The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor

That only makes sense if 100% of the population was elderly or disabled. But please, don't let elementary math be a factor in your interpretation of data.

 

keep digging.

Entrenched belief to the point of denying facts as lies. I get it

 

perhaps I would believe there is food insecurity, if those in "poverty" were the largest segment of obese americans... clearly they're getting enough food, and are choosing to eat so much they get fat... please don't tell me its from lack of choices to buy healthy foods, stores put in healthy foods and they rotted because they CHOSE to buy the crap they eat that made them fat... there is no insecurity with food in america... visit africa sometime with the peace corps, then come back, and educate me on food insecurity... thats just a liberal talking point that uses one or two examples of parents who have failed, and tries to paint that image on the faces of all americans... load of (bleep)...

 

We have to buy school supplies for the other kids now too. Unless there's another reason my kids each need to bring 200 pencils and 5 boxes of Kleenex at a time. I almost went up to my oldest son's school when I sent him with five 5 subject notebooks and he came home with one, and it wasn't even one that he picked out. They all handed them in and the teacher picked one out to give each student. Man, I was pissed. I emailed the teacher and let her know my son would getting all five of his notebooks back and if I needed to come get them instead then I'd make a special trip.

Edit: I'd sent him with a nice 5-Star notebook with the plastic cover and he came home with a Mead paper notebook.

 

It is my understanding that people who receive welfare, are only allowed to receive it for up to 5 yrs during their lifetime, and must be in some sort of a work or education program.

Stats on SNAP.

http://www.hungercoalition.org/food-stamp-myths

 

....or allowing illegal aliens to invade.

....or mandate a wage level that MUST be paid no matter what the job is worth.

....or incentivize employers to keep folks at 29.9 hours/week.

....or 100 other things Big Fed does to crap on a market.

 

yeah I was irate when I found out kids on the free lunch program, were given the choice of extra servings while standing in line if they asked for it, and my kid who saw other kids getting two helpings of lasagna her favorite hot lunch meal we pay for, and was sad when the lady said she's not special so he doesn't get a second lasagna...

WOW... lol... my kid who I'm paying for lunch isn't special so she doesn't get a second lasagna...

how do you explain that to an 8 year old... she's not special enough for more lasagna but the other kids are... she felt ashamed like she did something wrong...

and yeah not to mention I paid two or three times for school supplies that go to other kids... and on my phone bill I pay for them, on my electric bill I pay for them, now on my water bill they ever have an assistance program charge... everything I do has something for them... I wish there was a way to truly calculate the money we're charged, versus what they are actually given... I want to know how much overhead is there in collecting all these small amounts and distributing them... how much really even makes it into their pockets...

I'm getting ripped off in my forceful "donation" to them... and I can't even deduct this "donation" on my taxes... thats the LEAST they could offer me...

lol

 

So what, $21,775.00 a year? Thanks for the MIT site, they think a kid that can tear an 80's alarm clock down and glue it in an attache box is a genius.

We all get the same opportunities unless we (*)(*)(*)(*) it up for ourselves.

 

IS WELFARE corrupt? Of course it is, and in a damning report last week, the Massachusetts state auditor, Suzanne Bump, rounded up some of the scams:

Welfare payments issued to recipients long after they were listed as dead. Multiple recipients using one Social Security number — and multiple Social Security numbers being used by one person. Electronic benefit cards from Massachusetts being used in places like Hawaii, Las Vegas, and the Virgin Islands. Tens of thousands of blank EBT cards missing from state welfare offices. Repeated requests for “lost” benefit cards to be replaced.

In a report that covered only a two-year period, Bump’s investigators identified at least $18 million in illegal or suspicious welfare payments. “It pains all of us,” Bump told reporters, “to think that the program’s integrity is not being maintained.”

If this sounds familiar, it should. Blistering exposés of welfare fraud and abuse, in Massachusetts and elsewhere, have become almost routine.

Over a 22-month period in New Jersey, that state’s comptroller disclosed last week, prison inmates collected almost $24 million in unlawful welfare benefits — including $10.6 million in unemployment checks and $4.2 million in food stamps. TV reporters in Florida documented the use of electronic benefit cards in strip clubs, liquor stores, bowling alleys, and bingo parlors. A 65-year-old cashier in New Hampshire was fired last year for refusing to let a young man use a benefit card to buy cigarettes.

Governor Deval Patrick shouldn’t let a shoot-the-messenger mentality overcome the need to address genuine public outrage over systemic flaws that led to past waste, fraud, and corruption.

The new Massachusetts audit, meanwhile, followed an earlier report by the state’s inspector general, who estimated that the state is squandering $25 million a year on improper welfare payments. And before that was a national investigation by the US Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program. It uncovered fraud in every state it reviewed.

Is welfare corrupt? Is it ever. And yet the infuriating waste of taxpayer funds is only the beginning of the corruption.

FDR feared the effect of long-term dependence on government. Political leaders today enable it.

More Americans rely on government assistance today than ever before. Food stamps have become almost a middle-class entitlement. At the end of 2012, a record 47.8 million people were on food stamps. Of the 115 million households in the United States, 23 million — one in five — are on the food dole.

It wasn’t so long ago that such a degree of dependency would have been inconceivable. In 2001, according to federal data, 17.3 million people were receiving food aid. In little more than a decade, the food stamp rolls have almost tripled.

That didn’t happen by accident. Under the last two presidents, increasing food stamp enrollment became an explicit government goal. George W. Bush sharply expanded eligibility, rebranding food stamps as “nutritional assistance” instead of welfare. States were encouraged to sign up more recipients — a ball the Obama administration took and ran with. The Agriculture Department promotes food stamps through radio ads and “public service” announcements; billboard-style ads appear on city buses. To attract even more participants, the department advises local welfare agencies to “host social events where people mix and mingle” — show them a good time, and try to get them on welfare.

Is this any way to help the poor? FDR didn’t think so. In his annual message to Congress in 1935, President Roosevelt warned that “continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber.” The father of the New Deal knew that “to dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of a sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America.”

It is a mark of how far we have declined that a political figure who dared to say such a thing today would be denounced as heartless, a hater of the poor, even a racist — as Newt Gingrich found out when he tried to make an issue of soaring food stamp rates during the presidential campaign. When Massachusetts lawmakers last year tried to prevent electronic benefit cards from being used to pay for tattoos, guns, or jewelry, Governor Deval Patrick vetoed the measure, saying he would not be a part of “humiliating poor people” or making them “beg for their benefits.”

FDR feared the effect of long-term dependence on government. Political leaders today enable it.

Welfare corrupts in so many ways. What it does to taxpayers is bad, and what it does to welfare recipients is worse. But what it is doing to our nation’s character and deepest values may well be worst of all.

Jeff Jacoby
Boston Globe 2013

This is another take on your argument...as Andrew Young said, "Slavery didn't break up families as much as Liberal welfare rules.

 

Ok, let's break it down then.

106 to 110 million taking benefits other than veterans' benefits.

Your link says that 90% of these people are elderly, disabled, or actually working. Over $1,000.00 per month at a job and they're committing fraud. Anyways...

Up to 12 months: 36,400,000
1 to 2 years: 29,000,000
2 to 5 years: 40,400,000
Over 5 years: 29,500,000

You're telling me that 99,000,000 of those people are elderly, disabled, or working. If they're elderly or disabled, they would fall in the over 5 year category. By your statistics, 69,500,000 are working. I just don't buy that.

 

Have any data to back this up?

 

I've seen that before. I have no problem admitting that people who work receive SNAP.

SNAP is definitely a drain on taxpayers because it's not free and doesn't come without a cost to us who pay taxes.

SNAP is riddled with fraud. I've seen people give $100 in "stamps" and get $50 to $75 cash in return. I've seen people that made too much to qualify, lie and say they were single and lived alone. That's ultimate fraud and abuse, and slap in the face of any taxpayer whose hard earned money goes straight to that fund.

I don't know any illegal aliens to know if they're getting them.

 

Good post. In Australia, everyone has to be in debt just to keep up with the Jones. Our Welfare culture is all but deceased.

 

I notice you have nothing to support your cavalier dismissal of the source as opposed to the content, other than your unsubstantiated opinion.

yes, the opportunity to succeed is available to everyone, however, the ability to exploit the opportunity is not equal. Perhaps you can discern the difference, but then again, perhaps not.

 

I would have told her that mom and dad make too much money for her to get free seconds, and then I would have left an email or made a trip to the school. You have to be careful because teachers can hold a grudge against your child to retaliate you. The whole thing makes me sick. When I kid in the 80's, we got a supply list for ourselves and if the kid next to us didn't have something, we'd share with them. I didn't grow up with a silver spoon, and my kids aren't growing up with one either, but good God, I'm so tired of getting (*)(*)(*)(*)ed from every angle as a part of the middle class.

 

Your site had one amount listed, I questioned it. I didn't realize it would be a problem. I laughed silently because MIT thought Ahmed Clockmed was a genius.

 

Funny, since most conservatives claim to be Christian, hate welfare and classify those on welfare as lazy. Jesus didn't ever worry about making the poor dependent....he fed many for free, and gave free medical services to the poor throughout his 3 year ministry. Wonder where conservatives get that "meme".......must have originated to cover their true greedy nature.

 

Your observation actually supports my point. In North Dakota, where there is a shortage of labor supply due to the fracking boom, Walmart actually does raise wages, to attract more workers.

However, this is not the case for the country as a whole, where wages rather go down than up. That means that, overall, there is a shortage of jobs, not people willing to work. Therefore, this blows the theory out of the water that people on welfare could just easily get jobs, if they only wanted to.

Somehow, however, my supply and demand labor market analysis seems to fall on deaf ears, except for rebuttals based on anecdotes that fast food chains are, in fact hiring. I am not disputing that they are. They always are, due to high turnover in these (*)(*)(*)(*)ty jobs. However, if they were really desperate for labor, they would raise wages, which they don't (at least not nationwide).

 

Yeah them MIT guys sure are dumb.

I also notice that you have nothing to respond to it other than attack the source. Nothing to back up your own position. sometimes stereotypes are accurate.

 

the problem is, your theory requires the people on welfare to want to work... and its not simply a supply demand issue... they have to be willing to take the work thats available... increasing the demand through artificial means of dropping the supply pool, would serve mostly to just grow wages... there will always be unfilled jobs, just like there will always be people not willing to work despite jobs being available, the difference in north dakota is, the sheer wages offered have altered those who would not work, to desiring work purely because the income is far greater than the welfare benefits provided... so now they are motivated to take jobs they formerly would not...

I mean how ironic is it people all across america, scoff at the mere notion of being a walmart worker, and in north dakota, people are commuting a hundred miles a day just to get the job now that it pays $18 an hour... same job, same work, different attitude once it pays $18 an hour...

so your premise that nobody would be on welfare if there were jobs, is flawed because every city in america has low skill jobs unfilled, and continue to increase wages until the market fills them... so your information isn't falling on deaf ears, its falling on an incorrect application of supply and demand...

having more jobs wouldn't change the number of welfare recipients... higher wages paying more than welfare gets them off the couch... we can pick a major city and prove this point if you would like, we can find unskilled jobs in every major city, yet they all have high welfare recipients per 100,000 compared to the country where there are less jobs... you would think the opposite were true assuming your logic was correct, should me massive unemployment in the country rather than city... the city has unfilled jobs while the country has few and far in between... that defies your premise...

P.S. in north dakota, seniors who were retired, came out of retirement for $18 an hour... have you ever seen a 70 year old person stock a store shelf before, its not pretty... but for $18 an hour, they are willing to re-enter the workforce at those wages... despite getting a monthly check... this is also why raising minimum wages would harm young people, you will see a LOT of seniors come out of retirement for $15 an hour, while they wouldn't have before for $8 an hour... this will create the opposite effect on employment for young folks... making it harder for them to get a job when competing against someone who has 40-50 years of work experience...

 

You got a plan that will feed the lazy bums for free? Give medical services to them for free? When Jesus was on Earth, we didn't have dollars though, so you're gonna have to troll, er, try a little harder.

 

The site had one single amount listed. Is that what you consider a decent living wage or is it not? I've asked three times now and you keep ignoring it. MIT isn't dumb, but their scientific department is full of boneheads.

 

You cannot get cash back from an EBT card for food. You also cannot sell benefits that are on that card. It's virtually impossible. Why not look up the statistics on SNAP fraud? It's extremely low. Also, lying and saying you're single and living alone would reduce your benefit or eligibility, not increase it, as it follows 125% of the poverty level for a household based on so many people. You also know in most states SNAP has access to all your information, including tax filing information in order to determine your earnings? How can you make claims if you do not even understand how the system works? Since you must, apparently, be spoon-fed information to debunk your statistic-less claims, have a look at this website. http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligibility#Income

 

Yep them dumb guys can't figure out there is only a single answer to the question because they were so stupid as to account for the vast differences in the cost of living in different areas.

I'll take the "boneheads" of science that inhabit MIT, over any bonehead that thinks they are boneheads.

 

And I'm sure people calling these "dumb sciencey people" boneheads have lots of Nobel prizes and formal scientific community recognition awards. Like those good people who have proven that global warming doesn't exist, or that the earth was created in six days, or that humans lived with dinosaurs, or "this one simple trick doctors don't want you to know about to increase erection size". With all this intellectual discovery by un-educated citizens, it only makes sense why republicans feel the need to defund schools and universities. They must be ripping us off.