How about we just look to take care of people like this woman and the other working poor out there that are doing what they can but can't quite make it?

Why are there no partial assistance programs for her heating costs - why is it all or none?

Now, if she owned the house she lives in, there would be tax writeoffs for her making it more economical to heat but of course she'd never have the cash to come up with those expenses even if she'd get to make them exempt from taxes.


As for paying welfare moms to keep having kids and taking their kids away, at the very least, even if it cost us the same, putting the kids into state custody would at least discourage having more kids that you can't afford, but that's not really the issue either when you get right down to it.

 

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LOL yep, it's the same out going toward State College - they calculate cost of living and "reasonable salaries" based on Lewistown and Clearfield county when the reality is that any jobs are going to be around State College where it costs twice as much to live for 30 miles around as it does where their calculations come from... shady at best.

 

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Well, it's never "all." And it probably isn't "none" either, although I don't know for sure. I suspect what is going on is she was told she makes 300 too much to get any assistance, not that you either get a check for 300 or a check for zero. But like I said I don't know for sure.


Also heating subsidies are a difficult issue themselves because they have bad effects in the long run even though they help individuals in certain circumstances in the short term.


If you want to continue with your crusade to take kids away from their parents go ahead but like I said I think you will find little success. Americans have not shown a lot of appetite for the state taking people's kids away from them because they're poor.

But heating subsidies are OK for other families on welfare just not this one?





It's like you and a few other libs around here have Asperger syndrome with these arguments. You're so certain that I want to throw little black babies out in the street that you're focusing your entire argument as if I were arguing specifically for it, when I've stated above that it's not really the issue. You can't stop fixating long enough on some farcical argument that I'm not even making so that you can address why this person is on the short end of the stick. It's sad, but you folks need to get over your preconceptions before you can even have meaningful discussions on this topic.

This is yet another all too prevalent case (FAR FAR FAR more prevalent than the case of a baby-factory welfare mom) of throwing the working poor under the bus. Why do you hate the working poor?

 

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This is one of those 50% of Americans that don't pay income taxes that right wingers are always whining about. In fact, she is better off than many of them. The average SS payment is right around 12000 a year.

I will say it is heartening to see that almost all the folks in this thread seem to think that the government should be doing more to help these folks. Remember this woman when the austerity trolls start talking about raising the retirement age for SS or trimming the cost of living adjustment for SS, because the people most affected by that will be millions of folks just like this woman.

 

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This situation is mirrored here in the UK, I used a know a lady in her early 40's who worked part time as a deputy manager of a retail store, she worked 20 hours a week and was good at her job. They repeatedly offered her promotions to go full time as a manager but as a single parent living in council housing earning any more than she currently did would make her ineligable for almost all of the goverment funds she was currently recieving.

It worked out that financially by working full time in a better job she would have ended up around £200 a month poorer. She wanted to work more and was capable of doing so, but could not find a way to make it financially viable, that should not be allowed to happen.

 

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Where did you get that one from? They are problematic in general because what they tend to result in in real terms is people not fixing their energy usage to be more efficient. Part of the reason we have moved away for paying "all" heating costs is the realization that that is counterproductive. Now typically the heating subsidy is well less than the total heating costs, with the idea being you encourage people to use energy more efficiently that way.


The rest of your most is just /wghaaarghl. You say this is an example of working poor getting trashed but she works no more than most people you rant about work. She is closer to non-working poor than working poor. There are very few welfare recipients people who simply don't work at all any more. It is much more common to see people like this woman who work part-time and collect large sums from benefit programs of various sorts to supplement that income.

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The UK still has the old welfare model. You are trying to move away from it now but you are about where America was in the early 1990s. It is not really like the situation in America now.

Presumably she rents, and the property she rents is probably a fkn sieve with respect to heating it - which is probably why the landlord makes tenants pay for the utilities. Of course any "fix it" money would be actually going to improve the landlord's house and he probably doesn't need the help.

As for your inability to conceive that my argument isn't about throwing black babies out into the street, that's about par for the course for you and those like you.

 

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I don't get why you keep going on about black babies.


Your basic argument that non-working poor have it easy and working poor have it hard is both largely inaccurate and not illustrated by this example. This woman is closer to what you term non-working poor than working poor. There really is almost no such thing as a poor person who doesn't work at all any more, unless they're on 100% disability. The people you term non-working poor are much more likely to be about like this woman - part-time workers who depend on government largesse to get by.


The real difference in the system is not between workers who don't depend on handouts and "non-workers" (i.e. people who work but depend more on handouts than working income). The real difference in the sysyem is that "non-workers" with kids get a much better deal than either "non-workers" without kids OR working poor, because we think kids shouldn't generally be punished for who their parents are.