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One in Eight Americans Now Receives Food Stamps
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Bradylama
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Old Jan 3, 2010, 03:26 AM Local time: Jan 3, 2010, 03:26 AM #1 of 74
One in Eight Americans Now Receives Food Stamps

The Safety Net - Living on Nothing but Food Stamps - Series - NYTimes.com
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CAPE CORAL, Fla. — After an improbable rise from the Bronx projects to a job selling Gulf Coast homes, Isabel Bermudez lost it all to an epic housing bust — the six-figure income, the house with the pool and the investment property.

Now, as she papers the county with résumés and girds herself for rejection, she is supporting two daughters on an income that inspires a double take: zero dollars in monthly cash and a few hundred dollars in food stamps.

With food-stamp use at a record high and surging by the day, Ms. Bermudez belongs to an overlooked subgroup that is growing especially fast: recipients with no cash income.

About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay.

Their numbers were rising before the recession as tougher welfare laws made it harder for poor people to get cash aid, but they have soared by about 50 percent over the past two years. About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card.

“It’s the one thing I can count on every month — I know the children are going to have food,” Ms. Bermudez, 42, said with the forced good cheer she mastered selling rows of new stucco homes.

Members of this straitened group range from displaced strivers like Ms. Bermudez to weathered men who sleep in shelters and barter cigarettes. Some draw on savings or sporadic under-the-table jobs. Some move in with relatives. Some get noncash help, like subsidized apartments. While some go without cash incomes only briefly before securing jobs or aid, others rely on food stamps alone for many months.

The surge in this precarious way of life has been so swift that few policy makers have noticed. But it attests to the growing role of food stamps within the safety net. One in eight Americans now receives food stamps, including one in four children...
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“It’s the one thing I can count on every month — I know the children are going to have food,” Ms. Bermudez, 42, said with the forced good cheer she mastered selling rows of new stucco homes.
Quote:
“It’s the one thing I can count on every month — I know the children are going to have food,” Ms. Bermudez, 42, said with the forced good cheer she mastered selling rows of new stucco homes.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/us/03foodstamps.html
“This is craziness,” said Representative John Linder, a Georgia Republican who is the ranking minority member of a House panel on welfare policy. “We’re at risk of creating an entire class of people, a subset of people, just comfortable getting by living off the government.”

Mr. Linder added: “You don’t improve the economy by paying people to sit around and not work. You improve the economy by lowering taxes” so small businesses will create more jobs.
John Linder wants your children to literally starve to death, and he is on a House panel on welfare policy.

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Old Jan 3, 2010, 03:44 AM 1 #2 of 74
You have to understand that "lower the taxes" is the only consistent idea the Republican Party has left. If he were to propose that problems could be possibly be solved by any other method, he would essentially be declaring himself apostate.

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Bradylama
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Old Jan 3, 2010, 03:59 AM Local time: Jan 3, 2010, 03:59 AM 1 #3 of 74
Congressional panels basically determine government policy.

John Linder, a member of a panel on welfare policy, wants to do away with welfare.

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Old Jan 3, 2010, 04:07 AM Local time: Jan 3, 2010, 03:07 AM 1 #4 of 74
Bolton was the liaison to the UN.

This is how they do.

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Old Jan 3, 2010, 04:13 AM Local time: Jan 3, 2010, 04:13 AM #5 of 74
Bolton fulfilled his obligations as a liaison, though, which was the weird thing.

I was speaking idiomatically.
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Old Jan 3, 2010, 04:37 AM Local time: Jan 3, 2010, 03:37 AM #6 of 74
He did. But on paper he's about the worst choice ever.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?


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Old Jan 3, 2010, 05:04 AM Local time: Jan 3, 2010, 05:04 AM #7 of 74
It's just strange to think that the Bush administration chose an appointment that symbolized their opinion of the UN, yet who was at the same time an effective bureaucrat.

It's one of the few things they did competently, and I refuse to believe it was on purpose.

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Old Jan 3, 2010, 03:05 PM Local time: Jan 3, 2010, 02:05 PM #8 of 74
I can sympathize with Isabel Bermudez on this issue as the job market, to me, does seems quite poor (almost hopeless) out there at the moment (even for college graduates) with seemingly no hopes of improving in the foreseeable future as I see it unless something is done.

***

There is a good Chinese Proverb though that I feel sums up this situation and Mr. Linder's viewpoint which goes something like...
"Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime."

Sympathy aside, I really do think this welfare issue is becoming an ever increasing problem and, like Linder mentioned, I feel we need to give lower income individuals more motivation to succeed on their own and help weed them off government assistance.

Creating new jobs, whether by reducing taxes on small businesses, investing into the nations infrastructure (by creating new roads, bridges, or buildings, etc...) or what ever method(s) the government ultimately decides to use is far more useful in the long run than simply applying a quick fix like boosting welfare.

I do disagree with Linder in some aspects though as I feel we still need to help the lower-income families at least for the meantime until they are able to help themselves. We need almost an incentive plan of sorts to make individuals want to support themselves while at the same time supporting those who are otherwise incapable of doing it themselves.

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Old Jan 3, 2010, 03:07 PM 14 #9 of 74
People like Ms. Bermudez clearly already know how to fish.

The problem is that there aren't any fucking fish. It's delusional to assume that access to fishing holes and to fishing equipment is somehow equal across the board.

And if you think people need "motivation" to find methods other than food stamps to sustain themselves, you have some interesting ideas about how fun it is to try to live on stamps. It's not fun. It's demeaning. Nobody CHOOSES to live on gov't assistance because they're just too damned lazy; even the shittiest gas station job will usually provide a better standard of living.

Well, I shouldn't say "nobody", but to take a handful of welfare queens and use them to demonize the entire program is repulsive.

"Motivation" is all very nice, but people can't find work simply by wishing real hard and clapping their hands. The jobs have to exist.

And what, exactly, about lowering taxes causes jobs to materialize? Someone explain this to me. Okay, in theory, if the business owner is taxed less he can afford to hire more employees. But why would he? Demonstrably he can run his business with the staff he has now; why should he use his new windfall to hire more? Out of the goodness of his heart?

Oh, but Pang! If taxes are lowered, people will have more to spend! Our theoretical small business owner will therefore have more business! He will be forced to hire more employees by the sheer force of consumer demand!

Anyone who has ever worked a retail position during the holidays knows that customer density and staff density have no relationship in the mind of hiring managers.

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Old Jan 3, 2010, 07:26 PM Local time: Jan 3, 2010, 06:26 PM #10 of 74
Yeah I was thinking about the lower taxes = more jobs issue myself and was thinking it probably wouldn't achieve much in terms of creating more jobs.

I think possibly they are hoping it will inspire some sort of entrepreneurial feeling in everyday individuals which will in term perhaps lead them to start up a business which theoretically would create new jobs.

Of course lower taxes = more spending money for consumers = more spending which will possibly equate to a need for more jobs like you mentioned as well.

At the corporate level I suppose having more revenue flowing through the business, due to lower taxes, may also result in more hiring or lifting many of the hiring freezes which have seemed to have been put in place following the most recent (current?) recession.

I can sort of see the logic in this sort of mentality, but I feel investing more into construction projects and infrastructure would be a better solution for the lower income population and the country as a whole in the long run.

And I wasn't really belittling Isabel Bermudez with my initial statement, or at least I wasn't intending to. I do believe there are those individuals out there who are desperately in need of this government assistance. However, I feel that there are far more individuals than you or I can imagine Pangalin who are completely content leeching off this system. The fact that Mr. Linder seemed to express such hostility on this subject leads me to believe the numbers of these individuals are quite staggering.

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Old Jan 3, 2010, 10:03 PM 1 #11 of 74
I don't think the argument reduces to how many people are taking advantage of the system vs. how many are being supported by it. I've heard from people who've been in situations where they could take a job and wind up losing more benefits than their new job would supply. These aren't marginalized people, so it wasn't a big deal, but there is a large group of people where that difference means a great deal. It indicates to me that the process is broken.

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Old Jan 4, 2010, 01:27 AM 1 1 #12 of 74
I do believe there are those individuals out there who are desperately in need of this government assistance. However, I feel that there are far more individuals than you or I can imagine Pangalin who are completely content leeching off this system.
Prove it, asswipe.

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Old Jan 4, 2010, 04:18 PM #13 of 74
What about those of us who COULD be on gov't assistance (college student in a music program that has no free time for actually getting a job that pays well enough to do more than cover bills), but don't because ... actually I dunno. I feel like I'd be taking it from someone who needs it.

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Old Jan 4, 2010, 04:48 PM Local time: Jan 4, 2010, 02:48 PM #14 of 74
There are many factors of eligibility, but based on the information contained in your post, you would not be eligible for Food Stamps.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?
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Old Jan 5, 2010, 08:03 AM Local time: Jan 5, 2010, 02:03 PM #15 of 74
If you stopped giving out food stamps, in a generation or so there'd be few enough American's left to fit the labour market you currently have. Waiting for all the poor people to starve to death is much easier to implement than any attempts to introduce some kind of commie system whereby the tax dollars of hard working 'Merkins are handed out willy-nilly to lazy bums, right?

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Old Jan 5, 2010, 11:01 AM Local time: Jan 5, 2010, 11:01 AM #16 of 74
Either that or the proles rise up to murder us in our sleep, which is the risk you take, I suppose.

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Old Jan 5, 2010, 11:18 AM 1 #17 of 74
I'm hoping that they'll be too weak from malnourishment to hold their guns steady.

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Old Jan 5, 2010, 02:27 PM Local time: Jan 5, 2010, 08:27 PM #18 of 74
Maybe a system of cake stamps could be implemented instead?

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Old Jan 5, 2010, 11:11 PM Local time: Jan 5, 2010, 10:11 PM #19 of 74
Maybe a system of cake stamps could be implemented instead?
:happymo0.gif:

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Old Jan 5, 2010, 11:44 PM Local time: Jan 5, 2010, 09:44 PM #20 of 74
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However, I feel that there are far more individuals than you or I can imagine Pangalin who are completely content leeching off this system. The fact that Mr. Linder seemed to express such hostility on this subject leads me to believe the numbers of these individuals are quite staggering.
I have seen this particular type of reasoning being used as evidence recently, and I don't think its premise is sound. I submit that this is a backward reasoning that isn't supported by facts, but what amounts to an appeal to authority.

Basically saying "while I have no fact to back up this assertion, because Individual X whom I respect have strong feeling about this issue then proposition A must be true. "

While one might defer to experts on certain issues, there must be ways corroborate their position with other information or facts, otherwise its nothing more then empty assertions.

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Old Jan 6, 2010, 10:25 AM #21 of 74
Seeing as though he dissed my post asking for the same and then left Dodge, I can only assume he can't back up his gut feeling with facts, Magi.

I was speaking idiomatically.
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Old Jan 6, 2010, 10:55 AM Local time: Jan 6, 2010, 10:55 AM #22 of 74
Seeing as though he dissed my post asking for the same and then left Dodge, I can only assume he can't back up his gut feeling with facts, Magi.
Simple fact is that with a topic such as this there are hardly any ways to back up an assumption like the one he made with facts due to the fact that everyone that does use gov't help uses it for different circumstances.

To better show what I mean, I knew one fella who worked at a wal-mart who lived out of the YMCA trying to get back on his feet after some sort of financial melt-down I guess..middle age guy but he was getting help from the federal government in some way financially as well as far as food stamps go. Most would consider this a good use of the gov't money due to the fact he is trying to just get back on his feet and such.

Yet on another note, there was this 20 something female that had 5 kids that were at least 1 year apart in age and she had no job but received more cash than what I make in a month at my job from government assistance, and that isn't counting food stamps thrown in. Up in Iowa people call them 'welfare mamas'. Is it right considering most don't know the circumstances? I don't think it is, but that is the only way I can see someone making an assumption that some people 'take advantage' of the system.

All in all, it is impossible to judge who 'deserves' to get help from an outside source, and those who are just 'leeching' the system. Personally I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to make enough money to live on my own, and go to school full time myself, and I also hate the idea that I might have to use food stamps due to the fact that other people need it more than I will when that time comes.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?
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Old Jan 6, 2010, 06:56 PM 1 #23 of 74
Yet on another note, there was this 20 something female that had 5 kids that were at least 1 year apart in age and she had no job but received more cash than what I make in a month at my job from government assistance, and that isn't counting food stamps thrown in.
Do you feel that your salary would support five young children? Why or why not?

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Old Jan 7, 2010, 02:51 AM Local time: Jan 7, 2010, 02:51 AM 1 #24 of 74
I'm a single 20-something and I deserve more money than children!

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Old Jan 7, 2010, 06:28 AM Local time: Jan 7, 2010, 12:28 PM #25 of 74
The benefits trap as it's known here is even harder to get out of in the UK. I'm living off benefits myself at the moment and whilst I know full well I can waltz into a high paid job once my leg heals, I can easily see how someone would prefer to sit on their arse watching telly all day and pull in the same amount of cash as a minimum wage job, if not more. Even with no kids and a partner in full employment I'm getting my rent and council tax paid for me and just over £100 a week to live off, which is more than enough frankly.

Personally I aspire to more than just getting by on benefits but when one sees so many chav families decked out in labelled clothing, with full Sky subscriptions, a brand new DS for each kid and five dogs, one can't help but feel a bit resentful. I'm not advocating forcing people to live in hardship but having more kids to increase your benefits payouts shouldn't really be allowed to be such an attractive lifestyle choice. It's that more than our drinking culture that's fucking up Britain at the moment, although I suspect our benefits are far more generous than in the US so I may not be comparing like with like.

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