"And while welfare certainly provided relief for many impoverished Americans, it did create...

some perverse incentives when it came to the work ethic and family stability."

Barack Obama

And many of the perverse incentives had their effects on the welfare workers. Administrators got larger budgets and could build larger empires when their caseloads grew, so there was no incentive to promote self-sufficiency among the recipients--quite the reverse, in fact. If we ever get the chance to do it again, I hope we will think through the reward contingencies more carefully.

And the powerlessness of the clients fed that process, as service to them could be extraordinarily poor with impunity to the officials. The difference between a welfare office and a unemployment office was like night and day in the attitude of the state's people towards the citizens across the counter.

The worst of the 'perverse incentives' set to the clients were based on attempts to placate conservatives by enforcing the largely false dichotomy between the 'deserving' and the 'un-deserving' poor, and by attempting to regulate sexual activity by the poor. Regulations promulgated with these things in mind did indeed operate against family stability, and often made difficult a transition from welfare recipient to employee.

(Julian Rotter's work) in this context. The welfare system inculcated external locus and dependency, while the job service/voc rehab complex strengthened internality and achievement motivation.

but whatever basis in fact there is, will be inflated and used as a weapon against the whole proposition. I don't think we have to set that up for the other side.

Two kids, dead beat dad, no education. And one of my kids had cystic fibrosis.

Of course, when I went to get an education (and I finished in the top 1% of my class, by the way), I had to pay for it with student loans and what did the welfare office do? They tried to cut off our food stamps because I got loans for my education! Now, isn't that special?

If I hadn't known better and fought them like I did, they would have done it, too, and I would never have been able to get off of welfare or get an education.

Real smart move on their part.

You used to not be able to get health care unless you were on welfare. Once you were on it, especially if you were in housing, you were financially better off to stay on it then to go to work. Especially if you had a sick kid.

No wonder we created a multi-generational problem.

that's the problem with these drive-by attacks on DU -- everything out of context, etc.

No, Hil's not my first choice, and probably not Obama, but nor am I stuck in trying to prove either is somehow a reincarnation of Ronald Reagan. We best start focusing on beating Republicans...

You have perfected the "present" vote.

Wash. Post's Solomon ignored Planned Parenthood support for Obama's abortion votes

http://mediamatters.org/items/200712140004

Try again. :eyes:

was that one also a cleaver rouse?

CNN's Situation Room ignored McCain's missed votes in back-to-back segments


http://mediamatters.org/items/200711050007

It does show good news if it's McCain vs. Obama.

:shrug:

..for many Corporations in Americans, it did create...
some perverse incentives when it came to offshoring and American family stability."

It is funny because it is true....

Growing up, I had an aunt who lived in welfare all of my life. She would gounce around from place to place, state to state, always living off of the system. She always had different live in boyfriends. When I was a young teen, she had a stable guy for a number of years. The faily all liked him--he actually worked and was a good guy. He wanted to get married. She refused. She didn't want to lose her benefits so she dumped him and moved in with some low life.

I think lots of people know this person. There is a lot wrong with our system and unfortunately, children are often at the losing end of that. Welfare should be about empowering someone to help them out of poverty and ensuring that children are always fed, clothed, and well educated. It should focus on education, child care, transportation, and other barriers to joining the workforce.

It did. That's why we have SCHIP. Welfare still doesn't do enough to help fathers stay involved in their children's lives and it still doesn't do enough to support marriage. Reforms also don't support education enough, women had a lot better opportunity to go to college in the 80's. There were problems with welfare. Obama recognizes the errors in the way it was reformed because he worked with real people who were really affected by it.

welfare, disability, and SS are the three legs of a tripod of social services begun by Dems. Since both Obama and Edwards are too young to remember the depression, they may be making a mistake with their view of entitlement programs. The quoted saying by Obama indicates that.

This tripod of services have fully prevented another depression, although Bush's overspending may give us one anyway. So long as the entitlement programs run, money is fed to all communities...new money that wasn't there before.

Our recessions have been less severe and have lasted for shorter periods with fewer business failures than what happened as a result of '29.

Subprime is not so different than farm foreclosures during the 30s.

I know lots and lots of young women who have gone right on welfare. What we need is more money in education, child care, housing, utilities, etc. We also need help for young fathers, which is one thing that attracted me to Obama. He totally gets how we are failing young men. He also was concerned with the reforms because he got a long term study implemented in Illinois which is one of the best in the country to monitor the failings of the reforms. There were problems with welfare, we just didn't get the right fixes.

Instead of rewarding them for being a family, it penalizes them.

First, anyone on welfare is already working damned hard at providing the cheapest child care this country has to offer. The male conceit that bearing and raising children isn't work is glaringly obvious when someone like Obama pontificates about the poor work ethic of women on welfare.

Second, I've been on welfare, six months of it during my first episode of kidney failure. You live very poorly on welfare. It is hell. I can't imagine adding a couple of children to it and watching them live so badly. Anyone with the ability to get off it will do so as quickly as possible. In my case, it was against physician advice. No one has really studied why people stay on it, but my guesses involve borderline retardation, clinical depression, and other mental problems that tend to run from one generation to the next. No one would live like that if they had an alternative.

Third, the whole business was poisoned from the beginning by GOPs who would only pass it if an able bodied male were not in the household. Those family values GOPs are what turned temporary relief for families undergoing economic disaster into permanently shattered families. Daddy had to leave in order for his kids to eat.

Any politician who wants to talk about welfare needs to talk to people who have been on it, both for a short time and long term. Otherwise, he's as full of useless hot air on the subject as Obama is.

There is a whole line of my girlfriends extended family that is on its third generation of career welfare cases. They basically live like animals - but they seem to think it is better than working. They however insist that it is the fault of the Mexicans nobody in the family has had a real job or completed schooling in going on 35 years when they are only a few hours from either Phoenix or Las Vegas where even they could find jobs.

In vast sections of the country public assistance isn't transitionary - it is a way of life with little stigma attached.

It was in one of his books, and it was one of the reasons I support him.

I am NOT a huge fan of large welfare checks being written out month after month to people who have no desire or motivation other then to collect next months check.

And it was VERY brave for Obama to say that outloud. I would like to see some accountibility for people on welfare. I am fine with helping everyone out who wants to be helped.. but I don't like handouts to those who are just to lazy to work. And there ARE a lot of those people in our country.

to the statement. Not for Democratic audience. Sounds like
Ronald Regan.

And the perverse incentives are illustrated in our inner cities every day.

I say this as someone whose family was on welfare in my childhood. It should be there in emergency phases that families go through. There should be the kind of social programs, education and health care and child care that foster a work ethic and lead to advancement opportunity. But there should never be a welfare culture in a productive society. It entraps people and keeps them from rising.

people. It also got a lot of people OFF the payroll who didn't need to be on it. In essense, he is correct. If this was meant to be a diss on Obama, it didn't work.