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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe double-standard of making the poor prove they’re worthy of government benefits
Good read, and sadly so true.
Poverty looks pretty great if you're not living in it. The government gives you free money to spend on steak and lobster, on tattoos and spa days, on why not? cruise vacations and psychic visits.
Enough serious-minded people seem to think this is what the poor actually buy with their meager aid that we've now seen a raft of bills and proposed state laws to nudge them away from so much excess. Missouri wants to curtail what the poor eat with their food stamps (evidence of the problem from one state legislator: "I have seen people purchasing filet mignons" . Kansas wants to block welfare recipients from spending government money at strip clubs (in legalese: any "sexually oriented business or any retail establishment which provides adult-oriented entertainment in which performers disrobe or perform in an unclothed state for entertainment" .
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But the logic behind the proposals is problematic in at least three, really big ways.
The first is economic: There's virtually no evidence that the poor actually spend their money this way. The idea that they do defies Maslow's hierarchy the notion that we all need shelter and food before we go in search of foot massages. In fact, the poor are much more savvy about how they spend their money because they have less of it (quick quiz: do you know exactly how much you last spent on a gallon of milk? or a bag of diapers?). By definition, a much higher share of their income often more than half of it is eaten up by basic housing costs than is true for the better-off, leaving them less money for luxuries anyway. And contrary to the logic of drug-testing laws, the poor are no more likely to use drugs than the population at large.
The second issue with these laws is a moral one: We rarely make similar demands of other recipients of government aid. We don't drug-test farmers who receive agriculture subsidies (lest they think about plowing while high!). We don't require Pell Grant recipients to prove that they're pursuing a degree that will get them a real job one day (sorry, no poetry!). We don't require wealthy families who cash in on the home mortgage interest deduction to prove that they don't use their homes as brothels (because surely someone out there does this). The strings that we attach to government aid are attached uniquely for the poor..."
More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/07/the-double-standard-of-making-poor-people-prove-theyre-worthy-of-government-benefits/
Skittles
(152,964 posts)fuck them all
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,083 posts)Sad to say some of the biggest pork around.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)Entitled them with to No-Bid contracts. Farmers are paid not to farm and they do not have to account for what the subsidies purchase.
AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)· There are the hard-working, successful, quietly devout people who might well be "of the elect" (i.e., predestined by God for "salvation" .
· Then there are the others: lazy, or simply not self-disciplined, or not sufficiently responsible; or enjoying what they do for a living so that it's too "natural" to count as work; or frivolous or profligate or just too attached to things of this world; or believing in the "wrong" religion or no religion; or in despair for whatever reason; or simply poor.
The key thing to notice is that in the "Protestant work ethic" worldview, all the varied descriptions in the "other" category tend to be conflated with each other. If someone appears to be "guilty" of one of those descriptions, e.g. seems lazy, then he or she is assumed to be "guilty" of most (or all) the rest, as well.
We can see how racial stereotyping in the U.S. functioned to categorize ethnic minorities as "the others," the non-elect. Most racial stereotypes in the U.S. (and in the British colonies that preceded the U.S.) include at least one of the varied descriptions. If one can believe in such racial stereotyping, one can try to justify mistreating members of ethnic minorities, because God must have predestined them not to be "saved."
For example, until well into the 20th century, many Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the U.S. believed that:
"All Irish people are uneducated, drunken, lazy Roman Catholics."
This also implied:
"Therefore, they are not good, hardworking, successful, self-disciplined Calvinists (or near Calvinists) like we are. Therefore, we can mistreat them, because they don't really count."
The fictional stereotype of the "Welfare Queen," developed in the 1980s, is a classic example. It helped legitimize the Reagan administration's cutting social services budgets. (Before then, for a while homelessness had been almost non-existent in the U.S.)
maddiemom
(5,106 posts)In seventy years of life, I've known only a few poor families in which the parent, or parents might truly have been called "shiftless" or happy to "live off the government." I've known far more children of the wealthier who grew up with all the advantages and blew them away. As I grew up, I realized the one family I knew of "happy to live off the government" were doing a vast disservice to their children--the real victims. In the late Fifties, I remarked to my very liberal and politically active Mom, that these poorly clothed children had a television! She had no problem with that, telling me that the children needed what little pleasure they could get in their situation.
Later, as a teacher, and working with programs with "disadvantaged" kids, I again realized that only the occasional parent wasn't willing to make every effort to earn an honest living. Far fewer are in any way as "shiftless" as many of the small percentage of the rich scions that we give every pass. Having allowed our greedy "job creators" to actually send jobs elsewhere to take advantage of cheap labor, then blame unions and environmental concerns for doing so, we've sealed our demise as a nation. Beating up on the victims of our recent policies is contemptible.
daredtowork
(3,732 posts)And I think Democrats need to be reminded that it is OUR party strategy that really started the ball rolling on this situation. It was BILL CLINTON who dismantled welfare and who constructed the poor as a political target for punishment as part of his strategy of TRIANGULATION.
By opposing "socialism" and getting tough on crime, Clinton picked up conservative voters for his imagined electorate super-majority of "the Center". Everyone wanted to be in the Center: that's where the reasonable, middle class, best Americans were.
But that left the poor without political representation at all. No matter who is in office, programs that benefit the poor get ruthlessly cut while the needs of the military and Wall Street get attended to as a matter of course. Politicians have been puppets of billionaires since Citizens United, but the only political will serms to be to pull the political establishment back tosard the "Center".
Millions of people have been effectively cut out of the political process. I wonder how they will ultimately make their voices heard?
Clue: it won't be on a cruise ship.
Rozlee
(2,529 posts)ship in the Caribbean. What was I thinking? Who needs to feed themselves and their kids for a whole month when you can have three days and four nights of free buffets on a cruise? I was so stooopid!
onyourleft
(726 posts)...find the anecdotal evidence (seeing filet mignon) of something in another person's cart quite surprising. I could never tell you what some else had in their cart as I just don't look. First, it is none of my business, and second I'm too busy concentrating on my own grocery list. That someone has the audacity to snoop on another person's shopping habits is appalling. Quite frankly, I don't believe what they're saying.
raccoon
(31,089 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Midnight Writer
(21,546 posts)I thought conservatives loved that stuff.
turbinetree
(24,632 posts)the public should be demanding why this right wing republican hypocrite, (all of these republicans for that matter in this state and any state) whom, he is taking money (his /there salary) from these poor people to subsidize his/there life style as a legislator--this sounds like I have my cake and let the poor eat bread---ha ha ha.
Someone should just file a lawsuit and ask what is "class discrimination"--you have food stamps is a reason to discriminate-----I mean really
blackspade
(10,056 posts)Thanks to Reagan and his ideological (idiotological) decedents, it's a war on the poor.
IronLionZion
(45,256 posts)to blame those lazy freeloaders instead of the millionaires who know how to game every system. It is class warfare
and distract from the more draconian provisions of these bills, like unreasonable restrictions on withdrawals that would make it harder to pay rent for example.
REP
(21,691 posts)Being broke is miserable. If someone finds room in their budget and food assistance for steak on a birthday, holiday, anniversary or even just because, good. Everyone deserves to have a really nice meal once in a while, and decent food every damn day.
I know that those who receive assistance are using it to eat. Isn't any of my business what they eat, but I hope they're eating good food they like.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)to show that they have registered with the Selective Service.
Sunriser13
(612 posts)While I am not receiving food stamps (yet), I'm poor as all getout. No meat hits the buggy if it's not way cheap on sale. I strive to get to the reduced meats (close dated that the dept. has reduced for quick sale) and get real tickled late in the evening when additional markdowns have been made. Currently there's not one thing in my freezer that didn't come home with reduced stickers of one sort or another.
To my point, one of those nights, about 9 PM, I ran across a package of two fairly large bacon wrapped filet mignons that had been marked down several times throughout the day, evidenced by about 4 stickers stuck on top of each other. The price on them was $3.47. Yes, they flew into my cart at $2.89 per pound...
If these nosy and critical jackasses would use all that energy taking care of their own lives and families instead of trying to micromanage mine and others, the world would be one hell of a less stressful place for all of us with which to deal!
My cent-and-a-half!