I'd love to know about how someone could double and triple dip and get all these fabulous benefits. Since I'm newly unemployed--thanks to outsourcing--I would be all over that shit.

I suppose they are counting things like child care assistance that can very well add up to more than a working mother makes every month. If my 3 kids were in daycare, it would cost about $1500 a month, and that is here is cheapville. In places like NYC, I bet it's closer to $3000. Yes, thats a MONTH. that's why we work(ed) opposite schedules. You never get to see each other, but at least you can still afford to feed the kids.

I bet they calculate medicaid as a pretty high dollar amount as well, but in reality, medicaid doesn't cost the state unless the recipient is using it. It's not an insurance policy, it's pay per use medical--just paid by the government. But then, they can only go to certain doctors and only certain things are allowed--medicaid is not a free ride, despite what people think.

People on section 8 housing still pay 1/3 of their income towards rent and utilities and have pretty heavy restrictions on where and how they need to live to get it. In any large area, waiting lists are 2-3 years to even be considered for assistance.

If a single mother is actually getting child support (don't read into this guys, lots of great fathers actually pay child support, but there are also a hell of a lot of deadbeats out there) the state takes it if the mother is getting cash assistance and it counts 100% as income rather than the 50% earnings count as if she is getting food stamps or any other type of assistance, so she is penalized because she actually reproduced with a guy who's not a deadbeat.

There is no free lunch for anyone who is actually working and there aren't very many people who can get away with not working at all according to the rules imposed during the big welfare reform. So, those people driving new cars in NYC are probably drug dealers--not a stereotype, a fact. No one cannot afford a new car on welfare, no matter where the hell they live, unless they are cheating the system.

I agree that the people who have always worked are the ones getting screwed. That's why they need to change the system to reward people for working rather than penalize them.

#18

Ouch! For one? That's nuts. I would bet if you had 3 kids it would be cheaper to hire a live in nanny.

#22 | POSTED BY TAOWARRIOR

I wasn't saying it was fair, I'm saying that that fake family at 35K a year isn't any better off than any other family that makes 35K a year, which is still POOR. Besides, you would make more than 10K a year washing dishes at Denny's so that would signifigantly reduce the actual benefits the fake family would get.They may still average out at 35K a year, but does anyone know a family of 4 that lives well on 35K a year? Seriously, that's less than 3K a month and once you deduct the expenses that are paid by the assistance and the the rest of the expenses they have, how much of that is left as disposable income?

Let's say $3000
-900 rent
-668 food
-333 medical insurance
-83 for utilities
-100 for the rest of the utilities that they didn't get assistance with
-200 month for childcare
-1000 a month for the the rest of the childcare they would have to pay even if we are cheaping out here

ooops, we appear to have a negative flow of cash here and we still haven't accounted for clothes, transportation, diapers, or even so much as a paltry newspaper subscription, so the reality is no one can live on 35K a year, no matter how the hell they get it, can they?

Besides, the family of 4 that actually earns the 35k a year is still eligible for benefits such as tax credits, child care assistance, medicaid for the children, and foodstamps which would boost their income as well.

The point here is that there is a poverty line for a reason--it's supposed to be the line that separates people living a subsistence life from those who are making it. If that line were accurate, where do you think it would fall and how many millions more would realistically fall below it?

Because the assholes in government spend more on their martinis at lunch in a week than the average family spends on groceries in a month and they have NO clue and could care less. That's why. The middle class is a myth. In this country today, to live in the "American Dream," costs somewhere in the neighborhood of a half a million a year. Your average working joe, who considers himself to be middle class, is actually a member of the growing group called the working poor.
If he lost his job tomorrow, he would lose everything. and because of what has been done to this country by politicians on all sides--rich, educated, clueless charlatans--the chances of that happening increase exponentially everyday.

An elite few have built empires on the backs of the little man and now, when it is all going to shit, they hide out in their houses at the Hamptons and claim they didn't do it and that they need the government to help them. Fuck the little guy who did all the work. They need to make the payments on their private jets and pay for the trophy wife's plastic surgery. While the millions of people whose blood sweat and tears made all that money for them get hung out to dry.