21,000 Detroiters losing welfare benefits

[BagAJellyDonuts]

http://www.mdrc.org/publications/51/full.pdf

Interesting report.

Of course some of it is outdated. Looks like Vermont is last state standing that gives unlimited "assistance".

But with that perspective, [[that nearly half the states have a five year cap) what is so wrong with Michigan's four year cap?

[Scottathew]

what is so wrong with Michigan's four year cap?

It lets people sit on their asses for four years and live off the hard work of others. That's a problem.

A four-year gap on your resume.
Atrophied work skills.
Sets people up to depend on government assistance for life.

4 years is way too long.

[Detroitnerd]

It lets people sit on their asses for four years and live off the hard work of others. That's a problem.

A four-year gap on your resume.

Much better when you're homeless and your ass is on the street.

Atrophied work skills.

Those kids will learn to work hard stealing and hooking to make the family nut.

Sets people up to depend on government assistance for life.

Which is wrong ... unless you're Wall Street

4 years is way too long.

Yeah, let's re-open the workhouses. Dickenian England was so charming...

[Scottathew]

Much better when you're homeless and your ass is on the street.

That's a false dichotomy. In your argument there are only two choices:

1) Unlimited government assistance
2) Ass on the street


There are more options:

3) Get a f***ing job
4) Still can't get a job? Try f***ing harder
5) Still can't get a job? Keep trying.
6) Too lazy to find a job? Move in with family.
7) Too lazy to find a job? Appeal to a charity for assistance.
8) Get a f***ing job

I would find it amazing if a person couldn't get a job after 4 years! If you can't find a job in 1461 days then you're either not trying or you need to do setup at 8-Mile and I-75 and ask folks for change. The guy with the dog chained to a shopping cart seems to do well.


We're acting as if these free-loaders have been trying so hard to get a job and they just for some reason can't...

[Detroitnerd]

That's a false dichotomy. In your argument there are only two choices:

1) Unlimited government assistance
2) Ass on the street

For many of the people thrown off assistance, that is the reality, not a rhetorical fallacy. Sure, headlines show a national unemployment rate of 9.1 percent. But they started cooking those numbers at the beginning of the 1980s, discounting part-time people looking for full-time work, and discounting discouraged workers who had given up hope of rejoining the labor force. If you count them, the unemployment rate for the country is at least double the official rate, and by some measures as high as 22 percent.

And that's just for the nation as a whole. When you start to get to the underclass, the truly poor, those without good educations, those with criminal records, and those unfortunate enough to be black, those statistics worsen. As a Georgetown University economist put it: "On average black unemployment rates are twice as high as whites', and teen rates are higher than adults, so you put that combination together. And black teens have the highest unemployment rates of anybody in the country -- even during good times."

Many of the people thrown off assistance are of this group. They would have a hard time finding a job -- any job -- even if they didn't have all these forces working against them. If we take the official statistics of the government -- remember: the ones that have been cooked for 31 years now -- the unemployment rate for teens 16-19 is 24.2 percent; for black teens, the figure is 40.7 percent.

These are not the haughty beneficiaries of some sweet social program that allows them to shirk work while rolling in cash. These are largely the victims of the economy, the ones who've grown up malnourished, undereducated.

And it isn't just an urban problem. Across the state, the number of children in poverty in Michigan has risen from 12 percent in 2000 to 22 percent. If families are finding it increasingly hard to take care of their children, should we be cutting them loose from assistance?

And where are the jobs? They're all going overseas. Perhaps you'd have a leg to stand on if there were scores of factories across Detroit demanding unskilled labor to bolt together Oldsmobiles and Huppmobiles, but it hasn't been like that since the 1940s. The jobs ain't there, man -- even for a well-educated college graduate, they're out flippin' burgers and dunkin' fries. What makes you think the hardest-done-by will do any better than them?

It's pretty clear what's going on in this country. When the rich have a problem, when they crash and burn their businesses, when they need some sweet subsidies to keep bilking the public, when they don't want to be investigated even though they're on the public dime, they get to do whatever they want. They get to send our jobs overseas so that we have to pay them a multiple of what it cost some foreigner to make it, and it cripples the tax base further. Then when economic disaster comes, or when the rich need more, who must pay for it? The poor, the working, the 99 percent of us without effective representation in the houses of state.

Who are the real freeloaders? You need look no further than Wall Street. And yet your anger [[and what a lot of anger!) is directed at the neediest? The most vulnerable? Not only does your perspective not make any sense, you, sir, are a bully.

There are more options:

3) Get a f***ing job
4) Still can't get a job? Try f***ing harder
5) Still can't get a job? Keep trying.
6) Too lazy to find a job? Move in with family.
7) Too lazy to find a job? Appeal to a charity for assistance.
8) Get a f***ing job

Oh, that's rich. Maybe you can start your own business "motivating" people by screaming at them at the top of your lungs. It's becoming obvious that your reactions are pretty much emotional, and that you really don't care about the rest of society as long as your gut is full. Screaming, swearing, demanding austerity of the neediest while the people at the top play us all? You embarrass yourself, sir.

I would find it amazing if a person couldn't get a job after 4 years! If you can't find a job in 1461 days then you're either not trying or you need to do setup at 8-Mile and I-75 and ask folks for change. The guy with the dog chained to a shopping cart seems to do well.

We're acting as if these free-loaders have been trying so hard to get a job and they just for some reason can't...

There are a number of statistics that would clearly explain to you why people cannot find jobs. I doubt very much that you will consider them. I have no doubt that not only are you screaming and swearing, but that your fingers are also jammed in your ears.

[Nikki Pooh]

The welfare system was basically a lifestyle rather than a stepping stone for some. How many babies were born into the welfare system. If welfare mothers can make babies, they can find work. Sure, but what was the incentive to get a job? For the welfare system, the incentive was...the more dependents, the more cash assistance.

I agree that the cut off is much needed, but Snyder should have weaned the recipients off of the program. Reduce the cash assistance by 20% in the next 1-2 months, then 40% and so on...

[MizMotown]

I know someone who knows someone that is being cut off after 16 YEARS. 16 YEARS of no motivation to get a job. Needless to say that the family are squatters with no electricity or heat because the assistance they received was assistance to pay for their DRUG PROBLEMS!

I feel for the folks who REALLY need it but not for a lifetime. I'm not paying for people who refuse to take responsiblity for their lives!

[antongast]

That's a false dichotomy. In your argument there are only two choices:

1) Unlimited government assistance
2) Ass on the street


There are more options:

3) Get a f***ing job
4) Still can't get a job? Try f***ing harder
5) Still can't get a job? Keep trying.
6) Too lazy to find a job? Move in with family.
7) Too lazy to find a job? Appeal to a charity for assistance.
8) Get a f***ing job

I would find it amazing if a person couldn't get a job after 4 years! If you can't find a job in 1461 days then you're either not trying or you need to do setup at 8-Mile and I-75 and ask folks for change. The guy with the dog chained to a shopping cart seems to do well.


We're acting as if these free-loaders have been trying so hard to get a job and they just for some reason can't...

Apparently somebody hasn't followed the news since the Clinton administration. See, there was this little thing called "the complete implosion of the entire fucking economy," and what that means in plain English is that "f***ing jobs" are kind of hard to come by these days. They're Fucking Valuable Things, if you will. If you've got one, good for you, but there just aren't enough of them to go around.

Incidentally, the unemployment problem [[and if you don't think it's a real problem, you're wrong) would not be terribly difficult to mitigate. The federal government can borrow money practically for free right now [[real interest rates on some of the shorter-term bonds are actually negative), and use that money to finance...well, anything, really, but my vote is for infrastructure since it's something we need anyway [[I don't think I need a source for this; if you live in Warren and you think our infrastructure is fine, well, I don't want to interrupt your acid trip). This would employ people, get the economy moving again, etc., and cost us practically nothing in the long run. Except for some reason we've decided, contrary to all logic and evidence, that the short-term deficit [[which, remember, historically low interest rates!) is a bigger problem than either nationwide mass unemployment or crumbling infrastructure. So yeah.

[DetroitPole]

Apparently somebody hasn't followed the news since the Clinton administration. See, there was this little thing called "the complete implosion of the entire fucking economy," and what that means in plain English is that "f***ing jobs" are kind of hard to come by these days. They're Fucking Valuable Things, if you will. If you've got one, good for you, but there just aren't enough of them to go around.

Incidentally, the unemployment problem [[and if you don't think it's a real problem, you're wrong) would not be terribly difficult to mitigate. The federal government can borrow money practically for free right now [[real interest rates on some of the shorter-term bonds are actually negative), and use that money to finance...well, anything, really, but my vote is for infrastructure since it's something we need anyway [[I don't think I need a source for this; if you live in Warren and you think our infrastructure is fine, well, I don't want to interrupt your acid trip). This would employ people, get the economy moving again, etc., and cost us practically nothing in the long run. Except for some reason we've decided, contrary to all logic and evidence, that the short-term deficit [[which, remember, historically low interest rates!) is a bigger problem than either nationwide mass unemployment or crumbling infrastructure. So yeah.

We need most people like you. In particular, on TV. I'm sick of hearing about how raising taxes on millionares is socialism and the solution to unemployment is "their lazy get a job"

[JBMcB]

The federal government can borrow money practically for free right now [[real interest rates on some of the shorter-term bonds are actually negative, and use that money to finance...well, anything, really...

The current debt load of the federal government is nearing 100% of GDP [[Probably well over). When countries hit that level, historically, bad things start to happen.

[Gistok]

There are more options:

3) Get a f***ing job
4) Still can't get a job? Try f***ing harder
5) Still can't get a job? Keep trying.
6) Too lazy to find a job? Move in with family.
7) Too lazy to find a job? Appeal to a charity for assistance.
8) Get a f***ing job

Gee, until you went off on this f***ing temper tantrum, you were makin f***ing sense....

Did it ever occur to you that there are more people, than there are jobs?

[Scottathew]

Gee, until you went off on this f***ing temper tantrum, you were makin f***ing sense....

Did it ever occur to you that there are more people, than there are jobs?

Did it ever occur to you that if you can't find a job in 4 years you're probably not even trying?

[Gistok]

Did it ever occur to you that if you can't find a job in 4 years you're probably not even trying?

That makes a nice Tea Party slogan.... I wonder...

[jt1]

Did it ever occur to you that if you can't find a job in 4 years you're probably not even trying?

The rule is 4 years over a lifetime, not 4 straight years. If this is the case then your comments about not finding a job in 4 years are certainly not applicable to many, if not most people impacted.

From the Freep"
"Michigan is adopting a stricter four-year lifetime cap on cash assistance"

[Bigb23]

Much better when you're homeless and your ass is on the street.



Those kids will learn to work hard stealing and hooking to make the family nut.



Which is wrong ... unless you're Wall Street



Yeah, let's re-open the workhouses. Dickenian England was so charming...

It seems that the most vocal Republicans have lived off their Great Grandfather's, Grandfather's, and Father's legacy, more than their own. Nice way to complain.