Maine Just Put Welfare Leeches In Their Place

a reply to: Aazadan

What happens when people volunteer? They work for free at a business, that means what was a paying job gets taken out of the economy and it becomes free labor.

Every time I volunteered for community service it was with non-profits or to help clean up parks. I have never heard of people volunteering at businesses.

Are they just leeches who should starve to death on the streets?

This went into affect 7 months ago maybe you can tell us what the death toll from starvation is at since then.

If someone is really committed to being a leech on the system doesn't this encourage them to have a child so they don't have to work?

Are you saying they will not feed their kid?

originally posted by: Grimpachi
Every time I volunteered for community service it was with non-profits or to help clean up parks. I have never heard of people volunteering at businesses.

That's even worse then because it doesn't even have a chance at leading to actual employment. On top of that, should the state really be profiting off of free labor? Doesn't that give them a financial incentive to ensure more people need to volunteer? We've seen that very thing happening in the UK.

This went into affect 7 months ago maybe you can tell us what the death toll from starvation is at since then.

Probably 0. People without SNAP don't starve, they just eat less and lower quality food. About 7 months ago I gave up my SNAP benefits actually. I got sick of people being called a leech, following me into the parking lot ranting at me "stealing" from them, and the disapproving looks when I would buy things like noodles or spices. Without SNAP I didn't starve, I just had a food budget of about $1 per day which worked out to a bit of steamed rice and a cup or two of tea. I'm back on SNAP now because it's too unhealthy to live that way for a prolonged period of time (we'll see how long I feel like dealing with the harassment this time) and it's back up to $3/day in a food budget instead which means I can also eat a few vegetables too.

I'm certain that people in Maine aren't starving. But instead of eating a balanced diet of fruit, vegetables, grains, protein, and so on they're more likely to just be buying processed noodles which are devoid of any nutritional value and loaded with 2000% of a daily serving of sodium which leads to long term health issues that will cost a fortune in medical care.

What is obvious is that by looking at the employment numbers, the people who were cut from this program did not end up going to work, so it didn't suddenly turn a bunch of so called leeches into productive members of society.

Are you saying they will not feed their kid?

No. But cooking for two is more cost effective than cooking for one. Children (until they're teenagers) also eat considerably less than the increased food stamp allotment provides for them.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

It is easy to only look at the data that supports your idea of how it should be. A pragmatic and reasonable person would see all sides and find that there are probably many that still are in need but have no way to make the required community service hours happen. If the state wants to pay people to work, then hire them. Not everyone can get a ride, or get someone to watch their children while they go "volunteer".

a reply to: Aazadan

That's even worse then because it doesn't even have a chance at leading to actual employment. On top of that, should the state really be profiting off of free labor? Doesn't that give them a financial incentive to ensure more people need to volunteer? We've seen that very thing happening in the UK.

If they want actual employment then they should take the free training route to gaining employment. Community service is for the slackers.

Also, I feel your definition of "free labor" is far different from mine.

Free food allowance
Free labor

What is obvious is that by looking at the employment numbers, the people who were cut from this program did not end up going to work, so it didn't suddenly turn a bunch of so called leeches into productive members of society.

I will answer with another quote from you.

Since this program has gone into effect an additional 3000 people have become employed while 9000 have been cut from the SNAP roster.

..................................

No. But cooking for two is more cost effective than cooking for one. Children (until they're teenagers) also eat considerably less than the increased food stamp allotment provides for them.

That is fine then as long as they feed their kid.

If they are dumb enough to have a kid just to get some free food they may also qualify for a mental disability.

24hrs a month of community service or have a child. If they are looking for the easy route and choose raising children there must be something wrong with their head.

originally posted by: HUMBLEONE
Maine is mostly white people. Curious why your source shows a photo that shows a bunch of black people and right under a title calling them "welfare leeches"? That is wicked racist.

it's a right-wing website...par for the course

a reply to: Aaron_Justin

Not everyone can get a ride, or get someone to watch their children while they go "volunteer"

There are community service programs that can be done from home and this only applies to able-bodied individuals (healthy people) that do not have dependents(children).

a reply to: calstorm

so you can
just like i said

originally posted by: Grimpachi
If they want actual employment then they should take the free training route to gaining employment. Community service is for the slackers.

That's contingent on jobs existing in the first place. What we've been seeing all over the country is that skilled labor needs are diminishing. 51% of new Bachelors degree holders are unemployed or working unskilled jobs, with zero job prospects. An Associates degree is literally worth less than the paper it's printed on.

What job training are people supposed to get? I've done those job training programs here in Ohio, I've also taught some, and what they usually end up being is remedial math classes that teach you how to add and subtract or they're things like how to use Microsoft Office which isn't exactly what I would call a job earning skill. Once you have the skills they also do nothing to actually place you in a job, and they can't because the jobs don't exist. Training on it's own is a completely worthless endeavor.

I will answer with another quote from you.

Lets look at national trends first. Between Dec 2014 and June 2015.
www.dlt.ri.gov...

Nationally we went from 147,442,000 to 148,739,000 employed over this time period. An increase of 0.88%.

Now lets look at Maine
www.bls.gov...

They went from 655,700 employed to 658,900 employed. An increase of 0.48%.

So, we can see that even though they created these new rules, and kicked 9000 people off of benefits their employment rate only grew by just over half the national average. In raw numbers they added 3000 people to the labor force and kicked 9000 people off of benefits. The conclusion here is that most of those 9000 did not go out and get jobs, those jobs were taken by others entering the work force. Instead most of that 9000 is simply living with less food.

a reply to: Aazadan

What job training are people supposed to get? I've done those job training programs here in Ohio, I've also taught some, and what they usually end up being is remedial math classes that teach you how to add and subtract or they're things like how to use Microsoft Office which isn't exactly what I would call a job earning skill.

Your first complaint was that community service will not help them get a job, but they can get opt out of community service to get job training.

This leads me to believe you just want people to get free stuff with no effort on their part.

I disagree with that type of system.

In raw numbers they added 3000 people to the labor force and kicked 9000 people off of benefits. The conclusion here is that most of those 9000 did not go out and get jobs, those jobs were taken by others entering the work force. Instead most of that 9000 is simply living with less food.

Too bad those who were "kicked off" didn't take advantage of the opportunities offered to them to stay on the free food program.

Maybe they were too proud to work for it.

Anyway, as soon as starvation deaths go on the rise I will be one of the first to say we need to re-evaluate the program, but if that doesn't happen then this will prove to be a good program to weed out the slackers.

a reply to: Aazadan

Of course Maine's employment increased smaller than the national average.

They already had a lower than national average unemployment rate !!!!



DingDingDing

a reply to: Aazadan

How do we know if those "9000" kicked off were already working part time?

originally posted by: queenofswords
a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

Maybe another welfare recipient could volunteer to be a caregiver for a day.

It would be nice if there could be an organized effort to actually organize programs to help this succeed. People could gain some skills and work ethic in the interim, and a community of people would be helping each other get vocational training by volunteering to assist each other in some way needed...."I'll care for your children on Tues. and Thurs. while you take classes and you take care of mine on Mon. and Wed. while I work my hours."

How dare you offer a logical solution!!! Don't you know this is about those horrible Republicans that just want to hurt people for no reason...unless they are poor or black. Then that is their reason. Come on people, it is only the government's money that they took from you against your will. It isn't like they are actually wasting YOUR money. You lost it already.

originally posted by: buster2010
Nice choice of pics for the article.

I would assume the person that wrote this article doesn't know that there are more whites on food stamps than blacks. Not to mention Maine is almost 97% white.
So now people that cannot afford food has to try and figure out a way to pay for a sitter with a job they aren't going to get paid for that makes a lot of sense. Also volunteer for what are they now free slaves for companies to use or will they be working for the state?

So now it is OK...right?

originally posted by: xuenchen
a reply to: Aazadan

How do we know if those "9000" kicked off were already working part time?

If they were working part time, they would have qualified under this program for continued assistance and not been dropped.

originally posted by: Grimpachi
Your first complaint was that community service will not help them get a job, but they can get opt out of community service to get job training.

That's because I have multiple complaints. I think it is a very bad idea to incentivize government to create an unpaid labor force. Whether that's doing jobs for the state, that frees up money in their budgets, or working for local businesses (since those businesses will then ask local government for some free labor). Either one takes jobs away from people who want to work for a wage. We can look at the UK to see what this leads to, where people work at a job for 89 days, get let go, and are then rehired at no wages for another 89 days (since they would have to get paid after 90) in order to keep their benefits.

This leads me to believe you just want people to get free stuff with no effort on their part.

I disagree with that type of system.

I don't see anything wrong with it. It works in Norway where citizens can have a basic income that covers food and rent which frees them up to focus on other things like study to get a skilled labor position, or even ensure that they can have a comfortable life working a low wage job in addition to that basic supplement.

Too bad those who were "kicked off" didn't take advantage of the opportunities offered to them to stay on the free food program.

Maybe they were too proud to work for it.

Maybe they couldn't? As was pointed out earlier in this thread, Maine is a very rural state. There's probably no transportation to the job center. I live in a fairly rural area too, we have no public transportation at all. The previous town I lived in was the same. In fact even in non rural areas public transportation has been getting scaled back for well over a decade at this point. Unless you live in a major city you need to have a car to go anywhere, but when you're very poor a car is outside your budget.

Anyway, as soon as starvation deaths go on the rise I will be one of the first to say we need to re-evaluate the program, but if that doesn't happen then this will prove to be a good program to weed out the slackers.

Like I said, we could probably completely cut SNAP in every state, a 100% defunding of it and there would be no measurable increase in deaths to starvation. It's merely a quality of life thing. Do we want to be a country where people have access to food that's healthy and where a person can get a good nights sleep because they have a full stomach or do we want to be a country where the poor die 20 years early due to diabetes from sugary foods and rice, or high blood pressure from high sodium foods like ramen and where people can't sleep at night because their stomach is empty?

a reply to: Aazadan

How do we know if those "9000" kicked off were scammers?

originally posted by: xuenchen
a reply to: Aazadan

How do we know if those "9000" kicked off were scammers?

That is very unlikely. SNAP has a very low fraud rate, it's sub 1% and this resulted in kicking off 75% of recipients.

Lets say that they were all scammers though. That means no one was leeching as the remainder were all doing approved things with their time like working or job training which would mean this bill did nothing, and thus can't be called a success for Maine.

a reply to: Phoenix

Isn't it funny how everyone knows somebody who has more expertise in government forms than a paralegal and uses it to collect six figures a year in welfare, but nobody has ever even heard of an actual hungry family.

And to reply to another poster, isn't it funny that a minimum wage of $7.50 has just somehow proven that Republicans aren't insulting the poor.

I think part of the inability to understand is because so many people take the freedom and convenience of their above-the-poverty-line lifestyle for granted. Not everybody has lots of places to work or volunteer near their suburban home, not everybody would be particularly welcome if they did have a place to go, not everyone has transportation and communication, not everybody who isn't working is unoccupied.

In particular I've seen a lot of poor households consisting of a disabled senior citizen whose income pays property taxes and medical expenses, a grand daughter doing child and senior care for free whose food stamps do most of the feeding, and then they cycle through friends and boyfriends and roomates of various kinds until they've got enough contributors to make it all work. It's dirty and its sad and it's not really functional, but it's keeping good people who are doing their best from falling completely off the economic ladder.

a reply to: Aazadan

And your bottom line solution is __________ ?

a reply to: The Vagabond

I always found it amazing as well. All the conservatives on here know or have seen people massively scamming the system, and yet they never turn them in. I wish people in these type of threads would just stop with the anecdotal evidence as they always, ALWAYS overly exaggerate them