|
Post by helen on Apr 15, 2018 11:42:19 GMT -5
I see nothing wrong with a work requirement for the able-bodied and also see nothing wrong with clean drug tests being a requirement. Wish it could be extended to alcohol and tobacco use. Milk for the kids is a need, beer and cigarettes are not.
Some effort must be made to break the generational cycle of poverty caused by bringing children into the world before there are resources to care for them.
For the record, I also hate corporate scammers but comparing those with poverty is like comparing apples and oranges.
|
|
|
Post by The Inspector on Apr 15, 2018 12:15:18 GMT -5
If it were that simplistic, the problem would have been solved a long time ago.
Most of the time the added requirements are just to (harass the poor) to save money, not to help anyone.
If the poor were perfect it is likely they would not be poor.
|
|
|
Post by QuickSilver on Apr 15, 2018 12:26:29 GMT -5
...
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2018 13:08:34 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by QuickSilver on Apr 15, 2018 13:33:03 GMT -5
The last paragraph sums it up...
|
|
|
Post by Kady on Apr 15, 2018 14:37:05 GMT -5
America once fought a war against poverty now it wages a war on the poor -Must Read www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/15/poor-peoples-campaign-systemic-poverty-a-sin <snip> In 2013, Callie Greer’s daughter Venus died in her arms after a battle with breast cancer. If caught early, the five-year survival rate for women diagnosed with breast cancer is close to 100%. But Venus’s cancer went undiagnosed for months because she couldn’t afford health insurance. She lived in Alabama, a state that refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Venus’s death is not an isolated incident – more than 250,000 people like her die in the United States from poverty and related issues every year. Access to healthcare is just one of the issues facing the 140 million people who live in poverty in the US today. Over the past two years, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has carried out a listening tour in dozens of states across this nation. We have met with tens of thousands of people from El Paso, Texas, to South Charleston, West Virginia, to Selma, Alabama, where we met Callie, gathering testimonies from poor people and listening to their demands for a better society. While our nation once fought a war against poverty, now we wage a war on the poor. The richest 1% in our country own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined, tightening their grip on political power to shape labor, tax, healthcare and campaign finance policies that benefit the few at the expense of the many. A full 60% more Americans now live below the official poverty line than in 1968, and 43% of all American children live below the minimum income level considered necessary to meet basic family needs. In the last eight years alone, 23 states have passed voter suppression laws – gutting the Voting Rights Act civil rights leaders helped secure more than a half century ago. This is the true hacking of our democracy, allowing people to win office who deny healthcare, living wages, cut necessary social programs and push policies that promote mass incarceration, hurt immigrants and devastate our environment. These racist laws hurt not just people of color, but poor whites whose lives are upended by the politicians put in office by the violent extremism that is voter suppression.
|
|
|
Post by dragonlady on Apr 15, 2018 15:31:51 GMT -5
We are turning into medieval Europe.
|
|
|
Post by The Inspector on Apr 15, 2018 18:25:06 GMT -5
We are turning into medieval Europe. The GOP will bring back "the work houses" and debtors prisons.
Tiny Tim will be cast as a sickly Parasite?
|
|
|
Post by helen on Apr 15, 2018 19:28:01 GMT -5
Much of today's poverty is the result of people having children that they cannot afford to raise.
|
|
|
Post by TheSource on Apr 15, 2018 20:28:20 GMT -5
You see what you want to see. No Toby, I see the situation with unequivocal clarity. You see fleeting glimpses where I see the grim actuality of it up close and personal. I see both sides of the spectrum.....those that truly need and deserve assistance and those that are along for nothing but a free ride on my dime. The numbers and stats you spout don't mean diddly here in the 'Burgh and surrounding areas.
|
|
|
Post by TheSource on Apr 15, 2018 20:37:30 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by QuickSilver on Apr 15, 2018 20:55:06 GMT -5
I see nothing wrong with a work requirement for the able-bodied and also see nothing wrong with clean drug tests being a requirement. Wish it could be extended to alcohol and tobacco use. Milk for the kids is a need, beer and cigarettes are not.
Some effort must be made to break the generational cycle of poverty caused by bringing children into the world before there are resources to care for them.
For the record, I also hate corporate scammers but comparing those with poverty is like comparing apples and oranges. So tell me.. who gets to decide who is able to work and who isn't? What will the standards be.... ? I would imagine a government panel would make those decisions... A review board? Quite a lot of work for a party that prides itself on "small government"... Or.. only small.. unless it's a matter of digging into peoples health records and personal lives.. hypocrites.
|
|
|
Post by Warrigal on Apr 15, 2018 21:44:27 GMT -5
This is where it gets very murky. My sister, aged 64 at the time, left her paid job and applied for the aged pension to which she thought she was entitled. On some technicality she was mistaken and should have remained working for a while longer.
The reason that she wanted to retire was that arthritis in her back was making it very difficult to keep working.
To obtain a government benefit she had to pass a work test which at her age meant 20 hours per week of community service. She found herself back at work doing her old job for 20 hours each week, but unpaid except for the unemployment benefit. This continued until her back became so bad that she could no longer work and then when she was unable to stand up straight and needed a walker, they finally allowed her to quit and apply for a sickness benefit.
This is what can happen when work tests are applied rigidly. Desk clerks do not make good case workers.
|
|
|
Post by The Inspector on Apr 15, 2018 23:17:38 GMT -5
Poor people are easy targets.No deep pockets to pay for propaganda.
Yep, some could work if they had a work ethic, you can't make people work,
Unless you want "work camps" They will steal from people and or businesses and get put in jail, where they learn to steal better and you pay for the lessons.
|
|
|
Post by highlandannie on Apr 16, 2018 5:54:51 GMT -5
In the UK there are several types of disability benefits - housing allowance, carers, and living allowances. A few years ago this disgraceful Tory government decided there were too many getting this who should be working. So everybody on this benefit had to be tested. Yes, they found some who were able to work, but there were many cases that kicked people off the benefits even though physically unable to work. They had one test which said if you could walk a short distance you were able to work. Didn't matter if you were in excruciating pain. Lots of outrage and anger toward the Tories!!
|
|