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Overall -- 41% of births are to Medicaid. That's a heck of a lot of people choosing to bring kids into the world on welfare programs. Obviously the welfare life has it's appeal.
Doesn't that mean that 59% are not paid by Medicaid? That disproves your assertion that, "the poor are the ones choosing to have more children than anyone else."
It also perpetuates the idea that there is a welfare entitlement program and ignores that in 1996, when welfare became a block grant. That meant the federal government gave the states a fixed amount of money every year, and removed many of the strings attached so that the states could spend the welfare money more freely. The idea was sold as one that would turn the states into laboratories of innovation, where they would move lazy, poor single mothers from welfare dependency to work.
As it turned out, lots of women left the welfare rolls during the late 1990s, when unemployment fell to record low levels, and states diverted a lot of the money to other programs that often had little to do with helping poor families. But now that the economy has hit the skids, the real impact of the "reform" is starting to become clear. The federal TANF block grant hasn't been increased in 16 years which decreased the inflation adjusted value by 30%.
But lets also look at the hypocrisy. Conservatives are complaining that the poor have too many children while at the same time opposing abortion and birth control.
Maybe think twice before having children when making only $7.25 an hour and have no spouse?
The number of people on welfare is growing at absurdly fast rates. You can't possibly believe it's a good trend.
So all WM employees are single people with children? Learn something new everyday.
Of course it's not a good trend....but instead of complaining, and insulting and stereotyping the poor...find a solution.
Doesn't that mean that 59% are not paid by Medicaid? That disproves your assertion that, "the poor are the ones choosing to have more children than anyone else."
It also perpetuates the idea that there is a welfare entitlement program and ignores that in 1996, when welfare became a block grant. That meant the federal government gave the states a fixed amount of money every year, and removed many of the strings attached so that the states could spend the welfare money more freely. The idea was sold as one that would turn the states into laboratories of innovation, where they would move lazy, poor single mothers from welfare dependency to work.
As it turned out, lots of women left the welfare rolls during the late 1990s, when unemployment fell to record low levels, and states diverted a lot of the money to other programs that often had little to do with helping poor families. But now that the economy has hit the skids, the real impact of the "reform" is starting to become clear. The federal TANF block grant hasn't been increased in 16 years which decreased the inflation adjusted value by 30%.
But lets also look at the hypocrisy. Conservatives are complaining that the poor have too many children while at the same time opposing abortion and birth control.
But the poor are not 41% of the population, they are having a disportionately large number of births.
Money spent on all the welfare programs is not fixed, it's growing at a very high rate, every year much more money is given to Medicaid and food stamps. Otherwise the number of recipients could not grow as fast at it is growing.
Reading is fundamental... the OP is asking about working poor, so one would assume these "lazy bums" already have a job.
And do you not care about their CHILDREN starving? Even if the parents were unemployed, don't these children deserve to eat? FYI, food stamps are mostly limited to families, whereas single/childless people only qualify for emergency (3-month) assistance. So much for "think about the children," huh?
I grew up poor and as a child we didn't have assistance. We learned to eat food that was cheap. Lima bean soup and peanut butter and anything inexpensive . And we appreciated what we got.
No prepared foods at all.
We didn't see anyone standing in line for a hand out either. Everyone was making their own way and proud to do it. Such things were not easy but we had our pride and that was the way it was. Hard work was looked on as honorable when the bills were paid by hard work .
No shame in being poor. It was the hope that with hard work things would get easier and they did. As time went on and one acquired wealth they had their own sense of pride to know they did it without any handouts.
I understand some are struggling now. Today is the age of so many material things that life is so much more complicated with charge cards and entertainment , malls and eating out.
We didn't have any of those things years ago. People would go on a Sunday picnic and that was the highlight of their pleasures.Family and friends would visit and it was a social event every week with family. We also knew quite well how to stretch a dollar when it came to food.
And TANF should not be increased it should be eliminated. There is no good reason to reward the irresponsible with cash handouts as their prize for giving birth to children they can never support.
If our economy was such where it would be reasonable to expect anyone working full time to be able to feed, shelter and clothe themselves, even if it was done very modestly, then yes pulling back on food stamps would make sense.
But that hasn't been true for a long time. There are some parts of the country where minimum wage can allow you to live, but not as many as it seems. Unless we want to go back to the days of starving people in the US (and yes those days existed) then we need to accept that we need food stamps.
What is wrong with this argument is that it gets into the whole "what is a livable wage?" What would be a livable wage for a single young man won't be for a family of 6. What we have all been talking about here is families. Minimum wage wasn't meant to feed a family of six. It is a place to start and you plan for a family. At some point shouldn't personal responsibility be expected?
Well that all depends. I highly doubt a single person with no dependents working full time at Walmart would qualify. Maybe part of the problem is absentee fathers not supporting their kids or single mothers choosing to have multiple children without any way to support them. See, the problem isn't Walmart wages, it's about choices. Minimum wage jobs were never meant to be lifelong careers.
How are these poor people affording junk food? Food banks and soup kitchens don't distribute junk food. So, obviously these people are finding the money to purchase junk food either with their own cash or their LINK/SNAP cards. I would rather put more money into food banks than onto these SNAP cards. At least we can ensure that the money is going towards nutrition.
You can qualify for handouts more easily as a single parent. We reward the single mother thing by giving them all kinds of handouts.
What is wrong with this argument is that it gets into the whole "what is a livable wage?" What would be a livable wage for a single young man won't be for a family of 6. What we have all been talking about here is families. Minimum wage wasn't meant to feed a family of six. It is a place to start and you plan for a family. At some point shouldn't personal responsibility be expected?
Yes and the minimum wage times TWO parents comes out to $14.50 an hour -- which isn't as bad.
Women are choosing single-motherhood for a good reason. They know the government handouts, the rewards given for giving birth are very good. They won't have to work those minimum wage jobs if they have children.
Maybe think twice before having children when making only $7.25 an hour and have no spouse?
The number of people on welfare is growing at absurdly fast rates. You can't possibly believe it's a good trend.
It's a chicken or egg thing. The number of people on welfare "growing at absurdly fast rates" are not coming out of thin air. They are the formerly employed, a previously productive part of society.
As an aside, is anyone else here getting really sick of the term "job creator"? Gives me a touch of acid reflux every time I see it. Lets go back to "employers" or "business" instead.
My mother works as a clerk in a Squal*Mart. In a previous life she was a computer programmer for 30+ years until her job was outsourced to India. She has experienced age discrimination in every single programming job she has applied for since that time.
She doesn't qualify because she doesn't have a litter of children and makes too much money at 500 dollars or so every couple of weeks.
It's not that food stamps need to be cut out entirely IMO...they just need to be cut off to the wrong people, those of questionable citizenship status and those who continue to pump out more resource suckers indiscriminately.
Those who've paid into the system their entire lives and need a little help now are the ones who should be getting it regardless whether they have children or not.
Also wanted to add that my mother sees these resource suckers buying entire carts filled with nothing but candy and soda with food stamps. She also sees them flock into her store during tax season, pulling out the Jackson Hewitt money cards and loading up on big screen tvs and other assorted plastic crap. Giant tax refunds for no other reason then they couldn't figure out how to use birth control.
If it costs so much money to raise children, why can't these same people take that money and spread it out over a year to pay for food, clothing, bills, etc ?
Last edited by Bandon; 01-22-2012 at 10:48 AM..
Reason: additional comment
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