than a pittance!

I'm on assistance while my ex hasn't paid child support for over a year, while he lives with someone who pays all his bills and expensive. When he was paying, it was a crap amount. Does anything happen to him? No. Anybody criticizing how irresponsible he is? No. He could *literally* not work until our child is grown and I would never see a dime because you can't take anything from nothing.

You should all be grateful how good you've got it and be thankful you don't have to deal with all the hate.

(Also, I work two jobs and will be starting work on my Master's degree this fall, so don't even talk to me about working and valuing education.)

Last edited by MoonBeam33; 04-16-2014 at 12:00 AM..
 
Old 04-15-2014, 11:33 PM
 
Location: My beloved Bluegrass
20,098 posts, read 16,018,813 times
Reputation: 28265
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