For those who receive public assistance

[jackschmittusa]

Decades ago, when welfare became a lifestyle, it began creating a class of people that were basically unusable as a work force. Wanting to collect a welfare check forever like mom or dad did led many to willfully reject education and training as unnecessary to achieve their goal. With virtually no reading or math skills, no practical skills experience, and no motivation, they are almost un-trainable.

I have met many of them over the course of my life and would like our society to get a return on its investment in them. But as to how to do it, I have no clue.

 

[nehalem256]

There is nothing reasonable about anything that the OP is suggesting.

The money used up by the poor people at the bottom, is tiny compared to the money being sapped out by those at the top.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/13/us-usa-states-medicaid-idUSTRE7BC25420111213

Total Medicaid spending, excluding administrative costs, likely reached $398.6 billion in fiscal 2011, which ended in June for most states

For comparison

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARP#Expenditures_and_commitments

As of February 9, 2009, $388 billion had been allotted, and $296 billion spent, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

So put another way just counting medicaid the poor get the equivalent of one TARP bailout every year.

 

[BoberFett]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/13/us-usa-states-medicaid-idUSTRE7BC25420111213



For comparison

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARP#Expenditures_and_commitments



So put another way just counting medicaid the poor get the equivalent of one TARP bailout every year.

Awww, you did the work for him. I was hoping to see him chicken out and bail out of his unfounded claim.

 

[piasabird]

Yeah lets eliminate SS and medicare and disability and kick people out on the streets. Grandma dont need no stinking SS.

I say this in jest.

However, it is SS and Medicare that are a big drain on our budget. So some cuts may be in order. I think my mom gets something like $1,500 a month for widow benefits and SS per month. Plus she works part time at my sister's Day care. That may sound like a lot of money but Money does not go far now adays.

About 30% of people on SS are not retired.

Food stamps are probably not as much of a drain as you may think.

The only other way to save money is to cut back on the military. I think the military is running kind of lean and mean right now. However, if we fought a few less useless wars protecting muslims maybe we would spend a little less money.

It is quite possible that a lot of aid is going to undocumented people who sneak accross the border to give birth to their foreign brats and then they get welfare. If we did away with or changed the anchor baby rules that might be a possible option. Few other countries just give away citizenship to children because they were born of foreign parents on their home soil.

As a side note I have heard of people flying here to the USA on a tourist visa just to give birth to their child and then flying back. This was a case where they noticed people from places like China coming here so there children could come here with joint citizenship or whatever.

 

[jackstar7]

Ah, so if the goal is smaller government, then you'd be satisified if we simply eliminated welfare of any kind.

Smaller government isn't my goal, but I know it is the goal of some here. Seemed relevant to the discussion.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Whether it be in the form of food stamps, housing or monetary means should they be put to work to compensate for their "free income". The workers of this country pay taxes and some of that money goes to public assistance programs for those less fortunate. Some may be unable/unwilling to work. So what if we implemented a program where those who got this assistance would be put to work (parks, soup kitchen, construction, fixing roads/bridges or name any job) at the minimum wage until they have recouped the costs they have burdened the taxpayer with. I'm thinking that this would be a joint venture between government and private business to help get Americans back to work and also give them a skill once the economy comes back. Although we would have to have a way to identify those on disability who may be able to assist in some minor way. Those mentally disabled may need to be exempted. I would like to hear your thoughts on this.

Think it through, if they are required to do a job, a job must be opened for them putting someone in that job out of work. There are no surplus jobs for them to do.

 

[boomerang]

Think it through, if they are required to do a job, a job must be opened for them putting someone in that job out of work. There are no surplus jobs for them to do.

Are you sure? Because giving immunity to anchor children would make little sense if there are no jobs. It almost sounds like the immunity program would swell the ranks of the unemployed. But surely that can't be the case. Right?

 

[BoberFett]

Smaller government isn't my goal, but I know it is the goal of some here. Seemed relevant to the discussion.

Not really, unless your goal is to shut down any opposition to the bags of money that you throw from helicopters without care.

 

[jstern01]

lest we forget, many people who make minimum wage, qualify for federal assistance such as food stamps and medicaid. Simply having a minimum wage job does not guarantee that the individual or family will not require federal assistance.

 

[WHAMPOM]

We've got hordes of people crossing the border to pick vegetables for slave wages. Seems to me that putting welfare recipients in the fields could solve two problems at once.

Check it out, some of those welfare recipients are the farmers that own those fields.

 

[chucky2]

At this point in time, we can simply have them report to the local VA, elderly care home, library, post office, whatever and read/visit with those, re-sweep floors, wash/re-wash windows, pick up litter, etc. I don't care if one UE person on week 70 washes a window on their 4 hour day for that week, and another UE person comes along right after and washes the same window. At least they'll be made to actually do something for the benefits they're receiving.

How to get them there? Easy. Tell them if they don't report, they won't be getting their check that pay period. Presto. Attendence or money saved, it's a win-win. Who administers it? Find some UE people with the requisite quals and hire them. The few you need to pay to do this in each state/county will vastly outweigh the people that finally get off their @ss and go start doing something rather than putting in zero effort for the "free" bennies.

In the past we had people build roads, bridges, dams, living in group camps eating group food. Now with all the tech and lessons learned, we can't expect people showing up locally to do <x> once or twice a week????

Insanity.

 

[jstern01]

At this point in time, we can simply have them report to the local VA, elderly care home, library, post office, whatever and read/visit with those, re-sweep floors, wash/re-wash windows, pick up litter, etc. I don't care if one UE person on week 70 washes a window on their 4 hour day for that week, and another UE person comes along right after and washes the same window. At least they'll be made to actually do something for the benefits they're receiving.

How to get them there? Easy. Tell them if they don't report, they won't be getting their check that pay period. Presto. Attendence or money saved, it's a win-win. Who administers it? Find some UE people with the requisite quals and hire them. The few you need to pay to do this in each state/county will vastly outweigh the people that finally get off their @ss and go start doing something rather than putting in zero effort for the "free" bennies.

In the past we had people build roads, bridges, dams, living in group camps eating group food. Now with all the tech and lessons learned, we can't expect people showing up locally to do <x> once or twice a week????

Insanity.

That was a different time and place. A lot of water has passed under the bridge, and a compliant court allowed FDR to get away with what could of been called force servatude. Today's world the courts and the governments would spend months, if not years just arguing if it was legal, the cost effective.

 

[Ninjahedge]

There are easy answers to this, but the mot ironic is: It ain't that easy.

1st, people who get paid this are either genuinely out of luck or are not motivated to do anything anyway. Stopping them from getting food and aid only adds to the problem (the equivalent of letting the shit pile deeper rather than spreading it out a bit so it dries up and does not start spreading disease....)

2nd, many are not QUALIFIED to do the jobs you mention. I REALLY do not want to have a laid off bus boy building my bridge. There are only so many guys you can hire to carry bags of cement from point A to point B... Most other jobs require SOM training and desire to do them.

3rd, as mentioned, administration. It costs money to get this thing organized. In the end, are you really saving money?

4th, complaints. Get a bunch of welfare guys "cleaning" up a park and see how that goes.

There are also the other political and labor problems with this, but they are complicated and can change with time.

The only thing I think they should be doing with Welfare is finding a way to ENCOURAGE people to work. Finding a way to give "underemployed' people a bit of help.

Say your salary for the past 10 years was $80K. You get laid off. Now you can either do nothing for $15K, or work in Burger King or WalMart for $30K ($20K after taxes, etc). There is not much motivation to work a full 40 hour job with no benefits for $5K more.


But seeing that you really took a cut, it might help to buffer it a bit. Instead of $15K welfare, they offer to give you $8K to go with that $30K job.... it might encourage more people to work, and reduce the actual costs we are incurring. Similar gradual step downs for work participation could also be done. the key is to encourage growth, not establish a lip that is hard to pass w/o motivation.

 

[yllus]

I completely disagree. The end goal of welfare is to get people off of welfare, not to have them do hard labour to justify taking money from the public purse in their time of need. These people should be in accelerated education programmes and attending job interviews, not breaking rocks.

 

[Veliko]

So put another way just counting medicaid the poor get the equivalent of one TARP bailout every year.

That's one side of it.

Now, how much corporation and personal tax is avoided and dodged each year...?

 

[chucky2]

Large amounts of these people don't want to get educated/re-educated. They're not going to go, or, even if they are made to, won't get anything out of it except a piece of paper at the end of the programme (basically like what most college grads are like now). You mine as well save the expense of setting up the programme, and just give them a piece of paper that says, Sanitary Engineer. Licenced Meat Ariel Flipper. Professional Greeter.

Then they can compete with all the college kids with useless majors that they're allegedly competing with now.

 

[God Mode]

Does anyone have a study or figure on how many jobs would be degraded or lost if social services were to end? A lot of doctors and hospitals rely on these patients to meet margins not to mention the grants and tax breaks they receive from the goverment and city for serving low income/social medicine patients. I'm assuming a lot of doctors and nurses would be obsolete if this happened and this is only the medical industry.

 

[nehalem256]

That's one side of it.

Now, how much corporation and personal tax is avoided and dodged each year...?

That is not comparable at all. Besides I believe one of the biggest sources of tax fraud is the Earned Income Tax credit.

Also, I left off the fact that TARP loans were repaid with interest as well as the government receiving stock warrants.

 

[Veliko]

That is not comparable at all. Besides I believe one of the biggest sources of tax fraud is the Earned Income Tax credit.

Also, I left off the fact that TARP loans were repaid with interest as well as the government receiving stock warrants.

Of course it is comparable. If you ain't putting in, you're taking out.

 

[Ryan711]

I completely disagree. The end goal of welfare is to get people off of welfare, not to have them do hard labour to justify taking money from the public purse in their time of need. These people should be in accelerated education programmes and attending job interviews, not breaking rocks.

you don't think hard labor provides incentive to not be on welfare? I think that would be one of the only things that get people off of it. Got a job interview? Ask your hard labor supervisor for the afternoon off. Do education online/at night/on weekends.

 

[mattpegher]

Yeah lets eliminate SS and medicare and disability and kick people out on the streets. Grandma dont need no stinking SS.

I say this in jest.

However, it is SS and Medicare that are a big drain on our budget. So some cuts may be in order. I think my mom gets something like $1,500 a month for widow benefits and SS per month. Plus she works part time at my sister's Day care. That may sound like a lot of money but Money does not go far now adays.

About 30% of people on SS are not retired.

Food stamps are probably not as much of a drain as you may think.

The only other way to save money is to cut back on the military. I think the military is running kind of lean and mean right now. However, if we fought a few less useless wars protecting muslims maybe we would spend a little less money.

It is quite possible that a lot of aid is going to undocumented people who sneak accross the border to give birth to their foreign brats and then they get welfare. If we did away with or changed the anchor baby rules that might be a possible option. Few other countries just give away citizenship to children because they were born of foreign parents on their home soil.

As a side note I have heard of people flying here to the USA on a tourist visa just to give birth to their child and then flying back. This was a case where they noticed people from places like China coming here so there children could come here with joint citizenship or whatever.

But for the vast majority of SS and Medicare reciepients, they have paid into the system. Sure we open up those funds to many who havent paid in but for most they have.
I will have to do some research but I'm sure the numbers are out there re the average money paid to medicare and SS vs the amount the average american recieves from each program, I'll get back to you on that one.

 

[yllus]

you don't think hard labor provides incentive to not be on welfare? I think that would be one of the only things that get people off of it. Got a job interview? Ask your hard labor supervisor for the afternoon off. Do education online/at night/on weekends.

The time investment required to find relevant job positions and apply to them is an enormous one. If I had to do that and also had to pick apples from an orchard during the day, I'd have far less time and energy to focus on what's important: Finding employment in the private sector.

The incentive to get out of welfare already exists and is very strong: It's the social stigma, it's the constant near harassment levels of being checked up on, and it's the fact that you are at best treading water as a subsistence level of income. That doesn't need to be increased.

 

[Ryan711]

The time investment required to find relevant job positions and apply to them is an enormous one. If I had to do that and also had to pick apples from an orchard during the day, I'd have far less time and energy to focus on what's important: Finding employment in the private sector.

And yet people do it all the time when moving from one job to another, and they don't even have the extra incentive of working a manual labor job most of the time.

The incentive to get out of welfare already exists and is very strong: It's the social stigma, it's the constant near harassment levels of being checked up on, and it's the fact that you are at best treading water as a subsistence level of income. That doesn't need to be increased.

If that were true, we'd have less people on welfare than we do now, and we wouldn't have people abusing things like food stamps. It's a win/win as far as I see. We can finally start rebuilding this country's infrastructure, and at the same time get people off welfare and decrease the deficit.

 

[fskimospy]

If that were true, we'd have less people on welfare than we do now, and we wouldn't have people abusing things like food stamps. It's a win/win as far as I see. We can finally start rebuilding this country's infrastructure, and at the same time get people off welfare and decrease the deficit.

This is unlikely to reduce the deficit in any meaningful way. Are you aware of the current structure of welfare and the overall yearly costs as a percentage of the federal budget? What exactly do you think these people are going to do in order to 'rebuild infrastructure' anyway?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

This is unlikely to reduce the deficit in any meaningful way. Are you aware of the current structure of welfare and the overall yearly costs as a percentage of the federal budget? What exactly do you think these people are going to do in order to 'rebuild infrastructure' anyway?

What did they do in the WPA?