I agree with quite a bit of what you are saying so don't take me as combative but the general Idea that there is incentive for people not to work because welfare pays so good. statistics do not bear out this accusation. The two largest welfare programs -- by far -- are Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and food stamps..the average yearly AFDC family payment was $4,572, and food stamps for a family of three averaged $2,469, for a total of $7,041. (1) In that year, the poverty level for a mother with two children was $11,186. (2) Thus, these two programs paid only 63 percent of the poverty level, and 74 percent of a minimum wage job.
There are other welfare programs available, of course, but they either pay a minuscule fraction of AFDC and food stamps, or, if larger, they are collected by only a small percentage of all welfare recipients. For example, housing assistance trails a distant third on the total welfare budget, but only one-fourth of all AFDC recipients collect housing assistance, and even then their food stamp benefits are reduced if they do. Studies show that combined AFDC, food stamps and housing assistance lift fewer than one welfare family in five above the poverty line
The low payments, low participation rates, and exclusionary policies of these other welfare programs hasn't stopped some welfare critics from adding them all up together and claiming that the average welfare recipient collects some ridiculously huge sum, like $20,687 a year in California. Indeed, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, has done exactly that. It's regrettable to see such flawed methodology pushed by a national think tank, even more dismaying to see their figures cited by political leaders like California governor Pete Wilson. (At least before more serious academicians corrected him). But it's probably the only way that welfare critics can continue to maintain the fiction that welfare rewards nonwork more than work. (For a fuller deconstruction of the Cato study, click here..
The funny thing I though the same way for a long time until I decided to actually look into the fact and not formulate an opinion based on the idiots in the media...Mark twain said it best.. " if you don't have a news paper your un informed.. if you have a news paper your misinformed"
You cant blame the youth of this country. they had no choice in the home they were born into and the way they were brought up in. That is the responsibility of our generation. My oldest daughter is adopted I adopted her when I was 22yo and she was about 9 months old. Because her real father is a dead beat looser. She has never even seen him.. Every one COMPLAINS about the current situation but few people do any thing to change it. My door is open to ANY! kid that needs it and I have had several over the years stay with me. SO YEAH WE HAVE A PROBLEM WIT THE YUTH OF TODAY! the question is what are you going to do about it.. our education is fucked ! the test my son did so well on is a standardized test.. there is no such thing as a standard kid I guarantee that there are kids that fail that test that have more brains than some of the kids that KILLED! it. Some kids just don't test well.
There are kids out there with no real education that were born in the worst conditions possible. That are running fortune 500 business out of ghetto row homes. They are importing and exporting dealing with supply and demand, employee issues, product devilment, business expansion, cash flow management, return on investment, logistics, and quite a bit more. They build drug empires because they never had a chance to do any thing different. Think what these people could be doing if they were give the chance! But all we are capable of doing is complaining about it but complaining does not fix the problem..
