Poverty in the USA is a scandal

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Two political and totally inacurrate but never fails to whip conservatives into a frenzy words:

Here it's "Dole Bludgers''

'The dole" is depression-era slang for 'unemployment relief' . "Bludger" is the closest we have in Australia to a mortal insult. The original meaning was 'pimp', but today it means 'parasite'

[Autumnlicious]

It has always struck me as vindictive and petty to withhold living resources and basic human services for the poor and homeless. There should be a track out of that situation.

The term "welfare queen" is most often associated with Ronald Reagan who brought the idea to a national audience. During his 1976 presidential campaign, Reagan would tell the story of a woman from Chicago's South Side who was arrested for welfare fraud:

"She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000."[4]

Since Reagan never named a particular woman, the description can be viewed as an example of dramatic hyperbole. Critics have pointed out that the woman described never existed,[5] and the story appears to have been drawn from newspaper reports at the time. In 1976, the New York Times reported that a woman from Chicago, Linda Taylor,[6] was charged with using four aliases and of cheating the government out of $8,000. She appeared again in the newspaper while the Illinois Attorney General continued investigating her case.[7] The woman was ultimately found guilty of "welfare fraud and perjury" in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.[8]

REF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen

I love hyperbole that justifies ideology. 8$k is a far cry from 150$k.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Here we HAVE had a few professional welfare cheats,who we caught. There are probably a few uncaught. Most welfare cheats are opportunistic and small potatoes,not even worth prosecuting. (the minimum amount for prosecution used to be $1500,probably gone up)

Ironically; the biggest source [in terms of money] is INTERNAL fraud. On average, we would hear of one or two a year,often amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars.In my office, a section manager was caught having stolen over $100k. (that they could find)

In the main city office there was a notorious husband and wife team who stole for years before they were caught. He went to prison for a couple of years, she pleaded ignorance and got off.


Context:at that time there were I think 27 regional offices in our state,each one spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year. I alone spent tens of millions. The system is totally computerised with only computer generated random manual checks. It's idiot simple to set up dummy recipient accounts. I once worked out how to rip off a few million,but decided against it as I really didn't want to live in Argentina.

It may be only a matter of time before smart hacker accesses a major treasury account and rips off millions.

[kılıç_mehmet]

Our being the wealthiest nation has more to do with the effect of particularly industrious or ingenuous individuals having a talent for amassing wealth unto themselves and how this effects the overall picture of wealth represented by statistics and averages. It doesn't make any one of us decent..lol. We don't seem to need an excuse for apathy, it's a feature, not a bug.

Well, what does the system in which you live perpetrate? Does it tell you to help the needy? Does it tell you to look after your kinsman?
It tells you to amass as much as wealth and goods as possible.
People are only concerned with themselves.

Poverty a scandal? Poverty and destitution is a tragic, but inevitable consequence of reality. We can't stamp it out.

Well, what is *poverty*, exactly? How do you define poverty?
One must define the exact lines of povery to combat poverty.

Too many Americans, inlcuding those in charge, think that poverty only exists because all poor people are just lazy.

Well, even if you work hard, if you're a toilet cleaner, the pay you're going to receive will not bring you above the poverty line, or worse, if you have a wife and children.
I don't think that Americans think that povery arises from laxity.
I belive however, that Americans have come to accept poverty...as the way things just are.

I think because of that, people see the poor as lazy and not willing to work

There are people who are born into poverty, and those who become poor throughout their lives(due to misfortunes, mostly). Even though, they both are poor, they live in poverty.

Additionally, people feel less empathy towards the poor for some reason or another.

Well, how much empathy do you have towards the poor, friend? Anyone can sympathize with a poor person. Especially if that one is born into poverty, like we sympathize with the people of...say Angola, Somalia and etc. But helping others is a different thing.
Of course, you're going to say that I'm generalizing, but there are people out there who are not even willing to help their parents, siblings or children during their time of financial need. Why should they really help a poor person they do not even know?
Much less if the system they are integrated in tells them to solely focus on individual, materialistic needs, by means of constant consumption of goods&services? They need money, and they do not feel the need to share that money with even their relatives.

rather than thinking that the system is broken and these people truly need help.

Well, everyone needs help, friend. Even the rich need help. The rich need help to stay rich, while the poor need help to be...well, not poor.
Who is going to help who?
You? Me?
Actually, it's the state, who should do this, but where does the state get his money from? You and me. If you and me are not willing to give up a portion of our earnings, things just won't work.

They have it in their heads that the poor don't deserve help.

Depends on what you call "help".

Or maybe a capitalist society would view the poor as the losers in a competition (in which there is always a loser) and leave it at that?

Well, if you don't enter a competition, you can't become a loser.
How does a person who was born into poverty, and has no education or trade, compete with a man of my education, and familial wealth?

If the system is a game then the presence of losers does not indicate that the system is broken, but that it is working as intended.

Indeed. But there is no such system in which competition doesn't exist.
If things like employment are scarce and quotas for employees are high, people will naturally compete with eachother for jobs.

If only it were that simple. The cunts of the upper 1% are out there deliberately outsourcing jobs and trying to drive more people into poverty where they can be kept in line by Draconian laws enforced by thug cops who are hired to protect the propertied classes.

I believe that you should look for the real root of the problem, rather than looking at what the problem has brought into existence.
Would you act differently if you were one of those cunts?
I believe that inside, everyone is a cunt. It's only a matter how well you supress that cunt that resides in your heart.

[jackman]

It has always struck me as vindictive and petty to withhold living resources and basic human services for the poor and homeless. There should be a track out of that situation.

i agree with this totally. namely, the bolded portion. how in the hell would one approach that tho? i see organized abuse of the welfare system here daily and as much as i think people should be able to work themselves out of poverty (those that are capable, of course, of at least manual labor), there are some who have built a network and lifestyle around it. if i'm honest with myself, that shit is frustrating.

i work pretty hard and my body breaks down sometimes and there are weeks when i can't buy a nice delmonico steak at the supermarket. then i see the guy who stays home chillin all day blasting the stereo and washing his car incessantly, walking around the supermarket with 2 carts full of namebrand stuff and steaks of all sorts. sometimes i laugh it off, but sometimes that shit makes me crazy. i don't know if i feel dumb for working hard for what little i get, while some eat well for free and have their kids at the doctor for every sneeze. i don't even have health care and haven't for the last 9yrs that i've been working for myself.

i asked my neighbor why he wouldn't work, he said b/c he can't mess up everything he's getting. so, with no desire to work, i wonder how we make the path out of poverty for those like him. there are plenty of poor who WILL work their asses off and i love them and will do what i can to help, if anything. but the ones who won't ... smh.

[Faith No More]

I would bet everything I had, that Australian politician would dare to say what Ron Paul said in a Republican Primary debate, about leaving a guy to die if he had no capacity to pay for his treatment (even if it would save his life).

In fairness to the truth and to Ron Paul, he did not advocate letting the hypothetical man die. When he was asked the question by the moderator, the audience, full of moron conservaties, screamed, "Yes!" He then promptly said that was not right.

[znk666]

Reasons for High poverty in America summarized into three synonymous words
1.Capitalism
2.Greed
3.Evil

[Minimalist]

Australia isn't much better Trist

Yes, that we HAVE homeless people at all is a disgrace.

However, we DO have; universal health care, a far higher minimum wage,a long tradition of welfare housing AND a far more generous system of welfare payments and pensions. Plus Family Allowance payments and child care subsidies. PLUS mandatory national superannuation.

Not much better my arse.

See what happens when you don't waste $1 trillion a year on a military whose primary threat appears to be guys with dynamite in their underwear.

[The Grand Nudger]

It has always struck me as vindictive and petty to withhold living resources and basic human services for the poor and homeless. There should be a track out of that situation.

The term "welfare queen" is most often associated with Ronald Reagan who brought the idea to a national audience. During his 1976 presidential campaign, Reagan would tell the story of a woman from Chicago's South Side who was arrested for welfare fraud:

"She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000."[4]

Since Reagan never named a particular woman, the description can be viewed as an example of dramatic hyperbole. Critics have pointed out that the woman described never existed,[5] and the story appears to have been drawn from newspaper reports at the time. In 1976, the New York Times reported that a woman from Chicago, Linda Taylor,[6] was charged with using four aliases and of cheating the government out of $8,000. She appeared again in the newspaper while the Illinois Attorney General continued investigating her case.[7] The woman was ultimately found guilty of "welfare fraud and perjury" in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.[8]

REF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen

I love hyperbole that justifies ideology. 8$k is a far cry from 150$k.

Not to mention that the problem in both the bullshit hyperbole and the smaller actual reports was fraud, not welfare. Wait, wait wait, criminals commit crimes?...we should do something about this!...oh, we do....I see.

Jackasses.

[Minimalist]

Wait, wait wait, criminals commit crimes?

If only it were that simple. Those same asshole politicians cut budgets and reduce the number of investigators those county department can use to track fraud in the name of "economy."