Why poor people make bad decisions

[Wolfie]

it is the opposite over here. You are harrassed endlessly to get a job by the staff, even if you have a disability, and the benefit itself is barely enough to live on. Also if you are dating somebody they take half of it away and tell you your partner should support you.

I should be on disability because I have a disability. But they made it so hard for me- even with medical documentation- that I ended up going off it. And now I am in the bad situation I am in now, which at least beats being homeless.

Of course the disabled should be helped and not harassed. But I wish the US was a bit more like this otherwise. If you are able to work, you should be looking for work. (Giving birth is not a disability). And baby-daddies should pay their share. Tired of the couples who live together and breed like unaltered cats, but won't admit they live together and won't get married because they'd lose taxpayer funding.

 

[Wolfie]

Full time! In retail! With salary and commission, and lots of free gorgeous sunglasses for bonuses. It's a decent job.

Not possible. No one turns down work because living off the gov't is easier. That would kind of make them a welfare queen, which I've been told doesn't exist.

 

[Freesia]

Of course the disabled should be helped and not harassed. But I wish the US was a bit more like this otherwise. If you are able to work, you should be looking for work. (Giving birth is not a disability). And baby-daddies should pay their share. Tired of the couples who live together and breed like unaltered cats, but won't admit they live together and won't get married because they'd lose taxpayer funding.

That is not what I read at all. I used to hang out on a board with people with similar disabilities. There was one guy in California, in his fifties, who on top of his disabilities, had diabetes and his leg was swollen. But he was denied any kind of benefit and he was as a result homeless.

He said that the cops came around and regularly arrested him for sleeping rough and that it was probably going to happen again soon. But he said that though jail was unpleasant, at least he had a bed for the night.

The homeless shelters were often full when he came to them, and also they didnt like his swollen leg there much either, and he had no medical insurance.

A number of other people in I saw wrote about getting disability benefit, and they said that you needed a lawyer to get it and that they had to spend a lot of money on expensive medical papers to get the paperwork so they could show that they were disabled, and then pay for the lawyer to help them get it. So they said it was really hard, when they tried.

So, not a lot of fun for a lot of people.

Wasnt much fun for me either, over in New Zealand. I also had to spend a lot of money from specialists to get the paperwork I needed, though it didnt help, I still was only allowed three months benefit at a time, even though my condition is lifelong.

I had to reapply over and over again, which meant seeing this female doctor who was the same age as me who seemed angry that I was on a benefit and seemed to want to do whatever she could to make sure I didnt get it.

After one particular upsetting session with her, I saw her driving off to lunch in a silver Mercedes, so it seemed as if she wasnt struggling in any way financially.

She seemed obsessed with contraception and at one point told me that she wouldnt sign my papers for my benefit unless I consented to getting a contraceptive injection. I spent about 10 minutes in a verbal tussle with her to convince her that I wasnt going to do that, and she eventually signed, but I am pretty sure she did this with a number of her vulnerable patients. The clinic is in a poor area too.

In the end, being on disability wasnt worth it. Some part time work became available in my mothers property business, so I took that and went off the disability. But I dont know what would have happened if I hadnt been able to get part time work.

 

[nigel1]

In the US disability insurance and benefits vary greatly from state to state. It's generally designed to help grounded people stay afloat in bad times rather than help poorer people or the unemployed. Federal Disability benefits are particularly difficult to get, particularly for poor people who can't show a track record of exhausting other benefits (that they never had access to in the first place). If you aren't an obvious case like a paraplegic or someone with his eyes gouged out, legal assistance is unfortunately usually required.

 

[das_nut]

Full time! In retail! With salary and commission, and lots of free gorgeous sunglasses for bonuses. It's a decent job.

I'm just trying to figure this out. Did she have kids or anything? Subsidized housing she'd lose?

She may have been just lazy, but it seems really weird.

 

[Wolfie]

That is not what I read at all. I used to hang out on a board with people with similar disabilities. There was one guy in California, in his fifties, who on top of his disabilities, had diabetes and his leg was swollen. But he was denied any kind of benefit and he was as a result homeless.

He said that the cops came around and regularly arrested him for sleeping rough and that it was probably going to happen again soon. But he said that though jail was unpleasant, at least he had a bed for the night.

The homeless shelters were often full when he came to them, and also they didnt like his swollen leg there much either, and he had no medical insurance.

A number of other people in I saw wrote about getting disability benefit, and they said that you needed a lawyer to get it and that they had to spend a lot of money on expensive medical papers to get the paperwork so they could show that they were disabled, and then pay for the lawyer to help them get it. So they said it was really hard, when they tried.

So, not a lot of fun for a lot of people.

Wasnt much fun for me either, over in New Zealand. I also had to spend a lot of money from specialists to get the paperwork I needed, though it didnt help, I still was only allowed three months benefit at a time, even though my condition is lifelong.

I had to reapply over and over again, which meant seeing this female doctor who was the same age as me who seemed angry that I was on a benefit and seemed to want to do whatever she could to make sure I didnt get it.

After one particular upsetting session with her, I saw her driving off to lunch in a silver Mercedes, so it seemed as if she wasnt struggling in any way financially.

She seemed obsessed with contraception and at one point told me that she wouldnt sign my papers for my benefit unless I consented to getting a contraceptive injection. I spent about 10 minutes in a verbal tussle with her to convince her that I wasnt going to do that, and she eventually signed, but I am pretty sure she did this with a number of her vulnerable patients. The clinic is in a poor area too.

In the end, being on disability wasnt worth it. Some part time work became available in my mothers property business, so I took that and went off the disability. But I dont know what would have happened if I hadnt been able to get part time work.

Disability is hard to get here.

It's easy to get help though if you can get pregnant and don't want to work. At least in this state.

 

[nigel1]

Disability is hard to get here.

It's easy to get help though if you can get pregnant and don't want to work. At least in this state.

What state?

 

[Moll Flanders]

Poverty Report Reveals Most Poor People Have Jobs

Interesting article although I'm sure working people know that they are working and still living in poverty. It states the largest group in poverty are "working age adults without dependent children - 4.7 million people are in this situation, the highest on record" and it doesn't surprise me as parents seem to get tax credits when they are on lower wages but people without kids don't have this protection. I know people who have had to take pay cuts to their job (and have been told they are lucky to have a job) but the cost of living keeps rising.

I had to reapply over and over again, which meant seeing this female doctor who was the same age as me who seemed angry that I was on a benefit and seemed to want to do whatever she could to make sure I didnt get it.

After one particular upsetting session with her, I saw her driving off to lunch in a silver Mercedes, so it seemed as if she wasnt struggling in any way financially.

She seemed obsessed with contraception and at one point told me that she wouldnt sign my papers for my benefit unless I consented to getting a contraceptive injection. I spent about 10 minutes in a verbal tussle with her to convince her that I wasnt going to do that, and she eventually signed, but I am pretty sure she did this with a number of her vulnerable patients. The clinic is in a poor area too.

What the hell!

I am entitled to disability benefit but it is such a paltry amount (about £20 a week) that I couldn't be bothered to jump through hoops to get it. I'm not sure if the system is the same now anyway after the Tories have made a f***up of the welfare system.

 

[Spang]

Workers' wages have remained stagnant for far too long. According to this wage calculator, if the income of the wealth creators (workers) had increased at the same rate as the 1 percent over the last 50 years, I'd be making $51,855 annually.

 

[nigel1]

Workers' wages have remained stagnant for far too long. According to this wage calculator, if the income of the wealth creators (workers) had increased at the same rate as the 1 percent over the last 50 years, I'd be making $51,855 annually.

I think bringing the 1%ers and the poor toward the middle to a same average rate is a more realistic ambition, but yeah.

 

[Freesia]

Poverty Report Reveals Most Poor People Have Jobs

Interesting article although I'm sure working people know that they are working and still living in poverty. It states the largest group in poverty are "working age adults without dependent children - 4.7 million people are in this situation, the highest on record" and it doesn't surprise me as parents seem to get tax credits when they are on lower wages but people without kids don't have this protection. I know people who have had to take pay cuts to their job (and have been told they are lucky to have a job) but the cost of living keeps rising.



What the hell!

I am entitled to disability benefit but it is such a paltry amount (about £20 a week) that I couldn't be bothered to jump through hoops to get it. I'm not sure if the system is the same now anyway after the Tories have made a f***up of the welfare system.

Thank you! This was all in 2008-2011 that I was going through this horrible crap, and when you are going through it you kind of accept it because you think that that is what you have to do if you are to go on a benefit, but looking back now it is pretty awful and disgusting, and there is something very wrong with society if the poorest people are treated like this.

And I am still in the poorest income bracket. I am hoping to change that next year and get into full time work.

 

[Spang]

Some facts about the so-called "takers":

Findings show that:

Average total expenditures of families receiving means-tested assistance were less than half those of families not receiving assistance.

For families receiving assistance, food, housing, and transportation accounted for 77.0 percent of the family budget, compared with 65.5 percent of the budget of families not receiving assistance.

Among one-parent families receiving assistance, 36.8 percent did not own a car, compared with 3.0 percent of families not receiving assistance and 9.7 percent of two-parent families receiving assistance.​

 

[Ann Chovie]

We had a client today who has been admitted to a secure mental health unit and is trying to get benefit. He does not know his date if birth , can't remember his address and has lost his NI details. Ludicrous conversation with jobcentre along the lines of

"He cannot claim disability without his personal details . "

"Well he does not have them because he has been sectioned and does even know where he is and is highly medicated. He needs to be claiming disability benefit.he has been admitted because he cannot operate his own affairs. "

"Ok fine I understand. well when he is better tell him to ring again with his details and we will make a claim for him"

"Umm.. If or when he is better he won't be disabled and need benefit will he?"

" ok .. Right so does he want to make a claim or what? Because we will need his details"

You couldn't make it up could you?

DWP grasp of mental health issues continues to be so poor despite all their sexy highly announced awareness projects for advisors.

 

[das_nut]

Reagan’s soliloquies on welfare fraud are often remembered as shameless demagoguery. Many accounts report that Reagan coined the term “welfare queen,” and that this woman in Chicago was a fictional character. In 2007, the New York Times’ Paul Krugman wrote that “the bogus story of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen [was] a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud.” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews says the whole thing is racist malarkey—a coded reference to black indolence and criminality designed to appeal to working-class whites.

Though Reagan was known to stretch the truth, he did not invent that woman in Chicago. Her name was Linda Taylor, and it was the Chicago Tribune, not the GOP politician, who dubbed her the “welfare queen.” It was the Tribune, too, that lavished attention on Taylor’s jewelry, furs, and Cadillac—all of which were real.

- Slate.

A long but interesting read. Her massive welfare fraud, involving multiple identities, may have been the least of her crimes.

 

[Wolfie]

Whether she was fictional or not, welfare queens do exist.

 

[Wolfie]

Poverty Report Reveals Most Poor People Have Jobs

Interesting article although I'm sure working people know that they are working and still living in poverty. It states the largest group in poverty are "working age adults without dependent children - 4.7 million people are in this situation, the highest on record" and it doesn't surprise me as parents seem to get tax credits when they are on lower wages but people without kids don't have this protection. I know people who have had to take pay cuts to their job (and have been told they are lucky to have a job) but the cost of living keeps rising.

Yep.

I also know working poor who do have a kid or two, and could live better if they'd quit their jobs and totally depend on the government. But they don't want to live that way and don't want to teach their kids to live that way.

 

[das_nut]

I also know working poor who do have a kid or two, and could live better if they'd quit their jobs and totally depend on the government. But they don't want to live that way and don't want to teach their kids to live that way.

I'm really happy that they can live work and still get by. But please don't assume everyone who is on the public dole and don't work could also make it as the working poor.

 

[Clueless Git]

I'm really happy that they can live work and still get by. But please don't assume everyone who is on the public dole and don't work could also make it as the working poor.

There's a very peculiar flip side to that: Not all of the working poor could make it on the public dole.

The degree of 'intelligence' required to understand the benefits system well enough to milk it at all four corners is often greater than the degree of intelligence required top hold down a minimum wage job.


More for the sake of chit-chat than anything else ...

Anne Chovie (benefits advisor) and myself were talking, a while back, about the UK benefit reforms. Particularly in regards to disability claims and as to how many genuine claimants simply did not have the health/vitality/sheer bloody minded persistence/whatever to beat a system designed to disqualify virtualy anyone who is not actualy dead from making a successful disability claim.

Question of "will this actualy stop the fraudulent claims?" arose.

Consensus (of two) was, loosely, that the system is now such hard work that only those capable of, and willing to endure, very hard and complex work can see the process through.

 

[das_nut]

There's a very peculiar flip side to that: Not all of the working poor could make it on the public dole.

The degree of 'intelligence' required to understand the benefits system well enough to milk it at all four corners is often greater than the degree of intelligence required top hold down a minimum wage job.

Well, it does require knowledge of what's out there. But it's a pretty sad situation, at least in my country, which has a rather tattered social safety net.

 

[Wolfie]

I'm really happy that they can live work and still get by. But please don't assume everyone who is on the public dole and don't work could also make it as the working poor.

Find where I've said EVERYONE on the public dole can work and/or is a scammer. I do think we should take care of the truly disabled and anyone who needs a helping hand (kids or not). However, breeding like an unaltered feral cat is not a disability. There's no reason for the waste in the system the way it is today and able-bodied people should not be able to make it a way of life by staying on it for years, then their kids have kids and stay on for years, etc.

Stop making me like Clueless Git's posts. It frightens me.