Some Days I Hate My Job

[Nathans_Dad]

Wow, how interesting. I actually took the time to look at each of the links you posted. Did you?

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

So now I guess I will answer, although I'm still not sure why.

http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/Welftime.pdf

Deals with differences between long term and short term welfare recipients. Mentions nothing about a "lazy" subset.

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/pdf/62_PDF.pdf

Talks about whether children of long term welfare recipients are adversely effected. Mentions nothing about the "lazy" people.

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

http://www.heritage.org/Research/welfare/BG1063.cfm

Deals with how to reform welfare. Does mention negative impacts of long term welfare but again doesn't mention anything about those "lazy" ones. The most political of the links.

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

http://www.brookings.edu/media/NewsReleases/2002/20020924waller.aspx

Says welfare recipients are concentrated in urban areas. In other news, the sky is blue.

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/900527.pdf

Did you actually read this one? It says long term welfare recipients face barriers to returning to work. A quote from this one:

Long-term recipients, those who have received cash assistance continuously for at least two years, are more likely than other welfare recipients to face barriers to work. In 1999, more long-term recipients lacked a high school education (50 percent compared to 38 percent of other recipients) and had last worked more than three years ago (34 percent, compared to 20 percent). In addition, 39 percent of long-term recipients have poor mental or physical health. These results suggest that some long-term recipients face serious barriers to work.

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310559_DP02-10.pdf

This is another one where I wonder if you actually read this piece. It argues against your assertion. A quote:

Over half of the long-term welfare recipients were working in 2000 (see table 1). In 63 percent of families, either the respondent or her spouse or partner was working a regular paying job, and 53 percent of all respondents were working. Working respondents on average had been at their jobs for 2.5 years, working slightly over 35 hours a week, and earning a little over $9 an hour. Many of these working women had overcome several obstacles to hold a job. Thirty-seven percent did not have a high school diploma or GED, 27 percent had a child at home under the age of 6, 28 percent reported being in poor to fair physical health, and 26 percent were in poor mental health...[snip]
In families where neither the respondent nor her spouse or partner was currently working, many respondents had barriers to work. Half had no access to a car, and 24 percent said language was a barrier to getting a job. Of respondents in nonworking households, 62 percent did not have a high school diploma or GED, 28 percent had a child at home under age 6, and 89 percent had no spouse or partner. Thirty-eight percent had a health condition that limited the amount or type of work they could do, 41 percent considered themselves in poor or fair health, and 35 percent were in poor mental health.

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBF-4CFV5J6-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a917d895a9d17cf6fbb306502a59c1db

This one says that people who are in poor health in early life are more likely to be on welfare.

In short, Jeff, I can't find a single mention in any of these articles about this lazy group of welfare recipients. In fact, over half of the links you posted state that most long term welfare recipients have serious barriers to work and a large percentage of those on welfare overcome those barriers in order to work.

Not to beat a dead horse, but you posted a lot of links, none of which supported your position.

Edit: Whoops, didn't see Christien's post. Sorry for piling on, but since I took the time to type all that out, I'm going to leave it.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by Nathans_Dad

Not to beat a dead horse, but you posted a lot of links, none of which supported your position.

My "position", once again, was that I would cut Byron's friend more slack than some long-term welfare recipient. Why are you having such a hard time grasping such a simple statement?

[Nathans_Dad]

Last post before I stop beating this dead horse. From a google search on "lazy long term welfare recipient":

http://socialjusticeblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/lazy-dishonest-and-immoral.html

[P]erceptions of the poor tend to reflect attitudes and stereotypes that attribute poverty to personal failings rather than socioeconomic structures or systems.... Stereotyped beliefs about low-income people are widespread and serve to maintain negative attitudes and attributions such that there is a “distancing from the poor” by those in the middle and upper classes.... Reasons for these findings have been attributed to people having a high just world belief--a belief that the world is a just place, and that people get what they deserve.... Others have suggested Americans favor the use of individualistic/internal attributions to explain poverty because it implies an element of individual control.

[Christien]

I don't think you sound glib or impertinent, I think you sound like someone who got dragged, perhaps unwittingly, into a discussion they really didn't feel like having. Which I can understand - it's happened to me many times before. However you did rise to the task and offer evidence, which I then challenged, which, IMO, is a valid response on my part.

[Nathans_Dad]

Jeff, my challenge to you was based on the following posts in this thread:

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

I think we are all guilty of speaking in generalities at times. Or maybe "guilty" is too strong of a word; "prone" may be better. I get the impression when folks decry "stereotypical poor", and their bilking of the taxpayer (through our gubmint) for sustinance, they are refering to the life-long, or at least long-term poor that make no apparent effort to help themselves. Ever. It has even reached the point where it is a cultural thing that spans generations. We have this class of citizen (and non-citizen) here in the U.S.; those are the "stereotypical poor" to whom we refer when speaking in such generalities.

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

The other sort to which I refer simply always have some "reason" - maybe even valid in their own minds, for not even trying. They'll talk your ear off with their tales of woe, how they never get a break, how they are always unlucky. They spend their lives on the dole, never turning them around. Those are the ones I deride.

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

There is a quite well documented, and equally thoroughly discussed and studied portion of our population that has very much chosen to be lazy, and have chosen to have the rest of us support them in their laziness. I'm not sure what percentage of our population they comprise, but I am quite sure I have not conjured up these folks to "substantiate" my "position". I was merely using them to illustrate the difference between a one-time user of our welfare benefits and a habitual user of those benefits. Can we agree there is a difference? A fundamental difference? That is all I was getting at.

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

The existence of this class of people in the U.S. is so frickin' blindingly obvious, so thoroughly studied, documented, and discussed that you would have had to been living on another planet to have missed them.

So, you see, you made several pretty bold statements about this obvious and well studied group of lazy welfare recipients. I simply asked you to substantiate that this group exists and is in fact well studied and obvious. Everyone agrees that there is a percentage of people on welfare who choose not to work. All the research on the topic (even the stuff you posted) points to the fact that the vast majority of the people on welfare are exactly like story of the man that started the thread.

This is why I asked about the inconsistency of the positions of many of the people on this thread, including yourself.

Ok, dead horse beaten. I'm done.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by Christien

I don't think you sound glib or impertinent, I think you sound like someone who got dragged, perhaps unwittingly, into a discussion they really didn't feel like having. Which I can understand - it's happened to me many times before. However you did rise to the task and offer evidence, which I then challenged, which, IMO, is a valid response on my part.

You pretty well nailed it, Christien. It took me perhaps 30 seconds to machine-gun off those links, which was done purely in an effort to get Rick to quit harping about it, and to get back on track with the main topic of this thread.

So, since we are beating dead horses today, I will restate just how thoroughly disappointed I am in several of the respondents on this thread. They jumped right in, with virtually no information whatsoever concerning the circumstances of this particular case, and were ready to crucify both Byron and his friend.

A few of us subsequently chimed in and opined that maybe, just maybe, we should have a bit more information before jumping to conclusions. It was mentioned that maybe, just maybe, Byron was upset about being the one who would have to be the bearer of such bad news, and therefore might have been venting to us just a bit. And maybe, just maybe, because the guy is a friend of Byron's he deserved the benefit of the doubt, at least until we had the whole story. No one was letting him off the hook, mind you - we just weren't ready to trip the gallows just yet.

Those simple suggestions, those appeals to slow down just a bit until we had more information were quite clearly deemed unreasonable by those who were already crying for his head. Why? Because they would have to admit that their dislike of Byron had colored their reactions. They would have to admit that they had, just possibly, reached their conclusions prematurely, without enough information to have done so. That would be, of course, unthinkable for this lot.

So the distraction and obfuscation started. Picking the fly shyte out of the pepper on meaningless secondary points, and dragging the conversation up one unrelated blind alley after another. All to take the limelight off of their stunning lack of compassion, and their shameful eagerness to convict based on no more information than it was Byron's friend.

[Christien]

I hear what you're saying - you've said it several times now, but as Rick said above, you did indeed make some bold statements (as did Byron opening the thread) and now you seem either unwilling or unable to back those statements up (unlike Byron who admitted he made a mistake).

Yes, it's a complete departure from the point of the thread, but you *did* make these statements, and I still can't find any evidence to back them up.

If you'd just rather let it be, that's fine, I'm happy to let it go, but I would ask that, at some point, please do look into this, because I truly do believe that your attitudes and beliefs, as evidenced in this thread, are based on false assumptions. They're assumptions I believe many people share, because it's a an easy, emotional, scapegoat response, but one that's just simply not supported by the facts - cold, hard, data-type facts.

This has nothing to do with Byron. FTR, as I stated above, I don't have anything against him at all - I do disagree with some of his beliefs, but so what? He seems like a pretty cool guy to me.

See, there's still life left in this old horse! Oh, and I've never heard this line before:

Picking the fly shyte out of the pepper

I like it!

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Christian, at the very real risk of sounding glib or impertinent, let me say this: I could give a shyte. None of that has anything whatsoever to do with anything on this thread. I mean, c'mon - Geezus H. Christ, all I did was say I would be inclined to give Byron's friend more benefit of the doubt than I would a long-term welfare rat. Somehow, that evolved into Rick demanding proof that such even exists, followed quickly by Jim's typically unimaginative, disingenuous "me too! me too!" when he didn't even know what the hell was going on. This disputed existence of a long-term welfare population somehow took on a life of its own, and for the life of me, I still don't understand why Rick harped on it so. Again, I only mentioned that I would be inclined to cut Byron's friend a bit more slack than some one who had been on the public dole for an extended period of time.

The real world is usually much more interesting than the virtual world.

I learn this lesson every-time I stay away from this board for awhile.

[Jeff Higgins]

Christien, I readily admit I tend to view long-term welfare recipients as "lazy". I honestly believe that anyone who really wants to will find a way to support themselves.

There was a TV special several years ago that aired after some Mid-West state put limits on how long folks could stay on welfare. No excuses; time limits for one and all. The special focused on the plight of a middle-aged, single white mother of about 3, or 4, or 5 kids (please don't ask me to document how many; I really can't remember). She had claimed for years she "could not" work. No one to watch the kids, no way to get to a job if she did find one, yadda yadda yadda. All manner of excuses and stories.

Guess what? The state cut her off anyway. Then guess what? She went to work. She found a way. The alternative was, quite literally, no home, hunger, and a looming Mid-West winter. She worked out a plan to have some one watch the kids. She did everything a motivated, responsible person would have done anyway. Had the state not cut her off, however, she never would have gotten up off of her dead ass and done anything. She "couldn't", after all. I'm not sure what you would call that. I call it laziness.

I see much of the plight of the long-term unemployed, the long-term welfare recipients, in much the same light. Maybe that is actually a misperception or a character flaw of my own, and I really am dead wrong. Maybe there are no truly lazy welfare recipients. Maybe they all have a legitimate reason for being on it for extended periods. Like the woman on the TV special...

Everyone has a story. If nothing else, the truly lazy excel at making up all sorts of them to justify why they "can't" do something. Like work. The folks that are attracted to professions wherein they can provide help for these people are not attracted to them because they dislike these people. As such, they are unlikely to label them as something as politically incorrect as "lazy", regardless whether they are or not. Social workers seem far more likely to coddle and cajole their charges. They are very unlikely to risk the fallout, or any damage to their delicate "self esteem" of labeling them as "lazy".

So, yes, maybe that is my own bias showing through. Maybe there are not all that many of them that are just plain lazy. So what? Once again, for the umpteenth time, that has absolutely no bearing on the topic of this thread. I was merely using the example of the life-long, lazy welfare recipient to draw a disntinction between them and a one-time welfare user. Interesting that no one asked me to "prove" that there are actually one-time welfare users...

[Nathans_Dad]

Wow Jeff, you know what I find disappointing? I find it disappointing that you knowingly throw around stereotypes yet seem to have zero interest in the reality of the situation. You have said twice now that you could "give a shyte" when confronted with the inaccuracy of your statements. That's pretty disappointing.

I realize this is just PPOT, but I honestly try to make solid arguments and take them seriously here. I certainly hope this attitude is just the way you look at internet discourse in general and doesn't extend to your actual beliefs. It would be REALLY disappointing to learn that you could "give a shyte" about the truth in the world.

[stuartj]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

So, since we are beating dead horses today, I will restate just how thoroughly disappointed I am in several of the respondents on this thread. They jumped right in, with virtually no information whatsoever concerning the circumstances of this particular case, and were ready to crucify both Byron and his friend.

Flog the horse and restate ad nauseum, Jeff. None of it changes the fact that Racer was bemoaning the the fact that the Government was pursuing his friend for taxes owed.

Im sure we all understand the grays in life, the unfortunate positions people sometimes find themselves in, but being pursued for tax owed does not constitute the "Government screwing the little guy".

It means the guy got caught cheating on his tax, and we as a society(s) have bodies like the IRS to ensure that every one complies with the law of land.

And that is really all there is too it. I dont actually understand what you have attempted to argue here.

[Christien]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Christien, I readily admit I tend to view long-term welfare recipients as "lazy". I honestly believe that anyone who really wants to will find a way to support themselves. --snip--

Jeff, please read carefully:

1. I'm not disagreeing with your position that long-term recipients are lazy. You've stated that many times, and your last post just repeated it.

2. I'm questioning whether the proportion of long-term recipients is significant. For example, if 1 in 1000 welfare recipients is a bum, who cares? It would cost more money to root those people out than it would save in not paying them benefits.

3. All of the data seems to indicate that the # of welfare recipients that are bums is indeed low. All the links you posted seem to back that up.

4. My issue isn't with whether these people are lazy or not, it's with the attitude that paints all welfare recipients with the same brush, that because 1 in 1000 is lazy, most or all are.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by stuartj

Flog the horse and restate ad nauseum, Jeff. None of it changes the fact that Racer was bemoaning the the fact that the Government was pursuing his friend for taxes owed.

Thank you for reframing this, stuart. That is exactly what he was doing. I took it as him venting a bit, more about having to be the one bearing the bad news to a friend who was having a hard time, that's all. You apparently took it quite differently, as did others. I believe your dislike for Byron may have influenced your response, that it may not have been quite so pointed had it been another PPOT regular venting in the same way.

Originally Posted by stuartj

Im sure we all understand the grays in life, the unfortunate positions people sometimes find themselves in, but being pursued for tax owed does not constitute the "Government screwing the little guy".

No, it doesn't. I agree whole heartedly. Poor choice of words, no doubt, possibly driven by his consternation over the situation.

Originally Posted by stuartj

It means the guy got caught cheating on his tax, and we as a society(s) have bodies like the IRS to ensure that every one complies with the law of land.

Of course we do. That said, I'm not sure of the practices of the equivelent to our IRS in your country, but they have the reputation of being a bit heavy handed here. They often escape our requirement for "due process", with unaccountable bureaucrats making decisions that effectively carry the weight of law. Stories are legion regarding innocent citizens that have run afoul of this agency and suffered rather unjust consequences.

Originally Posted by stuartj

And that is really all there is too it. I dont actually understand what you have attempted to argue here.

My sole argument was that you, and others, were far too quick to throw him to the wolves. You did not (and still do not) have enough information regarding his case to judge him. There may be extenuating circumstances that render him well and truly unable to pay at this time. We don't know that. As such, you may have judged him too quickly and too harshly. That was my only argument.

Originally Posted by Nathans_Dad

Wow Jeff, you know what I find disappointing? I find it disappointing that you knowingly throw around stereotypes yet seem to have zero interest in the reality of the situation. You have said twice now that you could "give a shyte" when confronted with the inaccuracy of your statements. That's pretty disappointing.

I realize this is just PPOT, but I honestly try to make solid arguments and take them seriously here. I certainly hope this attitude is just the way you look at internet discourse in general and doesn't extend to your actual beliefs. It would be REALLY disappointing to learn that you could "give a shyte" about the truth in the world.

Again, "oh please..." That is taken so completely out of context that it does not really even deserve to be addressed. I made a simple comparison to a hypothetical long-term welfare recipient. For all you know, it could have been my neighbor. Christien was attempting to establish the percentage of the welfare population that long-term recipients comprise. That percentage has no bearing on my comparison, hence my "I could give a shyte" answer to that specific issue. Let it go, Rick, you are really starting to sound like a fool. A desperate fool. One trying to divert attention from his own callousness and lack of compassion.

Nothing changes the fact that you were just too damn eager to try and convict this man based upon almost no information regarding his case. Nothing will cover up your glaring lack of compassion for a man you do not even know, whose situation you cannot possibly understand. It's going off half-cocked as you did, leaping to judgement of another, that I found so surprising. And now you continue to beat your dead horse, this time twisting my comments out of context in an effort to divert the attention from you.

[KFC911]

Here Trigger, come 'ere boy! That damn horse won't listen anymore...

[Porsche_monkey]

The flogging will continue until morale improves. Or someone says 'uncle'.

[Nathans_Dad]

Jeff,

Compassion does not equal thinking the man should not pay his tax bill. End of flogging.

[mossguy]

I'd like to get in the last word.

Tom

[KFC911]

No!

[mossguy]

OK

Best,

Tom

[stuartj]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

I believe your dislike for Byron may have influenced your response, that it may not have been quite so pointed had it been another PPOT regular venting in the same way.

I am very familar with your ability to believe things without evidence, Jeff.