Should welfare recipiants have to do community service?

dasvidana · February 2011

OK, I admit that I didn't read every single post but in skimming the thread, I see three major points:
1. Some welfare recipients should do more for society for the benefits they are given. (This is generally referred to as learned helplessness).
2. Many corporations should also do more for society for the benefits they are given. (In America, we've traded royal families for corporate oligarchies :x and many of them are getting away with WAY too much)
3. Community service is a win-win for all involved. (In many countries, this is a requirement becuase it teaches skills, provides a service to address an unmet need, and fosters a sense of community-that is a shared sense of interdependence).

FiveB247x · February 2011

You seem to be missing my points. It's called comparative examples.. an example in a different area with the same exact logic, rational and thought process. Going over your head I suppose.

Anyways, I am born and raised in a city with plenty of these problems, so I'm very familiar with lots of this stuff as well. Also, in terms of contributing to the system, how you can you possibly say people don't contribute? Unless a person doesn't EVER work or pay taxes or is on welfare their ENTIRE life, they contribute to the system. Perhaps they don't contribute while actually on welfare (that particular time frame), but that's not the same in any manner of saying they never contribute. I don't understand how you can claim otherwise.. it's quite incorrect. It works the same as car insurance or similar, you pay in and it's there when you have to draw on it. Not that hard to comprehend.

HeidiJam wrote:

FiveB247x wrote:

Who says individuals get to pick and choose what programs and areas of focus our tax funds go too? Since when did this become ok to do or request? I am forced to pay for policemen who milk overtime and don't prevent crime (locally). I am forced to pay for a federal budget with hands out billions to foreign nations or supports terror and wars throughout the world. You know why we can't force otherwise, because our system doesn't account nor couldn't support it.

Also, how come you don't seem to acknowledge the fact that the majority of people on benefits contribute to the system? In your fantasy land, do people just get free benefits for their entire life and never work or pay taxes? Please do discuss this fact because it's the elephant in the room.

It seems as if you don't have much to say anymore since you are now comparing welfare recipiants to polilce officers and military budget. If you don't see the benefits of police and military then this is a lost cause. Paying into the police system and military do have benefits of us, and if not us directly then provide help to the community. Also I like how you get all up in arms when I generalize people on welfare yet you generalize police as milking overtime??? Most people on welfare don't contribute, they pay nothing into the system they are taking from. And YES they do get free benefits for who knows how long, do you think people who are on welfare after 5 years suddenly get their life together??? Its no elephant, I at least have knowledge/work in my city with these people, and my wife does daily. You are basing your opinion on what experiences. Have you ever been to an inner city area?

chadwick · February 2011

dasvidana wrote:

OK, I admit that I didn't read every single post but in skimming the thread, I see three major points:
1. Some welfare recipients should do more for society for the benefits they are given. (This is generally referred to as learned helplessness).
2. Many corporations should also do more for society for the benefits they are given. (In America, we've traded royal families for corporate oligarchies :x and many of them are getting away with WAY too much)
3. Community service is a win-win for all involved. (In many countries, this is a requirement becuase it teaches skills, provides a service to address an unmet need, and fosters a sense of community-that is a shared sense of interdependence).

the word chosen... "oligarchies" or even "corporate oligarchies"

thank you
that is a great word
and thank you to dictionaries

carry on

haffajappa · February 2011

pandora wrote:

Why wouldn't you want them to have opportunities for personal growth?

Why shouldn't they give back to the community?

Why can't they earn the respect that the working class has?

Why don't you want them to learn from new experiences?

Why do you only see negatives when the positives are so obvious?

Our society can change one person at a time, if we give them a chance to.

And community service is not considered a punishment when given by the courts.
It is an opportunity to stay out of jail or off probation by giving back to the community.

A sense of community can keep crime from happening.

Like I said, I don't usually (i don't ever) agree with Heidijam...
But he may be on to something.

I think it's important to realise not everyone abuses the system, and a lot of people need it, but some sort of community service component might not be a bad idea.

pandora · February 2011

haffajappa wrote:

pandora wrote:

Why wouldn't you want them to have opportunities for personal growth?

Why shouldn't they give back to the community?

Why can't they earn the respect that the working class has?

Why don't you want them to learn from new experiences?

Why do you only see negatives when the positives are so obvious?

Our society can change one person at a time, if we give them a chance to.

And community service is not considered a punishment when given by the courts.
It is an opportunity to stay out of jail or off probation by giving back to the community.

A sense of community can keep crime from happening.

Like I said, I don't usually (i don't ever) agree with Heidijam...
But he may be on to something.

I think it's important to realise not everyone abuses the system, and a lot of people need it, but some sort of community service component might not be a bad idea.

Me too...In my opinion Heidijam is totally correct on this subject...
his posts and logic right on :thumbup:

Heineken Helen · February 2011

he still stands wrote:

when I was on unemployment, I was looking for a job AT LEAST 40 hours a week. That's why I only got paid for 3 weeks of unemployment... I found another job.

If I had to spend 30 hours per week doing community service, it may have taken me months to find a new job... or I just would have given up and not collected unemployment and taken a job well below my skills and education.

I should also point out, that I got paid a WHOPPING $600 for three weeks of unemployment. My fucking mortgage was 2x that.

edit: oh ha... welfare... unemployment... whats the diff? Give me a break plz I've had the flu.

Agreed... when I was looking for work, I was doing at LEAST 8 hours a day either applying for jobs online, registering with more recruitment agencies, sending application letters, etc, etc, etc. and many days I was out of the house the full day at interviews and travelling all over the place to get to them. Before each interview I did at LEAST a full day researching the company so I could be 100% familiar with it. Also having to find directions to each interview and figure out where I was going. So when I quite often had 3 different interviews a day (each in different towns and cities), I struggle to understand how I could have done my 30 hours a week community service :shock: I would have been dead!

Heineken Helen · February 2011

HeidiJam wrote:

My family needs to eat, my family needs shelter, my family needs education, my family needs safety. WHy is it alright to take the money I work for (that should be going to my family) and giving it to a group who do not give back to society. Why are you not asking for the poor to give back to society??? If they can't with money, why not with their time, since they are not working. A little money from peoples pay check could make all the difference. I don't have a hard on for the poor, I expect people to be responsible for THIER OWN LIVES... I know thats a hard concept to understand here at AMT.

And there but for the grace of God go I!

Congrats on your job and congrats on keeping your job. I'm glad you have that security in your job that you will never be laid off, that none of your family, god forbid, will be struck down by an expensive illness or be in an accident. There are many many unforseen circumstances that put people in such situations. You, in all your wisdom, do not help. You and people like you simply succeed in making those already down on their luck feel like a piece of shit. So... congrats! Maybe next time I'm laid off or down on my luck I'll simply break into your house and steal your hard earned stuff. If I don't have a job and have no money for food, I can't really see any other alternative as my family too needs to eat and needs shelter. Education and safety are simply luxuries in such a world.

pandora · February 2011

Respectfully we were speaking of welfare not unemployment benefits and those who are able bodied receiving a monthly welfare check can give back to their communities by doing community service.

Heineken Helen · February 2011

pandora wrote:

Respectfully we were speaking of welfare not unemployment benefits and those who are able bodied receiving a monthly welfare check can give back to their communities by doing community service.

but trying to find a job is often a full time job in itself! What's the difference between welfare and unemployment? It's easy to judge somebody you don't know and say what they can and can't do when the reality is sometimes quite different! :oops:

pandora · February 2011

Heineken Helen wrote:

pandora wrote:

Respectfully we were speaking of welfare not unemployment benefits and those who are able bodied receiving a monthly welfare check can give back to their communities by doing community service.

but trying to find a job is often a full time job in itself! What's the difference between welfare and unemployment? It's easy to judge somebody you don't know and say what they can and can't do when the reality is sometimes quite different! :oops:

The difference is.... here in the states...when you are unemployed your previous employer paid into the fund on a state and federal level with taxes that is used to cover your unemployment.

And yes job hunting is full time!

In the thread also some here believe community service is a good thing for all people to do.

haffajappa · February 2011

Heineken Helen wrote:

pandora wrote:

Respectfully we were speaking of welfare not unemployment benefits and those who are able bodied receiving a monthly welfare check can give back to their communities by doing community service.

but trying to find a job is often a full time job in itself! What's the difference between welfare and unemployment? It's easy to judge somebody you don't know and say what they can and can't do when the reality is sometimes quite different! :oops:

I guess the problem is that in de facto a lot of people who should be looking for jobs aren't. :?
This by no means represents ALL of the people on welfare, but its a definite reality that there are those who simply don't try (or are working under the table while still getting welfare benefits)

My father lost his job roughly a year ago and went on EI (different from welfare). Lucky he had the means to find a new one and eventually start his own restaurant. I know of another person who refuses to look for work, however, and remain in government assistance. I'd argue that this is in part the culture difference, where the person refusing to work has grown up in a demographic that's, let's say, accustomed to receiving welfare, my dad has been raised to work hard (and being Japanese probably has some shame in not working). And then there is also a third example of someone I know who is on government assistance but literally has no choice to do so because no one will hire her in her poor health (due to a previous job she had involving chemicals).

The welfare issue is very complex and I think is difficult to solve... In order to motivate (or punish - depending on how you look at it i guess) those who are abusing the system you inevitably are going to hurt those who seriously need to depend on it. Like any system which is taken advantage of I guess!

It's definitely a tough issue :?

pickupyourwill · February 2011

HeidiJam wrote:

Like title says, should people receiving welfare benefits be required to do community service? Think about it, no one is spending 40+ hours a week looking for jobs/work. What about requiring them to do 20-30 hours of community service a week given out by the local city. It would be a good way to give an incentive to find work. It could also save some tax payer money. Maybe some of those poor innercity areas would not look so bad if all the people on welfare were required to clean the areas up, maintain the playgrounds. What do you think?

I think community service would do them some good. However, the single moms out there are already busy and stressed out as it is raising kids on welfare, and 20-30 hrs would be a bit much for them I think. Maybe 10-20 hrs would be a better starting point for them?

I admire the way the system has enabled welfare kids to have free daycare and health care so that their moms have less stress. However, I have also witnessed firsthand, how some of these moms take it for granted.

Its nice that the system is there to help these kids get off to a good start, but it also tends to cloud the mom's sense of reality and cost of living.

Franny · February 2011

[quote="pickupyourwillI think community service would do them some good. However, the single moms out there are already busy and stressed out as it is raising kids on welfare, and 20-30 hrs would be a bit much for them I think. Maybe 10-20 hrs would be a better starting point for them?

I admire the way the system has enabled welfare kids to have free daycare and health care so that their moms have less stress. However, I have also witnessed firsthand, how some of these moms take it for granted.

Its nice that the system is there to help these kids get off to a good start, but it also tends to cloud the mom's sense of reality and cost of living.[/quote]

Over here we have parenting payment from the govt, there is partnered and single. It is means tested, and depending on your level of payment, you also recieve a certain amount of free and subsidised chidcare hrs. I recieve the single, but it is only until ly son turns 7yo. During the time I have recieved this payment, I have either worked (paid and voluntary) or studied, and it has only been there to supplement my income when it is low. I get annoyed when I see other people complaining that they don't get enough payment, or that once thier children are over the age to which the payment ceases, they go onto another payment but are required to spend certain amount of time looking for jobs, studying etc and they have to report thier activities. I am also lucky enough to have a great supportive family who help me out and give my son a solid foundation and instill in him the importance of work and helping yourself to achieve.

Many people who are generational welfare recipients, just don't have this grounding or ethical standard to which they live by. They have been brought up on a handout, and see that as the only to live. Then you have the ones who say, " I want better than this for my life" and they get up off thier arses and do something for themselves and get oss the welfare paymments.

Back to the original question though....everyones situation is different and you can't bundle up every person who recieves a govt payment and put them in the same category.

I also think until you have been in a situation where you have had to rely on a govt payment you really cannot judge those who do.

pickupyourwill · February 2011

Sagittarius Crux wrote:

I also think until you have been in a situation where you have had to rely on a govt payment you really cannot judge those who do.

I admire and somewhat agree with everything you wrote before this. But this statement burned me a little, however. Although, I have not technically been in this situation, I have several times been VERY VERY close. I cannot stress that enough--both when my son was born and just within the last month if the situation of divorce arose between my husband and I.

Perhaps I need to start a whole new thread altogether because I have alot to say on this subject and do not want to "hijack" someone else's post with all my schpeel.

I realize that I cannot generalize everyone on welfare. Each situation is different.

In a nutshell, all I'm trying to say is that we could learn a heck of a lot from our grandparents' generation during the Great Depression--families had to move back into the original family house, sisters and brothers had to pull together to make it through--because their was no welfare back then. They took personal responsibility to get themselves out of the financial troubles they were in.

And then, decades later, welfare was started, because those families remembered damn well how hard it was to make it through those hard times--and how nice it would have been to have some gov't assistance there. It was such a simple, kind, well-intentioned program that has now been used and abused by too many people. Many are way too quick to get that assistance--sure they don't want to, and their pride always gets in the way, but they do it anyway.

pandora · February 2011

Everyone has some hours a week to help others or help the community in general.
Does everyone want to? No.

Whether on aid or not it builds a connection to others and after, makes one feel good about their community.
There is personal pride in accomplishing what you don't want to do.
We learned that as kids and its a feel good character builder.

If some one on aid is idle and abled bodied they can give back to their community,
why shouldn't they?

In my opinion we are doing no one a favor giving them
free money to live when they are able to help the community.

And for those who pay for the welfare checks it is frustrating to think nothing is required of the recipient.

Moonpig · February 2011

HeidiJam wrote:

FiveB247x wrote:

So let me get this straight... 74% of the people not doing anything wrong have to work some sort of community service because YOU are fed up with the 26%? And I'm just going by your figures here (who knows the validity of them). And you also are now in the business of telling people how many kids they can how based on income or some other secondary and arbitrary figures? Where do you get off with this stuff? Seriously. You don't seem to recognize the fact that your blaming the people (as a whole) compared to asking for reform which is necessary to fix the problems. Why punish people who are not guilty? Why not force the government to make changes and reform rather than punish 74% of innocent people? Seems very off base to say the least. If I came up with some other area in society in which 3/4ths of people were not guilty but should be forced to do things because of the bad 1/4th, I think we'd all say that's wrong. You seem to think it's ok for some odd reason?]

Again, why do you see it as punishment? Community service does not revolve around picking up trash. We should be in the business of telling people how many kids they can have if they are being supported by everyone else................... There is no positive in a situation of a child being born to a family that can't take care of it. Do you tell your children how many pets they can have or let them get whatever they want. I am trying to wrap my head around the logic some of you people have here. You guys are all about making life fair and equal for everybody and yet you condone people having kids that they can not provide the most simple of needs (food/clothing/shelter) and children that will have no future. And again its not 74% innocent people, they could just as well be milking the system also, its just 20% are on it for over 5 years, and 26% from 2-5 years.

What a statement, full of compassion for your fellow human being.

I have to always laugh when reading the contradictions in your lunacy. You believe, based purely on your own assumptions, that a full over haul of the welfare system is in order, due some abuse? hmmmmm, let me draw some parrallels - Beck style, so you can follow along (may aswell stick to what you know right?)

You want tighter regualtions on the welfare system right?, well more like the abolishment of it, but we'll stick with the tighter control argument for the minute. So welfare recepeits should be all out on the street picking up after your fat ass, and should you emerge from your homestead, that they bow in honur as you walk past?

I garauntee you that the money that is being scammed is a drop in the ocean compared to what the banks have taken from you and your neighbourhoods, why not the scathing, irrational, fearful, fire and brimstone for them?? The money being thrown into these never ending wars is the Goliath in comparrison to the savings that may be generated from your gulagesk plan.

Civil liberties be damned if you are poor my friend - however - if you own a gun (well yeee haw( that's a different matter entirely. Kids getting shot by their parents guns - fuck em, rampant school shootings - fuck em - mentally unstable people may be able to by guns and go on killing sprees, but hey - small price to pay for liberty and freedom Regulation - NNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why should I, as a gun owner be punished by those that shoot up the place. No to regulations as they would impact everyone.

So if I have this straight - if you are poor: fuck you, shut up and keep out of sight (atleast till the sun goes down, clean up the place then), if you are not poor: fuck them, eat and eat and eat, watch cable television, pick your nose, shoot your gun and talk about the good ol days, where some people knew their place in society.

You sir are an ass

P.s: your later comment about kids in poor schools not being able to read got me a bit of a chuckle, not because I find lack of literacy skills amusing, but because, when reading some of your jibberish, I wonder not about your ability to read, but the level with which you can. Given that your wife is a teacher, you might want to take advantage of some of her experience before assuming that it is only the poor that are willfully ignorant.

pickupyourwill · February 2011

pandora wrote:

Everyone has some hours a week to help others or help the community in general.

Whether on aid or not it builds a connection to others and after, makes one feel good about their community.
There is personal pride in accomplishing what you don't want to do.
We learned that as kids and its a feel good character builder.

I whole-heartedly agree. Volunteering for others and the community lets you think about others rather than yourself. I personally know of some welfare recipients who are too caught up in their own lives and could benefit from witnessing the troubles of others. I think it helps people realize that you're not off any worse than someone else--that everyone is going through something--and that we're all in this together.

Blockhead · February 2011

Moonpig wrote:

What a statement, full of compassion for your fellow human being.

I have to always laugh when reading the contradictions in your lunacy.

Try not to get so emotional next time (personal insults). Hopefully you can make a logical and reasonable argument...
As to the first sentence you wrote, you see no contradictions that the program is FORCING me to give my money to a program that provides for only a select group of people who don't provide or give back to any program?
Taking my money is much more of a punishment than any community service. Have you ever been to the inner city, If you have would you want to raise your children there? Do you think those communitys could use some community service?

_ · February 2011

HeidiJam wrote:

We should be in the business of telling people how many kids they can have if they are being supported by everyone else................... There is no positive in a situation of a child being born to a family that can't take care of it. Do you tell your children how many pets they can have or let them get whatever they want. I am trying to wrap my head around the logic some of you people have here. You guys are all about making life fair and equal for everybody and yet you condone people having kids that they can not provide the most simple of needs (food/clothing/shelter) and children that will have no future.

I'm sure you've called your representatives in Congress to oppose this then?

http://forums.pearljam.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=149569

FiveB247x · February 2011

Heidi, you keep repeating "my money"... how much of your tax money goes to welfare? I'm sure if you did the research, you'd see a very small percentage of taxes you specifically pay goes to it in comparison to other tax programs (whether local, state of federal). Also, still waiting for you to comment about how people "never" contribute to the system?

Lastly, we all can agree that community service and volunteering is a good thing. But why should any citizen be forced to do this simply because some of you think it will help people doing it? A bit condescending and judgmental to say the least. When someone can explain what connection there is between needing welfare assistance and growing as a human being in comparison or in greater scope, the rest of the American citizenship, I'd be more than welcome to hear that. Our society as a whole is full of selfish, uncaring people, and the vast majority of them work aren't on welfare or similar. So maybe trying to dictate something upon a very small minority is the wrong way to try and address the problem.

Should welfare recipiants have to do community service?

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