re: Just sat through an interesting "Lunch and Learn" on the welfare system

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many years ago I worked in the Department of Social Services.

couple things I have witnessed first hand -

-fraud is more common than legitimacy
-recipients (called clients) are qualified without much digging into the factual nature of their claims because if the Department didn't utilize the dedicated funds then the amount allocated would decrease the following year
-HUGE entitlement mentality of many of the applicants and recipients
-"God will provide" is the most common answer for "how do you pay your bills?"
- "Have a blessed day" came from some of the worst offenders haahahahah
-the number of women in the system with multiple kids from multiple sperm donors is astounding
-the most common question "they wanna give me more hours at work, how much is that gonna cut my benefits?" and the next week they quit


I only worked in that Department for 3 years, but it was enough to see it up close and personal.

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My mother worked there for over 30 years (10 years of food stamps, 20 years of child relocation) retired around 02 or 03) so what you're saying is nothing new to me. Along with the growing caseload they had continual layoffs (when they moved into their new, bigger building they were 2 and 3 to an office, by the time she retired 10-ish years later everyone had their own office with some empty, and all that time the case loads did not diminish).

A couple of her stories I remember:
- one client whose primary ambition in life was to move into the hotel with her boyfriend
- another client whom she had discussed birth control pills with, when she asked the client "so what do you do when you meet a man you want to have sex with" the client's response was "tell him to wait a few minutes while I take this pill."

My step-father spent his career in education, retired as a superintendent. Both of them have stated that one of the worst abuses out there is SSI ("crazy checks").

Ya that is a big issue

But i remember having a conversation with a social worker friend of mine who says the black market for daycare is pretty vibrant which is bad because unlicensed is unsafe, but good in the sense that it is cheaper.

I don’t have the data, but I assume one of the largest black markets in America is daycare

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Daycare for two kids on the cheap end would be $150

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where on Earth is daycare that cheap. It's costs me twice that for 1 kid

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The biggest barrier in all of this is the $150 a week that daycare costs per kid (on the low end). That's like $8k year per kid.

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I bet a lot of welfare queens use this as an excuse, but leave their kids with their grandmothers frequently to go do non-work stuff.

I just learned yesterday that Section 8 status is inheritable. As long as you stay within certain guidelines, an entire family’s lineage can stay Section 8 babies for eternity.

Now why would that be a thing?

Generational welfare, the dims love it. Those folks shouldn't be allowed to vote.

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but it's not a good life.

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For them, it is. It wouldn't be for you.

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Was it Maine that instituted the volunteer clause and welfare recipients dropped 80%.

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Sort of. What Maine (and now another state... Kentucky, maybe?) did was to set a requirement for work or education in order to receive TANF benefits starting in 2012 (they have to work at least 20 hours a week, participate in a work-training program or meet volunteering requirements) but only for able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWD's).

How well has that worked? LINK

CY..........TANF Enrollment........Change from previous CY
2007..........13,451........................N/A
2008..........13,890........................3.3%
2009..........14,705........................5.9%
2010..........15,188........................3.3%
2011..........14,510.......................-4.5%
2012..........10,009......................-31.0%
2013...........8,117......................-18.9%
2014...........6,716......................-17.3%
2015...........5,817......................-13.4%
2016...........4,855......................-16.5%
2017...........4,492.......................-7.5%

While these numbers speak for themselves about how much abuse there was as well as how even minor requirements can change use levels, there have been other positive effects as well.

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Over the four-year period after our reforms, people who had prior earnings records saw their wages increase by an average of 237%. This was from the baseline period in the year before the reforms compared to the last three quarters in 2015 and the first quarter of 2016.

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Over the four-year period after our reforms, people who had prior earnings records saw their wages increase by an average of 237%. This was from the baseline period in the year before the reforms compared to the last three quarters in 2015 and the first quarter of 2016.

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This is why our current system is criminally negligent. An awful lot of these folks would blow well past minimum wage in no time, if they weren't put in a position where they can't get started because they lose more than they can make. Some folks are beyond help. But many aren't, and they want to work, yet our system puts up barriers instead of "a hand up".

When you don't stigmatize being on welfare all kinds of bad shite happens.