Liberal Forum

Sumela » 22 Sep 2024, 8:12 pm » wrote: ↑

22 Sep 2024, 8:12 pm

Yer a cute lil fella....

You just fart and concoct blah blah blah-ism.  Embarrassing.

You know the difference between you and rKelly?

I don't. 
 
 

RebelGator » 25 Sep 2024, 5:39 am » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 5:39 am

You know the difference between you and rKelly?

I don't. 
 
 

I do. They mind social consensus of people wishing life wasn't self evident time adapting as displaced today.

You feel free to pick any typecast people defined by laws ordering social compliance or else.

RebelGator » 25 Sep 2024, 5:39 am » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 5:39 am

You know the difference between you and rKelly?

I don't.

Damn - thats quite a compliment.  Thank you.  You are too kind  
 

LowIQTrash » 25 Sep 2024, 3:53 am » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 3:53 am

I missed this post so let me address this, because your take is severely flawed.

1) The federal poverty rate is laughable based on their income thresholds, so I would take the Census’ numbers with a heaping pile of salt, just as I do with every number pumped out from the BLS - Bureau of Lies and Sh*t.

2) “We’ve had welfare for decades and the poverty rate hasn’t changed, therefore it must be ineffective.”

You cannot draw this conclusion because welfare and poverty is a complex subject. There’s a reason multivariate regression analysis exists in statistics and natural sciences.

The goal of “welfare” - at least in the US - is to keep those who are poor from sliding into extreme poverty, not to lift people out of poverty. When viewed this way, “welfare” is actually a resounding success.

(The other goal is to recycle the currency into the hands of the poor - also a success)

Aside from disability benefits, there are few if ANY welfare payments that cover actual expenses (e.g. food stamps are around $300 / month but grocery bills are easily $350-450 / month per person if you eat healthier foods and not ramen noodles and milk/cereal/Campbell’s soup 2x a day)
 
Maybe @Cannonpointer  can chime in since he has more experience dealing with poor people, I just know by doing the MATH that “welfare” is certainly not designed to lift anyone out of poverty - so the assumption is invalid

At some point, we have to accept "the numbers" as at least ball park figures. Statistics can be highly accurate or fatally flawed depending inputs. Regardless, there are 16 million more people living in poverty today than 50 years ago in the US.

Poverty can be a good motivator to rise above or a lifetime trap (perpetuated by government).  

Interesting read:

Since funding for the War on Poverty ramped up in 1967, welfare payments received by the average work-age household in the bottom quintile of income recipients has risen from $7,352 in inflation-adjusted 2022 dollars to $64,700 in 2022, the last year with available household income data. This 780% increase was 9.2 times the rise in income earned by the average American household. Since 1967 defense spending has fallen from 68% of unobligated general revenue to 37.2% in 2023, almost a mirror image of the growth in means-tested welfare benefits. As defense spending plummeted, swords weren’t beaten into plowshares, which would have increased economic growth and wages, but were instead used to fund welfare payments. As a result, the U.S. today redistributes a larger share of its gross domestic product, 29.4%, through transfers and taxes than any developed country in the world except France with 30.1%. After counting all transfer payments as income to the recipients and taxes as income lost by taxpayers, and adjusting for household size, the average households in the bottom, second and middle quintiles all have roughly the same incomes—despite dramatic differences in work effort. With the explosion of means-tested transfer payments, the portion of prime work-age persons in the bottom quintile who actually work has fallen to 36% from 68%. In the second quintile, households with a work-age adult who actually works have declined to 85% from 90%. While work effort fell in the bottom two quintiles, the percentage of middle-income households with a prime work-age person who works has risen to 92% from 86%.  The injustice of this government-created income equality is palpable. For about the same income, 2.4 times as many work-age persons in the second quintile actually work and on average work 85% more hours than those in the bottom quintile. And 2.5 times as many work-age middle-income persons actually work and work on average 108% more hours.  
 
 
 

LowIQTrash » 25 Sep 2024, 3:53 am » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 3:53 am

I missed this post so let me address this, because your take is severely flawed.

1) The federal poverty rate is laughable based on their income thresholds, so I would take the Census’ numbers with a heaping pile of salt, just as I do with every number pumped out from the BLS - Bureau of Lies and Sh*t.

2) “We’ve had welfare for decades and the poverty rate hasn’t changed, therefore it must be ineffective.”

You cannot draw this conclusion because welfare and poverty is a complex subject. There’s a reason multivariate regression analysis exists in statistics and natural sciences.

The goal of “welfare” - at least in the US - is to keep those who are poor from sliding into extreme poverty, not to lift people out of poverty. When viewed this way, “welfare” is actually a resounding success.

(The other goal is to recycle the currency into the hands of the poor - also a success)

Aside from disability benefits, there are few if ANY welfare payments that cover actual expenses (e.g. food stamps are around $300 / month but grocery bills are easily $350-450 / month per person if you eat healthier foods and not ramen noodles and milk/cereal/Campbell’s soup 2x a day)
 
Maybe @Cannonpointer  can chime in since he has more experience dealing with poor people, I just know by doing the MATH that “welfare” is certainly not designed to lift anyone out of poverty - so the assumption is invalid

Continued:

Americans overwhelmingly support an effective mandatory work requirement for able-bodied adults receiving welfare benefits. That’s evident in public opinion polls and ballot measures; in purple Wisconsin almost 80% of voters supported this in 2023. The bipartisan effort to reform Aid to Families with Dependent Children during the Clinton administration was a success.  Despite the subsequent granting of numerous waivers of work requirements, according to the Congressional Research Service, the 1996 Clinton welfare reforms reduced the rate of dependency of families on what is now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families by 80%. Six years after the adoption of the reforms, the number of program beneficiaries had fallen dramatically, the labor-force participation rate of never-married mothers had increased, and child poverty had declined. State-imposed work requirements for food-stamp eligibility in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Florida have thus far also been successful.  Demand for reform would be even stronger if the public understood how generous social-welfare benefits are. In reporting household income, the Census Bureau doesn’t count 88% of transfer payments made to households that are defined as being poor. The census doesn’t count refundable tax credits (for which the beneficiary receives a check from the Treasury), food-stamp debit cards, free medical care through Medicaid, or benefits from about 100 other federal transfer payments as income to welfare recipients. When those benefits are counted as income, 80% of those who are today counted as being poor are no longer poor, and almost half have incomes equivalent to American middle-income earners. A mandatory welfare work requirement for able-bodied adults receiving welfare benefits, a requirement that the Census Bureau count all transfer payments as income, and a mandate that all federal agencies use the same income measure when determining eligibility for welfare would be major steps toward righting the nation’s finances.  Requiring all able-bodied Americans to work as a condition for receiving welfare would do more than reduce the deficit. It would bring people back into the economy, the source of prosperity and economic independence. A job is the best nutrition, housing, healthcare, education, child-care and general welfare program. 
 
 

Cannonpointer » 23 Sep 2024, 9:55 am » wrote: ↑

23 Sep 2024, 9:55 am

What did your wife say the last time you limp-dicked her?

That's harsh, bro.

Thoughts and prayers.

  sorry bro, a weak moment...
 

Sumela » Today, 8:23 am » wrote: ↑

Today, 8:23 am

Damn - thats quite a compliment.  Thank you.  You are too kind  
 

**** you, ****.

murdock » 25 Sep 2024, 9:59 am » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 9:59 am

**** you, ****.

Everyone hates you - everyone.

...the story of your **** life

       
 

Fuelman » 25 Sep 2024, 9:42 am » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 9:42 am

Continued:

Americans overwhelmingly support an effective mandatory work requirement for able-bodied adults receiving welfare benefits. That’s evident in public opinion polls and ballot measures; in purple Wisconsin almost 80% of voters supported this in 2023. The bipartisan effort to reform Aid to Families with Dependent Children during the Clinton administration was a success.  Despite the subsequent granting of numerous waivers of work requirements, according to the Congressional Research Service, the 1996 Clinton welfare reforms reduced the rate of dependency of families on what is now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families by 80%. Six years after the adoption of the reforms, the number of program beneficiaries had fallen dramatically, the labor-force participation rate of never-married mothers had increased, and child poverty had declined. State-imposed work requirements for food-stamp eligibility in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Florida have thus far also been successful.  Demand for reform would be even stronger if the public understood how generous social-welfare benefits are. In reporting household income, the Census Bureau doesn’t count 88% of transfer payments made to households that are defined as being poor. The census doesn’t count refundable tax credits (for which the beneficiary receives a check from the Treasury), food-stamp debit cards, free medical care through Medicaid, or benefits from about 100 other federal transfer payments as income to welfare recipients. When those benefits are counted as income, 80% of those who are today counted as being poor are no longer poor, and almost half have incomes equivalent to American middle-income earners. A mandatory welfare work requirement for able-bodied adults receiving welfare benefits, a requirement that the Census Bureau count all transfer payments as income, and a mandate that all federal agencies use the same income measure when determining eligibility for welfare would be major steps toward righting the nation’s finances.  Requiring all able-bodied Americans to work as a condition for receiving welfare would do more than reduce the deficit. It would bring people back into the economy, the source of prosperity and economic independence. A job is the best nutrition, housing, healthcare, education, child-care and general welfare program.

My ex BIL back in the 80's had the perfect solution...

pay them like they do the migrant workers...

show up at a site
assign tasks whether it's ditch digging, road sweeping (with a broom) nothing glamorous...
at the end of the day, inspection required and paid accordingly...
nothing for sitting around..
you don't like it, get a job or starve...
hunger is a great incentivizer...
 

Sumela » 40 minutes ago » wrote: ↑

40 minutes ago

Everyone hates you - everyone.

...the story of your **** life

       
 

You don't anything about my life, you lying **** stain. As far as everyone here hating me: who cares?

ROG62 » 25 Sep 2024, 10:07 am » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 10:07 am

My ex BIL back in the 80's had the perfect solution...

pay them like they do the migrant workers...

show up at a site
assign tasks whether it's ditch digging, road sweeping (with a broom) nothing glamorous...
at the end of the day, inspection required and paid accordingly...
nothing for sitting around..
you don't like it, get a job or starve...
hunger is a great incentivizer...

The gist of the article I pulled this from is that these 100 plus welfare programs are the primary driver of the US debt. The "transfers" to other countries are a drop in the bucket in comparison.

I have to hand it to Mom. She got pregnant in 1958 in high school and I came along in 1961. A few years later she was single with 2 young kids.  She never collected a dime in any type of assistance. Poverty was part of my life for most of my childhood years. She managed to survive and today I give her much credit for my own success. I haven't eaten a can of tuna fish since then.

It's a touchy subject but the line has to be drawn somewhere.
 

Get in on the free ride, let someone else support you.

A growing number of men in their prime working years, ages 25 to 54, are dropping out of the workforce.

About 10.5% of that group, or roughly 6.8 million men nationwide, were neither working nor looking for employment in August 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/21/why-mor ... force.html

Fuelman » 25 Sep 2024, 11:23 am » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 11:23 am

Get in on the free ride, let someone else support you.

A growing number of men in their prime working years, ages 25 to 54, are dropping out of the workforce.

About 10.5% of that group, or roughly 6.8 million men nationwide, were neither working nor looking for employment in August 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/21/why-mor ... force.html

Mom would have a few choice words for these guys!
 

Fuelman » 25 Sep 2024, 11:14 am » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 11:14 am

The gist of the article I pulled this from is that these 100 plus welfare programs are the primary driver of the US debt. The "transfers" to other countries are a drop in the bucket in comparison.

I have to hand it to Mom. She got pregnant in 1958 in high school and I came along in 1961. A few years later she was single with 2 young kids.  She never collected a dime in any type of assistance. Poverty was part of my life for most of my childhood years. She managed to survive and today I give her much credit for my own success. I haven't eaten a can of tuna fish since then.

It's a touchy subject but the line has to be drawn somewhere.

Kudos to your mother...for most back then it was about pride...but about the tuna...    

 I'm not against giving to someone "in need", but don't make it permanent...apparently it's way too lucrative...

speaking of "in need"... a colleague's brother (Vietnam vet) hooked up with a junkie when crack was big. He burned a hole in his lung, couldn't work, went on disability...


 
 

Fuelman » 25 Sep 2024, 9:40 am » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 9:40 am

At some point, we have to accept "the numbers" as at least ball park figures. Statistics can be highly accurate or fatally flawed depending inputs. Regardless, there are 16 million more people living in poverty today than 50 years ago in the US.

Poverty can be a good motivator to rise above or a lifetime trap (perpetuated by government).  

Interesting read:

Since funding for the War on Poverty ramped up in 1967, welfare payments received by the average work-age household in the bottom quintile of income recipients has risen from $7,352 in inflation-adjusted 2022 dollars to $64,700 in 2022, the last year with available household income data. This 780% increase was 9.2 times the rise in income earned by the average American household. Since 1967 defense spending has fallen from 68% of unobligated general revenue to 37.2% in 2023, almost a mirror image of the growth in means-tested welfare benefits. As defense spending plummeted, swords weren’t beaten into plowshares, which would have increased economic growth and wages, but were instead used to fund welfare payments. As a result, the U.S. today redistributes a larger share of its gross domestic product, 29.4%, through transfers and taxes than any developed country in the world except France with 30.1%. After counting all transfer payments as income to the recipients and taxes as income lost by taxpayers, and adjusting for household size, the average households in the bottom, second and middle quintiles all have roughly the same incomes—despite dramatic differences in work effort. With the explosion of means-tested transfer payments, the portion of prime work-age persons in the bottom quintile who actually work has fallen to 36% from 68%. In the second quintile, households with a work-age adult who actually works have declined to 85% from 90%. While work effort fell in the bottom two quintiles, the percentage of middle-income households with a prime work-age person who works has risen to 92% from 86%.  The injustice of this government-created income equality is palpable. For about the same income, 2.4 times as many work-age persons in the second quintile actually work and on average work 85% more hours than those in the bottom quintile. And 2.5 times as many work-age middle-income persons actually work and work on average 108% more hours.

1) There are more people living in poverty today for many reasons, one of which is simply that population is much higher…

2) “Poverty can be a good motivator to rise above poverty.” 

That is undoubtedly true, yet poverty has always been around way before state funded welfare became prevalent, so clearly there are other factors (more important ones I would argue) in play 

3) “Since funding for the War on Poverty ramped up in 1967, welfare payments received by the average work-age household in the bottom quintile of income recipients has risen from $7,352 in inflation-adjusted 2022 dollars to $64,700 in 2022”

I don’t believe this number. How exactly is the work-age household in the bottom 20% receiving $64K in government benefits? That’s higher than the median wage of a worker. 

If you stop and think for a moment, that number is nonsense. 

I believe $64K is the TOTAL possible amount of welfare a work age household CAN receive - Section 8, food stamps, SSI disability, utilities subsidies, child tax credits, etc.

The actual amount varies greatly from household to household and the actual payment is much lower. Of these transfers, disability is undoubtedly the greatest payment amount, but it is very difficult to qualify (contrary to what idiots like Skans think).

 
 

Fuelman » 25 Sep 2024, 9:42 am » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 9:42 am

Continued:

Americans overwhelmingly support an effective mandatory work requirement for able-bodied adults receiving welfare benefits. That’s evident in public opinion polls and ballot measures; in purple Wisconsin almost 80% of voters supported this in 2023. The bipartisan effort to reform Aid to Families with Dependent Children during the Clinton administration was a success.  Despite the subsequent granting of numerous waivers of work requirements, according to the Congressional Research Service, the 1996 Clinton welfare reforms reduced the rate of dependency of families on what is now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families by 80%. Six years after the adoption of the reforms, the number of program beneficiaries had fallen dramatically, the labor-force participation rate of never-married mothers had increased, and child poverty had declined. State-imposed work requirements for food-stamp eligibility in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Florida have thus far also been successful.  Demand for reform would be even stronger if the public understood how generous social-welfare benefits are. In reporting household income, the Census Bureau doesn’t count 88% of transfer payments made to households that are defined as being poor. The census doesn’t count refundable tax credits (for which the beneficiary receives a check from the Treasury), food-stamp debit cards, free medical care through Medicaid, or benefits from about 100 other federal transfer payments as income to welfare recipients. When those benefits are counted as income, 80% of those who are today counted as being poor are no longer poor, and almost half have incomes equivalent to American middle-income earners. A mandatory welfare work requirement for able-bodied adults receiving welfare benefits, a requirement that the Census Bureau count all transfer payments as income, and a mandate that all federal agencies use the same income measure when determining eligibility for welfare would be major steps toward righting the nation’s finances.  Requiring all able-bodied Americans to work as a condition for receiving welfare would do more than reduce the deficit. It would bring people back into the economy, the source of prosperity and economic independence. A job is the best nutrition, housing, healthcare, education, child-care and general welfare program.

1) The number of people on welfare fell due to the roaring economy of the 1990s, where minimum wage / low wage jobs that only required a 10 minute interview instead of endless, bureaucratic gatekeeping + ATS resume filters implemented by quarter-wit managers and HR **** would let you pay for all your household expenses and have some left over in case you need to get rushed into ER without going into massive CC debt

When the economy sours or stagnates, which it has since 2008, people will find “creative” ways to supplement their paltry income. Welfare happens to be one of those means.

2) Since your argument is predicated on the premise that welfare has failed due to 5+ decades of the poverty rate failing to decline, let me ask you this:

Since the passage of Clinton’s welfare reforms in the 1990s designed to limit “welfare abuse,” real poverty (measured by MIT’s living wage calculations, which I accept as the real numbers, not the Census’ lying **** numbers) has risen, more and more people are sleeping in their cars / out on the streets, labor participation rate has seen a dramatic decline, and a greater % of people are reliant upon welfare more than ever before to make ends meet.

Does this mean that Clinton + Gingrich’s welfare reform is a failure? How is a greater % of people dependent now on welfare despite attempts to limit welfare access? 

 
 

LowIQTrash » 25 Sep 2024, 2:52 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 2:52 pm

1) There are more people living in poverty today for many reasons, one of which is simply that population is much higher…

2) “Poverty can be a good motivator to rise above poverty.” 

That is undoubtedly true, yet poverty has always been around way before state funded welfare became prevalent, so clearly there are other factors (more important ones I would argue) in play 

3) “Since funding for the War on Poverty ramped up in 1967, welfare payments received by the average work-age household in the bottom quintile of income recipients has risen from $7,352 in inflation-adjusted 2022 dollars to $64,700 in 2022”

I don’t believe this number. How exactly is the work-age household in the bottom 20% receiving $64K in government benefits? That’s higher than the median wage of a worker. 

If you stop and think for a moment, that number is nonsense. 

I believe $64K is the TOTAL possible amount of welfare a work age household CAN receive - Section 8, food stamps, SSI disability, utilities subsidies, child tax credits, etc.

The actual amount varies greatly from household to household and the actual payment is much lower. Of these transfers, disability is undoubtedly the greatest payment amount, but it is very difficult to qualify (contrary to what idiots like Skans think).

Does seem out of whack, I had to go back and read.

After counting all transfer payments as income to the recipients and taxes as income lost by taxpayers, and adjusting for household size, the average households in the bottom, second and middle quintiles all have roughly the same incomes—despite dramatic differences in work effort. 

    Damn, douche bags!

Fuelman » 25 Sep 2024, 3:12 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 3:12 pm

Does seem out of whack, I had to go back and read.

After counting all transfer payments as income to the recipients and taxes as income lost by taxpayers, and adjusting for household size, the average households in the bottom, second and middle quintiles all have roughly the same incomes—despite dramatic differences in work effort. 

    Damn, douche bags!

That goddamn AI!   

LowIQTrash » 25 Sep 2024, 3:16 pm » wrote: ↑

25 Sep 2024, 3:16 pm

That goddamn AI! 

I'm too lazy to go find the article again but it was from a Republican Texas politician 
 

Sumela » Today, 10:01 am » wrote: ↑

Today, 10:01 am

Everyone hates you - everyone.

...the story of your **** life

       
 

Your mom doesn't.