Ted, How is paying starvation wages making people dependent on welfare?
Let me put it this way. If those wages really suck, we wouldn't have an illegal immigration problem.
You're assuming that illegals go on welfare when they get here. I never met one illegal who was on welfare. Most are too afraid to go near a gov't office.
Its not welfare that attracts them here.....its the promise of jobs which are scarce in their homeland. And what they typically do is get 10-15 to a one bdr. apt. The money they save in rent they send back home. The living conditions are on par with those of blacks.
The cash benefits from welfare noted in following are dated but the ratios are still pretty much the same:
"Argument
Many conservatives argue that welfare provides people with an incentive to avoid work. However, the statistics do not bear out this accusation. Let's divide our answer into two parts: first, a look at how low the "incentives" really are; and second, how many individuals are responding to these incentives.
How much does welfare pay?
The two largest welfare programs -- by far -- are Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and food stamps. In 1992, the average yearly AFDC family payment was $4,572, and food stamps for a family of three averaged $2,469, for a total of $7,041. (1) In that year, the poverty level for a mother with two children was $11,186. (2) Thus, these two programs paid only 63 percent of the poverty level, and 74 percent of a minimum wage job.
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Who takes the welfare incentive?
Because typical welfare payments pay less than a full-time job, it should not be surprising to find that most welfare recipients do not see it as an incentive to avoid work. Indeed, studies reveal this in two different ways: that most welfare recipients do indeed want and seek work, and that in a dynamic economy, the welfare rolls are ever-changing.
Many studies show that welfare recipients find welfare degrading and demoralizing, and greatly prefer the chance to work. (4) In fact, in March 1987, the General Accounting Office released a report that summarized more than one hundred studies of welfare since 1975. It found that "research does not support the view" that welfare significantly reduces the incentive to work. (5) This may seem contrary to common sense, but, as Norman Goodman points out in Introduction to Sociology: "Many 'common sense' beliefs are simply untrue. For example, many believe… that most people on welfare really don't want to work. [This is] false." (6)
Again, the "incentive" accusation fails because of welfare's inability to let families make ends meet. One study of Chicago welfare mothers found that their family's rent and utilities cost $37 more than the welfare check. Even for those few who received housing assistance, that left only $160 to cover all other monthly expenses, such as transportation, clothing, hygiene and school supplies. The typical food stamp allowance was insufficient, and many recipients actually went hungry near the end of the month. To make ends meet, the mothers had to receive income from somewhere else. Some of this came from absent fathers, friends and relatives, but almost half came from work -- work that typically paid $3 to $5 an hour. The authors of the study concluded that "single mothers do not turn to welfare because they are pathologically dependent on handouts or unusually reluctant to work. They do so because they cannot get jobs that pay better than welfare." (7)
Furthermore, it is incorrect to assume that the welfare rolls are filled with a substantial population of sedentary freeloaders who stay on for ten years at a time. Most welfare recipients leave within the first two years:
Percent of
Time on AFDC Recipients (8)
-------------------------------
Less than 7 months 19.0%
7 to 12 months 15.2
One to two years 19.3
Two to five years 26.9
Over five years 19.6
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