But Seriously...

I'm fine with welfare for a short time when people really need it, but if it's demonstrated that's there's jobs available they can get and they don't take them they should be cut off.

And yeah, I lived next to some of these worthless fuckers when I was in Jacksonville. They were more interested in finding more drugs than getting a job. They should have their asses thrown out on the street. It's one thing if you truly can't get a job, but if you are just too damn lazy to get one you can go fuck yourself.

I'm sure there will be times when the economy is so shitty there will be people literally unable to find work. However, we are not living in one of those times.

 

Well, couple things:

1) I worked with the kids. Legally, I couldn't do shit for the parents, it would've constituted Medicare or Medicaid fraud, or insurance fraud. My services were strictly limited to the kids and the kids only. They were extremely strict on this.

2) Of the kids I worked with, 5 had both parents (or a step-dad) in the picture. 1 was raised by a single dad (who had an IQ of 74 and was physically disabled), and the rest were raised by Single moms. Of those, quite a few of the moms left the dad because he was physically abusive to her or the kids. Of those dads, only 1 paid child support.

I can honestly say in 4 years working there I interacted with maybe 5 or 6 dads total.

I can distinctly recall one couple. They had 3 kids. 1 was low functioning autistic. We're talking non-verbal, wore a diaper at age 6 autistic. The other two were diagnosed with aspergers. Mom had a job at Walmart, step dad was an auto mechanic (note: of the 3 kids, only 1 belonged to step dad. He adopted the other two. Dude was a saint). Mom lost her job when she called off too many times to take care of autistic son, who was either sick or struggling at his special school. Dad lost his job due to the dealership he worked at going under. Only job he could find for one year was oil exchange, working for just over minimum wage. For a family of 5 with extreme issues. Eventually he got a job at another dealership, but even then they were just barely scraping by, and still qualified for Medicaid and other SSDI benefits.

The vast majority of the kids I worked with had single mothers. Single mothers of one or more kids aren't high on the list for hires for manual labor or factory work, which in the city I worked was the only place they could have gone besides Walmart or other retail/fast food options. Also keep in mind I worked there from 2005 until 2009, so the economy wasn't what we would call "good."

1 mom that I can recall applied at the automotive factory, a slaughter house, and another manual labor type job, and she didn't get any of them. She told me they cited her poor availibility as a reason (in between crying jags because she felt so shitty she couldn't provide for her kids). She had 2 kids, and no other family (parents both dead) to help her with child care, let alone things like driving to and from appointments, not to mention the summer when school wasn't in session. So she took a job at Walmart. Her husband moved to Tennessee when she filed a restraining order because he broke her arm. She hadn't seen a dime in child support, and because he was out of state there wasn't much anyone could do to help.

Her case was far from unusual.

One thing I can say for sure. None of them were happy to be on gov't aid, none were sitting around drinking all day, and only once did i see a family make what I considered a crazy purchase. They bought a big tv for Christmas. It was gone by February.

 

I believe you, but I have seen plenty of people who just don't give a shit. Like the people sending Nett those applications. A lot of them didn't have kids either so there was really no excuse. Also, while the kids' moms might not have been shitty people it really sounds like most of the dads were.

Speaking of kids, I hate, fucking hate, the people with no income who just crank them out of their vaginas year after year. It's certainly someone's right to have as many kids as they want, regardless of income, but you shouldn't have more than 2 unless you have an income of $60,000+. That would go up if you live in a more expensive area.

I maintain that the stupid people are outbreeding the smart people at alarming speed.

 

You're starting to sound alarmingly like a eugenicist.

Still, I get it, the dads were deadbeat assholes and yeah, I hope they weren't claiming benefits. I also doubt they were since, if they had been, I'm guessing the courts and agencies awarding benefits would've seen they owed child support and taken it.

But as for cranking out kids? Most of the moms I saw got married and had kids to a man with a decent job, until he turned violent and they had to get out. What should she do? Stay with a drunk that beats the fuck out of her and her kids just so she doesn't end up on gov't support? It wasn't just one, either. There were multiple cases like that. Some dudes are Prince Charming until they're married with kids and realize they hate being tied down, at which point they turn into drunken Mike Tyson, and their wife and kids are Holyfield. Said kids usually end up fucked up, and in need of social workers like me because they're constantly in trouble at school or with the law. I had quite a few court ordered cases.

I did have one case where the dad died in a car accident, and the kid just wasn't the same after that. Mom struggled to get by on a fast food job and gov't assistance.

In all these cases yes, the deadbeat dad is a piece of shit who, at best, should be paying out his ass to support his family and, at worst, should be in prison for abuse. Ironically enough, if dad does go to prison for abuse he can't pay child support anyway, leading to a similar result. It was actually an excuse one mom gave for not pressing charges. She was hoping against hope the asshole would pay some child support, which he can't do from jail.

 

I don't see the purpose of these anecdotal posts. I have personal experience with dozens of perfectly fine, functionally capable people seeking disability who were, in no way, shape or form, physically disabled. The lengths that some people go to "prove" their disability was often funny and pathetic. I would post some of them if I wasn't concerned about violating HIPAA. I could go on and on about how cynical that experience made me. And, I am professionally licensed and qualified to document that with objective, measurable data in a medical record. It wasn't a snap judgement based on watching someone walk from a disabled parking spot into a store. That was based off of many interactions using objective, evidence-based assessments. How many of those people were single parents with > 4 kids and at least 4 different sets of parents? Many. But, I know that's not representative of an entire socioeconomic group.

I guess I just don't understand sweeping generalizations based off of limited interactions via convenience sampling. Where's the evidence re: demographics of families receiving Medicaid/welfare/etc and data supporting/refuting abuse? Honestly, I don't care enough about the matter to jump on PubMed and spend an hour sorting decent studies from shit, but I think this message board is better than painting an entire group of people as "good" or "bad" based on personal experiences. There are shitty people in every group who are abusing the system, and that irks me to no end. But, there are also hard-working, honest people in every group who are deserving of a helping hand.

 

Although you'll always have those wild cards who everyone admired and one who day snapped, something like violence is usually deeply imbedded early in life via crappy youth with lousy parenting in a foreboding living climate. Shitty upbringings breed violent cowards and bullies, there's no doubt about that. I don't buy the stress of everyday family life turning someone into a domestic abuser. That's just fucking LIFE, the life you signed up for and is going to be there when the sun rises towrrow as well. If you're turning violent on your loved ones you have serious issues and you've no doubt been carrying them for a long time. But the human mind is a complex place and some people well... Go nuts and do horrible things.

 

Wow, really? Saying that people shouldn't have a shitload of kids that they can't afford is being a eugenicist? Also, I wasn't really trying to blame the moms, but yeah, I'm really skeptical that their husbands were great guys who just suddenly and irreversibly snapped for no reason.

I'm not really sure what the point of that article was supposed to be. It's kind of obvious that with whites being the overwhelming majority of the population they're going to receive more food stamps than the next ethnic groups. I guess there's nothing wrong with posting the stats, but it was written as if the stats were shocking, and they aren't at all. Also, I'm not totally sure they were trying to make a major point of it or anything, but if they were trying to debunk the myth that there's a lot of blacks on food stamps the data didn't actually help them that much. And no, I don't really give a shit either way about which ethnicity uses them.

I do find it kind of ridiculous though that among recipients only 31% were in a household that had someone working, and you have to expect to that within that 31% a lot of the workers only had part time jobs as well.

 

I don't quite know what you're getting at here. Especially with a title like "Who Gets Food stamps? White People Mostly"

It's shocking that 67% of the demographic population receives 40% of the food stamp budget? Or it's shocking that the remaining 33% of the demographic population accounts for 60% of the budget?

 

Well, for the whole having kids on welfare thing, it's not like these people are just popping out a ton of kids for funsies. These pregnancies are largely unplanned and brought to term under conditions where the mothers are basically stuck. I don't remember the exact statistic from the time of my life when all of these things were at the forefront of my brain, but I know it's more than half of the mothers on welfare had their first kid as a teen, and people who have unplanned pregnancies frustratingly tend to continue to have unplanned pregnancies despite how one would think you'd get a handle of how these things happen. So, there are all these other factors at play. It's a matter of shitty or non-existent sex-ed (including federally-funded abstinence only education, which Obama tried to eliminate funding for but it got shoehorned back in by the Republicans insisting it's a part of the Healthcare Reform Act since they were mad about birth control being covered), access to birth control (both financially and other factors, including access to knowledgeable and non-judgmental healthcare providers), and access to abortion. While I'm sure there are people rigging the system or just being dumb - as is the case with all talks about welfare - that whole issue is really a result of a lot of larger societal and political factors than people being selfish or undeserving. But of course the same politicians who cry about these people getting undeserved handouts are the same people fighting tooth and nail against sex ed, birth control access, abortion, and Planned Parenthood. It's why I wish this type of stuff would get talked about more as an economic issue, because when it's ghettoized in the niche of "women's rights" or because it dares to mention the word "abortion" it gets swept aside as unimportant or attacked.

 

I have fairly limited knowledge of this topic so I'm going to preemptively ask for forgiveness if this suggestion is completely ridiculous.

Given that they can't be federally funded anyway, is there a reason planned parenthood can't just decide not to do the abortions themselves and instead point people in the right direction if they need one? Then they can say "Look, we help expecting parents and provide care for new borns. We don't do abortions anymore. Fuck off GOP." Then if Republicans want to keep talking about how much of a shit they give about kids it's a lot harder to condemn the organization.

I don't know if this would block access for some people to abortions, or they would have to drive across 4 states or whatnot so maybe it wouldn't work. I suppose too that the GOP might still try to defund them even after just because craziness.

 

We really need to see more of this: Idiot gives his 14 year old niece a gun because she's going to fight another 14 year old girl. Over a boy. Niece shoots and kills the other 14 year old.

Uncle Idiot just got 100 years.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/100-years-for-uncle-who-supplied-gun-in-endia-martin-slaying/

“There are no excuses or rationalization for giving a child a gun to take to ridiculous fight about a boy,” Judge Thaddeus Wilson said at the sentencing for Donnell Flora. “Children in this city are dying by the hundreds because adults fail to and/or refuse to be adults.”

 

A lot of (if not most of - I'm on my phone so I can't double check) Planned Parenthood centers only do abortion referrals, but yeah, they're often the only healthcare providers in an area that do abortions at all because other places don't want to deal with all that shit. Maybe in, like, New York or California going to another place wouldn't be that big of a deal, but for everywhere else, even in urban areas, you're often looking at a couple hours away, 1-4 times depending on the type and the state laws, for women who might not be able to afford to have a car/take transportation/take off work/get child care. Combine that with having to get the money together for the visits themselves (since it's not typically covered under insurance) and/or waiting for financial assistance options to come through plus low cut-off limits for a lot of states for how long into the pregnancy it's even an option and all of a sudden it's not really an option anymore. (And these are all factors that can play into why they weren't on birth control in the first place, assuming they weren't on birth control, and there are still a lot of other reasons that could contribute to that as well.)

As much as I'd like to give the right the benefit of the doubt that they'd leave planned parenthood alone if they stopped doing them altogether, just look at Bobby Jindal vowing to shut down Louisiana's clinics despite neither of them doing abortion. If it's not abortion, it'll be the sex ed part of it, or the providing birth control part of it. Parents think PP wants to turn all of their virgin angels into sluts (as if that's a bad thing!) It'll always be something.

 

Has anyone else seen that the Utah GOP is going to have online voting for tomorrow's caucus? This could prove very interesting what with Anonymous already butting in to the race in an attempt to derail Trump.

This has all the makings of a complete and total train wreck.

 

This is the issue with social services in general: you typically can't isolate it to one problem. Even a lack of money isn't fixed by adding money (see: lottery winners). Take your average SNAP recipient: that's only ONE problem. They are much more likely to be facing housing instability, job instability, have medical issues (or bills) stacking up, the combination of which leads to mental health issues, which often people self-medicate, and so on.

I think in our society, some people are just fucked and they deserve our help, more or less unconditionally. A mother of five on welfare? I don't see the point in making her life more difficult, because even if she chose to game the system, we're shooting ourselves in the foot by not helping her take care of those five little fuckers. We ultimately bite the bullet on her, to avoid the full clip of her kids and their bad decisions being the next generation of taxpayer's problems.

I work hard and I hate freeloaders...I think if the tax burden was on the company and not me, I'd be a lot more liberal about how we spend our money, because it literally wouldn't be me subsidizing the system.

I also think about how the nature of employment has changed: companies take a lot more risk hiring people (ask how much workman's compensation insurance runs if you don't believe me), and in exchange demand a lot more from employees (see how much productivity has risen without wages increasing) without offering much back. There is no incentive for hiring marginal employees anymore, and this bumps a lot of people onto the "do not hire" list.

I can also attest that getting a job isn't a simple as it sounds. There's transportation to and from, child care and costs associated with work (food, uniforms, etc.). These costs are easily managed if you stay employed, but spend six months off and see how quickly that shit adds up before you ever see a paycheck. This is why so many of these payday loan places exist, and everyone who walks into those places know they are being fucked, but they have no choice.

Here was my scenario: I had to move to a new city for a job. That entailed 2-3 rides into the city (let's say $40, each round trip), just to interview. Also, I had to get my suits dry cleaned and pressed (call it $20). I have to look for a new place and if I find one, it's a deposit and first month's rent. That's $2000, easy. Parking adds some change to my monthly bills, and getting things like food, necessities for a new place and moving expenses. For me, that was $400 or so. So, before I ever saw a single paycheck, I was $2540 down, and almost none of that could be turned back into cash. Adding $250/week in child care would make it even less possible.

For a job that pays more than $40K, that's worth it if I don't get laid off. For a job that pays $20k, it's iffy, and for anything less than that you're fucking yourself over if you can't get an interest free loan. Who gives out interest free loans? Family that's not poor, that's who. And if ANYTHING goes wrong in the first 3 months, like an injury (remember that health insurance has a $2000 deductible, so you'd better have at least that much cash on hand), car breaking down or if you get kicked out of your place ($2000 for this one, it'll be another $2000 for the next one), you are increasingly fucked. So to pull off a job you need some help, some luck and it needs to be a pretty lucrative gig. If this gig fucks you somehow, you are somewhere between $3-5k in the hole and that much less likely to dig yourself out, and you start from scratch. I didn't even break even on taking my job until 4 months into it. So, no it's not as simple as it sounds.

 

Hulk Hogan was just awarded $25 million ON TOP of $115 million for his lawsuit against Gawker. Largely I think this is a good thing because I hope it bankrupts Gawker, they're horrible and the world would be better without them. Gawker which includes Deadspin, Jezebel and Kotaku all getting burned would be like every Christmas happening at once.