welfare abuse story

[DosEquis]

As many of you know I am a supporter of having some sort of welfare system to get people back on their feet. As many of you also know I do think the system is hosed, abused, and a ridiculous funding black hole at times.

Just some background... My sister was young and stupid. She ended up with a kid and got married to this guy. They ended up with 2 kids now, one is three and the other is two and she is 22 yrs old. Things are not working out so they are technically seperated. Guy has been a real idiot, nothing violent but just a retard. He got one DUI and never told her about it until his court date. He goes out three or four times a week, leaving her at home, and doesn't return until morning sometimes. She got pissed off and packed up some boxes. Two weeks later he gets a second DUI. He starts driving on a suspended license, etc. She gets mad to the point they seperate and she moves in to the parents house with the kids. He is now serving 30 days for his 2nd dui. The judge told him "you obviously didn't learn from the first one so you get 30 days in jail to think about it".

In the mean time my aunt is a master of skimming social programs. A form is filled out and turns out she is now eligable for the following. $400 a month in food stamps. Free apartment (decent ones in a decent neighborhood) and free utilities. She can also get grants for classes. Not only is she eligable for all that she works 30 hours a week at the red cross AND she is eligable for all that until she takes home more than $1800 a month. Not only do they give her $400 a month for food, they also pro-rated it back to when she said they seperated. This means they gave her a card with $800 for food.

Where is the motivation to get a better job? School for free, free decent apartment, free food, free utilities, all while taking in like $1200 a month at her job. Shit she lives about as well as I do and I have to work 40+ hours a week and I owe 25k to student loans. I guess it is the whole single mother two kids thing, but seriously.

[DosEquis]

It is pretty much horse shit and my dad is even kind of pissed off someone can be eligable for THAT much help.

I can see grants for school. I can also see credit for food. Maybe even discounted housing. Free utilities is a wtf in my book, because there are many apartments around here where gas/water is already free anyway. The ridiculous part is she can get it until she clears more than $1800 a month. That mean she would have to make 11.25 an hour AFTER taxes...aka a job thats more like $15+ bucks an hour. She does not have a college degree and $15 an hour jobs do not grow on trees around here.

It should be pro-rated so that you just get by. You shouldn't be able to get prime rib and crab cakes.

[WickedLou9]

I know a family sorta like that.

So the family has 3 kids. The husband went off and got some other chick pregnant on the side. So now he has to pay child support. In all fairness the child support payments were so high that they were going to bankrupt his family. The wife went back to work. They figured out that if he left his job that he won't have to pay child support. So made some arrangements and left work or whatever and now collects unemployment. Unemployement will actually pay you to go back to school. They only give you a certain amount though, and it has to be a community college or something of that sort. But still. No child support, steady income, and he gets to go back to school for free.

[7th Ninjai]

These are prime examples why welfare programs should cease to exist. People will always find a way to abuse them and will lack any motivation to better themselves when they have an incentitive not to. I've been out of school since 1999 and I've been out work for a total of one year between 1999 and 2006. The first time was my choice, I was in a position where I was traveling 80% of the time and I had just gotten married. It was causing strain on my marriage and after 6 months of trying to get repositioned within my company I walked out with only an unsteady contract job lined up. The contract job lasted only a week and I was out of work for 6 months while my wife was in her 2nd year of law school. This was through May 2001 - November and though I searched for a job every day, nothing came through until I was almost out of my savings and had begun to live on my credit card. The second time I was out of work was last year when my previous company went out of business. I was out of work between July and December (the first 4 months were by my choice - I wasn't ready to return to work). Neither time did I apply for unemployment or ask for any government assistance. I was lucky in both instances to have some savings, but, had I not, I would have worked retail to pay the bills. The government needs to empower all of us by taxing us less and ending entitlement programs. Giving people more control over the money they make and removing the entitlement assistance will create a do or die mentality in all of the people who are on welfare. I have to get up and go to work every morning to provide for myself and my family, why should I also have to provide for those who do not want to work and live at my expense?

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by 7th Ninjai

These are prime examples why welfare programs should cease to exist. People will always find a way to abuse them and will lack any motivation to better themselves when they have an incentitive not to. I've been out of school since 1999 and I've been out work for a total of one year between 1999 and 2006. The first time was my choice, I was in a position where I was traveling 80% of the time and I had just gotten married. It was causing strain on my marriage and after 6 months of trying to get repositioned within my company I walked out with only an unsteady contract job lined up. The contract job lasted only a week and I was out of work for 6 months while my wife was in her 2nd year of law school. This was through May 2001 - November and though I searched for a job every day, nothing came through until I was almost out of my savings and had begun to live on my credit card. The second time I was out of work was last year when my previous company went out of business. I was out of work between July and December (the first 4 months were by my choice - I wasn't ready to return to work). Neither time did I apply for unemployment or ask for any government assitance. I was lucky in both instances to have some savings, but, had I not, I would have worked retail to pay the bills.

I don't think they should cease. They just need reform and more controls.

[JaJae]

I know a similar family. The mother has two kids and is divorced. She never has worked and on top of her welfare so she also gets $600 a month in child support and it's supposed to be increased to $800 a month. They get free housing and utilities. Food stamps. And her live-in boyfriend of 6 years doesn't marry her because he is collecting his own welfare using a friend's address. They live in public housing, own two cars and a boat! Cable tv, internet, cell phones, etc. They live better than most of my family and neither of them has had a job in over 4 years.

When you question their morality they brag about it and have no shame. They simply say "It isn't illegal. We're not lying about anything. We're not doing anything wrong."

I'm sorry bro :hug:

I know what you're going through though. Not to thread hijack but here's a brief history of me:

Born in 1981, life was pretty good, we lived in a good middle class community, my dad had a reasonable salary and the city was thriving on the oil boom. As a result my mom also had a good income (working for my grandmother who's business fed my grandfathers home building/real estate business).

My parents got divorced seperated in 1990 and ultimately divorced. We were almost forced to live on the street after the separation but instead lived in a women's shelter for a period of about 2 months (I think). Then my mom rented a house on the southside of town and got on the government roll. This was ultimately necessary so looking back I understand it was essential which is why I'm ok with the social safety net. However, within about 6 months she wanted off, she was barely making enough to get by. It took another 4 months for the government to take her off the rolls they refused to do it even after she requested multiple times. So she ultimately got off the rolls. Then got wayyy heavy into tv preachers, started giving away money we didn't have. We started having to skip meals especially at the end of the month. At this point she qualified for huge sums of government assistance but didn't want to take advantage of a lot of it. She ultimately paid 18,000 dollars for an 840 sq ft house in the ghetto where things began to get worse. She gave more money, I was 11 at this point and ultimately began stealing things like baseball cards and snack food. Something I should not have done, I realized I was wrong and thank God I quit after a 6 or so weeks of this. By the time I was 14 or 15 I started doing my mom's taxes.

This is significant because I saw what the government did, also growing up in these ghetto neighborhoods I saw rampant abuses of the system. People stealing from tax payers and driving around pretty new cadillacs and fancy sports cars. Well while doing her taxes after Clinton got elected she started getting a little thing called EITC. This was giving her back a sum of about 4000 to 5800 dollars per year on an income of only 15k to 18k.

While my mother wasn't on the government roll in the traditional sense she was due to this huge tax credit. She turned down numerous HIGHER paying jobs to stay under the EITC limit.

I grew up with numerous people that take advantage of the system, there is no motivation to leave the cycle of government assistance and this comes in a variety of forms.

Sorry for the long winded response but you're not the only one who's had to deal with this shit :hug:

[AVengeance]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

I don't think they should cease. They just need reform and more controls.

You can still put seeds in dirt, and they grow into food. Welfare is a failure. Hunger is great motivation.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

You can still put seeds in dirt, and they grow into food. Welfare is a failure. Hunger is great motivation.

[DosEquis]

Well the hardest thing to deal with when establishing policy that is welfare related is children. A good portion of the time they are innocent victims and should not go through the things they do. They did nothing to deserve it.

The clear abuse of the system and the fact the system gives THAT much is really the problem. While living at my parents she can make ends meet with her job. She could make her car payment, she could buy food for her and the kids and not mooch the parents. She had 1200ish a month to do this. She should stop with food stamps. She should continue to decline free housing from the govt. She has health insurance through her job. She does not need help.

I just can't get over the fact that they have her eligable until $1800 a month. She can gross near 30k a year at a job and STILL get free rent, food, school, etc. I make some thing between 40-45, but i have to pay rent, buy food, pay for school. She can really have the same lifestyle I have. There is basically a fundamental problem with the system.

[DosEquis]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

You can still put seeds in dirt, and they grow into food. Welfare is a failure. Hunger is great motivation.

Tell that to a three year old.

Originally Posted by DosEquis

I just can't get over the fact that they have her eligable until $1800 a month. She can gross near 30k a year at a job and STILL get free rent, food, school, etc. I make some thing between 40-45, but i have to pay rent, buy food, pay for school. She can really have the same lifestyle I have. There is basically a fundamental problem with the system.

Thats exactly right. A friend of mine that I grew up with has a wife and two kids. Their household income is about 38k/yr. With all the government assistance they get and the fact that they pay ZERO in taxes their lifestyle is close to what me and my wife have at 76k/yr. I'd say their income would be the equivelant of us making about 62 to 64g's a year. So we have a little bit of difference but not much.

[Kytro]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

You can still put seeds in dirt, and they grow into food. Welfare is a failure. Hunger is great motivation.

Not really. It's likely to cause more crime.

[KatKanPlay]

More reform is definately needed. I have a story about a member of my family, I will spare you the details.


I think the entire welfare system social/corporate needs to be evaluated and changed.

[AVengeance]

Originally Posted by DosEquis

Tell that to a three year old.

Ah, yes. Save the babies. Save the whales. Save the baby whales!1!!

It's always about saving the babies, like they're in some kind of bubble. Like they just fell right out of the sky, dropped from the beak of a careless stork. No, these babies came from somewhere. They came from a mom and a dad. Make the parents support the child. If the child dies, execute the parents. Welfare problem solved.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by AVengeance

Ah, yes. Save the babies. Save the whales. Save the baby whales!1!!

It's always about saving the babies, like they're in some kind of bubble. Like they just fell right out of the sky, dropped from the beak of a careless stork. No, these babies came from somewhere. They came from a mom and a dad. Make the parents support the child. If the child dies, execute the parents. Welfare problem solved.

Do you know who this is? Is it you?

[garbagemanlb]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

Do you know who this is? Is it you?

I wonder if this AV guy is pro-life..