Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site uwmacc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!wjh12!talcott!harvard!seismo!uwvax!uwmacc!rick From: rick@uwmacc.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: How about helping our own Message-ID: <583@uwmacc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 18-Dec-84 14:48:19 EST Article-I.D.: uwmacc.583 Posted: Tue Dec 18 14:48:19 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 22-Dec-84 01:13:26 EST References: <709@loral.UUCP> <191@talcott.UUCP> <1887@sun.uucp> Reply-To: rick@uwmacc.UUCP (Rick Keir) Organization: UWisconsin-Madison Academic Comp Center Lines: 34 Summary: [ This bug has gone to the Bahamas ] >I hear comments from American Citizens like 'I do not need a high school >education wlefare will take care of me" and see generations and Really? Where's you hear these comments? On the net? :-) >generations of families( the same family) on welfare I begin to wonder >about the welfare system. THERE IS NO ENCOURAGEMENT TO GET OFF OF IT. Certainly, one can cite examples like yours, of food stamps being used to pay for steak. Or poor people with TV sets, or cars, or .... None of this gets around the fact that being on welfare is a nasty, brutal way to live. You are correct in saying that there is no encouragement to get off of welfare, though. Several years ago, I talked to a young woman who was receiving various sorts of aid for her and for her children. I was working for a Congressman at the time. She called because she'd gotten a job offer. She'd figured out the salary she'd make working full time, minus the various deductions the government wanted. Then she'd subtracted the cost of transportation to and from work (a long way even by bus...not a walkable distance). Then she'd figured out the cheapest rates she could get for someone to look after her kids when they weren't in school. The result? If she took the job she'd work 40 hours a week, leave her kids in the hands of others to rear when they were young, and have considerably less money than if she just stayed on welfare. No one could find a loophole for her. She asked me why the system was this way. I couldn't tell her. -- "And we'll have some kids, they won't be a bother as long as they're just as dumb as their father." -- The Stupid Song by Peter and Lou Berryman Rick Keir -- MicroComputer Information Center, MACC 1210 West Dayton St/U Wisconsin Madison/Mad WI 53706 {allegra, ihnp4, seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!rick