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I appreciate the life that I have created for myself. I believe that you don't bite off more than you can chew. You don't beg, borrow, or steal. If you can not afford to have the things you want, you either find a way to make it possible or you do without. I am not judging people on government assistance, but I am judging those who are physically able to work and choose not to. To me, that is abuse and there should be more done to prevent it.
And you feel justified in judging entire parking lots of human beings as leeches, so to speak, on society? Even though it's payday. Even though it also happens to be the first of the month. Even though there are probably a lot more "welfare"-looking people at the store than there are welfare recipients? I look about in my late teens/early 20's, especially on a weary-inducing shopping day. I bring three of my own children and one who is not... the little boy I watch during the school year. He's not white, even though his parents are. He and his siblings all possess the common dark-Italian gene that his pale, red-haired father didn't acquire- and with a pasty-Irish mother. Our own son is another who looks like he doesn't belong to me either. He's also white- but he's so pale and white-blond and petit that he looks very mismatched, compared to his full-blood-related sisters.
At the end of two hours of this, I probably no longer look lively but haggard. But in your eyes, I would be.... ? A young, stupid welfare mom with three baby-daddies and a luscious food stamp allotment? Oh.Please.
Awesome- except that it's not.
Last edited by proulxfamily; 04-01-2011 at 02:14 PM..
I have seen your picture. Someone is lying to you.
From a FB picture? lol - the ones that I post solely because I look like a grown-up? :P I would be glad of not being scolded for being such a young, stupid mother who "won't stop spreading her legs," as I've been told - not infrequently in grocery stores - when all the children are with me. I've been married for five years, with the same man for seven, and would very much appreciate not being judged for being so young, especially when I'm really not. If I make the attempt to dress in style, I look my age... I'm not going to do so for a trip to the grocery store. I will dress appropriately for photographs, which are typically for when there are special occasions. I'm 27, nearly 28, and I hope that bars and restaurants will stop carding me soon... half the time, I leave my ID in the car and have to run out to get it. Either way, I look the age I look at the time others make judgments of me and the children with me- I wish it never happened again. Again- I'm 27... my age is hardly one to be embarrassed of. I found my first silver hair a few weeks ago and hope to be one of those old ladies with the long, silver-braided hair. It doesn't help that I've been going to the Y every day for months... I thought that being thinner would take away the "baby fat" look. It hasn't. Thanks for playing, as you say.
Quote:
Who said anything about race? You seem pretty defensive for some reason. Did I strike a nerve in my observation that is backed by those links you love so much? If it's on the internet, it must be true. My observation was not based on a "type" of person in the store, it was based on the increased number of cars in the parking lot mixed with today's date.
I don't actually love links, which is why I rarely reply to them. You struck a nerve by judging cars in the parking as welfare/food stamp recipients. I was one of those cars, today. How dare you reach so broadly, for such an unjust, ugly judgement? Buying food is hardly a demeaning activity.
Last edited by proulxfamily; 04-01-2011 at 02:51 PM..
New York in #2 in Tax Burden by state. Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
#2 in caseloads Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
#2 in Top Dollar amount: Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
It may be that NYC is part of that drain, but from what I saw today, they are not the only ones. If NY wants to work on their budget, they might want to take a look at the real problem in the state.
Considering that NY is 3rd in population, what is your point for the trollish type of post? By the way, look up rates.
Wow, i'm a little bit shocked by the link becky posted. Being a liberal state with one of the largest urban centers in the world, and we're only #20 in the country per capita?
I would have thought that we would have been way higher than that.
Wow, i'm a little bit shocked by the link becky posted. Being a liberal state with one of the largest urban centers in the world, and we're only #20 in the country per capita?
I would have thought that we would have been way higher than that.
Why? There is a lot of money in Downstate NY and if Upstate NY broke off and became it's own state, it would be on par with NC, now. So, people need to do their reasearch, as many people that would qualify for some form of "welfare", do not take it. I posted a story about that in regards to grandparents raising grandchildren.
A lot of people were out shopping yesterday, Friday April 1st. .. I too was out shopping Friday, at Aldi's, Wegman's, Walmart, & Price Chopper. All these stores are close to one another for me so I hit them all at once. I like to "shop" the stores on-sale items and I also have a lot of merchandise prices memorized. I know that Aldi's "chunky soups" cost $1.19 & 1.29 whereas another store charges $1.99, some of Wegman's frozen veggies are priced at $0.99 and another store charges $1.99 or over $2 for the same thing, I find that some of Price Chopper's baked items are more reasonable priced than some other stores, etc. .. I didn't feel like wearing my "Sunday best" clothing so maybe I might have looked sort of "needy" to another person. I don't feel that I have to "dress up" to do my grocery shopping; regardless of how I'm dressed, my money is "just as green" as anyone else's money=no store has had their "fashion police" escort me out yet for purchasing things at their store.
A lot of people got paid on Thursday & Friday: average working people, some retired people who got their pension (NOT S.S. OR WELFARE) checks on Friday, and yes probably some welfare people. So EVERYONE was out shopping; not just welfare people! It's also just before the weekend and lots of people like to get their shopping done for the weekend and part of the following week. Everyone SHOULD KNOW that our country had an ALMOST DEPRESSION those many months ago and a lot of people lost their long term jobs/careers, lost their homes, depleted any small savings they may have had and may have even had to spend any money they had set aside for future retirement. Some people/families have had to resort to public assistance in these very difficult times. Yes, there are some cronic welfare "scammers/cheaters" too. I'm not happy nor sympathize with them. The Onondaga County authorities should thoroughly reinvestigate ALL welfare cases and get the "scammers" off the dole. I know of 2 white women sisters who are on welfare, have illegitimate children, boyfriends live with them when welfare case workers are NOT around, these women work "under-the-table" for cash income, one of these women pays her rent to her father who owns the place she rents, and these white women receive whatever they can get from the County/us taxpayers.
This DEPRESSION (it is more than any "usual" recession) has been caused to a very GREAT EXTENT by the greedy people on Wall Street and the Banks who used their companies as gambling casinos; to add insult to injury, WE the taxpayers bailed-out these Corporation leeches and NOW they are back to corporation casino gambling again, just like before, collecting their millions in bonuses. I do support the loans that were provided to General Motors & Chrysler because THOSE LOANS saved MILLIONS of jobs at those corporations and their suppliers; the assembly line and suppliers workers were not making the MILLIONS that the WALL STREET/BANK "greed-sters" (frauders/scammers/robbers) were/are making. So if you want to be mad at anyone, put huge blame where it belongs=on the top 2% wealthy millionaires/billionaires who receive >several hundreds - even 500 to 700< times more income & bonuses per year than an average ordinary worker. An average worker making $50,000 vs. millionaires/billionaires 500 x (times) as much = (equals) $25,000,000 OR MORE. Do you know that General Electric Corporation & Exxon-Mobil Corporation paid >> Z-E-R-O << income taxes last year. I'm sure that there are other corporations that "loop-holed" their way out of paying taxes too and probably for more years than just last year. Haliburton moved it's "headquarters" to arab Abu Dhabi to avoid taxes and to not be prosecuted for their wrong doings over the many years our U.S. Government over-paid them for "work" which resulted in fleecing the American Taxpayers. Do you know that the previous Woman CEO (who ran & LOST for Governor of California) of "ebay" fired thousands of loyal American workers to make herself richer and moved those jobs to foreign countries? Do you know that for every > ONE < American worker that "Apple" employs, they employ > TEN < low pay/slave workers in China? The latest tactic that corporations are "foisting" on our country and the American Taxpayers is to move their "headquarters" to foreign countries where they do not have to pay ANY taxes; a lot of these "headquarters"=(NOT) are merely a "front", a one or two room office with one secretary and one male spokesman-"mouthpiece". Then they can say that they ARE NOT an American company and NOT subject to pay U.S. Taxes. .. Hmm!! I wonder, if I open a post office box in a Tax Haven NO-TAX country, can I then say because that's my address - I DON'T HAVE TO PAY U.S. TAXES LIKE THOSE CORPORATIONS?? DO YOU THINK THAT YOU & I, "LITTLE" PEOPLE, COULD GET AWAY WITH PAYING NO TAXES LIKE THE CORPORATIONS? My attitute is, my LAW would be >> CORPORATIONS, if you make money IN the U.S.A., you WILL pay taxes on the money you made; and I DON"T CARE IF YOU CLAIM THAT YOU ARE A FOREIGN OR AN AMERICAN CORPORATION, You WILL pay taxes to help support THIS Country--PERIOD!!! So if you are going to complain about welfare payments to people in poverty, I think you should FIRST complain about CORPORATIONS WELFARE-PAYING NO TAXES/CORPORATIONS BUYING OUR CONGRESSIONAL MEMBERS/CORPORATIONS SHIPPING "OUR" JOBS TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES/MILLIONAIRES-BILLIONAIRES RUINING OUR ECONOMY THEREBY CAUSING WORKERS TO LOSE THEIR JOBS AND THROW WORKERS INTO LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYMENT AND DEVASTATING WORKERS LIVES & FAMILIES/CORPORATIONS DISLOYALTY TO OUR COUNTRY; not to mention the endless WARS that only benefit CORPORATIONS and MILITARY MACHINE LEADERS (the soldiers are just expendable pawns to them)!! I think you should blame the GIGANTIC welfare scammer recipients before you blame the TINY recipients.
Sorry, but I had to point-out who the REAL BIG welfare recipients actually are, rather than all the blame being heaped on LITTLE individual American citizens who may be experiencing hopefully, temporary hard times caused by the BIG GUYS to a great extent. Anyway, NOT ALL of us, and I'm sure NOT MOST of those out shopping on Friday were/are welfare recipients.
I appreciate the life that I have created for myself. I believe that you don't bite off more than you can chew. You don't beg, borrow, or steal. If you can not afford to have the things you want, you either find a way to make it possible or you do without. I am not judging people on government assistance, but I am judging those who are physically able to work and choose not to. To me, that is abuse and there should be more done to prevent it.
ToeJam, I understand where you are coming from, and I understand that in a tough economic time and in a state like ours that has HUGE taxes, that you see that and say it makes no sense. However, I think this argument, which I have heard from many people before including family and friends, grossly oversimplifies the situation.
To start, I don't think you can walk into a grocery store, see people that in your mind look like they are probably on welfare (minorities, slovenly looking people, etc.) and draw the conclusion that that is the majority of people on welfare and that they are all coning the system. Secondly, welfare and food stamps really arent that much. I think food assistance amounts to something like $5 a day or something like that? Plus, you are only allowed to collect welfare if you are able bodied and can work for a total of 60 months in your entire lifetime. And even then you are required to be actively searching for a job/hold some kind of job.
But besides all of that, in a perfect world, I agree with you. I think that people should go out and get a job that pays for the lifestyle they want, or live more simply. However, I think you are underestimating the impact of your education and the support system you probably had growing up that made you into the confident, self-reliant individual that you are that a lot of people dont or didnt have. Secondly, I think you are underestimating how hard it is to get a job that pays even for the most basic of lifestyles, especially if you didn't graduate high school, or you have a criminal record, or you dont have the money to join a union or get the training to get into a trade, or dont have the money to go back to school, etc. A minimum wage job doesn't pay enough for transportation, rent, child care costs if you have them, groceries, etc.
Now, I am not trying to apologize and make excuses for people that really are ripping all of us off. Those people are committing fraud and should go to jail. And I am also not trying to apologize for people's underachievement. But understand that the margin for error in the real world, especially for people of the lowest means, is so slim that if they even make one mistake in their lives, ONE, they are trapped in poverty. No money to go back to school, no money to get to that interview, criminal record that keeps them from getting hired, etc. I think its hard to sit where all of us collectively on this board sit, and say that those people, from the time they are 5 years old, should be living with a sense of purpose and should somehow have the state of mind, without any support from family, friends, etc, and know to finish school, and get a good job, and make something out of themselves.
There are obviously a lot of socioeconomic and cultural issues in America that contribute to this and should be addressed. Everyone should be able to get a good education and be able to support themselves. But those problems don't have easy answers. There is a reason its called the "poverty trap." Even in pop culture, youll hear people talk about that (in rap songs, if you listen, rappers talk about "the trap game" aka trying to hustle and make it out of poverty). So should welfare be addressed? Yes, absolutely. Should we try to get to a point where everyone can support themselves? Yes, absolutely. But in this world we live in, in this America we live in, it is not that simple today.
A lot of people were out shopping yesterday, Friday April 1st. .. I too was out shopping Friday, at Aldi's, Wegman's, Walmart, & Price Chopper. All these stores are close to one another for me so I hit them all at once. I like to "shop" the stores on-sale items and I also have a lot of merchandise prices memorized. I know that Aldi's "chunky soups" cost $1.19 & 1.29 whereas another store charges $1.99, some of Wegman's frozen veggies are priced at $0.99 and another store charges $1.99 or over $2 for the same thing, I find that some of Price Chopper's baked items are more reasonable priced than some other stores, etc. .. I didn't feel like wearing my "Sunday best" clothing so maybe I might have looked sort of "needy" to another person. I don't feel that I have to "dress up" to do my grocery shopping; regardless of how I'm dressed, my money is "just as green" as anyone else's money=no store has had their "fashion police" escort me out yet for purchasing things at their store.
A lot of people got paid on Thursday & Friday: average working people, some retired people who got their pension (NOT S.S. OR WELFARE) checks on Friday, and yes probably some welfare people. So EVERYONE was out shopping; not just welfare people! It's also just before the weekend and lots of people like to get their shopping done for the weekend and part of the following week. Everyone SHOULD KNOW that our country had an ALMOST DEPRESSION those many months ago and a lot of people lost their long term jobs/careers, lost their homes, depleted any small savings they may have had and may have even had to spend any money they had set aside for future retirement. Some people/families have had to resort to public assistance in these very difficult times. Yes, there are some cronic welfare "scammers/cheaters" too. I'm not happy nor sympathize with them. The Onondaga County authorities should thoroughly reinvestigate ALL welfare cases and get the "scammers" off the dole. I know of 2 white women sisters who are on welfare, have illegitimate children, boyfriends live with them when welfare case workers are NOT around, these women work "under-the-table" for cash income, one of these women pays her rent to her father who owns the place she rents, and these white women receive whatever they can get from the County/us taxpayers.
This DEPRESSION (it is more than any "usual" recession) has been caused to a very GREAT EXTENT by the greedy people on Wall Street and the Banks who used their companies as gambling casinos; to add insult to injury, WE the taxpayers bailed-out these Corporation leeches and NOW they are back to corporation casino gambling again, just like before, collecting their millions in bonuses. I do support the loans that were provided to General Motors & Chrysler because THOSE LOANS saved MILLIONS of jobs at those corporations and their suppliers; the assembly line and suppliers workers were not making the MILLIONS that the WALL STREET/BANK "greed-sters" (frauders/scammers/robbers) were/are making. So if you want to be mad at anyone, put huge blame where it belongs=on the top 2% wealthy millionaires/billionaires who receive >several hundreds - even 500 to 700< times more income & bonuses per year than an average ordinary worker. An average worker making $50,000 vs. millionaires/billionaires 500 x (times) as much = (equals) $25,000,000 OR MORE. Do you know that General Electric Corporation & Exxon-Mobil Corporation paid >> Z-E-R-O << income taxes last year. I'm sure that there are other corporations that "loop-holed" their way out of paying taxes too and probably for more years than just last year. Haliburton moved it's "headquarters" to arab Abu Dhabi to avoid taxes and to not be prosecuted for their wrong doings over the many years our U.S. Government over-paid them for "work" which resulted in fleecing the American Taxpayers. Do you know that the previous Woman CEO (who ran & LOST for Governor of California) of "ebay" fired thousands of loyal American workers to make herself richer and moved those jobs to foreign countries? Do you know that for every > ONE < American worker that "Apple" employs, they employ > TEN < low pay/slave workers in China? The latest tactic that corporations are "foisting" on our country and the American Taxpayers is to move their "headquarters" to foreign countries where they do not have to pay ANY taxes; a lot of these "headquarters"=(NOT) are merely a "front", a one or two room office with one secretary and one male spokesman-"mouthpiece". Then they can say that they ARE NOT an American company and NOT subject to pay U.S. Taxes. .. Hmm!! I wonder, if I open a post office box in a Tax Haven NO-TAX country, can I then say because that's my address - I DON'T HAVE TO PAY U.S. TAXES LIKE THOSE CORPORATIONS?? DO YOU THINK THAT YOU & I, "LITTLE" PEOPLE, COULD GET AWAY WITH PAYING NO TAXES LIKE THE CORPORATIONS? My attitute is, my LAW would be >> CORPORATIONS, if you make money IN the U.S.A., you WILL pay taxes on the money you made; and I DON"T CARE IF YOU CLAIM THAT YOU ARE A FOREIGN OR AN AMERICAN CORPORATION, You WILL pay taxes to help support THIS Country--PERIOD!!! So if you are going to complain about welfare payments to people in poverty, I think you should FIRST complain about CORPORATIONS WELFARE-PAYING NO TAXES/CORPORATIONS BUYING OUR CONGRESSIONAL MEMBERS/CORPORATIONS SHIPPING "OUR" JOBS TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES/MILLIONAIRES-BILLIONAIRES RUINING OUR ECONOMY & WORKERS LIVES/CORPORATIONS DISLOYALTY TO OUR COUNTRY; not to mention the endless WARS that only benefit CORPORATIONS and MILITARY MACHINE LEADERS (the soldiers are just expendable pawns to them)!! I think you should blame the GIGANTIC welfare scammer recipients before you blame the TINY recipients
Sorry, but I had to point-out who the REAL BIG welfare recipients actually are, rather than all the blame being heaped on LITTLE individual American citizens who may be experiencing hopefully, temporary hard times caused by the BIG GUYS to a great extent. Anyway, NOT ALL of us, and I'm sure NOT MOST of those out shopping on Friday were/are welfare recipients.
You touched on aspects of "welfare" people forget about, especially corporate welfare, which has probably hurt NY worse than the individuals that get it and don't stay on it for mpre than a couple of years, usually.
At a time when our very-low income family qualified for food stamps, WIC and Medicaid, I didn't take them. I went to the appt., as I was applying for childcare assistance, but my pride was too overwhelming to take it... and the host of other aid that I was *automatically* applied for, just by applying for one thing. I'm a 13th generation American, I thought- I'm supposed to help our budget, not detract from it. My husband had been laid off *before* the recession, for "daring" to take his vacation time for the birth of our second child, at a time that was inconveniet for the owner... despite 8 months' notice. He was laid off two days before the birth of our son. "Universe's feed the pig" - I'm sure that those local to Syracuse know what company I'm referring to - was so.very.aptly named. My husband collected unemployment for two months, while I recovered, and I'd been hired at TWC and my husband had been accepted elsewhere. I decided to just work with the new budget and stay home with the children to eliminate childcare costs, instead of accepting assistance. And so, I didn't. Not that it would have mattered much- we would have been disqualified the very week we would have both started working at once.
In light of that, I started volunteering for WIC, at their many seminars. The average, middle-class American would be absolutely astonished at the unfortunate ignorance and poverty that are so ingrained in the minds of those who lead [many times, unknowingly] impoverished lives... they truly have no idea of how to bake or freeze or soak beans. I learned a great deal of humility from volunteering. They either didn't know HOW to cook the most basic things or didn't have working appliances because their landlords weren't forced to accept responsibility for fixing/replacing them. And those without computers weren't able to look.up. the landlord-tenant laws. They didn't know that it was common for utilities to be turned on *without* a deposit, because of a better zip code... no matter how much laws encourage that it's not true. It IS. They thought that they were stuck in a horrible, low-rent apartment because that's what they - and everyone they knew well - had always experienced and done... that they couldn't afford to move simply because they couldn't afford the new deposits. And then there was the issue of changing addresses and the many appts. made/re-qualifying meetings with social workers to do so... simply because of a zip code change. It's overwhelming to do all of this on your own, as a mostly-single parent with no child support (I'd say that easily half don't go to court for it, out of fear of retaliation from the fathers' friends and family) and no online support groups or research available on how to find assistance and JOBS and childcare "correctly"... I was glad, in the end, to do what I could. I can't even remember how many mothers I arranged childcare for with my own family (for their children and mine), drove down to the Civic Center, and remained until I was certain that their basic NEEDS were taken care of... those poverty-coarsened social workers weren't planning to help in any way they DID know how... I stood in court for countless custody-support verdicts, to tesitfy, as a witness, the non-presence and non-contribuatory nature of "fathers." These were women who slept with a randomly coming-around Baby Daddy to get diapers and formula for their children... solely for their children to stay alive... and labelled as sluts for it. They're not living with them- just f*&%ing them to provide the most basic items for children they can't even find the resources to go downtown FOR.
And to witness, even experience, that kind of judgement of "leeching" from the system... especially when I am proactively working against it... is too much to let slide. There are so many people without the basic knowledge of how to correct a subtly-sliding lifestyle that I cannot imagine judging an occasion so broad as a full parking lot on a regular payday. I was angry to read ToeJam's post/thread- to be sure. So much so that I called my friend last night and let her know that I am able to start volunteering again.
You have no idea, ToeJam, to be making the kind of generalizations that you've been...
Last edited by proulxfamily; 04-02-2011 at 10:30 AM..
New York in #2 in Tax Burden by state. Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
#2 in caseloads Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
#2 in Top Dollar amount: Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
It may be that NYC is part of that drain, but from what I saw today, they are not the only ones. If NY wants to work on their budget, they might want to take a look at the real problem in the state.
You chose to take each of the stats by "Total" which really doesn't tell the whole story whereas if you just click the next tab to "per capita" it gives a much better idea of what is really going on in comparison to other states. NYS and California come out as number 1 and 2 under the "total" tab due to the simple fact that they have larger populations then most states but the "per capita" tells the real story because it shows how many people are on welfare for every 100 people.
Last edited by Yac; 04-19-2011 at 06:09 AM..
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Everyone was shopping on Friday
