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Remember when people were ashamed and embarrassed to be unemployed and/or on welfare? People used to try hard to get out of that situation. Now, people take pride and laugh about it. They love to flaunt their new iPhones, and the 50" TV's.
I know a family with 3 kids that are always taking hand-outs, not necessarily from govt, but family, friend, churches. Yet, they 'post' about going out to bars, movies, plays. Each of the 5 family members have iPhones down to the 8 year old.
There is just no pride or willingness to work hard anymore. I am a product of the 70's, started working when I was 15 years old and have not stopped. I have 2 kids and while I would have loved to be a stay at home mom, I didn't but opened a business that would allow me and my husband to be with our kids more. We hit a very hard financial situation years ago, my husband lost his job. He only filed for unemployment because after several weeks, we figured it was going to take some time (we were totally embarrassed and never told anyone) and neither of us had never applied before and have both worked full time since we were teens. He was on it less than 6 months - as he never quit looking for a job and actually applied for all those jobs that they require you turn in. I was working, but we had 2 young children. Since then, we learned how to do without. When times are tough, we say bye bye to the luxuries in life - get rid of a cell phone, cut back on cable, keep the house temp cooler in winter, warmer in summer, go out less or not at all (board games are great entertainment as well as hiking and going to parks!) We don't smoke....but would have that occasional glass of wine or beer WAY less or not at all.
I think the perception of poor is very altered. People today do not know how to do without. The family of 5 above that I mentioned would perceive they were poor, all the while, living it up (not Hollywood style by any means, but more than I did when times were tough).
Remember when people were ashamed and embarrassed to be unemployed and/or on welfare? People used to try hard to get out of that situation. Now, people take pride and laugh about it. They love to flaunt their new iPhones, and the 50" TV's.
I know a family with 3 kids that are always taking hand-outs, not necessarily from govt, but family, friend, churches. Yet, they 'post' about going out to bars, movies, plays. Each of the 5 family members have iPhones down to the 8 year old.
There is just no pride or willingness to work hard anymore. I am a product of the 70's, started working when I was 15 years old and have not stopped. I have 2 kids and while I would have loved to be a stay at home mom, I didn't but opened a business that would allow me and my husband to be with our kids more. We hit a very hard financial situation years ago, my husband lost his job. He only filed for unemployment because after several weeks, we figured it was going to take some time (we were totally embarrassed and never told anyone) and neither of us had never applied before and have both worked full time since we were teens. He was on it less than 6 months - as he never quit looking for a job and actually applied for all those jobs that they require you turn in. I was working, but we had 2 young children. Since then, we learned how to do without. When times are tough, we say bye bye to the luxuries in life - get rid of a cell phone, cut back on cable, keep the house temp cooler in winter, warmer in summer, go out less or not at all (board games are great entertainment as well as hiking and going to parks!) We don't smoke....but would have that occasional glass of wine or beer WAY less or not at all.
I think the perception of poor is very altered. People today do not know how to do without. The family of 5 above that I mentioned would perceive they were poor, all the while, living it up (not Hollywood style by any means, but more than I did when times were tough).
Absolutely. The perception of the poor is very distorted and many people do not now how to sacrifice or do without. I grew up in the 70's-my parents did not have much and worked 2 sometimes 3 jobs to make ends meet without one dime of ANY welfare public assistance etc. They would have died before asking for any. They knew they needed to provide for their family and busted their butts off to do so. The most important thing that I learned from them was the value of hard work, sacrifice and that no one owes you a damn thing and that life is NOT easy. Sadly, as you sort of alluded to, hard work and sacrifice is in many ways made fun of, laughed at and put down.
My husband and I both worked 2 sometimes 3 jobs each while I was going for and paying for my Masters degree in order to better myself. For many many years, we both worked 60-70 or more hours a week. Not a fun way to spend your 20's to early 30's but we needed to do what we needed to do. The worst part was going each semester to pay my bill and seeing all the single moms in line who were able to go to college for free and getting paid for it. They even had state paid advocates and counselors to make sure they got every taxpayer dollar they could get. They did not have to worry about working 2-3 jobs while trying to get an education. Everything was paid for by taxpayers. They never had to come home after working from 8 in the morning until 10 at night to finally be able to start their homework.
There should be NO welfare, foodstamps, EIC etc. I am sick and tired of busting my a$$ to pay for those who work the system. I also sick of hearing about the "children" of these single moms. What about the children of the mothers and fathers who work 2-3 jobs, sacrifice and never get to see them? Get a job or two or three-like many people have done and still do. Or better yet, don't have children that you cannot afford.
I don't fall for the sob story of the single welfare mom-sorry but plenty of people have had hardships in their lives and have turned their lives around by working hard with sacrifice instead of leeching off the taxpayer.
I AGREE totally with your comment!! Regarding the single moms, recently found out that 2 of our ex-employees purposely had illegitimate children just to get more assistance for school. We own a restaurant....so unfortunately, we don't always find quality people as employees. Fortunately, we have had good, decent hard working employees in the past 3-4 years; college bound, willing to show up for work and put in a good day, etc. It took us a while to weed through to get the crew we have. Unfortunately, I know they won't be with us long....they are working towards bigger and better things.
You guys are avoiding the fact that the payments are to support the babies and not the mothers. Where would a single mother with three kids find the time for a 30 hour/week job that would barely pay her taxes? Besides children are the future for all of us so why are you so fussy about who pays for raising them?
In addition you guys seem to want to punish the women for getting pregnant but never say anything about the guys. These boys dipped their wick and didn't pay for the oil. They should have been using contraceptives or taken responsibility for their actions.
They both should be have to pay. Now a days there is no reason to get pregnant if you dont want to.
I like the Danish welfare system. In order to collect benefits, the recipients must also become street sweepers, as in using a broom to clean the sidewalks of litter.
But seriously, out of wedlock babies are used by women for extra public handouts and/or trying to tie themselves to the baby daddy. And instead of just paying them cash benefits, they should only get training in order to get better job skills to make more than minimum wage. I'm about teaching them to fish, not giving them free cans of tunafish.
Another point of welfare is ALL the money and support given to welfare recipients is spent on purchases of food, goods and services. These purchases devolve to the bottom line of many, many industries with agriculture being the most heavily subsidized. Yes, the direct recipients benefit from the payments but their suppliers and the banks and the owners eventually benefit more.
I an in my late 60's (definite miracle) and have been working for over (I had a step father that traded food for work) 60 years. Yet, I am not concerned that a few choose to "work the system". At least they are spending what they receive and that benefits our economy far more than hoarding the stock market and investment bums do by sequestering their money in offshore "banks". IMHO the top 1% are the real American Welfare Class. Like the "Welfare Cheats" they also do not have to work for a living but are paid far more.
Taxpayers support corporations at a rate twice as high as supporting the poor.
I tried doing just that in Vermont. NOTHING happened.
The young woman was a tenant of mine. She permitted not only her father and her deadbeat boyfriend to move in, but also a buddy of the deadbeat, a friend of hers and someone else.
She used her welfare money and housing assistance to provide a place to live for the low lifes while they did their drug deals. She applied for fuel assistance and handed me the form to sign. She had filled it out as if it was just herself and her kid living there. As I was in the process of evicting this trash I called VT DCF and told them the woman had lied on the form and I was not about to sign it. They acted very interested and wanted to know more. I told them everything, even faxed them court documents. They did NOTHING.
I've since talked to someone who used to work at SEVCA that all you have to do to get free fuel is show up and whine that you're a single mother. You get the fuel, no questions asked. So what do you think they DO with the fuel? They SELL it.
Amazon, Staples, Apple, Dell, Office Depot, Walmart, Sears, Office Max, Liberty Media Corporation, CDW Corporation, Best Buy, Newegg, Netflix, Sony USA, Granger, Costco, Macys, Victoria Secret, LL Bean, Target and SystemMax are as close to slave labor as you will find. These companies avoid paying taxes and get around labor laws by only hiring temps.
The corporate share of the overall tax burden has declined as the labor force’s share has increased.
Corporate taxes need to be reformed to ensure that the profits of American multinationals are taxed by the United States when those profits are earned. Congress could do something, like ending procedures that allow companies to easily shelter profits abroad.
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