I get a general impression, reading blog rants, slurs thrown my way, talk radio, and posts in forums, that people have a fundamental misunderstanding how welfare works in America.  People think, somehow, that the poor live "high on the hog" in where they are.  As someone who is hovering around the welfare system now, whose story generated a number of slurs and insults including a request that I off myself so a guy's taxes were lower, and generally getting a reply I should of shut up, because my story getting out now makes myself unemployable ("Would you hire him?  I wouldn't" goes one Tracy L. Coenen CPA in her website on Fraud, implying I am a fraudster who is wrong with America: http://www.sequenceinc.com/fraudfiles/2010/03/this-is-why-welfare-sucks/)

And then you read rants about the said "Obama welfare phones" with an implication that somehow U.S tax dollars are paying for cell phones for free (tax dollars implied as in income taxes, and not fees).  You can see examples of rants here:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp

And then on here, when discussing the negative income tax proposal, word was, "Yeah, but the money paid out would be very really little amount".  Implication is the poor live high on the hog, particularly those not working.

Want to know reality of situation?

* Government phones, paid for with a portion of fees raised to get phones to libraries and other areas.  You get 4 hours a month allocated to you, period.  You can go 2 hours a month and save what wasn't used.  It is enough to get in touch with someone in an emergency, to say land a job somewhere.  I know when I didn't have one when I was getting settled into a shelter environment and I managed to not get a job, probably as a result of this.  

* In New York state, a bastion of welfare, because it is a blue state, and they LOVE giving tons of cash to the poor, want to know how much a single person gets per month, assuming they get rent, food, and health coverage covered?  Well, it is around $100 a month.  That is right $100 a month (This would cover everything from clothes to transportation to everything).  If you have an arrangement where you don't have them cover rent is around $175 a month.  And this goes on forever, right?  Nope, it is 2 years total, due to welfare reform that happened under Bill Clinton.   And you just lounge around and collect it, right?  Nope, if you are in a position to work, they will babysit you expecting a full 40 hours a week of continued looking for work, taking anything that comes along, even if it is paid under the table.  These last requirements, by the way, are federal mandate.  And guess what?  Well, word is to borrow from a plan in Georgia that you could collect unemployment on a trial period with employers, and yahoos go and complain about this, about collecting unemployment while on a job.  THE NERVE OF OBAMA!  And so it goes (Thank you Drudge for directing me to the ranting).

* But, but.. there are dem women who just have babies so they can live high on the hog.  Hmm... so, what exactly is supposed to be done about children born into the world they have no say in?  Rather they die of starvation or something?  Maybe can warehouse them also.  By the way, those women, if possible are supposed to get jobs, and the fathers of the children are supposed to pay child support.  That is how it works.

* If somehow, unemployment and welfare went away, everyone would start working jobs.  Really?  You know there are jobs everywhere?  And what kind of jobs?  There are homeless people, living on the streets, who actually do work jobs.  Again, what kind of jobs are available?  Is it some sort of great thing that a person can't even make enough money to afford shelter?

Do people seriously have a clue how things work, or do they just pull information out of their buttocks to justify their anger at things?

The poor have to be the ones to blame. If we blamed somebody else, that would be Socialist. And you know who was a Socialist. Hitler.

And anyone know any employer who hires someone just because you want a job? Try seeing an employer who is hiring and asks why he should hire you, and you tell him you are looking for anything to do workwise. Well, you go into the last to consider. When times are really hard, employers want the best, and most enthusiastic fits.

Not sure what to say here.

Welfare recipients can be split up into 2 groups.

The first group are people who are actually trying. They are trying to get a job but most won't hire them. They try to pay their bills but are still having trouble. They try to make a life for themselves but are in a low spot.

The other group is where the complaints originate. I myself have lived on welfare for a good while after my parents divorced. My mom had a full time job and was trying, but it still wasn't enough to pay all of the bills plus take care of 2 children. We settled into a neighborhood that had very low rental rates. Apparently, the majority of everyone in this neighborhood was in a similar situation. Then I started to get acquainted to the other side. Women spitting out a child a year for most of their adult lives, not a single father anywhere to be seen, and they didn't care. They wanted children and didn't care if the fathers stuck around. They made no attempts at getting a job and barely even made attempts to raise their 4-8 kids. These children ran around constantly vandalizing property, breaking into houses and cars, doing whatever they wanted. When I would ask the parents what they planned on doing for work, they would tell me nothing; that they didn't care because they got welfare, food stamps, huge income tax returns, section 8 housing, and the list grows.

I'm sorry but even as a person on welfare, it would dig at the deepest nerve to see a woman in ragged clothing walking into the local Walmart with her 6 children letting them run around and scream and do whatever they wanted so that they could come in and grab a couple cases of beer and some cigars and go back home.

People can get beaten down so much, they end up just existing, with whatever would come their way, and no longer try.  It happens, and the system doesn't help.  My point is to those who think that the system is some sort of paradise, who end up speaking of doing even more cuts to it, as if it would make a difference.  There are individuals who believe that, if you just were to cut unemployment benefits, and so on, suddenly unemployment would go away.  That is the belief.

Anyhow, I will give Bill O'Reilly from 2006, on how the welfare system had changed:

I don't think the state does enough to collect child support that is owed to children you even have wealthy a politician (Joe Walsh) that is over $100,000 back in what they own.

As an outsider living in AUS looking into the US, I don't think anyone here thinks that American welfare is great.

On the other hand look at Australia:

pf = per fortnight

Basic rates
• Single, no children $489.70 pf
• Single, with dependent child(ren) $529.80 pf
• Single, aged 60 or over, after nine continuous
months on payment $529.80 pf
• Partnered (each) $442.00 pf
• Single, principal carer of a dependent child (granted an
exemption for foster caring/home schooling/distance
education/large family) $648.50 pf


Key things:
1) you can be on welfare (we call it the dole) here for as long as it takes you to find a job. Most do not look for jobs as that call the welfare their paycheck.
2) All you need to prove is that you "tried" applying for jobs.
3) Aus use to give out a baby bonus ($5000 luimp payment per child born). So a lot of these people who have kids just so they could buy smokes or big screen TVs. Now (perhaps soon) it will be done as cupons for baby products.
4) Minimum wage in Australia is barely above those pf rates (after taxes). There is no incentive for these people to work as free money that is similar amount is better then working for it.
5) They get concession cards, so free or cheap medical, cheaper public transport etc..


Then there is out tax system which is another long story haha. Basically the harder you work to make something of your life, the more penalites in surchage taxes you get (like penalty for not having priavte health cover).

Little effect on the gov books considering your country's booming mining industry

The richest person in the world is going to be a Australian women in a couple of years probably sooner than that since her wealth grew the most of all the billionaires all thanks to mining.

Gina Rinehart?...Her weight says it all.