If you build it, they will come.
It applies to welfare just like other areas. There are plenty of individuals who have made the choice to raise kids on welfare as a legitimate choice of career. Some fraction (not all of them) of their kids will repeat the stunt as adults, partly because to them it will be perfectly normal. Any program, government or private that sets about to accomplish X, will in many cases cause Y to happen also. This should not be surprising.
When you have correlations has high as shown in some of the graphs being posted, it becomes a bit difficult to hand wave causality away. There is a very obvious link between single parenthood and lower household income vs two parent homes. The relationship has causality in it, not just correlation, and again, this is completely obvious.
Last week at Safeway, the couple ahead of me (young, white) with two young kids used food stamps for part of their purchase. I always grimace when this happens, because for some reason they must ring up the food stamp items separately (including multiple separate transactions at times) and it holds the line up. But then something happened I've now seen several times. The clerk pointed out that the food stamp item total was for only $2-3 and asked the couple if they wanted to go get something else. I don't know for sure, but it would appear the food stamps are in fixed denominations, and further, what you don't use, you lose?? They just shrugged, and said no. Well, what do you expect. Its free money handed to them, and they aren't in fact in any real need, so they won't lift a damn finger to help themselves. There will be more where that came from when they need it. |
