HP Software Update Cancels Food Stamps 240
Spy Handler writes "A software update of the California welfare computer system (CalWIN) caused 37,000 Food Stamp recipients to lose their EBT (a credit card paid for by the government) benefits last weekend. According to the article, Hewlett Packard was responsible for the failed update of CalWIN, but at 8:00 a.m. today Xerox (who administers another state welfare system called CalFresh) issued a patch that reactivated the EBT cards."
Oddly written... (Score:1)
This article seems to be worded to make Xerox look good and HP look bad.
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The summary is incorrect as well. EBT isn't a credit card, it's a debit card. EBT stands for "electronic benefits transfer". Since this is LINK it isn't even a real debit card, since all you can spend it on is groceries (no soap, no beer, no cigarettes, no Big Macs).
And speaking of Big Macs, that guy cooking that Big Mac is on LINK. In the US we make the poor work, quite unlike most of Europe. LINK doesn't really benefit its recipients, it benefits its recipient's employers like fast food joints (not just t
It's not a bug (Score:2)
It's a feature.
stealth Republicanism (Score:2)
The faciststs arrived right on cue (Score:5, Insightful)
Knew when I saw the title, there would be posts praising HP for their blunder. Look, welfare needs reform, no one (sane) doubts that, but to end the whole system indiscriminately is both counterproductive and inhumane. There are many reasons why someone would need to go on welfare so learn a bit more sympathy and please stop the thinly veiled "kill 'em all" attitude.
Besides, the they fixed the mess in a day, so at most this was a major inconvenience.
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There are plenty of people who are calling its end precisely because that's inhumane. Being willing to make "hard decisions" lets people feel like they are tough without actually being personally inconvenienced. It's an interesting, if disgusting, aspect of human psyche.
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Look, welfare needs reform, no one (sane) doubts that
Er, you're a little behind the times; reform happened already. PWORA was passed in 1996, limiting recipients to two years of cash benefits with a five year lifetime limit. ADFC (Aid to Families with Dependant Children) was abolished and replaced with TANF (Transitional Assistance to Needy Families). AFDC was an entitlement, TANF is not. To get your limited time welfare check you must prove you're looking for work or going to school.
Someone who get
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Ethiopia has about as many Christians per capita as America does.
My point was that maybe Americans aren't so Christian after all. IMO Christianity isn't America's main religion, mammon is. Most Americans worship money, while God merely gets lip service.
And we treated the poor rather better when churches were handing out alms.
Churches still hand out alms, as do individual Christians. My church spent $80,000 providing every family with a kid in the poorest elementary school in the city with two week's grocer
Something isn't right here? (Score:5, Informative)
If HP Issued the patches, and xerox pushed a fix, then who's fault is it really?
One of the biggest gripes about the patch release cycles is that they are slow. Companies like HP state this is for people to be able to do full testing etc to make sure nothing goes wrong. So the real question here is who didn't do their testing on the systems before the patches go live?
It's obvious there has been mistakes made, but blaming the wrong company/person never helps the situation. There are people who currently rely on the welfare payments to make ends meet, and ensuring this type of stuff doesn't happen is critical. Regardless if you agree or not to the payments themselves, while they are valid they need to make sure they are delivered on time and correctly.
What about Xerox? (Score:2)
If HP Issued the patches, and xerox pushed a fix, then who's fault is it really?
Please mod this up. The article says Xerox administers the CalWIN program. Xerox would likely be responsible for at least smoke testing this patch, even though it came from HP.
Since the article isn't very detailed, it's hard to tell who is to blame most, but it seems at least as much blame goes to Xerox. I can think of many scenarios that would make it either companies' fault.
What if Xerox used nonstandard data structures for their CalWIN? It might not be possible for the program creator to imagine ever
EBT cards and Food Stamps (Score:5, Informative)
Okay, since most of you probably never been on it, I will give you some info.
Back before EBT was thought up, we had Food Stamps. They were basicly like paper money, but food stamps, only could be spend on food, but you got real change back. So this was abused. People would purposedly by cheap stuff to get change back to spend on drugs/alcohol.
In the 90's they decided to go to a debit like card. This had a few purposes. One was about giving people actually real money change for the food stamps, the other it was cheaper to get digital.
So they decided to go with EBT cards. The Food Stamp part of the card is only for buying Food. You can NOT use it to take money out, you can NOT use it to buy Alcohol. Only food.
They also decided to put DSHS monthly payments on it, which is why you might see using one in an ATM machine, but they are NOT using the Food Stamp part of it.
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What you say was and still is theoretical. There were rules. But as with any rules, you can always find ways around them.
My family was on food stamps briefly back in the 80s. Back then, you'd go to a Post Office to pick up the stamp booklets. Later they made you go to a welfare office that was outfitted like an armored check cashing place with the bullet proof glass. Sometimes they had mobile stamp trucks which was an armored car with a walk-up window. It would drive around town and you had to A) fi
Thanks 4 history; future = basic income (Score:2)
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html [basicincome.org]
"A basic income is an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. It is a form of minimum income guarantee that differs from those that now exist in various European countries in three important ways:
* it is being paid to individuals rather than households;
* it is paid irrespective of any income from other sources;
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I see you've never been hungry or had to do without, and some hungers are worse than others. Unless the person with the LINK card is an addict, he's going to use it for food.
But if there's still some food in the fridge and you're out of soap and so nasty you can't stand yourself, you're likely to do something like you mentioned. An alcoholic would peobably do that for a forty ounce, a cigarette addict would do it for smokes. It doesn't just look logical, it IS logical. Not everything is valued in dollars. T
Meanwhile (Score:2)
News at 10 (Score:2)
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, why not? I mean, letting your citizens starve has worked out so well for North Korea, we should try it here.
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Re:Nice! (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. Canada has exactly the same problem. I came out of high school, worked 6 years as an apprentice got my license as an electrician and have since been out of work. I don't qualify for welfare but there is gov. subsidized housing down the street with a parking lot full of 2012 pickups and BMWs. Both countries need a serious overhaul to their welfare systems.
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I came out of high school, worked 6 years as an apprentice got my license as an electrician and have since been out of work.
Really? And you've never considered going to Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, Newfieland, or Nova Scotia and be working within a week. Though you could go to Alberta and be working within two days.
Demand is high in all of those provinces for skilled trades, electricians included.
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Both countries need a serious overhaul to their welfare systems.
I know what you mean, everywhere I go I see evidence on non-stop subsidies: construction assistance, building subsidies, tax breaks and forgiveness, food subsidies, welfare and cash infusion for self-inflicted problems...
Damn corporations.
Oh, you were talking about people?
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Did you by chance go to the subsidized housing and find out who owns which vehicles? They could be visitors, they could of been vehicles that they inherited from a relative, they could be other people who pay to park their cars there.
I know which cars in my own neighborhood belong to residents, because I live here and have a set of eyes that let me learn shit like that. I assume the person you are responding to has a set of eyes as well.
Re:Nice! (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you by chance go to the subsidized housing and find out who owns which vehicles? They could be visitors, they could of been vehicles that they inherited from a relative, they could be other people who pay to park their cars there.
I know which cars in my own neighborhood belong to residents, because I live here and have a set of eyes that let me learn shit like that. I assume the person you are responding to has a set of eyes as well.
I live in low income housing. We have people with nice cars here. I do NOT know their situation, I do NOT know why they have nice cars. Any guess I make is an assumption, and unless I go and ask the people, then I'm going to keep making assumptions.
If you think someone is getting over on welfare, then fucking report them or shut the fuck up. All this other talk is just bullshit. Let's get down on welfare because someone people might abuse it. Well, welcome to life, where people abuse whatever they can, from all walks of life. Either start reporting it, or stfu about it.
Just quit making fucking assumptions on shit you really do NOT know.
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Just quit making fucking assumptions on shit you really do NOT know.
You ought to take your own advice. I'm merely pointing out that a person who lives in an area may have some insight as to whether cars parked in that area belong to residents of the area or not. I said nothing whatever about whether welfare recipients should be driving "nice" cars or not. But hey, nice rant.
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If you learned to spell you might be able to get a job. Aloud means audible, allowed is what you are permitted.
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Informative)
In the US at least, some apartment complexes have a mixture of subsidized and unsubsidized apartments.
A previous coworker of mine lived in one, and while he wasn't on federal assistance, he did buy a nicer BMW. I used to joke that when people saw his car pull into his apartment building, they'd bitch and moan about welfare leaches.
He's trolling (Score:2)
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I'm fine with welfare but they need to crack down on it. Alot of people are on it that don't need to be!
You know this for fact? If you know people that are on welfare that shouldn't be, then report them.
If you don't know anyone that is taking advantage of Welfare and are just saying this because you hate paying taxes. Fuck off.
People like you are worse then those who take advantage of Welfare.
If you got proof, bring it. If you don't, fuck off.
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It's easy to see all around you. It's all these unmarried couples that live together with kids. Man goes out and makes money, while wife stays at home crying about being a single mother. Or the man works under the table.
BTW, common sense has it that people who commit fraud are worse than people who simply have opinions.
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I said opinions. Not options. They are different words with different meanings.
There is little to report in cases like this. It would be defamation at the least without having hard evidence. This discussion was about the welfare system in the USA.
You see, in America there is this principle of innocent until proven guilty. Not to mention, people have rights to privacy. As a private citizen, I don't have the right to investigate other peoples private actions. Most of the funds for welfare come from the
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Yeah, I'm sure there gonna listen to someone who reports people on a regular basis. There's at least seven people I could have reported. I know what would happen, without having any solid proof other than my observations they would write me off as a nut case sick of paying taxes. Sound like someone you know?
There is no crime in people having opinions. Something you don't seem to understand.
Re: Nice! (Score:2)
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Greetings and salutations.
I have a number of friends that work in the Department of Human Services, so, Let me give you some facts. First - DHS has an entire department of investigations whose one job is to track down and deal with cases of fraud. It does not matter if you report ONE example, or a hundred. However, you cannot simply say "I think that so-and-so is committing fraud". Rather, you have to give a little more specific information. For example, if you know someone who talks about the
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Well, I can't believe most of what that guy said, but I do believe him about he weed. I know dope dealers on food stamps, none of which is what I'd call "poor", but then, they don't collect taxes on dope sales. Not in Illinois, anyway.
Of course there's abuse, but these assholes would let people starve just to stop the abuse. That's stupid and cruel.
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There will always be people who exploit the system, any system, but at some point the costs will be higher to keep the system 'pure' than it is catching every single last abuser.
Same applies to millionaires and taxes (but lordy lordy, we can't crack down on THEM abusing the system!)
Why not explain, in detail, how much is being wasted each year?
Citation needed (Score:5, Insightful)
So I say again, citation needed.
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Hell, when I was typing this I had a ready made phrase (welfare queen) to describe people who cheat on meager welfare payouts, but I can't
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For those who don't know, the Thrive Movement is basically a Unified Theory of Tinfoil-Hattery.
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Your brother, like me, is honest.
I was in his situation. I couldn't get food stamps and a number of other things I saw people who were much better dressed and who drove up in much nicer cars were obviously able to receive. I wasn't getting offered the "next job that came along" because nothing on the list fit my skillset.
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Interesting)
A database of 200 million Electronic Benefit Transfer records from January 2011 to July 2012, obtained by The Post through a Freedom of Information request, showed welfare recipients using their EBT cards to make dozens of cash withdrawals at ATMs inside Hankâ(TM)s Saloon in Brooklyn; the Blue Door Video porn shop in the East Village; The Anchor, a sleek SoHo lounge; the Patriot Saloon in TriBeCa; and Drinks Galore, a liquor distributor in The Bronx.
DOZENS of withdrawals from 200 MILLION records. If every government program was abused on the order of less than 1 thousandth of 1%, then we'd all be sitting pretty
and there is no proof that the money was actually spent on alcohol (likely perhaps, but probably not in all cases). But regardless, any program that wastes less than 1 hundredth of 1% (and here it was even less) is a raging success.
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any program that wastes less than 1 hundredth of 1% (and here it was even less) is a raging success.
I don't accept that this program wastes less than 1%.
I guess the argument is that if someone's on public assistance, they shouldn't also visit any Saloon or Porn shop, for any reason, and a cash withdrawl, is evidence they (or someone with their card) was present there, because these places provide recreational activities, and anyone receiving government aid shouldn't get to have any recreation (blah bl
Re:Nice! (Score:5, Insightful)
Food assistance isn't for the poor, it's to make sure the poor aren't poor, starving, and looking to rob/kill the rich. The total cost of all food assistance programs is about $75B or .5% of GDP, a small price to pay for a calm underclass.
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Very well stated. While there are people who abuse welfare there are many more people who do need it and society as a whole benefits from them getting it.
I think universal health care is similar. Not only do I like the idea that everyone has access to proper health care, I think it makes for a better society. As a Canadian I'm amazed to see the number of people in the US who reject the idea of socialized health care.
I like the following quote that I've seen a number of times: I like paying taxes, with
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What rational argument? There's only two "arguments" that ever come up:
"Hurr, durr, welfare queen derp" which has - since its inception - been a patently false concern.
"Herpaderpaderp smartphones lolololol" - yes, people who become unemployed actually have cellphones that they bought during their previous employment! What's more, they tend to keep them, since skipping out on the contract is generally catastrophically expensive when you have no income, and you generally need a phone to get a new job! Fuc
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(food stamps aren't legal for restaurant/prepared food)
In California they are. Most of the fast-food restaurants here accept EBT.
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I guess they just succesfully argued that what they serve cannot be considered food by any accepted standard.
Re:Nice! (Score:5, Informative)
To say that "People can use EBT cards to buy legit things and then trade them for other goods" and that's a problem is leaving out the part where SNAP != EBT which also includes disability payments. SNAP, aka food stamps, can only purchase food - you must be able to ingest it to bill it against a SNAP account. If you see someone using an EBT card to pay for non-food items then they are on the "cash side" of the card. You see the state uses the same financial network (EBT - Electronic Benefits Transfer) to handle cash disbursement for other social programs such as disability. Rest assured you must be extremely fucked to get cash distribution via EBT.
If you see someone using an EBT card to purchse tide you should perhaps feel sorry for their condition instead of feeling like you need to put a stop to it. Does a disabled person not get to enjoy other perks of life such as video games? Who gets to decide what they can and can not purchase with their income (remember: this is not food stamps, this is their revenue source).
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SNAP, aka food stamps, can only purchase food - you must be able to ingest it to bill it against a SNAP account.
Which still doesnt solve the problem of either A) trading the food for money or B) unscrupulous shopkeepers ringing up food when you come to the register with beer.
Both are real, actual things that happen, and are real, actual concerns.
If you see someone using an EBT card to purchse tide you should perhaps feel sorry for their condition instead of feeling like you need to put a stop to it.
Theres no need to launch into an attack on me; I never said I routinely attack people for purchasing tide with an EBT card. If I see someone is using an EBT card that is a personal matter; its my business only on a societal level, which is why Im addressing it in broad terms
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At what point does a smartphone seller have enough Tide detergent?
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No but the lists would prevent the people I see buying nothing but junkfood and soda.
No it doesn't it just stops them from buying liquor and cigarets.
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We know better than to try to argument with you. You hold a position in which you are emotionally invested. All we have is a bunch of statistics showing how welfare helps out the entire population, examples of people who really needed the welfare and who are now back on their feet and have become productive members of society and historical accounts of the fortunes of welfare states against non-welfare states. We know that these facts are no match for your completely made up stats and feelings of loss towar
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you seem like a reasonable, compassionate person.
(actually, no you don't!)
I can tell you never had to go thru tough times, a long-term layoff, tight job market or life problems that emptied your savings.
but go ahead and blame poor people for being poor. lots of people love to push people while they're down. its fun, right?
I hope you get a dose of bad luck in your life. it will convert you to being a bit more compassionate.
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And apparently vote, judging by what happened in November.
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Now you're on the right track Sparky!!
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Re:Nice! (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.whptv.com/mostpopular/story/Sixteen-PA-residents-pleaded-guilty-to-welfare/xAQekhwrt0ar1uqAE18a6g.cspx [whptv.com]
http://www.wbng.com/news/local/Broome-County-Arrests-12-on-Welfare-Fraud-Charges-185548162.html [wbng.com]
Those are both CBS affiliates. I've seen 60 minutes also do an expose on food stamp fraud a few years back. They videotaped people exchanging food stamps for drugs at a store in Chicago. It's so common no one even blinks about it anymore. If you haven't seen news about it on even the left wing tv affiliates then you just don't watch the news or you selectively listen to it.
Did it ever occur to you (Score:4, Insightful)
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that maybe, just maybe these people's drug problems are caused by poverty, instead of the other way around?
That is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life.
I suppose Paris Hilton's crack problem, Charlie Sheen's drinking problem, and who knows what, are all caused by poverty, too?
If you are trading money - or the things you need to survive, like fucking food - for drugs, then yes, those drugs (or at least, the decisions to buy them) are indeed directly responsible for your poverty. Because, you know, the absence of both money and the necessities of life, like food, is kinda how we define poverty.
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Poverty and drugs have a complex relationship. If you're in a depressed area, where there's not much work and even less to do, I'd suspect you're more likely to be slipping in to alcohol and drugs to medicate yourself and kill time. Doesn't have to be expensive. The local homeless alcoholics manage to find pretty cheap hard booze. In a previous apartment I had the joy of a bunch of them sitting nearby for their daily drinking sessions, and from the bottles and cans left behind got a pretty good insight in t
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if the system was much better, I wouldn't be surprised if there were people committing fraud and finding loopholes. The more relevant questions would be: what portion of people on food stamps are committing fraud (and what portion of their food stamps... there is a difference between using all of it for something illegally, and just using a small fraction while still needing the rest for food), what ratio of false negatives to false positives is acceptable (in other words, what number of people is it acceptable to let go without food because they got caught up in something meant to target those commit fraud), and how much does it cost to implement improvements versus what is loss to fraud.
There is a lot of room for improvement to the current system. Although at some point, you would be stuck with something like "Would you rather 10% of the people who get their food stamps not need it, or would you rather implement idea XYZ to reduce that to 5%, while causing 2% of legit users to loose food cards and saving only 10% of the cost of just giving food stamps to that segment that doesn't need them." And at any point, there is going to be a portion of people say, "It is more important that 0% of people get money they shouldn't than any number of needing people get the money, it is far better to remove a system with any amount of abuse regardless of how much benefit it also provides."
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For those of you outside the U.S., we have those who need financial help to get food. This in a county that exported about 3.5 million tons of rice. The government run help program is called SNAP. Through the SNAP program, the U.S. government is now spending roughly $5.6 billion per month on food assistance helping out 41,836,000 Americans. Doing the math that's $5,601,600,000 (monthly cost) / 41,836,000 (Americans on food assistance) = $133 per person
I think a lot of people like to beat up on those tha
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So no real source of news allowed than? With the ones you listed, we are only really left with 'Corporate approved' media.
FTFY
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Sure, why not? I mean, letting your citizens starve has worked out so well for North Korea, we should try it here.
Note to self:
Bring up North Korea (one of the poorest countries in Asia) instead of South Korea (one of the richest in Asia) as an example of how to run or not run a country.
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Sure, why not? I mean, letting your citizens starve has worked out so well for North Korea, we should try it here.
Oh yeah, if there's one thing California is known for, it's not giving out benefits to everyone and anyone despite any budgets or tax levels.
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Insightful)
Because some people abuse a system, that we should shut an entire system down and let people starve instead.
Right.
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
Yes, yes you are. Civilization is a lot better than the alternative.
--
BMO
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Because some people abuse a system, that we should shut an entire system down and let people starve instead.
Right.
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
Yes, yes you are. Civilization is a lot better than the alternative.
--
BMO
Because some people abuse a system, we should punish the abusers and fix the system. We are currently rewarding the abusers and expanding the broken system.
That's retarded on the face of it, you don't even have to start the debate of whether or not the system should exist in the first place.
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These stats are for USA Unemployment Insurance, not welfare payments. Both are large programs, but I don't know if their fraud rates compare.
"Finally, $580 million of the $2.45 billion in total UI overpayments for 2001, or 1.9% of total UI payments for that year, was attributable to fraud or abuse within the UI program. By any standard, these figures add up to a lot of money. That is why the Department of Labor has been hard at work on t
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Now, I don't know where you get your $2.45 billion figure from, but if $2.45 billion was 1.9% of the total cost of UI as you claim, then UI only cost the taxpayer $127 billion in 2001 while it costs $520 billion today.,
Are unemployment payouts really 4 times higher now than in 2001? Whats going on?
A quick search reveals that in 2001, unemployment hit 4.9%
As of September 2012, unemployment was at 7.9%.
1.6 times as many people on unemployment, but 4 tim
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Insightful)
Are unemployment payouts really 4 times higher now than in 2001? Whats going on?
High paying jobs are going overseas, and we're importing massive numbers of workers on visas (H1-B et all). The media doesn't mention any of this any more than they mention the Koch Brothers letter to Boehner telling him not to vote on Sandy relief. Everything you hold dear and love is being taken away from you by the investor class.
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The H1B program is great, bring smart people from around the world here to work and expand our economy and tax base. If you don't let the companies bring the workers here they'll just move the jobs to where those workers are and the US will lose out on monetary velocity and tax base. But please, keep up the good fight against those damn foreigners, it makes you look so smart.
Read your source again - that's $520B for 5 years (Score:3)
Are unemployment payouts really 4 times higher now than in 2001? Whats going on?
It's $520 billion for the last 5 years, making the average per year cost $104 billion. [cnn.com]
And the numbers are shrinking.
In December of 2011 accumulated costs were $434 billion. [cnn.com] Making 2012 $18 billion below average.
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Insightful)
fraud done by poor people: pocket change in the US scale of money.
fraud done by ultra rich: BILLIONS and not at all pocket-change!
if you want to 'fix' something, there's more justice to be had by going after banksters and other neo-mobsters than the poor folks just trying to get up into the middle class.
I'm sorry, but I have a hard time 'cracking down' on those whose lives are at poverty level and have very little hope of pulling themselves out.
abuse at the welfare (etc) level is just noise-level. we have bigger fish to fry, IF we wanted to. but the protected rich are untouchable. sigh..
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I don't have any problem feeding people who honestly need help but anyone except an idiot knows the system is broken. Why everyone starts foaming at the mouth anytime anyone mentions fixing the fraud in the system is beyond me. No one....well...most people don't want anyone to starve but we don't like being taken advantage of either. Why can't you see that?
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It's obvious- the ones foaming at the mouth are the ones who are the ones taking advantage of the system.
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Two words: soup kitchen.
Sorry, but there's no reason why this is no longer a tenable option.
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But we have soup kitchens.
They're not enough. They're not enough for the housebound or those who *do* work but not make enough to feed their family and can't make it to the soup kitchen for the scheduled time.
They are only *part* of the solution.
But hey, this is Slashdot where everyone is 20 something and has a job paying $300k/yr so everyone should be able to get a job like that.
*throws up hands*
--
BMO
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Insightful)
getting fucked in the ass by a government that takes more and more
Hey troll, tax rates are lower right now then they've been in a long long time. They were a good bit higher in Clinton's day, and it keeps on going higher when you go back a lot further. That's the problem. We are spending, but not paying for it.
Look how much we payed back in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's.
Ever since old Ronny took office, we've had low taxes, and been driving the deficit up and up because we aren't paying anywhere near what we used to.
Government taking more and more, what a laugh. You must get all your 'information' from FAUX news.
http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/history-of-federal-individual-1.html [ntu.org]
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Sorry, I just did. Adjusted for inflation in reverse, I would have paid 14% less (of my total income!) on federal income in 1980 than I do today (21% vs 35%) - or should I say, in 2013.
Nice try, though.
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Re:Nice! (Score:5, Informative)
I remember when food assistance programs meant you got your monthly allotment of government welfare cheese and other staples delivered to your door. im all for taking it back to that time. The 'modern' method of distributing benefits definitely opens the way to fraud, especially when you can get cash from the ebt card at casinos. It has made fraud so easy now many of the benefits are not going to their intended purpose. However, there are not too many crack dealers that will trade a block of cheese for drugs. That is the way it should be. Keep the benefits, just change the method of delivery. i think that would help more than anything. im tired of working hard to fund some other's drug or gambling habit with this kind of abuse.
You have no idea what a EBT is do you?
EBT have 2 uses. 1 use if for food stamps. That money on the card for food stamps can ONLY be used to purchase food. You can NOT use it to take money out of your food part.
The other use of EBT is putting on money from services like DSHS.
For example, before I was on disability I got $330 a month to live on from DSHS, and $190 in Food stamps (food credit really). I was able to take out $330 using an ATM, but the $190 was just for Food.
That money I got monthly doesn't matter if I got it on the EBT card, or if I got it in a check, it was my money to spend. And it has nothing to do with Food Stamps.
So, if you saw a person using a EBT to take out money, he/she was doing what they are allowed to. They are NOT using their Food Stamps to get money from an ATM. That is NOT even possible.
So before you start spouting off about what you saw, trying learning a bit about it first before you make accusations that are NOT true.
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I'm sure food stamps are abused on occasion, but I can't imagine that this happens on a large enough scale that anyone should care.
According to the USDA, the average (nation-wide) food stamp benefit was $133.42 per month. That's $4.39 per day! At a maximum, an individual can get $200 per month, or $6.57 per day.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/18SNAPavg$PP.htm [usda.gov]
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1269 [cbpp.org]
How the fuck could any of these people have anything left over after buying the minimum amount of food
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Worth a shot. Seems like very time I go to the grocery store, someone is in front of me loading up on Oreos, Doritos, soda, and ice cream and putting it on the food stamp card.
The most calories for the least amount of money. Also, the least amount of necessary preparation time, as many of those recipients work more hours than you do.
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Unions?
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California almost trimmed the state budget!
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1 out of 7 people receive SNAP benefits, and this costs each household in America $631.58/year
Whats sad to me is people that don't want to include the numbers while declaring that things are cheap, all-the-while admonishing others for not doing math. Really?
I'm curious what you thought that you were hiding by not revealing the "basic math" numbers to us.
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There is no shame in shopping at Wal-Mart.
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The half of the country living on welfare need to be out working all day in orange coveralls.
Half the people you know are on welfare?? I don't think I know a single person on TANF, although I do know quite a few who work for an almost living that get LINK, and a few disabled people on SSI and SSD.
You're sick. You need a good bitchslap from a homeless, mentally disabled combat veteran, asshole. You did know that 1/4 of all homeless men are former combat veterans? No, of course you didn't, Fox and Rush would
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I'm a veteran and know a lot of veterans (mostly vietnam veterans). I'm very glad that veteran homelessness is dropping, applaud WalMart for saying they'll hire any veteran that applies, but the US treats its veterans abysmally. One fellow I know needs viagra to make love to his wife, but the VA will only prescribe cialis, which doesn't work for him. I hear worse stories all the time.
I'm troubled by the new statistic that says more Afghanistan soldiers deaths are by their own hand rather than by enemy fire.