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posted by takyon on Friday May 22 2015, @12:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the withdrawal-symptoms dept.

The Washington Post reports:

A dollar bill is a special kind of thing. You can keep it as long as you like. You can pay for things with it. No one will ever charge you a fee. No one will ask any questions about your credit history. And other people won't try to tell you that they know how to spend that dollar better than you do.

For these reasons, cash is one of the most valuable resources a poor person in the United States can possess. Yet legislators in Kansas, not trusting the poor to use their money wisely, have voted to limit how much cash that welfare beneficiaries can receive, effectively reducing their overall benefits, as well.

The legislature placed a daily cap of $25 on cash withdrawals beginning July 1, which will force beneficiaries to make more frequent trips to the ATM to withdraw money from the debit cards used to pay public assistance benefits.

Since there's a fee for every withdrawal, the limit means that some families will get substantially less money.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday May 22 2015, @01:37PM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Friday May 22 2015, @01:37PM (#186437) Homepage Journal

    Dunno, I can see both sides of this one...

    - On the one hand, these people are adults, and should be not only trusted but expected to handle their own affairs. The government already spends far too much time telling people how to live. This kind of micromanagement is just uncalled for.

    - On the other hand, if you are going to help someone, you have every right to set conditions on your help. Personally, I never give anyone cash. The last guy who hit me up at a train station, claiming he needed money for a ticket? I bought him a ticket. The woman who hit me up for money for food? I took her shopping in the grocery store. More often than not, I'm turned down. If someone only wants cash, so they can buy alcohol or ciggies? Screw 'em, not on my wallet.

    So, those are the two sides I see here: tax dollars are the collective wallet of the the taxpayers, so welfare can have any conditions attached to it that the taxpayers want. Don't like it? Get off welfare. On the other hand, some people are trapped by circumstance, and there's no purpose in making their lives even more difficult. On the gripping hand, one could provide necessities with no strings attached, but make people work for cash - the old debate about workfare helping people move on to real jobs.

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 22 2015, @03:40PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday May 22 2015, @03:40PM (#186494) Journal

    I have had personal experience with welfare, albeit brief. It gives me a different perspective on this meme:

    tax dollars are the collective wallet of the the taxpayers, so welfare can have any conditions attached to it that the taxpayers want. Don't like it? Get off welfare.

    Welfare as a system could function as a bridge between economic change as old industries and roles die and new ones come into being. It could help the mother with 3 kids whose husband suddenly dies of a heart attack and whose insurance claim is denied because they missed a payment (that happens a lot). It could train you with new skills, DeVry-like, or something else.

    But it doesn't.

    Welfare has been designed by wealthy people who have never known wont or have been suddenly cut off from their support networks. It is designed to humiliate and punish. You are required to report to a welfare center at 8am where they tell you to sit in an assigned seat that literally comes from an elementary school and sits in rows in front of a desk where an employee sits in an adult-sized chair and takes attendance every 45 minutes. If you are not in that seat when attendance is taken, you are marked absent and lose your "benefits." You are not allowed to bring a computer, phone, or other electronic device. You sit there. For hours. At 5pm they give you a bus/subway token to get home, and another to return the next morning. You are given access to the computer lab 20 minutes per day to "look for jobs." The list of "jobs" consists of telemarketing positions no one will do. At every turn the employees speak to you like you're four, and do everything they can to belittle you. It is utterly futile and counterproductive.

    As such, the welfare system as it exists, or the alternative many people like to champion, to abolish it altogether, is a gateway to crime. Feel shut out and humiliated by the system? Well, fuck the system, burn it all to the ground. The resentment that engenders lodges deep, and will out.

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    • (Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Friday May 22 2015, @06:46PM

      by Kromagv0 (1825) on Friday May 22 2015, @06:46PM (#186593) Homepage

      Seriously what state has that shitty welfare system? Seems like a great one for some journalist to expose and bring attention to. Although I don't think I could support a replacement system that was DeVry-like, but one that sent you off to the local community college, VoTech, trade school to actually becomes skilled would be great.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @04:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @04:57PM (#186537)

    So, those are the two sides I see here: tax dollars are the collective wallet of the the taxpayers, so welfare can have any conditions attached to it that the taxpayers want. Don't like it? Get off welfare.

    Inherit in that attitude is that the taxpayers can use their money to make the poor jump through any demeaning hoops that they want. I don't care how much money you have, spending it in a way that denies someone their dignity is bullying.

    • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday May 26 2015, @04:11PM

      by Alfred (4006) on Tuesday May 26 2015, @04:11PM (#188097) Journal
      Your dignity is only denied if you choose to take their money. I miss out on time with my kids because I came to work today. I chose to come to work though I could have chosen otherwise.