Welfare Reform: What would you like to see? (employment, drug, dollar)
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Have any of you ever been unemployed long term? You eventually fall into a hole and employers don't want to touch you. Getting welfare or government assistance isn't that easy, they don't advertise for it, you can't apply online, etc.
Wow. So many things. Well, to counter some responses...
1) There is already a time limit
2) You do not get any additional money for additional babies while on welfare
3) The welfare reform act of 1996 started the state to state tracking...so you can't collect in multiple states and welfare from any state counts toward your 5 year limit.
Now, my ideas:
1) Allow college to count as an activity. Require a minimum gpa. At the end of the term, review their transcript, if they're not meeting that minimum, no exceptions, you have to participate in whatever workfare plan.
<<For those that will surely stand on their high horse and complain about paying THEIR OWN way through college...ANY and EVERYONE who attends a Public institution has part of their college education paid for by the taxpayer. Think about it: Do you really think public college A can operate at 70% less than private college B? Of course not. But the PUBLIC funds that difference (hence the term public or community college). >>
2) Provide childcare, either in the form of state run institutions or the current system of paying directly to the provider using a sliding scale. Make sure mom's can afford to go to work each day.
3) Many programs only require vendor payments once you are sanctioned. Since many (NOT ALL!) welfare recipients probably receive rental assistance, pay their rent and utilities directly from the welfare cash grant. This would make sure the kids have a stable environment.
4) Realize that our awesome (insert sarcasm) prez Bush got us in this horrible recession. I am in Human Resources. I am seeing people with MASTER's applying for $35K positions. Because the market SUCKS! You have people with B.S. degrees working the $10 jobs and taking the PT $7 job at Wal-Mart too! Where are these people supposed to work?
5) You can't have it both ways. You can't complain about the horrible kids today but say their mothers should work 60 hours per week to not be on welfare. Who's raising the kids?
((Unwed mothers living in a group home could have built-in child care and babysitting so that the pressures of being with small children all day would not be an excuse to abuse or neglect their children.))
Do you really think that's the answer? That you can stick a baby with anyone and go? Do you think that just because a woman is an unwed mother that she doesn't care who watches her kid as long as she gets a break away from the baby?
Guess what, they tried that rhetoric when the built massive housing projects in NY and Chicago. You cage 'em and treat 'em like animals and they'll act like animals.
The answer is to treat them like decent HUMAN BEINGS
My thoughts on welfare reform? Strict time limits. Aid for one child out of wedlock, but that's it. Free birth control. Free life counseling that would include household budgeting and career counseling. Lots of vocational training or student loan options. No more Section 8 housing or food stamps. Maybe some sort of dormitory housing with strict curfews and monitoring. Food pantries to dole out what they need in foodstuffs. Free classes in home cooking and dietary management.
My thoughts on welfare reform? Strict time limits. Aid for one child out of wedlock, but that's it. Free birth control. Free life counseling that would include household budgeting and career counseling. Lots of vocational training or student loan options. No more Section 8 housing or food stamps. Maybe some sort of dormitory housing with strict curfews and monitoring. Food pantries to dole out what they need in foodstuffs. Free classes in home cooking and dietary management.
So, you assume that because a person is on welfare that
1) they are purposely trying to bear children.
2) they need life counseling
3) they receive section 8
4) they need curfews and monitoring (these are adults, not children and last I checked America was free and you could not require an adult to abide by a curfew)
5) that a person cannot choose their own meal options
6) that that the can't cook or control their own diet
It is apparent that folks need to know something (in some cases anything) about eligibility requirements and benefits BEFORE coming up with reforms that already exist.
The basic problem with job based welfare reform is simple. Mass production industrial process and industrialized farming have reduced the number of people needed so much that compared with as few as fifty years ago, there just are not enough jobs available.
Just watch a Discovery Channel program on farming with the huge combines or how they make automobiles with a zillion robot welders for examples. Another, more extreme example is the Iron Industry. I just visited the Saugus Iron works. This is a replica of the first Iron works in the colonies. This industry required, if you count the wood cutters and charcoal burners, nearly 300 people to produce one ton of iron per day. A modern iron furnace uses less people to produce one ton of Iron every three minutes. A modern truck hauls 35 tons at 40 mph with one driver. A horse wagon can haul 1 ton at 5 mph on a good road. A freight train can haul 10,000 tons at 30 mph with 2 people.
Just look around. How many clerks and secretaries have been replaced with PCs? How many ditch diggers with a machine? There just are not enough jobs to do except for the ones requiring a high level of intelligence and aptitude. Not everyone can learn to program a computer (although a lot can learn to use one) or create a spreadsheet.
When there are no jobs around are we just going to let people starve and freeze in the dark?
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The Philadelphia Housing Authority in conjunction with the building trades council conducts a pre-apprenticeship program for their clients, of the 60 or so graduates only a handful ever get accepted into one of the craft apprenticeship programs. Even during the construction boom in Philadelphia over the last few years, there were only so many jobs.
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