http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=635548

No guarantee, though, that he’d get any check. Most likely when he went to apply for welfare the caseworker would take one look at his education level and his male-ness and say, “sorry, but you’re work-ready. No money for you!”

Now, if Farhat wants he can appeal that illegal decision. So he goes through the hearing process, and hopefully is able to prove that he is, indeed, unable to find outside work, or that one or more of his children is so disabled that they are a barrier to him finding outside employment.

So now here is Farhat, a month into his 3-month experiment, still without any money, but at least he’s won his hearing against the welfare department. What next? Wait for his check, which by now is a very pressing matter indeed, since he’s been without any income for a month. Hopefully his check will come within the next month, although not necessarily. And depending on what time in the month he applied, he might get a full check, or he might get a half month’s check. Now he’s going on 2 months without income.

After 3 months, ideally he’ll get at least one check covering a full month. If he lives in Wisconsin he’ll be getting either $673 or $628, and he’ll be able to pay his back rent (hopefully before eviction), pay his delinquent bills, maybe pay back that $20 he borrowed from his friend 5 weeks ago, and if he’s lucky have enough left over to get a single cigarette from the corner store, to soothe his very stressed nerves. Cuz he is indeed feeling very stressed by now.

Lucky for Farhat that he knows he only has to tough it out for 3 months and he’ll be rescued. Imagine single moms (and a few dads) who have to live like that for months at a time, until they’re so far behind on their bills that they may never get ahead.

If, at the end of that time, your experience supports the idea that this is the easy life, you can, I suppose, decide to continue it and be a Gentleman of Leisure or go back to your normal way of life if you prefer*. Otherwise, you will have gained insight into a way of life that I really think you have no understanding of right now.

*Though the very fact that this IS just an experiment which you CAN quit if you want to or if it gets too hard makes it much less stressful for you than for the average welfare recipient, who has no choice about accepting aid: he or she needs it to survive, end of story.

well car, there’s always hope. Given Farhat’s apparent youth (and I keep wanting to say “his”, not knowing Farhat’s gender, but you know, he talks with that male sense of entitlement, so probably) anything could happen in the next couple of decades. And if it doesn’t, if he stays as “supercilious” and oblivious as he is now, then he’ll be yet another welfare-bashing dick.

kactus,

I second Car’s statement on your generosity of spirit in the face of patronizing ignorance.

Though youth and being male may be factors for such ignorance, I’ve heard similar statements delivered in nearly the same manner from relatives and people from a variety of ages and genders.

This is especially the case with some upper-middle class maternal relatives from the suburbs. In fact, some of the most judgmental and ignorant comments about people who are on public assistance or generally poor that I’ve heard from relatives came from two aunts. Some of those comments were directed at my parents and other poorer relations whom they saw as “failures” for being “less successful” than they were. It was one reason why I did not get along with them during my adolescent years.

From what I can surmise, they view most manifestations of poverty as the logical consequence of poor individual choices and thus, those afflicted should suffer its adverse affects only occasionally relieved by “successful” members of society with “charity” on their humiliatingly patronizing terms.

Not really, since that works out to 50 cents per American per year. This developmental aid program (which would be in Pakistan, not Afghanistan) does have quite a few serious problems, although this is obviously not the thread to discuss them.

About 0.5% of the U.S. budget goes to foreign aid, the vast majority of which is military foreign aid. So distress and anger over all the money we waste on non-military foreign aid is badly misdirected, and makes about as much sense as, oh, all the distress and anger over the money we waste on welfare cheats. And has a pretty similar mentality behind it, of focusing on the relatively small amount of money spent trying to help people, compared to the relatively large amount of money spent on killing people and helping corporations.

I’m sorry. I was wrong. $750 million is just chump change. Gosh, let’s just boil it all down to averages. Fitty-cent ain’t no big deal. Hearts and minds must be a lot cheaper than I first thought. Heck, let’s just put’em in the clearance bin.

Thanks for clearing that up.

I’m always amazed by the degree of jealousy shown by the welfare-haters. They really seem to feel that their piece of the pie is being stolen by those greedy poor folks, and if the poor folks would just get their own pieces of pie everything would be dandy. But they never stop to think about the wealthy, who steal the whole pie, the ingredients, and the pie-making factory to boot.