Early morning thoughts on welfare reform

[annatheunknown]

My thoughts go to odd places in the morning. I usually try toward the creativity, but I barely have any control when I'm solidly awake; in those first minutes between one state and another, I take what I get. This morning, I got thoughts on welfare reform.

A woman on my Facebook feed recently declared that she would never go to Walmart again due to

Comments

[javabean]

I have read a lot of studies that have found that welfare fraud is not that common or widespread. It exists, but like you said, a lot of it plays into racist and/or classist rhetoric. A lot of politicians (like Reagan) reiterated the story about an African American welfare mom in Chicago(?) who was getting multiple checks. They later found out that the woman never actually existed

[annatheunknown]

Don't be sorry! It's really good to hear that I'm not alone in my reaction.

I haven't read the studies, but I'm now interested in looking them up. I'm aware of only two cases of welfare fraud: one was on the news recently--a young woman who really needed food stamps when she first got them subsequently won the lottery, but continued to use them; and my late ex (white, upper-middle class) father-in-law who so hated his ex-wife that he he took under the table odd jobs beneath his skill level and went on welfare to keep from paying alimony and child support. It says something that these examples exist but what we hear about it the made up women of color...

Now I'm at risk of ranting. ;-)

[zaecus]

I was told by one of the caretakers of the system that the fraud is not as common as people think but more common than people want to believe, and even so, most of the cases of fraud that are proved turn out to be genuine mistakes and not intentional theft