• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Census figures show more than one-third of Americans receiving welfare benefits

Um, the issue is, you are looking at INDIVIDUALS, while Sangha is looking at HOUSEHOLDS.

You can have larger percentages of households with employed members as compared to individuals employed receiving SNAP, so most HOUSEHOLDS that receive SNAP (greater than 50%) have employed members.

But when the conversation is whether or not able bodied welfare recipients are working it seems appropriate to only count able bodied welfare recipients. 41% of able bodied SNAP recipients have jobs, 59% don't work or don't report their income to SNAP.
 
But when the conversation is whether or not able bodied welfare recipients are working it seems appropriate to only count able bodied welfare recipients. 41% of able bodied SNAP recipients have jobs, 59% don't work or don't report their income to SNAP.
Actually, the statement Sangha made was that most recipients are either working or are incapable of working.....which again is true.

If they are working without depositing wages into an account, I have no idea how you are going to track down that efficiently. Bank statements are part of the reporting process to SNAP for households. I seriously doubt it is that significant.

If you want a solution to reducing SNAP rolls, try advocating for better job availability.
 
I never said it was all recipients.

You're right. I apologize for that.

However, your #'s are based on one snapshot in time. The report goes on to state that a majority of those who can work will go to work

Work rates are high among SNAP households that can work. SNAP has become increasingly effective at supporting work among households that can work. More than half of SNAP households with at least one working-age, non-disabled adult work while receiving SNAP — and more than 80 percent work in the year prior to or the year after receiving SNAP. The rates are even higher for families with children: more than 60 percent work while receiving SNAP, and almost 90 percent work in the prior or subsequent year.

SNAP-chartbook-6-4-14-Part5-chart02-HTM.png


IOW, you're assuming that the 14% who were working at the time of the survey will continue to work throughout the time they receive SNAP and that the 21% who were not working at the time of the survey will continue to not work throughout the time they receive SNAP. The truth is, those two groups are fluid. Some of those who are working will lose their jobs and some of them who are not will find jobs.
 
Last edited:
Actually, the statement Sangha made was that most recipients are either working or are incapable of working.....which again is true.

My initial statement was about able bodied recipients, Sangha countered by including disabled, elderly and children, and then kept defending this straw man rebuttal.

If they are working without depositing wages into an account, I have no idea how you are going to track down that efficiently. Bank statements are part of the reporting process to SNAP for households. I seriously doubt it is that significant.

You can't track what people make under the table efficiently, the best you can do is catch them in a lie. When I was a social worker this usually happened when the lying recipient did something stupid. Most commonly they would have their supposed-to-be-missing husband/baby's father drive them to their benefits appointment. We would regularly watch out the window as our clients left and track the owner of the car they left in. Quite often the owner of the car was the supposed-to-be-missing husband.

Another common one was with cab drivers who would provide their hand written log books to prove they needed benefits but their zeal in forged books left them spending more on gas per month, every month, than they ever took in with payment and tips.

Another common way was anonymous tips. Most welfare recipients live in close proximity to one another in a given region, like the old "projects" in Chicago. As such all the recipients spend most of their days hanging out with one another. They get to know one another. So it happens that when neighbors in these housing developments get into fights the the second thing they liked to do, after throwing punches, was calling the fraud tip line to report their neighbor works under the table as a babysitter, or their husband lives in the home and works for so-and-so construction etc. etc.

It certainly doesn't catch everyone, more of a tip-of-the-iceberg thing.

Some clients were either very creative or very... something... in avoiding ever being connected to the missing father. One girl was famous in the office for claiming she couldn't track down the father of her baby because the baby was conceived at a party as a one-night-stand. When asked if she could recall any discernible features of the missing father she said "All I could see was that he was wearing brown shoes..." :doh

If you want a solution to reducing SNAP rolls, try advocating for better job availability.

I DO advocate "better job availability", but then I think that a $15 minimum wage and demonizing corporations is not the best way to grow an economy and create jobs. And "better job availability doesn't do people any good if they are waiting for someone to bring them a job.
 
Last edited:
You're right. I apologize for that.

However, your #'s are based on one snapshot in time. The report goes on to state that a majority of those who can work will go to work

Again, you are talking households and not recipients. I have no doubt that your household numbers are correct, but that says nothing about whether those who can work are actually working. More than half of those who can work are not working at any point in time.



SNAP-chartbook-6-4-14-Part5-chart02-HTM.png


IOW, you're assuming that the 14% who were working at the time of the survey will continue to work throughout the time they receive SNAP and that the 21% who were not working at the time of the survey will continue to not work throughout the time they receive SNAP. The truth is, those two groups are fluid. Some of those who are working will lose their jobs and some of them who are not will find jobs.

No, I am not saying that at all. We are stating employment numbers, and generic individual statistics. If only 41% of all able bodied welfare recipients work 100% of the time, or 100% of all able bodied Welfare recipients only work 41% of the time it still points to a problem with able bodied Welfare recipients not working. It can be argued that there is a lava lamp effect going on where not just the employment rate but also the participation rate is cyclical such that the 34% of recipients who are able bodied are not always the same people, but I would argue that the 5year statistic you stated earlier actually disproves that. From my experience it is the 14% that make up the majority of the cyclical participation rate while the 20% are long term welfare dependents.

In my admittedly anecdotal decade of experience the 2/5ths ratio seems about right, and I worked in the Washington DC metro area which is NEVER lacking in job opportunities at all levels.
 
Again, you are talking households and not recipients. I have no doubt that your household numbers are correct, but that says nothing about whether those who can work are actually working. More than half of those who can work are not working at any point in time.

No, I'm talking about individuals. As I've already explained, the #'s you cite are not static. People move in and out of employment.

No, I am not saying that at all. We are stating employment numbers, and generic individual statistics. If only 41% of all able bodied welfare recipients work 100% of the time, or 100% of all able bodied Welfare recipients only work 41% of the time it still points to a problem with able bodied Welfare recipients not working. It can be argued that there is a lava lamp effect going on where not just the employment rate but also the participation rate is cyclical such that the 34% of recipients who are able bodied are not always the same people, but I would argue that the 5year statistic you stated earlier actually disproves that. From my experience it is the 14% that make up the majority of the cyclical participation rate while the 20% are long term welfare dependents.

Yes, there is a problem when able bodied adults are not working, regardless if they receive Public Assistance or not. However, the problem is not aimply because they are unwilling to take a minimum wage job as you stated in an earlier post. The fact that they worked, either while receiving SNAP or in the year before, demonstrates that they will work.
 
Last edited:
No, I'm talking about individuals. As I've already explained, the #'s you cite are not static. People move in and out of employment.

Yes, there is a problem when able bodied adults are not working, regardless if they receive Public Assistance or not. However, the problem is not aimply because they are unwilling to take a minimum wage job as you stated in an earlier post. The fact that they worked, either while receiving SNAP or in the year before, demonstrates that they will work.

And I am stating from experience having served thousands of able bodied welfare recipients over the course of my career that it really is simply that a lot of them simply don't want a job.

Not all, though. Some of my clients still inspire me to this day.

I had one client who I saw when she first entered the country as a refugee form Vietnam. When she was young she stepped on a landmine and the explosion took off both of her arms at the elbow. As is the case in all communist countries, the Vietnam government was not very kind to the young disabled girl. When a couple of missionaries found her in the late 90s she was in an invalid camp barely subsisting. The missionaries fought for a year to get her out of Vietnam, and eventually won because Vietnam, as I said, was not to fond of the disabled.

She came to the office with a translator and a big smile plastered across her face. I was told that she was simply stunned that fortune had smiled on her. She didn't know such a world as suburban Washington DC actually existed. She had a place to stay, food to eat, and above all, opportunity -- a concept she was only now becoming aware of.

She was processed and given her 9 months of Refugee benefits.

4 months later I received a letter stating that she would like to schedule a meeting to discuss her benefits. I was used to this and assumed she wanted to talk about the next step which was to discuss other benefits after the Refugee benefits ran out, and with her disability it would just be a stop gap while waiting for SSI. I was wrong.

She came in without a translator, speaking English well enough to speak for herself, with a little coaching, and she was there just to request her benefits be closed. She had found a job working at a small Vietnamese grocery, and was planning on finishing her ESL classes and then getting her GED. She then proceeded to fill out the exit-interview paper work by herself holding the pen in her elbows.

What she accomplished in 4 months makes 5 years on welfare seem like an eternity. And she was a rare bright spot in that depressing job.
 
Last edited:
You can't track what people make under the table efficiently,
An admission that you have little knowledge of the extent of fraud.


I DO advocate "better job availability", but then I think that a $15 minimum wage and demonizing corporations is not the best way to grow an economy and create jobs.
Pure RW rhetoric, corporate profits are at all time highs while wages for those households receiving SNAP continue to decline.
And "better job availability doesn't do people any good if they are waiting for someone to bring them a job.
I see, they are responsible for job creation.
 
And I am stating from experience having served thousands of able bodied welfare recipients over the course of my career that it really is simply that a lot of them simply don't want a job.
FFS...cut the anecdotal crap and argue fact.
 
FFS...cut the anecdotal crap and argue fact.

Hah! I have been arguing a combination of facts and personal experience. You, on the other hand, have provided zero to the conversation.
 
Hah! I have been arguing a combination of facts and personal experience. You, on the other hand, have provided zero to the conversation.
Other than pointing out the falsehoods in your posts.

Go on and show via fact based argument that "most" do not want to work.....and the level of wage reporting fraud.

PS...you skipped post 259
 
And I am stating from experience having served thousands of able bodied welfare recipients over the course of my career that it really is simply that a lot of them simply don't want a job.

Not all, though. Some of my clients still inspire me to this day.

I had one client who I saw when she first entered the country as a refugee form Vietnam. When she was young she stepped on a landmine and the explosion took off both of her arms at the elbow. As is the case in all communist countries, the Vietnam government was not very kind to the young disabled girl. When a couple of missionaries found her in the late 90s she was in an invalid camp barely subsisting. The missionaries fought for a year to get her out of Vietnam, and eventually won because Vietnam, as I said, was not to fond of the disabled.

She came to the office with a translator and a big smile plastered across her face. I was told that she was simply stunned that fortune had smiled on her. She didn't know such a world as suburban Washington DC actually existed. She had a place to stay, food to eat, and above all, opportunity -- a concept she was only now becoming aware of.

She was processed and given her 9 months of Refugee benefits.

4 months later I received a letter stating that she would like to schedule a meeting to discuss her benefits. I was used to this and assumed she wanted to talk about the next step which was to discuss other benefits after the Refugee benefits ran out, and with her disability it would just be a stop gap while waiting for SSI. I was wrong.

She came in without a translator, speaking English well enough to speak for herself, with a little coaching, and she was there just to request her benefits be closed. She had found a job working at a small Vietnamese grocery, and was planning on finishing her ESL classes and then getting her GED. She then proceeded to fill out the exit-interview paper work by herself holding the pen in her elbows

What she accomplished in 4 months makes 5 years on welfare seem like an eternity. And she was a rare bright spot in that depressing job.

That's all well and good, but they're anecdotes. I prefer hard facts and while there certainly are people who have no desire to work, I don't think it accounts for the majority of the able-bodied.
 
Nope...I was 21 when I entered the Army.

I know that was a personal question, and I apologize for asking it. But it's answer is quite telling.

Prior to joining the military, you had no "career". No mortgage, no kids, I presume? Sure, not right out of highschool, but you were still a young punk when you did join.

I point this out, to illustrate perhaps a reason behind your belief in the concept of getting another job if the current one doesn't suit you or your needs.
 
Isn't it the entire raison d'etre of the advertising and media industries to convince people that they NEED the things that they otherwise might merely want? Generating, encouraging and pandering to rampant consumerism has been market capitalism's core strategy for decades now. It's like germ warfare - it's hardly fair or just to castigate someone for falling ill when they've been deliberately infected with a pathogen.

By that same token, alcoholics should blame the alcohol, and not their own short comings.


But you have a point. Frugality would destroy our economy.
 
That's all well and good, but they're anecdotes. I prefer hard facts and while there certainly are people who have no desire to work, I don't think it accounts for the majority of the able-bodied.

I can provide similar anecdotal evidence, and I oversee depts in 6 wholesale stores that are making over 1mil in sales per week, except EBT week, which bumps up sales usually by a minimum of 12 percent.

I don't presume to know who outnumbers who...the lazy, or the downright down trodden....but I can say for certain, the lazy make themselves the most visible.
 
I can provide similar anecdotal evidence, and I oversee depts in 6 wholesale stores that are making over 1mil in sales per week, except EBT week, which bumps up sales usually by a minimum of 12 percent.

I don't presume to know who outnumbers who...the lazy, or the downright down trodden....but I can say for certain, the lazy make themselves the most visible.

Having worked in offices for most of my professional life, I can say that has been my experience too.
 
Having worked in offices for most of my professional life, I can say that has been my experience too.

They almost revel in it. Like, look at me, I make the same as you or more, and I don't gotta do **** to do it, lol!

I also see a lot of cheaters. Like, people who use EBT to buy 20 cases of redbull (which have 32 redbulls per case, and cost over 50 bucks), or entire pallets of candy bars. These people are using EBT to buy product for resale. Yup. The few, the proud, the small business owner cheaters.

I also see my share of people who refuse pay raises, or promotions, every year. When asked why? Doing so would bump them off of certain financial aid. Quite a LOT of people, actually. The majority? I can't say. But enough to cause me concern.
 
If you don't want to give to the union then you don't have the right to the union job.

Don't be a taker... even worse, taking from your fellow co-workers instead of taking from the government :naughty

Bull ****! The Union does NOT own those jobs. We don't live in a Socialist state yet Karl, as much as you yearn for it.
 
Bull ****! The Union does NOT own those jobs. [...]
You might want to read up on contract law, which would inform you that -- aside from varying and changing government interference -- an exclusive contract between a union and an employer would mean that the union certainly does 'own' those jobs, at least with respect to requiring that a union member in good standing fill those jobs. This is called a "closed shop".

Anyone venturing into debate on labor unions should be familiar with that, or risk looking foolish and uninformed. Or hysterical.
 
You might want to read up on contract law, which would inform you that -- aside from varying and changing government interference -- an exclusive contract between a union and an employer would mean that the union certainly does 'own' those jobs, at least with respect to requiring that a union member in good standing fill those jobs. This is called a "closed shop".

Anyone venturing into debate on labor unions should be familiar with that, or risk looking foolish and uninformed. Or hysterical.

The union contract means nothing if the business goes under.
 
And 49 million of them were on the Bush dole when Obama came in.

Once the GOP woke up in 2009, they realized that we had an unemployment disaster in full-swing,
a deficit disaster in full-swing, negative GDP for the last half of 2008, and I'm just getting started .
 
Back
Top Bottom