Thou MUST work for food assistance

[Wesley Mouch]

People get laid off, contracts get yanked, business cycles fluctuate, etc.
Getting thrown in the unemployment line is not always "fair".
Prejudice, ageism, and a slew of other items are very real.

Yes, so we should have a pretty liberal interpretation of work. Practical volunteering for your church could count, and so might working in the gig economy. The City of Detroit might dissolve its Human Rights Commission and instead create a civic workforce. The goal should be to ask people to be productive in society, so long as they can. How they do that, I think there's room for debate.

Work is something people do - it does NOT have to define who you are.

I have no idea what that means. Work is what you are. I think we are defined by how we improve the world around us. Where I might agree is that not only are we defined by how we sit in an office for 40 hours a week -- but also by how we coach children's soccer or play chess with senior citizens in the park.

[EastsideAl]

But it's NOT that people CAN'T find a job,.. it's that they don't want to work [[their fault, not mine),.. have a criminal record [[their fault, not mine), don't have an education [[theirs and their parent's fault,.. not mine) etc, etc.

Why should I and others who worked hard in school and worked VERY had for decades have to support them? They should go hungry, or be supported by their parents.

The left has CAUSED this problem intentionally. Creating suffering to gain voters [[VERY cruel). THAT is something I won't ever understand.

You need to turn off the Fox News and the WJR fulminating white dudes.

[EastsideAl]

It's breathtaking to me that in the richest country that has ever existed in the history of the world, a country with over 11 million millionaires, we are actually debating who does and does not deserve to starve.

[Meddle]

^^ There's no debate. The Haves already decided. The Have Nots don't get a say.

[Bigdd]

People shouldn't believe the BS lies spewed by the powers that be.There are MILLIONS of young people with college debt that can't pay it off because there are no jobs in the vocation they studied for.Walmart and McD's are over flowing with workers waiting to make enough to start to pay off their student loans.

College does not prepare you for a vocation. That's not even it's purpose.

Vocational schools prepare you for a career. Engineering, welding, the law, whatever.

College was for the children of the elite to learn a little bit about a lot of subjects,.. so they they can be well spoken at dinner parties.

But it has become big business to tell the lower classes that they need to go to college to get a job.

And besides being big business,.. it brain washes them with liberal bunk,. and puts them into debt. This makes the bankers richer,.. and creates lots of loyal liberal voters who will vote to continue the insanity.

It also helps with the unemployment numbers,.. as these children aren't considered unemployed for the 4-7 years they are in college.

[O3H]

High School was and is a bit of a sick joke.
No one should be terribly proud of squeaking out a C and getting a diploma.
It prepares no one for much of anything except minimum wage.

People should go to college to become better, smarter citizens, and contribute more to society as a whole via better income for themselves.
Real damn tough to buy a house on minimal wages.

[Bham1982]

MI busy demonizing the poor, and taking away their scraps, while lavishing welfare on billionaires. What else is new?

[Bham1982]

Some would consider this reference to Scandinavia being a utopia as a racist statement. It implies that countries where the population is almost 100% racially white should be used as the model to strive for. No racial diversity but a great place to live! How can that be????

Scandanavia is quite diverse these days, much moreso than most of flyover country USA, [[and happier, healthier and richer) but nice red herring.

[archfan]

College does not prepare you for a vocation. That's not even it's purpose.

Vocational schools prepare you for a career. Engineering, welding, the law, whatever.

College was for the children of the elite to learn a little bit about a lot of subjects,.. so they they can be well spoken at dinner parties.

But it has become big business to tell the lower classes that they need to go to college to get a job.

And besides being big business,.. it brain washes them with liberal bunk,. and puts them into debt. This makes the bankers richer,.. and creates lots of loyal liberal voters who will vote to continue the insanity.

It also helps with the unemployment numbers,.. as these children aren't considered unemployed for the 4-7 years they are in college.

College prepares people to think critically, something oligarchs would prefer we don't do. And college has been the way that lower class people improved their lot - maybe not so much these days.

[UrbanViews]

The big problem is most people from 18 to 49 are either mentally ill, personal injury, incompetent, and can not to find decent job due to their criminal background or bad rep. Welfare organizations and other protestors will fight tooth and nail to the Highest court in the nation.

Watch out.

Here comes the great purge!!!

Did you just imply that more than 50% of people age 18-49 have a mental or physical handicap? If that is true, we have issues far greater than food stamps.

[Canadian Visitor]

College does not prepare you for a vocation. That's not even it's purpose.

Vocational schools prepare you for a career. Engineering, welding, the law, whatever.

College was for the children of the elite to learn a little bit about a lot of subjects,.. so they they can be well spoken at dinner parties.

But it has become big business to tell the lower classes that they need to go to college to get a job.

And besides being big business,.. it brain washes them with liberal bunk,. and puts them into debt. This makes the bankers richer,.. and creates lots of loyal liberal voters who will vote to continue the insanity.

It also helps with the unemployment numbers,.. as these children aren't considered unemployed for the 4-7 years they are in college.

Uhh, Law and Engineering are both 'college' programs in US vernacular.

You must do undergraduate university work first to get into Law, Teaching, even Medicine requires some conventional undergrad.

You seem to be demeaning the 'Liberal Arts' degrees [[political science, history, sociology, english etc.)

But that is only a small part of what 'colleges' do.

As said above, its also a valuable part.

They teach advanced comprehension, primary research, critical thinking, more eloquent writing, typically a good work ethic [[my reading load was over 1000 pages a week).

The idea that getting smarter or learning skills transferable skills is a Liberal Conspiracy is at best, laughable.

[Canadian Visitor]

I must say, I really don't get this "I've got mine so eff off" attitude that permeates a chunk of the electorate, and politicians.

We have it Canada too, fortunately its a smaller and typically a less influential subset of the electorate.

But its not only immoral and a real garbage attitude, its irrational and contrary to self-interest.

High levels of income inequality and poverty tend to drive up crime, that not only increases ones likelihood of being a victim, but also one's insurance rates and tax money going to police, courts and jails.

It also lowers productivity, resulting in lower production per worker, labour shortages at people lack the requisite skills for work, and crappier infrastructure which leads to higher car repair costs, higher insurance, more accidents, and congestion etc. etc.

There seems to be this notion that if you hand out 'free' money then people will all spontaneous sit on their ass leaving you to do everything.

The only problem w/this is that there's no evidence to support that, and the amount of money were talking about is far less than full-time minimum wage employment, meaning their remains a strong incentive to work.

Finding excuses to police whether someone deserves their money or how they spend it costs far more in $$ than it saves; and that's before considering the very real societal consequences.

[CassTechGrad]

We should keep the focus on the ultimate goal: Welfare should encourage work and self-sufficiency. This is why it’s so odd that today’s progressives are so opposed to even the possibility of work requirements – technically “community engagement” requirements – that states may impose on programs like Medicaid and other anti-poverty programs. It seems there are double standards at work: Clinton gets a pass for recognizing the importance of encouraging work, while Trump is a heartless boogeyman. And of course it’s also inconsistent to think that the U.S. shouldn’t adopt commonsense policies that other nations – even those admirable Nordic countries like Finland – are moving to adopt right away.

[Canadian Visitor]

We should keep the focus on the ultimate goal: Welfare should encourage work and self-sufficiency. This is why it’s so odd that today’s progressives are so opposed to even the possibility of work requirements – technically “community engagement” requirements – that states may impose on programs like Medicaid and other anti-poverty programs. It seems there are double standards at work: Clinton gets a pass for recognizing the importance of encouraging work, while Trump is a heartless boogeyman. And of course it’s also inconsistent to think that the U.S. shouldn’t adopt commonsense policies that other nations – even those admirable Nordic countries like Finland – are moving to adopt right away.

Three issues:

1) Who gave Clinton a free pass? Not me.

2) Finland is not adopting a similar model, it claws back a portion of benefits if you don't agree to work an 18-hour work week after three months. It does not cut anyone off all together. It also doesn't cut your benefit if there is no work or no one would hire you. It also plows more money and resources into making you work ready, and has a higher payout from the start that US programs.

3) Your post is a complete copy/paste from this article.

http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3...welfare-reform

You did not use quotes, state a source or provide credit to the author, that's not very good manners.

[Canadian Visitor]

I would invite those who think being stingy w/welfare promotes employment to look at this list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...mployment_rate

Note that the United States, as stingy as they get among developed countries in respect of social programs, is ranked #18 for employment rate. Behind a long list of countries that are far more generous. Turns out people actually want to work, and are more likely to when they have good healthcare, education, higher benefits that keep them out of extreme poverty, and feel valued by their society.

[Meddle]

3) Your post is a complete copy/paste from this article.

http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3...welfare-reform

You did not use quotes, state a source or provide credit to the author, that's not very good manners.

I've noticed in recent years that plagiarism seems to be quite the thing among the 'educated'. I think college teaches them that.

[Wesley Mouch]

It's breathtaking to me that in the richest country that has ever existed in the history of the world, a country with over 11 million millionaires, we are actually debating who does and does not deserve to starve.

What is the starvation rate in the USA?

Framing the debate as 'who deserves to starve' isn't helpful.

Am I wrong that our safety net is working pretty well, at least as it relates to starvation.

So the debate should be HOW we help most efficiently. How we create self-sufficiency. Not whether your political opponents are heartless bastards who are starving.

Calling people names is not productive.

[Richard]

^^ There's no debate. The Haves already decided. The Have Nots don't get a say.

Why the drama,like I posted,other states implemented this over 4 years ago and it depends on the local job market as to how it is enforced.

How much do you make a month?

I cannot find a job so I mow lawns and collect beer cans for scrap,so roughly $500 a month.

Okay so you are self employed,sign this paper stating your income and based on your income you will qualify for X amount of assistance.

The Feds administers the program to the states,the states receive the funds and extra to implement the program,the more people that they have in the program the more revenue that they receive,it is not in the states best interest to disqualify everybody,but they still need to appear as keeping a leash on things.

The other popular one is what people refer to as the Obama phone,Obama had nothing to do with it,when cell phones started becoming popular many years ago,they started removing the pay phones and people that could not afford a house phone line also lost the pay phones and a way to contact in an emergency.

So every cell carrier places funds into a an account,about 60c from everybody’s bill and when you receive food assistance you automatically qualify for the phone,limited data and time,like 60 minuets a month,so now you have food to survive and a way of communicating in a job search or emergency.

[K-slice]

Food stamps, bridge cards, section 8, etc are the new corporate welfare. They enable employers to pay too little to live off of while the taxpayers subsidize their employees. Raising minimum wage to a living wage is the easiest way to get people off the welfare rolls and functioning as independent, productive members of society.

[Richard]

Food stamps, bridge cards, section 8, etc are the new corporate welfare. They enable employers to pay too little to live off of while the taxpayers subsidize their employees. Raising minimum wage to a living wage is the easiest way to get people off the welfare rolls and functioning as independent, productive members of society.

We enable corporations by demanding cheap foreign stuff,so how are they to blame for providing a wage that mimics what we demand?

We changed entry level jobs to standard employment,the corporations are just giving us what we demand then then we become confused as to why there are no livable wage jobs left?

If we pay a little more for something because it was made in this country and provided a livable wage to somebody else we could lift everybody else up,but it is easier to come up with social safety net solutions and blame the evil corporations for giving us what we are requesting.

The social programs are not solutions they are bandaids and tools used to keep others down so we can buy cheap trinkets.

[Meddle]

^^ I see it a bit different. It's less about how much you make than how you spend it. I could live comfortably on $15,000/year net, keeping all my bills [[including a mortgage) paid on time, taking short vacations sometimes and buying a few 'extra' things. Others can't keep from going broke on three times that.

Guy down the road from me gripes about money. Can't afford gas for the lawn mower, so they ask me to come down and mow for them.

But they have three cell phones that cost them close to $70/month EACH. My cell phone costs me about $10/month and I don't use all the data, minutes or messages I get for that amount.

They buy six or eight of those little tuna lunch kits with a spoonful of tuna and a couple of crackers. I buy a can or two of tuna and a box of crackers for less money that makes more snacks.

They buy bottled water by the case. I drink tap water.

They keep their A/C on 24 hours a day, set in the low 70s. I use my A/C for an hour or two in the evenings before I lay down and set it for 80; just enough to dry the air rather than cool it too much. They cough, hack, wheeze and complain about allergies when they go outside. I don't.

[One Shot]

PULL YOUR OWN WEIGHT! I don't care what is said my opinion is most don't wanna work and know the system will take care of them. So many people on disability driving brand new cars and using bridge cards. It pisses me off beyond belief that I go to work and bust my ass every day when there are free loaders I'm helping pay for. I got no problem helping people that are honestly in need but again most are NOT! This is the new society and nobody has any shame in doing it! It's a what can I get for free kinda world now and the government keeps catering to them!

[Zacha341]

^^^ Hah! I hear that on keeping costs down. I don't do cable TV, or fancy mobile phone. And no, I find that keeping my house too artificially cold only makes me sicker. I run AC just enough take the edge off the heat as you mentioned.

But 15K a year. No, I could not do that. My car insurance alone [[just no fault for an old car) negates that ability.

[ABetterDetroit]

Food stamps, bridge cards, section 8, etc are the new corporate welfare. They enable employers to pay too little to live off of while the taxpayers subsidize their employees. Raising minimum wage to a living wage is the easiest way to get people off the welfare rolls and functioning as independent, productive members of society.

Whoa... Slow down some with the logical financial sense there K-slice. This thread was about calling for a ‘pound of flesh’, not attempting to actually point out the real problem from someone who knows how to do math...

[Bham1982]

PULL YOUR OWN WEIGHT! I don't care what is said my opinion is most don't wanna work and know the system will take care of them. So many people on disability driving brand new cars and using bridge cards. It pisses me off beyond belief that I go to work and bust my ass every day when there are free loaders I'm helping pay for.

While I don't doubt you believe what you write, this is essentially all absurd propaganda fed to you by people who are making you poorer and more dependent by the day.

Folks on EBT cards aren't driving around in new cars. They actually have high workforce participation. The people stealing from you and your children are far wealthier than you, and are distracting you with the "welfare queen" nonsense.

And it should be obvious, but not everyone can equally "pull their own weight". A single parent needs help [[and if you refuse it, you will pay going forward, trust me). Disabled folks need help. The elderly need help. You want your grandma eating cat food?