Political Communication blog

I think that this is outrageous too. It is absurd how convenient it is to be on welfare. I DESPISE the fact that those of us who are responsible and work hard are essentially supporting the lower class (the majority of which are just lazy)!! I strongly believe that there should be welfare reform.
 

Just because there may be some people, in a nation of over 300 million, using welfare to their advantage, doesn't mean that welfare in and of itself is bad.

And welfare certainly isn't the happy time that some people, generally conservatives who are against most if not all social assistance programs, make it out to be. Those people have an axe to grind and are not the authority to be listening to. For example, even Ronald Reagan exaggerated welfare abuse for political gain, when he railed against a fictional "welfare queen" in his 1980 campaign. Just because a politician says it, doesn't make it true.

The overwhelming majority of people on welfare are not enjoying it, and most are not taking advantage of anything by being on it. Poverty is a very real thing in this country, and it's no fun at all to be living in it.
 

And I think it is terribly unfair to characterize the lower class as mostly lazy and not working hard. There are quite a lot of people who work long and hard hours for minimum wage, and that can hardly be considered living like kings.

When I was first married, with a baby on the way, I was working 60+ hours a week, more during certain seasons, for around $6 an hour. Not as a flunkie in a grocery store stocking shelves, but as an assistant electrician down in the Delta. I dug trenches out on catfish ponds with no shade, ran hundreds of feet of heavy wire, changed out electric motors that weighed hundreds of pounds, crawled around in hot, nasty little buildings with black widows and no air flow in 100 degree weather, ran conduit and serviced equipment in cotton gins and a filthy facility called "Protein Products" that processed leftover catfish parts into materials used to make things like makeup, and many other things that I don't even remember doing. Even with that we weren't even up to the poverty line, and so Medicaid helped us pay for our son to be born. And after that, we got help with things like formula and cereal for the baby through WIC. Other than help from my parents occasionally, that's the extent of assistance we got, but going by the standard set in a previous post, we must have been irresponsible, not working hard and just plain lazy.

It's very easy to sit on a high perch and look down your nose at people and think you know how things are, and it's quite another to be out in the real world finding out for yourself. I think all of us should try on other peoples' shoes sometimes.

I apologize for my tone in this post, I mean nothing personal by it. But something about this thread rubbed me wrong, and I felt the need to vent out a little dose of reality.
 

I 100% agree with you Dan. A lot of people don't understand certain things until they experience it. Like you said before there are a lot of individuals who actually work very hard to support their family and it never seem to get far up the financial ladder. You can't stereotype majority of everyone on welfare as being lazy, because a lot of them would rather not rely on the government. That's not a fun thing. Welfare is mainly to provide assistance to families with children. Majority of the people on welfare have kids(I would like to say all the people on welfare have kids). Children can't help the situation they are born in. You just can't fault them, they wasn't asked to be here so therefore you can't let them suffer. Everyone is not born to have "mommy" or "daddy" give them everything. I don't see anything wrong with it because it's really helping out children. My mother has never been on welfare but I know some individuals who are and they don't enjoy living off the government and seeing everyone else living the "Good Life". I mean some people's situations are different than others. So don't say majority of the people on welfare are lazy because they are not. People who have that way of thinking are majority of the ones on the outside looking in. Like I said before a lot actually work hard and still be on welfare. They just haven't gotten they're big break yet and if you are still a hard worker have to start on welfare just to get where you want to be in life. So what! At least you are trying to improve. There are a lot of people that will tell you that they were on welfare a time in their life but if you look at them now, you wouldn't even believe it. And also you have to look at where that person resides at like city and state, because that makes a difference also. Some states are way expensive to live in and then some states don't pay enough just to live off of, meaning making $40,000 won't even get you the lifestyle you want in some cities and states. Just think about the families in low income with children and how many jobs the parents would have to work just to get by. Some have no choice but to be on welfare.
 

Well I think the issue here is "lower class" is being broadly equated with "low class" and they simply are not the same thing. "Lower class" is not in any way an indicator of what kind of person you are, are you hard working, or whatever; it is just a measure of how much wealth you have.

Remember, you can be IN the upper class and still BE low class at the same time, for example (and I actually find this person quite entertaining) Paris Hilton. The only work she's ever done in her life is self-promotion. In the same vein but even worse, Kim Kardashian. Give me 15 minutes, and I can find you a dozen people whose yearly income places them squarely in the lower class and amounts to about 3 minutes of Paris Hilton's time, and I'll guarantee you they work harder than those two will every work in their life. Combined.
 

I agree that most people on welfare work hard and are not trying to use the government and get all they can get from it. Most work hard everyday at jobs where they make minimum wage. Often people have more than one job just to pay the bills. Meritocracy is the belief that if you work hard you will make money and do well in the world. This is not always true. People work hard everyday and can barely pay thier bills.
 

I grew up in the heart of the Mississippi Delta and have seen what welfare assistance many people would tell me they didnt want to work for fear of losing their government assistance and when you are raised to believe hard work and education is the way to earn a living I think that is the problem most people have with welfare and the idea that we are responsible for taking care of everybody else is crazy.My grandparents were sharecroppers growing up and at times went with little or no food eating alot of homegrown foods and pinching pennies hard work without government assistance and they taught me that family is the only thing you can count on and the government isnt responsible for our survival. The problem is the people who really need to be on welfare are going to be hurt by the fraud of others who simply would not work unless the welfare was taken away.
 

The Delta is a very good place to go if you want to see extreme poverty and lack of opportunity, almost always tipped heavily in favor of white people.

I mean you really would not believe the conditions some people live in in the Delta, and for most of those people the opportunities to get out of that situation does not exist. And the Delta has been hit very hard with the economic downturn, not that it was a financial juggernaut before. It never has been.

If you ever find yourself doubting the need for government assistance programs like welfare, take a trip down to the Mississippi Delta.
 

In case you didn't realize, we already instituted welfare reform under the Clinton administration! And back in '88 we passed laws making it possible for 2 parent house holds to get assistance. It's also a well known fact that 2 parent households make more money than single parent households. Also, under welfare reform, you can only have assistance for 2 years at a time and 5 years for a lifetime maximum. On average by state you only get $395 dollars a month by state in assistance...which means you have a part time job. You aren't exactly living a life of ease on welfare. You can also only get foodstamps for a maximum of 3 months over 3 years. Medical care is a different issue. But you have to be extremely poor to qualify for medicaid, which may mean you should stay single or jobless in order to get medicaid. However, children qualify much easier whether you are married or not. Also under welfare reform, you are required to have a job or be under job training at the time. Welfare fraud is overblown. People stay is takes place much more often than it actually does. It's also ridiculous to say that the majority of lower class workers are just lazy! Wow.
 

I abhore the invocation of a class system in arguments for leverage.