How do people here in NYC, on welfare of EVERY type, still afford…?
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 at
10:57 am
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Let’s see their rent is covered by Section 8, heating bill by LIHEAP, food bill by Food Stamps and WIC, daycare is paid and medical insurance paid (and with no deductibles and low co-pays). All the essentials are paid for. So any money you do acqure can be used for luxuries.
Years ago I worked at Foot Locker. The 3rd was the day all the welfare recipients got paid. We used to dread working the 3rd, and we saw the same people in every month replacing their one month old shoes.
Nicholas Kristoff wrote a column on this phenomenon just a few days ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/opinion/23kristof.html
I’m sort of split, part of it I think probably has to do with the irresponsibility of what one might call the socially poor — those who are poor because they didn’t study in school, stole things, what have you. But I think we also have to remember that in many cases, it’s all these people have. They go back to a slum. So they’ll dress well on the street because it’s how you get status in a slum community. No SUV’s, no McMansions.
The other thing is I’ve come to believe that people need a certain amount of this, that it’s a powerful drive in human nature. And you have that whether you are rich or poor. We expect that the poor will live "virtuous" lives without any entertainment or possessions. But we don’t live that way ourselves, and we couldn’t live that way.
You haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until all these illegal aliens are entitled to more health care than people who are Americans and have worked all their life.