Talk:Welfare (financial aid)

Dollar figure

The following sentence fragment:

 Federal welfare and public assistance spending, which can reach to over 400 billion dollars annually...

does not appear to be supported by the link given, unless I'm misunderstanding something. The audit given reports that number as the total amount of grants to non-federal entities, a pretty general-sounding category to me, and reading through the documents there, it is clear that they are not all somehow related to public assistance. I'm changing it until someone can give a better reference. Xezlec 19:02, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Childcare

Don't forget childcare, at least in the US. Hyacinth 04:12, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Subsidies to help the poor

See Talk:Subsidy for some ideas, under the heading Subsidies to help the poor. Some is relevant to this article. --Singkong2005 05:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion

What about adding information about the welfare in different countries around the world? / Kristoffer

Welfare in USA

Since this Wikipedia article seems to take welfare for granted, I think it needs to be pointed out that some people have been actively opposing the very existance of welfare. The President George W. Bush said he was going to help people get jobs, that not true. More people are out of work now then ever. Most people wamts to get off of welfare, but they can't because of no job experience and no work. . This is a serious problem, so to be an information source maybe the article shoud mention that there are threats to welfare. -- Chuck Marean 16:36, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the article "takes welfare for granted." It does describe it as an existing social service, which it is. Perhaps you feel the mention of welfare reform could be expanded here? (However, I don't think you are correctly interpreting the President's speach, but that's not really relevant here) --ZimZalaBim (talk) 21:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What Bush seems to be saying is that welfare recipients should perform some work or undergo training - this is not the same as saying welfare per se should be abolished. Some people DO advocate the complete abolition of welfare (which has been around in one form or other for thousands of years, though not always provided by the state) Exile 22:05, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism

Sweet Jesus this article has been vandalized. I'm editing it. Hesperides 17:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Poor article

This remains one of the worst politico-economic articles on Wikipedia. There are no citations, it's poorly written and explained, and doesn't flow. I will do my best to improve it, but we really need the help of some expert economists. Walton monarchist89 11:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I concur, but I'm not an economist and I don't know any who'd be interested in helping out Wikipedia! I'm busy with Lawyer and Expressway and Freeway, which is hard enough because these are all contentious topics. --Coolcaesar 17:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Flat Broke with Children

I encourage everyone interested in this topic to read Sharon Hays' excellent scholarly study, Flat Broke with Children, out from Oxford University Press. It's one of the most disturbing and well-researched books I've read on the subject, especially in how it shows the institution of welfare having a highly negative impact on children, too many of whom never grow up to adjust to normal society. Since this is a messy article that needs further scholarly buttressing, I've referenced Hays' scholarship by adding the following paragraph:

"Studies have shown that women on welfare have a higher incidence of behavioral problems among their children, including the onset of criminal behavior in the teen years, often involving the abuse of meth amphetamine and other drugs. While welfare reform in the U.S. over the past 15-to-20 years has sought to push welfare mothers into the workforce, in actuality very few former welfare mothers are ever able to find long-term, sustainable employment. This is true even for the welfare mother who has gone back to school for a higher degree. Welfare mothers usually face a crisis when the youngest child turns 18 and the mothers are removed from the welfare rolls."Qworty 10:57, 28 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for this important reference, for your contributions to this article, and also for our offsite email exchange. What I find so sick and shocking about these cases, and the case you identified, is the image of the fifteen-year-old girl wandering down the streets of that California beach town completely strung out on meth, and her mother sitting at home strung out on prescription pills and blaming EVERYBODY ELSE for her problems and the mess she has made of her life and her children's lives, and still unable to get a sustainable job of any sort, despite being nearly 50 years old. Just sitting there blaming everybody else! I am very concerned about children from broken, welfare-mother homes who grow up to have criminal/drug lifestyles. It is so sad, because it seems these children have been brought into the world only to do evil and to make it an even worse place. And the other kid having to drop out of high school after being beaten up by all the other kids for being a molester--absolutely terrible. Thank you for the important contributions you are making with this issue--I look forward to reading more about it, both here and in your other work.Geri Litton 23:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Geri. I agree with everything you've said about the shocking facts in cases like these. What is so sad is that the evidence shows that, in the welfare-mothering continuum, each generation is actually worse off than the previous one, both spiritually and materially, with the potential increase in drugs and criminality that you mention. These are uncomfortable facts in the cases you mention, but the facts are publicly available and must be put out there. There is plenty of legal and police documentation--LexisNexis, BTW, is an excellent resource if you can afford it. Fortunately, I can. Take care. Qworty 23:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was just thinking--in addition to all of your other work in this area, have you ever considered starting a blog on this specific topic? You can get a free one on blogspot. The polka-dot background can be a bit distracting, but the seriousness of the topic would soon overcome that limitation. On your new blog, you could cite the specific cases you are talking about here, the ones you have found through LexisNexis and your other sources, and you could invite others like me to participate in the discussions about these specific cases and case studies. It would be very good to have a repository to read about the actual case histories of the kinds of children and mothers you are talking about. (Those ones from California are truly disturbing.) Then, after you'd accumulated a certain amount of information on your blog, you could then use that blog and its referenced documentation as sources for adding to this article, "Welfare (financial aid)," and then it would become a much better article, which we all agree it needs to become. So, it would be a great way to improve the article. What do you think? Geri Litton 10:02, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let me make sure I'm understanding what you're saying here. My intention, apart from improving the article here, has been to publish a national article on this topic presenting all of the relevant research, all of the names and dates. Are you suggesting that, in addition to this, I start a blog where I can store all of this public information and then ask others to contribute information as well? That sounds like a fantastic idea! All of the research I have is public information--the teenage girl wandering the streets stoned out of her mind on meth, the kid who assaulted his friend's brother and then had to flee to the East Coast, the mother and her sister popping the prescription pills while living on welfare, the self-admitted overnight stay in the psych ward of the hospital, the junkie grandmother who became a prostitute rather than go on welfare--along with all of the relevant sociological studies full of many similar examples of the downward spiral caused by welfare--but I'm sure there are many others, like yourself, with their own ideas on this research who would be willing to participate in a blog. Then we could gather all of our sources, all of the citations with the names and dates, and use them to build up the article we are talking about here--Welfare (financial aid). Thank you for this excellent idea! Qworty 12:55, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, the "two people" having the above "exchange" are pretty obviously one person engaging in sockpuppetry intended to promote their biased anti-welfare views. Not an unusual tactic for these types to engage in. --Nat (talk) 03:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the following sentence, which I think is borderline incomprehensible, and which makes even less sense in the context of the paragraph it appeared in--if anyone wants it put back in, please let me know what you think it means and we can rewrite it:

"The justification for financial assistance to such individuals often cites the requirement for existing financial resources in order to attain tertiary education that would allow individuals to gain more opportunity for education and better employment resulting in higher income, and thus end their need for public assistance or what is known as welfare."

This article is a real mess. Qworty 07:45, 1 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Qworty. I turned to this article to get a simple history/exposition of how welfare operates in the US (comparison with other countries would be nice too). We do not need all the political baggage except concise statements as to how the system has been criticized/appreciated. "Corporate welfare" is as noted. simply a sarcastic term, no need for it here. Wikipedia IS an encyclopedia, not the OpEd page.Cherrywood 17:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WOW so biased this info is

Wikipedia, I was so sad to read this artical. Whom ever wrote it and has been editing it should be ashamed of them self. I am very fimular with the system both a ex user and working in the system. A lot of what is being said here is just plan spitful. It really should be honestly restudied and then rewritten.

spell check buddy--75.42.92.157 (talk) 07:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article as it currently stands is not bad. It's surprisingly free of POV considering the subject matter. I expected a worse article. I'm completely pro-welfare, so if this was a badly-biased NPOV article, I'd definitely notice and complain. But it's not, for the most part. --Nat (talk) 04:00, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

California's General Assistance "Hart Lawsuit"

Biased? I guess so, just as the California Hart Lawsuit discriminated against persons who were on GA during certain periods in 1977 and 1988. That's eleven years separating the two periods where no "underpayments" occurred. Yeah, OK.

The Hart Lawsuit of the 1990's was supposed to replenish the coffers of GA recipients who were said to have received sub-standard GA grants, they were awarded amounts of money that was said to have been shorted from their GA payments. There were certain years cited for underpayments; two small time periods were omitted from the suit.

Who did the math? Were those two time periods (1977 and 1988) specifically perfect? No underpayments at all in those years? Were the social workers who were employed then far superior to those in the other years, they made no horrendous mistakes? Or was there some other reason(s) that those two years were left out?

The Hart Lawsuit caught a lot of publicity a decade or so ago, now it's harder to find. And you sure don't find it here, do you?

Why is that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.245.120.255 (talk) 05:03, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]