It's been going on in Britain for a while. Now hundreds of men in Toronto are receiving welfare for each wife. Is this what Rowan Williams has in mind?
posted on Feb 8, 2008 - View this thread

Cuba: The Accidental Revolution. Hasta la revolucion ? Maybe, but some revolution is dictated more by need than by politics. In this documentary, we are shown how Cuba is converting from oil-subsidized agricolture to organic agricolture with remarkable results. The presence of a police state isn't conveniently forgotten, as much as the facts that public education, public healthcare and limited, regulated free enterprise markets are helping Cubans in the transition from the illusion of freedom in a subsidized economy to a far less comfortable and rich, but more sustainable and independant economy.
posted on Oct 26, 2007 - View this thread

Indian Government proposes bill to penalize children for neglecting their aged parents.
posted on Feb 23, 2007 - View this thread

Children for Hire.
posted on Feb 9, 2007 - View this thread

Multiple orgasms trap benefit cheat is one Times headline that I wish I had written myself. The story is so far as I can tell quite true; The Daily Mail has it too, under a much duller headline. On the other hand, it does have readers grumbling at the end: "The more benefit cheats they find - the better. I have two slipped discs, have to sleep sitting up and am entitled to, yes, you've guessed - nothing." writes one, as if Ms Byron were being subsidised for her orgasms.
posted on Aug 24, 2006 - View this thread

Consider the scorecard. During Clinton's two terms, the median income for American families increased by a solid 15% after inflation, according to Census Bureau figures. But it rose even faster for African Americans (33%) and Hispanics (24%) than it did for whites (14%). The growth was so widely shared that from 1993 through 1999, families in the bottom fifth of the income distribution saw their incomes increase faster than those in the top 5%. By comparison, under President Reagan in the 1980s, those in the top 5% increased their income more than five times faster than the bottom 20%. Likewise, the poverty rate under Clinton fell 25%, the biggest eight-year decline since the 1960s. It fell even faster for particularly vulnerable groups like blacks, Hispanics and children. Again the contrast with Reagan is striking. During Reagan's two terms, the number of Americans in poverty fell by just 77,000. During Clinton's two terms, the number of Americans in poverty plummeted by 8.1 million. The number of children in poverty fell by 50,000 under Reagan. Under Clinton the number was 4.1 million. That's a ratio of 80 to 1. Clinton's Biggest Gains Not on Conservative Critics' Radar
posted on Jun 29, 2004 - View this thread

Confessions of a Welfare Queen. How rich bastards like John Stossel rip off taxpayers for millions of dollars. By John Stossel.
posted on Apr 5, 2004 - View this thread

Poverty and the Welfare State: Dispelling the myths This working paper (PDF file) states that "debates on poverty and welfare in Britain are full of myths." Among them (culled from the exec summary, since I'm still reading the paper): 1. The belief that poverty is long term and is passed from generation to generation is not consistent with the evidence. 2. Poverty is not caused by people behaving differently (although people act differently after they become poor), or by people having too many children, or by racial differences. 3. Scare stories about spiraling costs and abuse are greatly exaggerated. 4. Welfare does not encourage dependency. Just in case anybody's writing a major paper over the holidays or anything. I found this via the fantastic Canadian Social Research Links web site. (And if this came up in a previous post, I apologize; I searched on just about every relevant term I could think of.)
posted on Dec 30, 2002 - View this thread

Corporate Welfare and Social Welfare. Which is the most egregious? A bill in Congress to address welfare got comments from GWB during a political fund raiser in SC. Does this statement make any sense to you? "In the way they're kind of writing it right now out of the Senate Finance Committee, some people could spend their entire five years on welfare - there's a five-year work requirement - going to college. Now, that's not my view of helping people become independent, and it's certainly not my view of understanding the importance of work and helping people achieve the dignity necessary so they can live a free life, free from government control." -GWB- I always thought education WAS the key to escaping poverty but the "education President" obviously disagrees. I'd really appreciate your comments on the bill and this article.
posted on Aug 1, 2002 - View this thread

Bush wants $100M to urge welfare moms to marry What will he want next $100M to urge Atheists to become Christians.
posted on Jan 27, 2002 - View this thread

MOVE! Get out of our county! Get off our welfare rolls! Here, take this money and get out.

Tulare County, California, pays unemployed to move elsewhere, anywhere, and people love it. One woman says the grass is greener in Arkansas, of all places.

Sounds like a win-win, eh? (NYT link)
posted on Jun 18, 2001 - View this thread

An exchange between James Fallows and Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

[L]et me explain that your book is the account of three month-long episodes of attempting to live entirely on earnings from $7- or $8-per-hour jobs. You show up in low-wage cities and try to get on your feet, like someone "graduating" from welfare to work. One of many intriguing aspects is the juggling of three challenges: landing a job (not that hard, in the "tight" economy of the late nineties); doing the job (sometimes quite hard, as you make vivid); and finding a place to live (nearly impossible, for reasons we will get to).

The material questions are 1) Do we care? 2) What should we do about it? The author makes a couple of suggestion a couple of links into the article. What do you think?

link via adam
posted on May 8, 2001 - View this thread