Abusing welfare... yes or no?

Discussion in 'Relationships' started by Kista, Dec 20, 2010.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Amyoxl

    Amyoxl Member

    Messages:
    547
    Likes Received:
    10
    I'm not against welfare, per se, as long as it is a hand up and not a hand out. What I am strongly against is welfare abuse.
     
  2. Meliai

    Meliai Members

    Messages:
    867
    Likes Received:
    5
    good, that is how welfare should work. i don't know anybody on welfare but I do know quite a few people on disability who are perfectly able to work. I know one guy who has been on disability for ten years because of a bad back yet he is able to get out and ride motorcycles and dirt bikes every day. I assume that if people are committing disability fraud like this and getting away with it, there are more than likely people who are able to commit welfare fraud and get away with it as well.
     
  3. psychedelicg1rl

    psychedelicg1rl Member

    Messages:
    847
    Likes Received:
    0
    I didnt say no one abused the welfare system, I just see it is a very minority. Not as common as people portray, and I have known quite a few that used welfare,a nd are no longer on it. and contribute to society. I have been tryign to get disability for my lupus, bc most days I can nto even walk around my grocery store, without pain, and a ton of it. but they deny me. Even though I worked for 6 years straight but bc I havent in 3 years. (except for a few odd jobs) Everyone only sees one side of the story, and it is ususally the abusers. but there are so many that need welfare, and use it and get off of it.
     
  4. Amyoxl

    Amyoxl Member

    Messages:
    547
    Likes Received:
    10
    I'm sorry about your lupus. Maybe if there weren't so many abusers the system could be expanded to hept folks like you.
     
  5. walsh

    walsh Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,678
    Likes Received:
    9
    Okay you tell us - what's wrong with welfare systems? The government builds roads to help car drivers get around, transport for travelers, hospitals to help the sick, museums and exhibitions to build culture, fireworks shows for celebration. The government's job is to govern for all people, yet this does not include the enormous population of 10% or so unemployed people in your country? That's fair enough, but let's at least make drivers build their own roads, sick people build their own hospitals and museumgoers build their own museums. Guv'ment don't owe us no'thin'
     
  6. RooRshack

    RooRshack On Sabbatical

    Messages:
    11,036
    Likes Received:
    550
    Having personally known people working in welfare, you're just plain wrong, and duped hardcore.

    There are NOT very many abusers, and it's very hard to get on welfare, very few are, it's very strict. There wouldn't be "abusers" if the people who needed it could get on it, because they wouldn't have to "abuse" to get it. And then when you get it, through abuse or otherwise, it means welfare people can show up when they feel like, fuck with your shit with no warrant or other reason, audit all your shit whenever they feel like, harass you how they feel like, and it's not EVEN very much money you get.

    Again, how dare you suggest that it's ok to steal from the people to give to massive companies and kill people on the other side of the world, but that it's not ok to "abuse" the welfare system? Working hard is great, and everyone SHOULD do their part, but putting money into welfare is putting money into the people, and there are NOT rich people on welfare. It's considerably better than ALMOST all of the governmental alternatives, and than literally everything that gets more money alloted to it by the government.

    The whole welfare abuse thing is a political ploy, just like the silly propositions about building walls and segregating education and the like to keep illegals from stealing our underfunded shit. You SHOULD be outraged that they're spending money to keep you occupied with this little tiny cost that is being taken up by the poorest that have been stomped on by the civil and legal systems. It's nothing but a distraction, while the big bucks are going to subsidize factory farms to protect the yeoman farmer and his family farm, and to give in foreign aid to countries like israel so that they can spend it on our military companies, and to build prisons to lock people up in, when you turn them in for welfare fraud.
     
  7. Meliai

    Meliai Members

    Messages:
    867
    Likes Received:
    5
    there are a lot of disability abusers. My brother works in disabilities claims so I hear a lot of stories. Thats sad that people like you who truly need disability can't get it, when I know for a fact that people apply and are approved every day for completely ridiculous and bullshit reasons.
     
  8. TheMadcapSyd

    TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

    Messages:
    11,392
    Likes Received:
    20
    While morally it might be considered welfare abuse, whether it actually counts as welfare abuse under Canadian law is a different story.
     
  9. rollingalong

    rollingalong Banned

    Messages:
    33,587
    Likes Received:
    11,008
    Ex-StatsCan chief to lead Ontario’s welfare reform

    Published On Tue Nov 30 2010

    Former Chief of Statscan Munir Sheikh is shown in Ottawa, on July 27, 2010.
    FRED CHARTRAND/THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO
    [​IMG] By Tanya Talaga Queen's Park Bureau
    Ontario’s much-anticipated welfare reforms will be led by the former Statistics Canada chief who quit in disgust after Ottawa scrapped the long-form census, the Star has learned.
    The hiring of Dr. Munir Sheikh is a shot across the bow at the federal government by the provincial Liberals who will make the announcement Tuesday along with future plans for the controversial special diet allowance that helps those living in poverty.
    Sheikh became a symbol of public service defiance when the statistician quit on principle in July after the Conservative government scrapped the long-form census, which provincial governments use to develop social policy, in favour of a voluntary survey.
    He will join Frances Lankin, a former New Democratic Party MPP and ex-head of the United Way of Toronto, in a two-person panel. They are in charge of what is billed as the biggest redraw of the welfare system in more than 20 years.
    Sheikh’s resignation touched off a political crisis for Prime Minister Stephen Harper last July.
    Improving the lives of the poor is “not just the province’s responsibility” noted a government source who added Ontario will benefit from Sheikh’s background in economics and federal experience.
    The panel will make targeted recommendations to overhaul Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program. It will have the support of a special commission, made up of bureaucrats and poverty advisers.
    “We are asking them to not only look at social assistance but how does it interact with things like employment insurance, the Ontario Student Assistance Program and job programs,” the government source said.
    There are 334,440 people receiving ODSP benefits and another 376,719 living on welfare in Ontario as of September — a total of 711,159 people who rely on social assistance and stand to benefit from a review.
    Anti-poverty groups say current social assistance incomes have the same purchasing power as they did in 1967.
    The panel begins work in January and has 18 months to report back with a detailed plan on how to achieve needed reforms.
    “This is not just a review, but an action plan,” said the source. “The focus here is on getting people back to work.”
    It has been two years since the Ontario government made a historic commitment to lift 25 per cent of Ontario children and their families — some 90,000 people — out of poverty in five years.
    But anti-poverty activists fear the Liberals are backing off on reforms due to the recession.
    If they do, they won’t meet their commitment to lift kids out of poverty, activists warn.
    An area of concern is the special diet program.
    As of June, the ministry of community and social services said there were about 167,000 people on social assistance who receive up to $250 a month for the special diet allowance. The allowance helps people with a range of health problems from diabetes to high blood pressure buy healthier foods.
    But, last fall after the provincial auditor general found evidence of fraud in the program — which had a budget that ballooned from $6 million in 2003 to more than $200 million in 2008 — the Liberals vowed to re-examine it.
    The Liberals received great criticism from anti-poverty activists after they announced earlier this year they would be replacing the welfare-based special diet allowance in favour of a new, and some believe, less costly program.
    Provincial nurses, anti-poverty activists and advocates for the disabled have urged the province to back off on reductions to the program.
    On Monday, the second annual report of the 25 in 5 Network for Poverty Reduction was released.
    The report urges the provincial government to “redouble” its efforts to eradicate poverty by making it a priority in the 2011-12 budget. The report calls for the welfare review process to begin and increased investment in training and education programs.
    Mike Creek, an anti-poverty activist and spokesperson for 25 in 5, said the goal of lifting kids and families out of poverty “has been lost” due to the recession.
    While the government has done the right thing in some spots — such as increasing the minimum wage to $10.25 — in other areas they have fallen down, he said.
    “Unless they start to make poverty reduction a priority again, they will not meet their goals of 25 in 5,” said Creek.
    “We see the effects in our community of the recession, of more people applying for OW (Ontario Works) and using food banks,” he said. “Ontarians still have an appetite to make sure people who find themselves living in poverty have their lives improved.”
    The special diet needs to stay or be grandfathered until after the social resistance review is completed, he added. “My fear is we’ll put people’s lives in jeopardy by not having a really good program when they find themselves ill and need a special diet to survive.
    “In my case, I had cancer and I’m sure I wouldn’t be talking to you on the phone today if I didn’t have that money to meet my nutritional needs,” said Creek, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 1993. He is now cancer free.
    With files from Laurie Monsebraaten
     
  10. TheMadcapSyd

    TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

    Messages:
    11,392
    Likes Received:
    20
    Most people on welfare(excluding disability and unemployment welfare and the such) work as it is. There really is no such thing as "free money" in the American welfare system. Income subsidies make up the minority of welfare recipients compared to other programs and either way there's a time limit on how long you can draw benefits.
     
  11. RooRshack

    RooRshack On Sabbatical

    Messages:
    11,036
    Likes Received:
    550
    Whoa budday.... Canada's minimum wage is 10.25? ours is 7.25, and their dollar is worth more than ours at the moment, I think?
     
  12. deleted

    deleted Visitor

    hippie people?, worried about other people, that steal from the government?..

    lol..
    [​IMG]
     
  13. TheMadcapSyd

    TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

    Messages:
    11,392
    Likes Received:
    20
    Canada does it by province like we do it by states, I assume they have some kind of federal minimum like we do. $10.25 is the highest. The American dollar and Canadian dollar today are trading near equal, 1 Canadian dollar goes for 98.5 cents.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_in_Canada
     
  14. ChronicTom

    ChronicTom Banned

    Messages:
    6,640
    Likes Received:
    14
    Province General Wage Standards

    Alberta $8.80
    BC $8.00
    Manitoba $9.50
    New Brunswick $9.00
    Newfoundland $10.00
    NWT $9.00
    Nova Scotia $9.65
    Nunavut $10.00
    Ontario $10.25
    PEI $9.00
    Quebec $9.50
    Saskatchewan $9.25
    Yukon $8.93
     
  15. walsh

    walsh Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,678
    Likes Received:
    9
    That's pretty harsh. So let's say I'm looking for a job. I need food to stay alive, housing and clothes for presentation to employers, and presumably a bit extra for transportation and to make a CV. How do I go about getting a job if have those things? Or even staying alive?
     
  16. TheMadcapSyd

    TheMadcapSyd Titanic's captain, yo!

    Messages:
    11,392
    Likes Received:
    20
    You know the irony is food stamps are actually more limited if you're out of work than if you're in work, 3 months in a 3 year period(unless you're over 50 or have children.) If you are working it's unlimited until your income goes up.

    But most things including unemployment have a limit on how long you can draw benefits.
     
  17. RooRshack

    RooRshack On Sabbatical

    Messages:
    11,036
    Likes Received:
    550
    A baby seal, fused with a moray eel? Good mother of god, club that thing!
     
  18. GardenGuy

    GardenGuy Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,273
    Likes Received:
    41
    There's a lot of good things she could be doing with her time other than sitting around: learn a craft, learn a new language or musical instrument, volunteer at the food pantry, help in the library, zoo, help raise money for Sierra Club, there's no end to good causes. But it looks she's all about the Weed.

    It is probably more realistic to expect no change until she discovers on her own that her life is out of balance.

    But I am not saying do nothing. As a friend, you can be there to offer encouragement when she asks for it.
     
  19. walsh

    walsh Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,678
    Likes Received:
    9
    I'm just wondering how your government justifies this. I mean, there must be some kind of argument for why it expires and all the limits. How would the govt reply to my situation above? Because as I see it, it's not possible to get a job without a little income. Are those people who can't get a job after a long time just considered lost causes?
     
  20. deleted

    deleted Visitor

    Considering the fact I work and have ways and means.. Im still eligible for food stamps atm.. I wouldnt get much now, maybe like $25.00 but that would be enough to buy the basics. This goes by my utility bills and what I earn. I already get gas budget cause im a veteran.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice