[fredfoobar42]

This is ridiculous. The stereotype of welfare recipients as lazy, unemployed people is completely inaccurate. I'm a former Welfare Clerk, and the vast majority of welfare recipients I dealt with---in a district that covered West Philadelphia---were employed.

The work varied: childcare, retail, and hair salon work were the most common, but there were also school staff, church secretaries, and construction workers who needed welfare. Some of these jobs were under the table, but most were legitimate, W-2 jobs. If anything, my district had a higher percentage of people not employed, as we covered the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University campuses---so there were often grad students applying along side single mothers working in hair salons.

[devonkim]

This is also consistent with those on food stamps. The last statistics I read that the majority were employed, disabled, or students.

[danjayh]

If the vast majority were employed, then the proposal to require able-bodied individuals to work as a precondition for receiving welfare should only affect a small minority of people who have chosen to live off the system. Why is that ridiculous?

[yummyfajitas]

A quick google search suggests a significant portions of welfare dollars flow to non-workers: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/04/13/get-a-job-most-wel...

36% of families receiving TANF (which is what this article discusses) work.

Why not spend 30 seconds googling to determine if your anecdotes reflect reality?

[fredfoobar42]

Typically, TANF benefits went to the elderly, disabled, or to new mothers. Do you really want to force them to work the gig economy?

Also, don't forget that the "T" in TANF means _temporary_.

[yummyfajitas]

If only the authors of the article thought of that. Then they might have written this:

Work requirements, however, should not unfairly punish people who are physically or mentally unable to complete gig economy jobs. The gig economy can often provide flexible work for those previously considered unable to work, but exemptions would still be available as needed.

Why not read the article to see what it actually advocates rather than criticizing some unrelated idea no one advocated for?

[pjc50]

The process of assessing fitness to work then becomes much more controversial; there is a crackdown; genuinely disabled people fail to tick the right boxes; as their money supply is cut off, so is their food; this results in starvation, suicide, or at the very least exacerbation of their health problem.

At least that's how it's turned out in the UK.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/27/thousands-die...

[yummyfajitas]

Your link provides no evidence of causality or even correlation between welfare cuts and death, or any evidence that even a single person starved. Strangely, the activists hyping these numbers don't seem to have even a single coroner's report of a person where cause of death is starvation.

Clinton's welfare reform program in the US did not have this effect. The main effect was a reduction in the welfare rolls and an increase in the labor supply.

[anon1385]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1232911/Mother-leaps...

>A pregnant woman jumped to her death while clutching her baby son after her benefits had been stopped, an inquest heard. Philosophy graduate Christelle Pardo, 32, plunged from the balcony of her sister's third-floor flat, killing herself and five-month-old Kayjah.

>She became pregnant shortly afterwards, but in December her JSA was withdrawn because she was within 11 weeks of giving birth and was considered unable to work. As a result she also lost her automatic entitlement to housing benefit. The mother, from Hackney, east London, was advised to apply for income support but her application was rejected because the Department of Work and Pensions said she had not proved that she had been in continuous employment in the UK for the previous five years. This was despite having worked or been a student in Britain since 1997.

>In April, her application for child benefit was also rejected when officials learned she had been denied income support. Hackney council then demanded she repay £200 in overpaid housing benefit.

>Coroner Dr Andrew Reid said: 'She was not in a position around the time her son was born to be actively seeking work, and was not in a position to claim Income Support, which eventually stopped her housing benefit.

[anon1385]

http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/coroners-ground-breakin...

>A coroner has demanded that the government takes action to prevent future deaths of disability benefit claimants, after concluding in a “ground-breaking” inquest verdict that a disabled man killed himself as a direct result of being found “fit for work”.

>It is believed to be the first time that a coroner has blamed the work capability assessment (WCA) process for directly causing the death of a claimant.

[anon1385]

https://archive.is/qNa9T

>An unemployed dad stabbed himself twice through the heart when his family faced losing their home to housing benefit cuts, an inquest heard. Desperate Richard Sanderson, 44, drew up meticulous suicide plans after learning he could no longer afford the flat he shared with his wife and nine-year-old son. The family had received a letter stating their housing benefit would be cut by £30 a month, leaving them with ‘nowhere to go’, Westminster Coroners Court heard. Mr Sanderson was found dead in the bath by wife Petra on Sunday, May 29 with three stab wounds to his chest and abdomen. A diagram showing the position of the heart in the body had been mounted on one wall and three kitchen knives were on a folding table next to the bath. Suicide notes addressed to his family and the police had been placed on his bed, along with more anatomical diagrams. Recording a verdict of suicide, coroner Fiona Wilcox described the case as ‘particularly tragic.’ She added: ‘This appears to have been done by a man who was fully compos mentis and was not suffering from a depressive illness. ‘He carried out a considered act in response to his inability to find employment and the fact that his housing benefit was about to be cut and the family would have faced having no-where to live.

[anon1385]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/28/man-starved-t...

>Mark Wood, 44, who had a number of complex mental health conditions, died at his home last August, months after an Atos fitness-for-work assessment found him fit for work. This assessment triggered a decision by the jobcentre to stop his sickness benefits, leaving him just £40 a week to live on. His housing benefits were stopped at around the same time.

>The Oxfordshire coroner, Darren Salter, said that although it was impossible to identify the cause of death, it was probably "caused or contributed to by Wood being markedly underweight and malnourished". He weighed 5st 8lbs (35kg) when he died; his doctor said his body mass index was not compatible with life.

[anon1385]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/david-c...

>The coroner said that when David Clapson died he had no food in his stomach. Clapson’s benefits had been stopped as a result of missing one meeting at the jobcentre. He was diabetic, and without the £71.70 a week from his jobseeker’s allowance he couldn’t afford to eat or put credit on his electricity card to keep the fridge where he kept his insulin working. Three weeks later Clapson died from diabetic ketoacidosis, caused by a severe lack of insulin. A pile of CVs was found next to his body.

[JoeAltmaier]

That sounds like 64% (a majority) didn't?