Maine Adds Work Requirement to Welfare Benefits

a reply to: grandmakdw

Apply that logic to the corporate welfare recipients and the same is true, albeit they've got hundreds of billions and what do they give in return.

1. Economic crashes

2. Wars

3. Theft

You name it. Instead, we pout about how the poor aren't doing anything for something, while the real criminals are laughing all the way too the bank.

originally posted by: soficrow

originally posted by: Grimpachi
a reply to: Daedal

what will the impact be for those that rely on food stamps to feed their children and how many of those affected are single parents barely surviving as it is.

The impact on those people will be "ZERO".

From the OP.

Maine Adds Work Requirement to Welfare Benefits, Drops 80% of Able-Bodied "Childless Adults"

Even starving adults are an embarrassment to the nation. From the OP's second link:

Around the country, food pantry directors are girding for an influx of hungry adults as the work requirement re-emerges....

“We’re going to run out of food,” said Sherrie Tussler, the executive director of the Hunger Task Force Milwaukee. “It’s going to cause wide-scale hunger here in Milwaukee, and we’re in trouble.”

....Ms. Dulack is training to become a personal care aide, but her courses do not count toward the job-training requirement.

“How,” she wondered, “do you expect people to live and feed themselves and survive with nothing?”

That food pantry may run out of food.

It is sort of amazing how all those people manage to find transportation consistently to food pantries yet they can't seem to make it to community service once a week to get their government handout.

originally posted by: doobydoll

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: doobydoll

As it stands, they are getting something for just being alive. Putting in work for your food is a small request to ask for. This stuff costs a LOT of taxpayer money.

If there's a job to be done then pay somebody to do it and let's get them off benefits and supporting themselves, then they won't be costing taxpayers one penny.

Not all jobs pay well enough to do that. Having a job, even a low paying one, is more important than being unemployed. I don't have as much of a problem giving a hand up to someone trying to support a family on minimum wage. At least they are trying.

Why do you want people to remain dependent on taxpayer hand-outs when they 'put in work'? If everyone else is getting paid for 'putting work in', including yourself, then why shouldn't these people get paid for it too, like you do?

I don't want people to remain dependent on government. I'm just speaking realistically considering the job market.

originally posted by: grandmakdw
Ha ha, really bad joke

You know I meant the national average for a person or family.

Around $50K for a married couple family.

Around $25K for a single person

Ok, so maybe that should be adjusted to 3/4 of the national average. I'll go back and change it now.

What you are quoting is the median wage. If you place all of the wages in sequential order the median is the one in the middle. That means there are just as many people making below $50k as above $50k. The average is the mean, which was pointed out by the other poster. Median wages are how we normally measure these things because our economic system is enormously top heavy, with 50% of the wealth going to the top 1% and 1% of the wealth going to the bottom 50% of people. This massively skews the average. Averages only work when the distribution between the highs and lows is relatively small.

originally posted by: grandmakdw
This is not enslavement, it is not working for nothing, it is working for the money the government gives them to eat. That is a "paycheck". Able bodied people should have to work for their government "paycheck" in the form of food stamps. Why should they get to sit on the couch and play video games and watch TV and collect money from the government for food when they are capable of working for it?

It is working for nothing. If you're going to expect people to work for benefits (a concept I'm not entirely opposed to) then you should be giving them actual cash for their work. Giving people a benefit that can only be spent on one specific type of product. It's about equal to a corporate town, which is one step removed from slavery.

originally posted by: lordcomac
Can't say I agree with dangling a cookie to get someone to work- but there definitely can't be limitless free living as an option- especially when it pays more than a low end job.

It does not pay more than a low end job, I get disability, I also work part time (at great risk to those benefits). All in all it pays $700/month, throw in the work penalty and my wages (lose $1 for every $2 made pretax, so really it's lose $1.50 for every $2 made at a 25% tax rate) and I get $750/month. A minimum wage job at 20 hours per week pays equal to what I get from disability+10 hours per week.

Jobs pay way more than welfare programs. Unless your argument is jobs pay less than 700/month.

I also take offense to being told (if this were adopted in my state) that I'm working at the wrong place, am a leech on society, and need to work at a list of approved employers if I want to avoid being homeless.

originally posted by: infolurker
Welfare Payouts Top $20 Per Hour In Eight States
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downtrend.com...

Maybe for the people who have 8 kids with a single parent. Welfare benefits are determined almost solely by the number of children you have. The current structure actually rewards being irresponsible and having a bunch of kids you can't afford. The single person who is just trying to get by and make financially sound decisions, if they get anything at all (most won't qualify) will get 700/month which comes to $4.03 by your scale, or 1/5 what is being claimed.

originally posted by: MOMof3
Oh here we go again. You can count on it every presidential election. Blame the poor. You know, if the poor and working poor could get a loan with practically 0% interest, maybe they could get momentum to get out of the cycle of enslavement.

You only get 0% interest loans if you're one of the largest banks in the country. Then as a further qualification you need to be so financially irresponsible that you require trillions of dollars in loans in order to not go bankrupt and wipe out everyones investments.

a reply to: Grimpachi

Tell the truth... have you ever had to live for any extended period of time with no significant income, no family helping you out, and dependents who you were responsible to feed/shelter? Have you ever been forced to rely on a food panty to feed your family? Have you ever been on food stamps?

And as far as transportation goes, this gentleman is suggesting 20hrs a week. That's more than once a week. And again, we're talking about rural Maine here. Public transportation is non existent in most of the state. How are these people supposed to transport themselves? And who cares for their kids while they're doing this? Or should the state take their food stamps but provide transportation and child care? And have you ever done 'community service'? have you ever been on the short-bus and seen what these people are expected to do?

originally posted by: lordcomac
Of course they do- we're not stocking shelves at walmart, here. At the very least, it requires someone who has a basic understanding of how the internet works, and it requires someone who can type. Someone who can think, and do basic math.
Aside from the ability to think, all of these skills were highschool level classes.

I seriously doubt you're hiring people at $60k for nothing more than typing, client/server knowledge, and the ability to do math. I type over 100 wpm, have 100 credit hours of college level math classes, run my own private server, and do client/server programming. I know from experience that none of these things are actually employable skills. If they were, I would have a job or atleast job offers using them rather than minimum wage.

Actually, on the thinking category, I got fired from my last job for thinking. A whole bunch of information needed extracted from some CD's and rather than do it manually like my boss asked, I wrote a program to do it. Turned a 2 week task into 30 minutes. I got fired because there was nothing else for me to do after that. Thinking is not conducive to staying employed.

a reply to: jtma508

Tell the truth... have you ever had to live for any extended period of time with no significant income, no family helping you out, and dependents who you were responsible to feed/shelter? Have you ever been forced to rely on a food panty to feed your family? Have you ever been on food stamps?

I have been poor, but always found a way to pay my way.

Now it is your turn to tell the truth.

Did you actually read the article because you are asking questions that are a non-issue?

For example.

And as far as transportation goes, this gentleman is suggesting 20hrs a week.

They will continue to get food stamps if they work 20 hrs a week at a paying job.

For those not working or training for a new job field they need to volunteer a total of 6 (six) whole hours a week, anyone who says that is too much work is just plain lazy IMO.

Public transportation is non existent in most of the state.

Yet they still manage to find transportation to collect benefits or go to food pantries.

And who cares for their kids while they're doing this? Or should the state take their food stamps but provide transportation and child care?

As I have said repeatedly. The stipulation is for childless adults. That means they don't have children that need to be taken care off it is a non-issue.

And have you ever done 'community service'?

Yes I have. From a young age starting with the boy scouts and every year I volunteer in community service programs it helps those less fortunate.

have you ever been on the short-bus and seen what these people are expected to do?

I am not sure what you mean by short bus as far as what is expected to do for community service that would be yes I do know what is expected and people should be proud to help their community instead of being so selfish.

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.

John F. Kennedy

Seems like the saying now should be "Give me".

a reply to: Grimpachi

My definition of 'Community Service' is the official state 'Community Service' program. The one with the short bus. The one where you collect trash on the highway (as an example) while people drive by and throw bottles of piss at you. Or you get to wade into the flooded basement of a 'not-for-profit canine cancer center' (which is the private home of some jaguar-driving woman who's scamming the tax system) to haul trash and bags full of dog crap out that she saw fit to throw down the basement stairs. But who really cares...

In recent days, the Taxation Committee received a long-awaited analysis from Maine Revenue Services showing that the LePage budget provides Mainers making $40,000 per year an average tax break of $145 while those making $400,000 get an average tax break of $10,679. The analysis shows the top 1 percent of earners will get 25 percent of the tax break and the top 10 percent will receive 51 percent of the break. The budget also gives $118 million in tax breaks to corporations in the next four years.

LePage’s budget would result in a $48 million tax shift onto property taxpayers and communities to fund K-12 education, a likely increase in community college tuition, and the elimination of $4 million in funding for pre-K. It would also eliminate $48 million in funding for prescription drugs and health care for tens of thousands of Maine seniors.

But hey... the guy clearly knows what he's doing. After all, the work requirement is expected to get 6,500 single, able-bodied food-stamp recipients off the dole. That oughta balance the state budget.

There's a lot of moaning about how much unemployed people are costing the taxpayer in handouts, but nobody seems to notice just how much companies and businesses are costing taxpayers.

www.theguardian.com...< br />

esearch published last week by Citizens UK found that companies in the UK are paying their workers so little that the taxpayer has to top up wages to the tune of £11bn a year. The four big supermarkets (Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Morrisons) alone are costing just under £1bn a year in tax credits and extra benefits payments.

This is a direct transfer from the rest of society to some of the largest businesses in the country. To put the figure in perspective, the total cost of benefit fraud last year was just £1bn. Corporate scrounging costs 11 times that.

The tax credit system and other in-work benefits make sense if there are only a few low-paid jobs, in fairly exceptional circumstances, requiring top-ups. When low pay becomes prevalent, the system breaks down. Employers begin to expect the top-up from government and set their pay accordingly. Meanwhile, with the weakening of trade unions – sitting at 14% membership in the private sector in 2013 – the hand of employers has been strengthened dramatically in negotiations.

These parasitic billionaire companies are soaking up billions upon billions of taxpayer cash and all people on here can do is moan about unemployed and their benefit of few quid a week.

originally posted by: abe froman
a reply to: infolurker
Here is the trap- you pass this measure now and those with jobs, money, and stock market accounts, applaud.

Then you slowly raise the "volunteer" work hours while simultaneously destroying the economy. More and more people need assistance as the requirements to receive it increase.

End result: A nation of slaves.

ETA: A PLANET of slaves.

Or you don't pass it and still destroy the economy and more and more people are still dependent, and then enough of them are dependent, you simply announce that they either work or get nothing.

They either get accustomed to their slavery slowly or in a gilded cage, either way, the door has to eventually close because it's the only way to continue to support them in the end when you've reached the breaking point. However, at that point, TPTB are still in total control one way or the other.

So, I'm not sure what your problem is? Either way we are on the road to serfdom here.

a reply to: jtma508

I am disappointed that you didn't answer if you actually read the article. Since you didn't answer the question I will not assume that you did or didn't read them.

If you didn't I could understand why you are using your own definitions of community service and asking questions about who would care for their kids even though it plainly states it does not apply to people with children it is even in the title of the article.

As far as your definition of what community service is I am happy to say it is a good thing that doesn't apply either as the article explained.

I only ask that instead of you using your definition of community service and assuming that it is correct you look into it. Even the pantries and soup kitchens people are going to that no longer meet the requirements to receive food stamps are community service programs. With a quick search I even found community service people could do from "home".

On either side of your screen should be the motto here.

a reply to: [post=19257730]Answer[/pos
Most of my life I was very poor. I am very well off now. But I have never forgotten and have empathy for the ones stuck. Some belong there and you don't want to work or be around them, trust me.

originally posted by: cenpuppie

“You’ve got to incentivize employment, create goals and create time limits on these welfare programs,”

Haha, true blood republicanism right there. Rather than address issue, let's cut benefits because 'Murica! Unemployed single people make up a tiny slice of the people getting public assistance, it's mostly single mothers and working parents that apply for benefits.

The public assistance programs are a drop in bucket compared to the corporate welfare republicans and democrats get. Republicans have their heads up their you know what, always attacking people and no policy.

But then again I lost respect for the Republican party once they started practicing tyranny during the last election.

Yep, and that's true-blue entitlement right there.

"Waaaaah! Someone over there looks like they have a bigger slice of pie, mommy! GIMME, GIMME!"

Instead of criticizing the idea that the slice of pie is perceived to be less, you might concentrate on the intent which is to be a hand up focusing on making people self-reliant again.

a reply to: grandmakdw

I think volunteer work is absolutely necessary. But, historically, hasn't it mostly been done by aristocrats, churches, retirees and the well off? I mean, there is transportation, child care, chronic illness, to name a few things people with no resources have to deal with.

a reply to: Grimpachi

yea I read the article. At least the one linked in the NY Times... not so much the first one liked to the SOOPERMEXICAN source. And other articles I found googling it. Seems like there is a litany of professionals saying it's a bad idea and less concerned with the miniscule financial 'bump' it is supposed to give the state and more concerned with the damage it will do. But what the hell do they know? They're only policy analysts that work full time assessing these kinds of issues and are probably the front for some progressive Obamaesque communist agenda. They know a lot less than the good folks on ATS.

The problem is that the younger generations have been steered away from hard work.

Young people think that working behind a counter taking orders is hard work.

They think that waking up before noon and working for 8 hours is hard work.

They think that working more than 5 days a week is hard work.

They think that the only jobs worth having involve suits, briefcases, and high-rise buildings.

They've been raised to think that blue-collar jobs are not worth having and are somehow "beneath them."

Until we change the mindset and the terrible influence of high-school guidance counselors, the unemployment situation will not change. Kids think that their options are A) spend 4 years in college to earn a degree and instantly make $100,000 a year or B) get a crappy job right out of high school and never make good money. Children are brainwashed to believe that spending a minimum of 4 years and tens of thousands of dollars on college is the only way to have a decent future.

If children were encouraged to go to a technical school and learn a trade like pipe fitting, welding, electrician, auto paint & body, etc. they would be very employable and wouldn't have trouble finding jobs. Instead, they are pushed HARD to go to college and get a degree... ANY degree so their life won't suck and they end up with $50,000+ in debt and a sociology/English/psychology/art/whatever degree with zero job prospects.

When our school systems stop force feeding lies about college to kids and change the perception of "hard work" among young people, we might finally make some progress toward sorting out the unemployment situation.

a reply to: jtma508

yea I read the article. At least the one linked in the NY Times... not so much the first one liked to the SOOPERMEXICAN source. And other articles I found googling it.

So you read some, at least you are partially informed.

Seems like there is a litany of professionals saying it's a bad idea and less concerned with the miniscule financial 'bump' it is supposed to give the state and more concerned with the damage it will do.

I am having a hard time foreseeing the possible damage of people doing food drives, helping the elderly, tutoring children in math, maintaining parks, one of my favorite Community service programs was cutting firewood and delivering it to the less fortunate, and the multiples of other community service programs that generally helped those that were struggling. There are a lot to choose from.

They're only policy analysts that work full time assessing these kinds of issues and are probably the front for some progressive Obamaesque communist agenda.

from article

This time limit is an old one, written into the 1996 federal welfare law.

Damn that Obama he must have started implementing his plan back in the 90s getting people to help people.

They know a lot less than the good folks on ATS.

From what I have witnessed is that is a debatable stance because it seems a good portion in this very thread have not even looked into it enough to discuss the facts, but you are welcome to your opinion.

originally posted by: Answer
Until we change the mindset and the terrible influence of high-school guidance counselors, the unemployment situation will not change. Kids think that their options are A) spend 4 years in college to earn a degree and instantly make $100,000 a year or B) get a crappy job right out of high school and never make good money. Children are brainwashed to believe that spending a minimum of 4 years and tens of thousands of dollars on college is the only way to have a decent future.

You missed option C,which is becoming the norm. Spend 4 or more years in college to earn degrees to make minimum wage outside your field because the jobs don't exist.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Answer
Until we change the mindset and the terrible influence of high-school guidance counselors, the unemployment situation will not change. Kids think that their options are A) spend 4 years in college to earn a degree and instantly make $100,000 a year or B) get a crappy job right out of high school and never make good money. Children are brainwashed to believe that spending a minimum of 4 years and tens of thousands of dollars on college is the only way to have a decent future.

You missed option C,which is becoming the norm. Spend 4 or more years in college to earn degrees to make minimum wage outside your field because the jobs don't exist.

I've seen that a lot lately, too. Folks going back to college because they can't find a job and they have to pay back student loans... so it's easier to pursue a masters and continue to defer the loan payments while taking on more debt.

Please explain to me how requiring an able-bodied adult to work for a living is somehow cruel and unusual punishment that leads to slavery.
I can say for sure, and my offspring can testify that in our household every member was required to pull their own weight. Why would anyone expect to eat for free? I suspect only those who believe in the Free Lunch myth are the ones expecting to be fed at others' expense. I feel sorry for them because someone has done them a giant injustice by teaching them a big fat lie.