[Vision2020] Welfare Queens

[donald edwards]

We could end welfare if we really wanted to but it doesn't even appear to be as much of a drain on our budget as Wall Street bailouts and wars for oil.
 
Some Facts:
 
By 1973, 75% of magazine pictures featured African Americans as the face of welfare, despite African Americans making up only 35% of welfare recipients.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen
 
 
 
Religions groups such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the Peoples Temple have been accused of bringing in a great deal of money by taking the welfare checks of their members.[citation needed]
 
Welfare Facts

5 % of the U.S. population is on public assistance 
1% of the federal budget is devoted to welfare or public assistance for the poor. Yet Aid to Families with Dependent Children was the only government entitlement program politicians sought to reform. 
12 % of the federal budget is devoted to welfare for the middle class and wealthy in the form of tax credits, no interest mortgages, home investment incentives. 
Under the guise of aiding poor women’s choice, Norplant and Depo-Provera have been pushed on poor women as a way of controlling poverty. 
34.9% of female headed households live in poverty. 
Despite these facts, welfare continues to be a highly contested political topic. The National Welfare Rights Union is against the Work First welfare reform policies in Michigan. It forces women to work at least 20 hours per week even if they have young children, no skills, no transportation. Even though the Work First program provides transportation, child care, and clothing expenses because being a mother is already a full-time job. It is forced labor and does not provide for education so women can move out of poverty. 
Minimum wage is not a living wage and most of these jobs do not provide benefits.Welfare rights are human rights. What good is welfare reform if it does not provide the basic necessities: food, shelter, and clothing? 
Understanding the "myths" surrounding welfare and communicating them to others in the community, can begin the process towards open, honest, policy discussions. 
 
Five Major Welfare Myths
Myth #1: The typical welfare recipient is a black inner city single mother. 
The Census Bureau's most recent annual poverty report found that urban black mothers constitute less than one out of six of all poor households. Rural white families account for more--one out of five. White surburban families accountfor even more--one out of four. 
Myth #2: The poor are lazy. 
Forty percent of poor adults work, although many cannot find full time jobs. Indeed, even when they do they may still be in poverty. Some 11 million jobs in 1991 paid less than $11,500, $2,000 under the official poverty level for a family of four. Of those poor adults who don't work, 90 percent fall into the following categories: 22 percent are disabled, 17 percent are in school, 21 percent are elderly retirees, 31 percent have family responsibilities. 
Myth #3: Welfare mothers breed welfare daughters. 
Two long term studies reported by the House Ways and Means Committee in 1992 found that only about one in five daughters of "highly welfare dependent" mothers themselves become highly dependent on welfare. The rest rely on welfare sporadically or not at all. 
Myth #4: Throwing people off the welfare rolls will eventually improve their lives and save taxpayers money. 
The most celebrated experiment in welfare reform has occurred in Michigan. Governor Engler completely eliminated his state's $240 million General Assistance(GA) payments to 83,000 childless, able bodied adults.Only 8 percent of these former GA recipients found employment and they earn an average of only $120 a week. Many sell blood for $20 a pint. Over one third lost their homes when the program ended. As one study notes, if only 5 percent of these former GA recipients end up in prison or a state psychiatric institution all the taxpayer savings from ending General Assistance will be lost. 
Myth #5: Welfare is cheaper than creating well paying public jobs. 
In his book "Securing the Right to Employment", Philip Harvey calculates that in 1986 we could have achieved full employment by creating l0.4 million public service jobs. He further assumed that the average annual wage would be $13,000. The cost of such a program would have been a daunting $142 billion. But when we deduct from this sum the taxes that would be paid by these new workers and the savings from drastically reduced unemployment insurance payments, welfare , Medicaid, food stamps and other expenditures directly linked to low income and unemployment overall we would have spent $13 billion less. A full employment program, even excluding the social savingsfrom reduced family violence, more stable communities, and less crime, pays for itself in reduced welfare expenditures. 
If we can overcome these five myths about welfare we may well engage in a national dialogue with meaningful results, not only for the one in five Americans who now live in poverty, but for the nation as a whole. But this will occur only when we challenge and overcome the welfare myths that paralyze our thinking.  > Message: 2> Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:47:15 -0700> From: "No Weatherman" <no.weatherman at gmail.com>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Obama cancels interview with a Free (not in> the tank) Press> To: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>> Message-ID:> <28a621640810260647n29968cd4x8d40f340d9550217 at mail.gmail.com>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1> > Chas:> > Ummmm.> > It's always easier to play poker with someone else's chips.> > Someday, if you're ever rakin in the dough, you'll resent the> government confiscating your hard earned money to finance crackheads> and welfare queens.> > > On 10/25/08, Chasuk <chasuk at gmail.com> wrote:> > On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 17:07, No Weatherman <no.weatherman at gmail.com> wrote:> >> > > West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama's comment, to Joe the Plumber,> > > about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama> > > isn't being a Marxist with the "spreading the wealth" comment.> >> >> > We already spread the wealth. It's called taxes. Obama is merely> > proposing spreading the wealth more equitably.> >> > > > ------------------------------
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