What about just requiring people to get a job in order to get any welfare benefits? Employers are offering over $15 an hour and will take any warm body, and still people are choosing to sit home or hang out on the street corner instead.
We tried work requirements, they don't work'
I used to believe Clinton’s welfare reform would fix the old system and help millions, but the must-work rules backfired. There’s a better way.
washingtonmonthly.com
A review of federally-funded “welfare-to-work” programs from 1996 until 2004 showed modest impacts at best, with most participants unable to find stable employment. Those who did work earned an average wage (in 2004 dollars) of only $8 an hour and had no access to employer-sponsored benefits like health insurance (albeit many continued on Medicaid). Welfare recipients subject to work requirements “were more likely to live in deep poverty than to have incomes above the poverty line,” according to a lengthier 2016 analysis by the Center on Budget’s LaDonna Pavetti, whose data included the Great Recession. Gains in earnings were minimal or offset by cuts in benefits, and many recipients were trapped in dead-end, low-wage jobs. Yes, welfare reform led to work for some. But it didn’t lead to work that remotely approached a middle-class life.
The key takeaway, "
Welfare recipients subject to work requirements “were more likely to live in deep poverty than to have incomes above the poverty line,”. Look, it is one thing to be living in poverty, on welfare, and not working. But working, on welfare, and STILL IN POVERTY. That is horseshit. Look, I thought the whole purpose of getting these people back in the workforce was to provide them with dignity, show them that hard work pays off, can improve their lives, and provide them with motivation. But what about this,
AFDC’s structure penalized work by cutting benefits dollar-for-dollar on the wages recipients earned.
WTF? I mean that is stupid. Look, even a prisoner pressing license plates gets some dollars deposited into their commissary account that they wouldn't otherwise have. But forcing someone on AFDC to work twenty hours a week and gain NOTHING, who the hell supports that, and the bigger question, who the hell does it benefit because it sure ain't the worker. How the hell is that teaching them the value of work? Where the hell is the dignity?
The answer is simple, guaranteed minimum income. Everyone gets a damn check, you get one too, maybe help make up for the fact that your Big Mac might cost a little more when McDonald's has to pay a living wage instead of depend on welfare to subsidize their workers. Seems to work out for them in Europe. Hell, Walmart has an entire department dedicated to helping their employees get government benefits, like welfare. Hello? I mean let that sink in for a moment. It is insulting.
But with GMI, at least that single mother that strikes out and gets a job gets to keep some of the extra money she earns. Under the status quo, that is not what happens.
Look, I am sick and damn tired of these stupid threads. One almost every day. Lamenting about people not working. Why? The only thing that makes sense is you are crying because businesses can't pay people dirt and they show up to churn out a Big Mac for your fatass. Seriously, you would take a single mother of an infant, force her to place the kid in daycare, and show up at McDonald's to take your order at the drive thru for eight bucks an hour. Just so you can save a quarter or so. Damn sad if you ask me. I mean here is a thought. Fawk McDonald's. Cook a frozen beef patty, get a bun, some lettuce, cheese, and thousand island, AND MAKE YOUR DAMN OWN you lazy ass shit.
One of the grooms at my sons wedding was a Civil Engineer. Graduated Summa Cum Laude, got a good job prior to Covid. But then he got laid off. Oh, he milked the unemployment benefits, put that money in the stock market and built a pretty good portfolio. He lives in a cabin, built before the Civil War, in the Blue Ridge mountains on about 80 acres. He has Google fiber, not sure how that happened but more power to him. He hasn't struck a lick since he was laid off. What he has done is cleared off about 40 acres, built multiple log cabins with the lumber. He has some cows, some chickens, is an avid hunter, and has a garden from hell. He gets his power from a water wheel he constructed by the river on his property. He is completely off the grid, except for Google fiber. And he rents out those cabins he built for his income. Retired at 25 and the very type person that you think should be working at McDonald's so you can get your cheap Big Mac.
nypost.com
