Holes in the social safety net: Keeping the poor in their place

Originally posted by peggy m

Originally posted by dawnstar

Originally posted by peggy m
reply to post by Psychopump

 

ummm....
could someone, maybe someone who has a little more power of persuasion please explain to the nit wits in this society what that benefit is.....they don't seem to be listening to me!!

dependancy=servitude....
more people are becoming dependent on our government....
more businesses are becoming dependent on our government....(remember......counting on the government to feed and house your employees, provide them with healthcare....well, that is dependency also!!)
and well.....WE ARE LOSING OUR FREEDOM HERE!!!

What benefits could there possibly be of helping one another in times of need and having a little more equality? It couldn't possibly be PEACE.. could it? An epidemic of happy people would emerge.

Not to worry, though. Our society is safe from any positive long term change. Greed and arrogance will reign supreme and those who have will get more and more from those who have not.

If it wasn't for the fact that I am struggling and paying more than my fair share of the tax burden to help my fellow neighbors while the rich get all the tax breaks... I wouldn't be so upset that people abuse the welfare system. But is the Robin Hood approach truly a viable solution?

I cannot imagine the social changes if everyone were "equalized". There would be no social climbing. What would goals be like?

ain't really against helping someone out out of a jam, and aint really too upset that some are more endowed in our world than others. but, if someone's working 40 hours, contributing to our society, I don't care how small their contribution is, it's not so small that he doesn't deserve to have his needs met and it's the employer that benefits the most from his labor, it should be his responsibility to pay a livable wage. those who do business with his employer should be willing to pay a little more if necessary so that he can. If it doesn't happen, well, why should those people stay within the society anyways....they would have just as much chance venturing forth on their own, hunting, fishing, growing a few vegatables, and well....
become uncilivalized!!

I can say one thing though....

biz.yahoo.com...

having so many people up to their eyeballs in debt has made a few people very, very rich, all on the backs of the taxpayers!!!

let me ask ya all something....

you live in this ragged out apartment that you are paying $600 dollars for. You go to work every morning, earn your paycheck, and well, struggle but manage to make ends meet. you're credit is rather good too. okay, so the family upstairs is up all hours of the night, they have a young child, who you lay in bed and listen run back and forth all night long. you just can't take anymore...you health is suffering, you career is suffering. you want to move and have been saving to come up with the security deposit, moving truck and all that. then, well, you get an offer...buy this house, no money down, $600/month. it's a nice house and you know you can make the payments. heck, with the money you saved you could move in and still have a little money left over.
and well, you have also found another apartment that seems a little quieter. they want $550 for it, along with a security deposit of the same...and well, they want another hundred if you want to keep fluffy....
well, which would you chose to do?

well...fluffy's out in the streets now along with her family, and the idiots in washington are putting his children and grandchildren hundreds of billions of dollars into debt, they will be virtually slaves, working their tails off, and having far less than us because so much will be needed to just pay the interest on all this.
dependance leads to servitude!!!
wouldn't have been alot cheaper just to pay people a decent wage, stop being so damned greedy, keep the cost of living within the range of what people were making, and well....knock it the heck off with the danged superiority complexes!!! God, I don't care what the heck you do, you aren't that far better than the little file clerk earning $6 or $7 and hour that the difference in your pay is that great!

Originally posted by dawnstar

I cannot imagine the social changes if everyone were "equalized". There would be no social climbing. What would goals be like?

ain't really against helping someone out out of a jam, and aint really too upset that some are more endowed in our world than others. but, if someone's working 40 hours, contributing to our society, I don't care how small their contribution is, it's not so small that he doesn't deserve to have his needs met and it's the employer that benefits the most from his labor, it should be his responsibility to pay a livable wage.

wouldn't have been alot cheaper just to pay people a decent wage, stop being so damned greedy, keep the cost of living within the range of what people were making, and well....knock it the heck off with the danged superiority complexes!!! God, I don't care what the heck you do, you aren't that far better than the little file clerk earning $6 or $7 and hour that the difference in your pay is that great!

Well said. The line between the poor who receive some sort of assistance, the working poor, and the middle class is a very fine one, and many, many of us are walking that tightrope all the time. I guess it's human nature to want to look down on those who are only one rung behind us.

I still believe that some welfare programs are necessary for the mentally and physically disabled, the elderly poor, and others who will never be able to successfully work, but a living wage would be a great step forward.

At this time, though, it's tough getting even a small increase in the minimum wage through Congress, much less enough to live on.

Altough I'm not an American I'll discuss along. In my country everyone pays 30-40% income tax and then a lot of other taxes like for roads (once you own a car) or use of the city's drainage system, alcohol, gas, cigarettes... all kinds of commodities (for example buying a tv you pay 19% tax) besides that, health insurance is mandatory so I'd say I pay 50-70% of what I earn a month on taxes. Everyone retires at 65 (sometimes a few years earlier) with a pension (plus other benefits usually saved up throughout one's career). You get some money for having children. Those born with disabilities fall into a completely different welfare system which I don't know much about but basically a lot of expenses are covered.

You get sick and lose your job you will get a decent amount of money but it's likely other things must go like an expensive car or smaller housing. At first you get a percentage of your last salary for several months after that a different amount is given which can last for years (depending on the illness).
Being unemployed (but healthy) gives 3 years a decent amount of money, after that you're evaluated how to be put to work (assuming there were a lot of rejections from the mandatory job applications).

I know some single moms who work parttime and get benefits and they manage fine. The difference is they sacrifice things other women their age wihout kids do, buy fancier clothes, house, car, all kinds of luxury stuff, go on holidays alot. Basically the single mom should be able to buy a simple washingmachine while those without kids and with a job can buy a more expensive washingmachine.

There's no trap in our welfare system, at least not one I can see. There's no one that can keep you down but yourself. I can see a trap in the education system where those with a lot of money can afford the best education for their children so they get the better jobs and become wealthy as well, passing it down to their children... while those with low incomes tend to remain that way because their children will have the lesser jobs who in turn also don't have enough to give their children proper education. But I guess that's a vicious cycle going on for ages.

What I would want to know is if the girl got pregnant accidentally (she didn't know how to use a condom or birthcontrol) or did she want to become a mother (but misjudged the future father)?

[edit on 20-9-2008 by Dragonfly79]

reply to post by Dragonfly79


I always find it interesting to compare the differences between Europe and the U.S. in terms of their social programs. I understand that Europeans usually have some sort of class differences, as evidenced in the unequal schooling you mentioned, so the rich and poor are not entirely equal, but I think those at the bottom still have a chance to live a good and fulfilling life, which is not always the case here.

I'm afraid here people are very worried that their tax money might go to help someone who doesn't "deserve" it, as you have probably noticed in this thread. How you define the term deserving varies from person to person, but to a large extent those just a slight bit above a group are the ones most critical of it.

The section of the book I quoted doesn't say Ms. Capetillo was an unmarried mother, or even a mother. I think most people assumed she probably was because she was receiving welfare or SSI. Here only mothers can receive welfare. There is, however, Supplemental Security Income for the disabled who are ineligible for regular Social Security, and there, too, one cannot have more than $2,000 in assets in order to qualify--in other words, one must be desperately poor, without any support from family members. Ms. Capetillo may well be on SSI, which pays about $600 a month at the most. Regular Social Security benefits for those who are disabled vary according to how much the individual earned when they were working, and they can have assets.

For people trapped at the bottom of the income distribution it is very hard to get ahead.