"49 percent of all U.S. children will be in a household that uses food stamps at some point during t

(video with study author in link)

For those who will question the data, here is Robert Rector of the (conservative think tank) Heritage Foundation, he agrees but doesn't think it is a problem:

So, nearly half (49%) of Americans go on food stamps regardless of race, if you are a single parent, regardless of race, it jumps to 91%, and of even white, two-parent families, the number is 37%. (Lets just bring race to the forefront to begin with, it compliments the other thread about the fire anyways)

Does this change your opinion about food stamps and who uses them? Is this a problem or not? Glad to have them, or should that 49% of America just suck it up?

How are we doing as a country, if at some point, 49% of our citizens need help feeding themselves?

Wheres my free monies?

Everyone deserves a hand up. But there are too many who are proffesional entitlement recipients. Those are the problem. The sollution? Put them to work doing something/anything for thier keep after a pre-determined amount of time. If a person is physically cable of work, no matter what kind of kids they spit out, they need to be working. The problem is that there is an awefull strong self serving lobby the government has when so many are dependent on social services.

My friends, we may be witnessing the fall of our once great nation. masses are almost encouraged to take up welfare, the people no longer hold the ballance of power in Washington DC, the constitution has been comprimised, education has been on a downhill spiral for a couple of decades now, a "gangsta" mentality is being glamourized and perpetuated, our economic future has been hawked for quick fixes for yesterdays mistakes/greed, our economic edge on a global scale is gone and there seems to be no will to get it back. This list can go on ad-infinitum. 2012 anyone?

^^^^^^
Gold.

My only comment about the numbers is that it seems to me that the social parasites sure squirt out a lot of kids.

I like the libertarian approach - the government doesn't need to take care of us from cradle to grave. It is personal responsibility. There are always going to be people who need the help and welfare of others; a lot of these people will abuse and/or over-abuse and permanently depend on others (the government) for a hand. If it's there and exploitable people will take advantage of it.

Case-in-point: my Mom doesn't have a care in the world that she's on unemployment right now and can take a very half-assed approach in finding another job. She's actually going to Florida on her boyfriends dime in a few weeks while people like me are paying into UI so people can take advantage. I think it's wrong. New Jersey has something like a total (with extensions) of 79 weeks on unemployment. I'd like to see statistics and numbers of how many weeks it takes people to find a job after starting UI. I'd bet a lot of them are right as unemployment funds are about to dry up.

Again, this isn't to say that programs like this can't help hoist people up and get them back on their feet but far and wide, welfare and unemployment are a major failure with little regulation (at least in my state).

My state (oregon) regulates the fuck out of everything. But the abusers are so dependent, they find a way to continue. This fucks up aid to legitimate cases and there is a huge amount of good people who fall through the holes as a result. Case in point: there are so many that abuse the system and blood-suck the revenue set aside for legitimate cases such as the severely mentally ill, that the patients at state hospitals get dumped on the streets because there is no funding left to care for them. these, in turn go out and breed with the subsidy abusers that spit out kids with severe mental illnesses and the cycle repeats itself over and over again. There are so many schitzophrenes running around fucking and spitting out kids thus staying on the ADC rolls (aid to dependent children) and the beat goes on and on and on. There are as many as 4 generations per family doing this way of life in oregon (that I personally know of 4 families). does the state do anything to correct this? fuck no, they just continually complain about not having enough revenue all the time. So, must-have state services like state highway (ODOT), education, libraries, state forrestry, state hospitals,
OSP (oregon state police), the prison system all get thier funding pulled or eliminated in an attempt to keep the cycle of "boot-fuck-payday" going.
BTW: Oregon has a turbo-hyper-bleeding-heart-liberal government. Prime example of leaning too far in one direction.

So if 49% of America uses food stamps at some point, what percentage of those do you think are cheating/abusing the system?

Hard to say. Even more if you counted the people who aren't abusing per se, but rather just not achieving because their survival doesn't count on it. I'm in favor of a system similar to what Cortez used when he came to the New World - burn the ships. Fight or die motherfuckers!

This kind of 'welfare' is incredibility racialized in America.

Did anyone here actually know/realize that a whopping 37% of white kids will use food stamps?

I'd say a large portion of them are: at least half. I know a ton of people that recently went on food stamps/unemployment because they got laid off and they're not even looking for work at all. Just enjoying the free, paid vacation.

We were on food stamps when I was a kid and it was unbelievable how much they gave a family of 3. Before the card system was put in place, I remember my mother selling the food stamps to other people for half the amount in cash.

The other beef that I have with the food stamp system is what people are throwing into their carts. This is a broad generalization, but A LOT of the people on food stamps are eating the most unhealthy, horrible foods. In my opinion, they should further regulate what the people are allowed to buy. If they don't have time for work, they sure have time to cook a healthy meal.

Ha! Good point Matt. My sister and I used to live in the ghetto, as kids and again during/after college. In addition to the unhealthy food those fuckers would be buying fillet, lobster, etc. Here we were working our asses off and eating hamburger helper and ramen noodles and these fucks were eating lobster.

49% of Americans that are on food stamps - 20% of Americans that are disabled http://www.census.gov/prod/3/97pubs/cenbr975.pdf = 39% of Americans have cheated/abused the system or 59% of people who have used food stamps.

And no it does not help the image of minorities when they perpetuate the stereotype. It does not help that the system is so loosely regulated and basically the people who suck off the system seem to breed like rabbits and teach their offspring to suck off the system like they do.

How about we get some kind of program going where employers who generally hire illegal aliens like construction or agriculture and complain that they cant get legal workers and we sign up welfare recipients to work for them at minimum wage and we the taxpayers pay them the difference of the money they get for free. This is will help with the wave of illegal aliens we have to deal with and help save taxpayer money.

But there is no ambition within the government to curtail the influx of illegals. even knowing the statistics concerning sucling the healthcare nipple, the anchor baby boom, the cost to education and the burden put on the penal system. Still, no effort to curb the influx. In oregon, there's a constant government complaint that there simply is not enough money for schools. Growing need for bilingual teachers in S. Oregon | KDRV
And there is also, at the national level:
Immigration fix on hold, Obama says - Americas- msnbc.com
U.S. to pay for illegal aliens' emergency care - Health care- msnbc.com
Bill limiting health care to illegal aliens rejected - Health care- msnbc.com

So let's find out why there is no will to stop the invasion and cut the price tag of care/catering to individuals that aren't even citizens while there are natural born Americans going without the neccesities they have worked for all thier lives.
Nearly 1 in 5 workers has no health insurance - Health care- msnbc.com
Some stats:
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfareblack.htm
california alone:
http://www.dss.cahwnet.gov/foodstamps/PG844.htm
In Oregon:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2009/02/oregons_cut_of_stimulus_weight.html

All I can say is UI fuckin blows. I was on it... then tax season came and I had to pay it all back...even though ever since I started working I've been taxed on it....what the fuck is the point of getting taxed for UI on every paycheque and then, when in need, you delve into the UI and then you have to pay it back....I hate the system.

I work at a grocery store. It's always really nice to see a $500 wedding cake come through and get paid for by food stamps.

Yep.

Also, I'm proud to be a part of the 51% that isn't even though I definitely qualify. Have some pride, motherfuckers. Like Wiskas said, everyone needs help sometimes, but shit, food stamps are just too broad. It should be for only cheap shit, like the WIC program.

It nearly flips me out whenever I go into a 7-11. Most of the customers are welfare recipients and pay for junk, pure unadulterated junk like chips and sodas and slimjims with the EBT cards issued by the state. Rediculuosly high priced shit with no nutritional value whatsoever. That is an evidence of the abusers and career welfare recipient. Nearly all are overwieght/obese stuffing thier faces with junk. The state needs to separate these profesionals out and investigate those cases for abuse of the system. but do they? No, and there really is no effort to curb abuse.
The temporary cases, the one's who just need a hand up to get back on thier feet, do not spend anything at convienience stores. they go to supermarkets and shop the sales to make every friggin' penny of food stamps count. Thier cases rarely exceed one year and then they're back on the tax rolls contributing once again.

I see blatant abuse of the system, blatant use of illegal employees, blatant abuse of the medicaid system and SSD/SSI system, and hear constant warnings from state and
federal agancies that there isn't enough revenue, enough money to fund these programs. Yet there seems to be no effort to curb blatant abuse of the system.
It all serves to make me wonder why the government does not do anything about it :-k .

There was a period in my life of about 18 months where my parents, and 5 of us kids didn't have a pot to piss in. Both my parents were out of work and all but my oldest sister were still home with daily needs. My youngest brother was 10. My parents sat us down one night and explained the hard times we would be experiencing.

They explained that each of us would have to make sacrifices, and we did. I didn't see a movie, get any new toys, go anywhere fun, get any new clothes, etc. for 18 months. I ate a lot of homemade bread ground up from the wheat my parents had stored, along with other staples that my parents had stored, and whatever my dad could buy from scraping together money from odd jobs he could get.

Not once did my parents ever look for a handout from anyone, government or otherwise. Sure they had friends that would bring over clothes their kids had grown out of, but my parents never asked for it. They always managed to make their mortgage payment and keep the heat on.

That was the longest 18 months of my life, but I learned a lot. Now my mom is an executive at her company and my dad is a very successful software designer. I look at the life they live now and think man, would have been nice at that point in our lives, but I think I would be a very different person without that experience. I think our country would be a very different place if some people had the same outlook that my parents have.

And you're arriving at the conclusion that everybody else is capable of making the same sacrifices you and your family made? Everybody's circumstances are different. You shouldn't make such generalizations based on your particular experience. Saying that the government shouldn't help people because some will abuse the system is like saying that guns should be banned because some people misuse them. You're throwing out the baby with the bath water. Can the government do no good in your eyes? If so, that's called being unreasonable.

People who can't help themselves should be given a hand up, not a hand out. It needs to be strictly regulated and the bar for qualifying lowered considerably. Too many freeloaders in the system now versus people who are genuinely down on their luck.

That's my point. We shouldn't get rid of government welfare programs just because a few assholes have taken unfair advantage of them.

The government should micro-manage the lives of anyone receiving help, more so than they already do?

Not micromanage people, just take the programs back to the originally intended temporary helping hand they were/are intended to be. These programs have become just another one of many "corporations too big to fail". They've fed the monster for so long that they dare not refrain from feeding it more. The price of "feeding the monster"
is being barrowed from future generations' quality of life along with every dollar being spent by the federal government at present.

The only way I can see them enforcing welfare more than it is already is to make people jump through more hoops which requires more paperwork/programs/office infrastructure and the people to process it which in turn costs the Fed even more money... which come out of our pockets...

No micromanaging needed. Burden of proof for need should fall on the people requesting it, and once approved they should be provided food, shelter, and medical care. And not on their terms. Food supplied, not food stamps. A bunk in the poor house, not rent money for wherever they damn well please. The current system is designed to shelter people from shame or embarrassment. Lobster, Doritos, fillet mignon, Section 8 housing in rich neighborhoods... This is not what financial failure is supposed to look like. If that shit were provided to me I'd probably sit on my ass too.

While you'd be making sure the aid was used for what it was supposed to be used for, you're also accumulating costs for warehousing and shipping said food. Not sure how the poor house model would exactly work either. Elaborate if you don't mind.