shakran

I would say that at the point where all the jobs that were lost due to Bush's bumbling around with the economy are available again, you can start bitching at people to get jobs.

I certainly agree that America needs welfare reform, but that does not mean welfare destruction. Part of that welfare reform would be removing laws that penalize people who get minimum wage jobs in an attempt to get off of welfare. If you're pulling in $1000 a week on welfare, and you get a job where you're pulling in $900 a week, but that $900 disqualifies you to receive ANY welfare, then you don't have much incentive to get that job now do you?

After all, while you might certainly want to be independent, that extra $100 can be the deciding factor in whether or not you eat.

So we have people who can't get off welfare because starting at the bottom and working your way up isn't an option, since you'd starve before you could work your way up.

In other words, sure, reform welfare.

But it's very easy for you, Ustwo, to sit there with all your money and all the food and clothing and shelter you need, and plenty of extras, and cast judgement on the poor. It's very easy to forget that sometimes you wind up in that situation through no fault of your own. It's very easy to forget that a shocking number of American citizens are one illness, one car wreck, one paycheck away from being on the streets. It's not that they're lazy, as anti-welfare people love to portray them. They work damn hard. In fact, I'll tell you right now that the poor goober unloading pallettes at Walmart works a HELL of a lot harder than you or I do, and he makes a lot less than we do as well. But he's an hourly employee who's scheduled at odd hours that make it next to impossible for him to even try to interview for a better job. He cant' go in for an interview by skipping a day of work because that again would mean the difference between him buying food or not. So he's trapped in this ultra low wage job from which escape is terribly difficult. And if he gets sick or hurt off the job or let go for whatever reason, then he'll find himself in a terrible situation, and could even have to go on welfare in order to make ends meet.

And keep in mind that a lot of the people working at jobs like Walmart, Home Depot, and Kmart used to have well paying jobs. Last year I interviewed a guy stocking lightbulbs at a hardware store who had been a well paid vice president at a major manufacturing company, but was downsized when the economy soured. Now he's trying to support a wife and 3 kids on a salary that's a tiny fraction of what he used to have.

That's never happened to you, and in all likelihood you've never bothered to talk to people to whom it HAS happened. That makes it very difficult for me to accept your passing judgement on them.