Speaking of Welfare, Food Stamps, etc.

[AC54ME]

Originally Posted by Chris Fowler

No, he's not.

Actually...he very well might be. Or at least one of him might be.

Chas's only goal on this forum is to be contradictory and annoy anyone that's willing to pay attention to him (them).

There is no other way to explain the responses, diversions, lies, inappropriate laughter, etc.

I put up with it for much longer than I should have.

Wish more people would stop.

You can't teach someone that isn't here to learn.

You can't argue with someone who's only goal is to be contradictory.

Facts don't matter as long as you're annoyed.

06-22-2011, 08:21 AM

This message is hidden because ChasC5 is on your ignore list.

[Peter Pan]

They eat better than I do and on my dime, but then they deserve to take all that I earned and sit on there ass, after all it is there money not mine to decide what to do with

[ChasC5]

I thought this was Day ... not Grump Day

I must have you guys mixed up

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by Peter Pan

They eat better than I do and on my dime, but then they deserve to take all that I earned and sit on there ass, after all it is there money not mine to decide what to do with

Let them die.

Why are progressives so enamored of Darwinism yet they refuse to allow it work in society?

[73sbVert]

Originally Posted by VITE1

Let them die.

Why are progressives so enamored of Darwinism yet they refuse to allow it work in society?

GOOD question!

[LATB]

Originally Posted by VITE1

Let them die.

Why are progressives so enamored of Darwinism yet they refuse to allow it work in society?

they only use Darwinism as their "go to" position when it comes to God & Christianity.

most of the left HATES Christianity, because it has cause for moral judgement...and they do not want to be judged, because judgement shows the flaws of liberalism.

[sanchez]

The dude that did this got arrested. He was buying all that and then selling it for $.50 on the dollar.

LINK

Turns out buying lobster with foods stamps of fine. Selling them is illegal.

Kinda odd, the dude was actually being punished for being mildly entrepreneurial and industrious.

[LATB]

Originally Posted by sanchez

The dude that did this got arrested. He was buying all that and then selling it for $.50 on the dollar.

LINK

Turns out buying lobster with foods stamps of fine. Selling them is illegal.

Kinda odd, the dude was actually being punished for being mildly entrepreneurial and industrious.

we can't have this in the new AmeriKa.

[sanchez]

Originally Posted by LarsAtTheBeach

we can't have this in the new AmeriKa.

Dude, that's the irony. Guy had a business plan( albiet pretty shitty) and was showing a bit of moxies. Now he's gonns be blowing dudes in Jackson for cigarettes and security.

[LATB]

Originally Posted by sanchez

Dude, that's the irony. Guy had a business plan( albiet pretty shitty) and was showing a bit of moxies. Now he's gonns be blowing dudes in Jackson for cigarettes and security.

[jaxgator]

Originally Posted by jaxgator

For the naysayers: snopes.com: Food Stamps Steak Receipt

At least the SOB that did this ended up being arraigned on Welfare fraud charges.

Originally Posted by sanchez

The dude that did this got arrested. He was buying all that and then selling it for $.50 on the dollar

[sanchez]

Originally Posted by jaxgator

Ooopppsss. Sorry man, my eyes crossed at the Lobsters.

[ChasC5]

Five Major Welfare Myths

Myth #1: The typical welfare recipient is a black inner city single mother.
The Census Bureau's most recent annual poverty report found that urban black mothers constitute less than one out of six of all poor households. Rural white families account for more--one out of five. White suburban families account or even more--one out of four.

Myth #2: The poor are lazy.
Forty percent of poor adults work, although many cannot find full time jobs. Indeed, even when they do they may still be in poverty. Some 11 million jobs in 1991 paid less than $11,500, $2,000 under the official poverty level for a family of four. Of those poor adults who don't work, 90 percent fall into the following categories: 22 percent are disabled, 17 percent are in school, 21 percent are elderly retirees, 31 percent have family responsibilities.

Myth #3: Welfare mothers breed welfare daughters.
Two long term studies reported by the House Ways and Means Committee in 1992 found that only about one in five daughters of "highly welfare dependent" mothers themselves become highly dependent on welfare. The rest rely on welfare sporadically or not at all.

Myth #4: Throwing people off the welfare rolls will eventually improve their lives and save taxpayers money.
The most celebrated experiment in welfare reform has occurred in Michigan. Governor Engler completely eliminated his state's $240 million General Assistance(GA) payments to 83,000 childless, able bodied adults.Only 8 percent of these former GA recipients found employment and they earn
an average of only $120 a week. Many sell blood for $20 a pint. Over one third lost their homes when the program ended. As one study notes, if only 5 percent of these former GA recipients end up in prison or a state psychiatric institution all the taxpayer savings from ending General Assistance will be lost.

Myth #5: Welfare is cheaper than creating well paying public jobs.
In his book "Securing the Right to Employment", Philip Harvey calculates that in 1986 we could have achieved full employment by creating l0.4 million public service jobs. He further assumed that the average annual wage would be $13,000. The cost of such a program would have been a daunting $142 billion. But when we deduct from this sum the taxes that would be paid by these new workers and the savings from drastically reduced unemployment insurance payments, welfare , Medicaid, food stamps and other expenditures directly linked to low income and unemployment overall we would have spent $13 billion less. A full employment program, even excluding the social savingsfrom reduced family violence, more stable communities, and less crime, pays for itself in reduced welfare expenditures.

If we can overcome these five myths about welfare we may well engage in a national dialogue with meaningful results, not only for the one in five Americans who now live in poverty, but for the nation as a whole. But this will occur only when we challenge and overcome the welfare myths that paralyze our thinking.

What a bunch of crap ... these are all lies ...

[sanchez]

Originally Posted by ChasC5

What a bunch of crap ... these are all lies ...

Citing your sources isn't your strong suit is it?

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by ChasC5

What a bunch of crap ... these are all lies ...

Look at the dates quoted in your little editorial... numbers that aren't from the Reagan Era might be more applicable to today's problems. Just a thought.

Some 11 million jobs in 1991 ... studies reported by the House Ways and Means Committee in 1992... Philip Harvey calculates that in 1986

[ChasC5]

Originally Posted by sanchez

Citing your sources isn't your strong suit is it?

Like I said ... it's all crap ... everyone knows those are NOT Myths at all ... those are legendary FACTS. I just wanted to point out to you guys the type of bold-face lies that are being told in the world. we need to help spread the truth.

[sanchez]

QUOTE=ChasC5;324133]Like I said ... it's all crap ... everyone knows those are NOT Myths at all ... those are legendary FACTS. I just wanted to point out to you guys the type of bold-face lies that are being told in the world. we need to help spread the truth. [/QUOTE]

Whatever.

Chas, do successful people pay more taxes or less taxes?

[RedLS1GTO]

Originally Posted by ChasC5

Like I said ... it's all crap ... everyone knows those are NOT Myths at all ... those are legendary FACTS. I just wanted to point out to you guys the type of bold-face lies that are being told in the world. we need to help spread the truth.

You do realize that your 20+ year old numbers are WAY off of today's... right?

Let's look at some more recent ones shall we? These are the 2006 numbers posted by the AFDC. I couldn't find numbers from 2010-2011, but these are still a hell of a lot closer to today than numbers from the 80s.

Welfare recipients by race:

-White 38.8% (69.4% of total population)
-Black 39.8% (12.7%)
-Hispanic 15.7% (12.6%)
-Asian 2.4% (3.8%)
-other 3.3%

Do the math. Blacks = ~13% of the population and almost 40% of the welfare recipients. A black individual is more than 5 times as likely to be on welfare than a white individual. A hispanic individual is twice as likely. This isn't some racist opinion or editorial. In fact, I think it is a terrible thing that we need to fix in our society, but it is a numerical FACT.

It's also important to note that 24.7% of black Americans live below poverty line while only 8.6% of white Americans do. (National Poverty Center | University of Michigan)

Where is the myth in all of this Chas?

[RedLS1GTO]

How about a closer look at some of these "Myths?"

Myth #2: The poor are lazy.
Forty percent of poor adults work, although many cannot find full time jobs. Indeed, even when they do they may still be in poverty. Some 11 million jobs in 1991 paid less than $11,500, $2,000 under the official poverty level for a family of four. Of those poor adults who don't work, 90 percent fall into the following categories: 22 percent are disabled, 17 percent are in school, 21 percent are elderly retirees, 31 percent have family responsibilities.

"The poverty level for a family of 4"? Why use the family of 4 for this argument? Included in those 11 million jobs are without a doubt a HUGE number of minimum wage types of jobs held by young people such as fast food, gas stations, grocery stores, etc. A high school type of job is below the poverty line for a family of 4? No shit.

"31 percent have family responsibilities." WTF does that mean? Family responsibilities? I don't know about you, but to me working to pay for food is a "family responsibility". I'm guessing this was done by survey (since you posted no source). What were the other choices? If given a choice between "family responsibilities" and "I'm lazy" what other outcome would you expect? Family responsibilities. GMAFB.

Myth #4: Throwing people off the welfare rolls will eventually improve their lives and save taxpayers money. The most celebrated experiment in welfare reform has occurred in Michigan. Governor Engler completely eliminated his state's $240 million General Assistance(GA) payments to 83,000 childless, able bodied adults.Only 8 percent of these former GA recipients found employment and they earn an average of only $120 a week. Many sell blood for $20 a pint. Over one third lost their homes when the program ended. As one study notes, if only 5 percent of these former GA recipients end up in prison or a state psychiatric institution all the taxpayer savings from ending General Assistance will be lost.

-"Many sell blood?" Seriously? How many? Source? This is just plain pathetic editorializing without anything to substantiate it.

-"Over one third lost their homes when the program ended." How many were in homes they should have never bought in the first place? How many would have lost them no matter what? Were these all forclosures? Define "lost". Again, nothing more than editorializing. The flip side is that even without welfare, 2/3 were able to keep their homes. How is this? If they were so desparately in need of money how were they able to do this? Hmmmmm....

-"if only 5 percent of these former GA recipients end up in prison or a state psychiatric institution all the taxpayer savings from ending General Assistance will be lost." This is the dumbest of all. Is it going on the assumption that they will end up in prison or in a psych ward because their welfare got cutoff? How many would have ended up there anyway? More pathetic editorializing without any possible facts to back it up.



Your mythbusting is nothing more than a 20 year old editorial.

[VITE1]

*WELFARE AND THE CULTURE OF POVERTY*

Summary

Welfare is both a consequence and a cause of several conditions best described as social pathologies. These conditions include dependency, poverty, out-of-wedlock births, nonemployment, abortion, and violent crime. The basic hypothesis of this study is that welfare dependency and the other pathologies are jointly determined and are derivative of a common set of other conditions.

Differences in the levels of these conditions among the states provide a basis for estimating the specific effects of welfare benefits, the relations among the social pathologies, and the extent to which the pathologies are based on a common set of root causes.

Analysis of the state data for 1992 yields the following estimates of the effects of an increase in Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits by 1 percent of the average personal income in the state: the number of AFDC recipients would increase by about 3 percent; the number of people in poverty would increase by about 0.8 percent; the number of births to single mothers would increase by about 2.1 percent; the number of adults who are not employed would increase by about 0.5 percent; the number of abortions would increase by about 1.2 percent; and the violent crime rate would increase by about 1.1 percent.

The social pathologies associated with the current welfare system no longer seem acceptable, not so much because of their fiscal costs but because of their malign effects. An important question addressed in this study is the extent to which these pathologies are dependent on conditions that could be changed by government policy.



Social Pathologies

For this study, the six conditions are described as social pathologies, not because they are necessarily illegal or immoral in an individual case but because the level of these conditions is broadly considered as undesirable. There is less consensus, however, about the relative undesirability of these conditions. An increase in welfare dependency, for example. may be considered desirable if it reduces one or more of the other conditions. As it turns out, however, an increase in AFDC benefits increases all of the six pathologies that are the focus of this study.

Welfare Dependency

In 1992, 5.4 percent of the national population were dependent on cash benefits from AFDC, with a range from 2.0 percent in Idaho to 10.8 percent in the District of Columbia. This program is jointly financed by the federal and state governments and is administered by the states subject to numerous federal guidelines. All AFDC recipients are also eligible for food stamps and medicaid, and many also receive benefits from special food programs, utility assistance, and housing assistance.

An additional 2.6 percent of the population receive cash benefits from other federal and state programs, for a total of 8 percent who are dependent on cash benefits. A broader 9.9 percent of the population receive food stamps, and 11.9 percent are covered by medicaid. A more complex study would be necessary to estimate the causes and consequences of the broader set of means-tested programs. For this study, the level of welfare dependency is defined as the percent of the population that receive cash benefits from the AFDC program.

Poverty

A total of 14.5 percent of the population have money income below the official poverty line, with a range from 7.6 percent in Delaware to 24.5 percent in Mississippi. The national poverty rate is now about the same as when the War on Poverty was instituted 30 years ago, despite the expenditure of over $5 trillion (at 1993 prices) for means-tested public assistance programs in the intervening years and a 75 percent increase in average real income. More means-tested benefits may or may not have contributed to the incidence of poverty but they have clearly not reduced it.

Any definition of poverty, of course, is somewhat arbitrary, depending on what types of income are included. The government estimates national poverty rates for 15 different aggregations of income, taxes, and transfers, with a range from 10.4 percent based on all after-tax income and transfers to a high of 22.6 percent based only on pre-tax money income. For this study, the level of poverty is defined as the percent of the population with pre-tax money income and cash transfers below the official poverty line, the only such data available by state.

Out-of-Wedlock Births

Out-of-Wedlock births are the most rapidly increasing social pathology. On a national basis (in 1991), 29.2 percent of births were to single mothers, with a range from 14.3 percent in Utah to 65.9 percent in the District of Columbia. Since 1960, the illegitimacy rate has increased from 2.3 percent to 22 percent for whites and from 21.4 percent to 68 percent for blacks. A substantial part of the current generation of inner city young people has grown up without a father, a contributor to the increase in violent crime and the decline in school performance as well as to some of the pathologies addressed in this study.

Nonemployment

The percent of the adult population that is not employed has been declining for many years and, compared to many other nations, is unusually low. For lack of a better word, I will define this condition with the inelegant word nonemployment, because the word unemployment has usually been used to describe those not working but seeking work. Formally, the nonemployment rate is the percent of the civilian noninstitutional population age 16 and over that is not employed. On a national basis the nonemployment rate is 38.6 percent with a range from 31.1 percent in Nebraska to 51.7 percent in West Virginia.

Abortion

Abortion is the most contentious issue in contemporary American politics, primarily because the polar positions have dominated the debate. The "pro-choice" advocates consider any restriction on abortion as a violation of a woman's rights. The "pro-life" advocates consider any abortion as murder. No study of the causes and consequences of abortion would reconcile these positions. Most Americans, however, appear to favor legal and social rules that would make abortion legal, safe, and rare. For the most part, abortion is legal and safe but it is not rare. On a national basis there are 379 abortions per 1,000 live births (somewhat lower than the prior peak of 436 in 1983), with a range from 74 in Wyoming to 1,104 in the District of Columbia. For the broad group of Americans who regard most abortions as undesirable but not a crime, abortion is appropriately described as a pathology and an understanding of the conditions that explain the large variation in abortion rates can be valuable to aid their judgment on this contentious issue.

Violent Crime

Violent crime may be the most serious social pathology in the United States. The reported violent crime rate has increased substantially for several decades and is much higher than in other nations. And the number of violent crimes estimated from victimization surveys is much higher than the number reported to and by the police. On a national basis, there were 758 reported violent crimes per 100,000 residents, with a range from 83 in North Dakota to 2,833 in the District of Columbia.



Root Causes of the Culture of Poverty

One objective of this study is to identify the extent to which the six social pathologies are the consequence of a common set of root causes. The conditions examined included the level of welfare benefits in each state, a measure of general economic conditions, the racial and ethnic composition, and several social and cultural indicators.

Welfare Benefits

The one variable that best reflects the welfare policy in a state is the level of AFDC benefits per recipient household. State governments also set eligibility standards subject to federal guidelines, but differences in these standards are not easily measurable. For this study, welfare benefits are defined as the annual AFDC benefits per recipient household as a percent of the pretax personal income per capita in the state. On a national basis such benefits are 23 percent of personal income per capita, with a range from 10.4 percent in Mississippi to 40.8 percent in Alaska.

Total welfare benefits per recipient household, one should recognize, are much higher than the direct cash benefits from AFDC. The total benefits for those households from AFDC, food stamps, and medicaid only range from 50 to 100 percent of personal income per capita. And the total benefits for those AFDC recipients who also receive housing assistance, utility assistance and specialized food programs range from 90 to 125 percent of personal income per capita. These estimates of total benefits provide a better sense of why welfare has become a trap for so many women. For reasons that are not clear, however, the several measures of social pathology that are the focus of this study are more closely related to the narrow cash benefits from AFDC than to the broader measures of total welfare benefits, maybe because many AFDC recipients value cash benefits more than noncash benefits or are not eligible for the broader set of benefits.


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