"Keep Working...

[American Patriot]

[vector7]

101M Get Food Aid from Federal Gov’t; Outnumber Full-Time Private Sector Workers

July 8, 2013 - 11:32 AM
By Elizabeth Harrington

(AP File Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – The number of Americans receiving subsidized food assistance from the federal government has risen to 101 million, representing roughly a third of the U.S. population.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a total of 101,000,000 people currently participate in at least one of the 15 food programs offered by the agency, at a cost of $114 billion in fiscal year 2012.

That means the number of Americans receiving food assistance has surpassed the number of full-time private sector workers in the U.S.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 97,180,000 full-time private sector workers in 2012.

The population of the U.S. is 316.2 million people, meaning nearly a third of Americans receive food aid from the government.

Of the 101 million receiving food benefits, a record 47 million Americans participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps. The USDA describes SNAP as the “largest program in the domestic hunger safety net.”

The USDA says the number of Americans on food stamps is a “historically high figure that has risen with the economic downturn.”

SNAP has a monthly average of 46.7 million participants, or 22.5 million households. Food stamps alone had a budget of $88.6 billion in FY 2012.
The USDA also offers nutrition assistance for pregnant women, school children and seniors.

The National School Lunch program provides 32 million students with low-cost or no-cost meals daily; 10.6 million participate in the School Breakfast Program; and 8.9 million receive benefits from the Woman, Infants and Children (WIC) program each month, the latter designed for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women, as well as children younger than 5 years old.

In addition, 3.3 million children at day care centers receive snacks through the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

There’s also a Special Milk Program for schools and a Summer Food Service Program, through which 2.3 million children received aid in July 2011 during summer vacation.

At farmer’s markets, 864,000 seniors receive benefits to purchase food and 1.9 million women and children use coupons from the program.

A “potential for overlap” exists with the many food programs offered by the USDA, allowing participants to have more than their daily food needs subsidized completely by the federal government.

According to a July 3 audit by the Inspector General, the USDA’s Food Nutrition Service (FNS) “may be duplicating its efforts by providing participants total benefits in excess of 100 percent of daily nutritional needs when households and/or individuals participate in more than one FNS program simultaneously.”

Food assistance programs are designed to be a “safety net,” the IG said.

“With the growing rate of food insecurity among U.S. households and significant pressures on the Federal budget, it is important to understand how food assistance programs complement one another as a safety net, and how services from these 15 individual programs may be inefficient, due to overlap and duplication,” the audit said.


http://cnsnews.com/news/article/101m...sector-workers

[American Patriot]

Haves and havenots... and all that rot.

[Phil Fiord]

More evidence that we are ready for the fork. Many are asking why there has not been some huge physical display of outrage at all these scandals and more. While I see us on a precipice and only a minor event could knock our society off, I have a sneaky suspicion that will not happen until aid programs are cut off. So many have been lulled into need with apathy to do more and others have found ways to exploit the programs. If 1/3 of our entire country is on assistance and half the country is in the bag for the similar beliefs, then how would anyone really finally go off.

Okay, so we still have half a country that is upset, but they are up against an out of check federal government that has compromised many state and local areas. Add those who would be threatened to lose assistance and there is a problem. Those on aid are being counted on as a shield. They are tools to a corrupt governing body.

[American Patriot]

Shields? Yeah, they will be the human shields the government uses then?

[Phil Fiord]

Yup, Human Shields, if there is a threat to lose their gov money they will stand in the way of any who act to change this status physically.

[American Patriot]

Sure you wanna head for Idaho Ryan?

[Phil Fiord]

Its the same for my state save for the doubling part, but even so, I see so many new shiny EBT SNAP cards...

[American Patriot]

Senior Lemon Picker

Sally Mullihan of Coral Springs , Florida decided to take one of the jobs that most Americans are not willing to do.

The woman applying for a job in a Florida lemon grove seemed to be far too qualified for the job. She had a liberal arts degree from the University of Michigan and had worked as a social worker and school teacher.

The foreman frowned and said, “I have to ask you, have you had any actual experience in picking lemons?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I have! I’ve been divorced three times, owned 2 Chryslers and voted for Obama.”

[Ryan Ruck]

NY Food Stamp Recipients Are Shipping Welfare-Funded Groceries To Relatives In Jamaica, Dominican Republic And Haiti

July 21, 2013

Food stamps are paying for trans-Atlantic takeout — with New Yorkers using taxpayer-funded benefits to ship food to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found.

The practice is so common that hundreds of 45- to 55-gallon cardboard and plastic barrels line the walls of supermarkets in almost every Caribbean corner of the city.

The feds say the moveable feasts go against the intent of the $86 billion welfare program for impoverished Americans.

A spokeswoman for the US Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service said welfare benefits are reserved for households that buy and prepare food together. She said states should intervene if people are caught shipping nonperishables abroad.

Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, called it just another example of welfare abuse.

“I don’t want food-stamp police to see what people do with their rice and beans, but it’s wrong,” Tanner told The Post. “The purpose of this program is to help Americans who don’t have enough to eat. This is not intended as a form of foreign aid.”

The United States spent $522.7 million on foreign aid to the Caribbean last fiscal year, government data show.

Still, New Yorkers say they ship the food because staples available in the States are superior and less costly than what their families can get abroad.

“Everybody does it,” said a worker at an Associated Supermarket in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn. “They pay for it any way they can. A lot of people pay with EBT.”

Customers pay cash for the barrels, usually about $40, and typically ship them filled with $500 to $2,000 worth of rice, beans, pasta, canned milk and sausages.

Workers at the Pioneer Supermarket on Parkside Avenue and the Key Food on Flatbush Avenue confirmed the practice.

They said food-stamp recipients typically take home their barrels and fill them gradually over time with food bought with EBT cards.

When the tubs are full, the welfare users call a shipping company to pick them up and send them to the Caribbean for about $70. The shipments take about three weeks.

Last week, a woman stuffed dozens of boxes of macaroni and evaporated milk into a barrel headed for her family in Kingston, Jamaica. She said she didn’t have welfare benefits and bought the food herself.

“This is all worth more than $2,000,” she said. “I’ve been shopping since last December. You can help somebody else, someone who doesn’t live in this country.”

A man helping her pack the barrel said: “We’re poor here, and they’re poor. But what we can get here is like luxury to them.”

[American Patriot]

Where there's a will, there's a way.

Or to update that saying, where there's a government program, there's abuse.

[Ryan Ruck]

23 Are Charged In Food Stamp Case

July 25, 2013

Schenectady City police say 23 people, including the owner of a State Street grocery store and his son, face charges after an six-month investigation into food stamp fraud.

Police said Vishnunarine Singh, of Ozone Park, owner of Cheese Bakery and Grocery, and his son Elvin Singh of Schenectady, engaged in food stamp trafficking by using Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards to buy food stamp benefits at a rate less than their full value, typically 50 to 70 percent. The cards were fraudulently used to get cash instead of food items, police said, who estimate that the owner defrauded the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) of about $500,000 over three years.

Also arrested were 21 food stamp recipients who misused their EBT food stamp card to get cash instead of food on three or more occasions for more than $100 each occasion, police said. The recipients arrested are charged with misuse of food stamps and petit larceny, misdemeanors, for each alleged fraudulent transaction. Police say more arrests or civil penalties are possible.

Vishnunarine Singh is charged with second-degree grand larceny, felony misuse of food stamps, felony falsifying business records. His son is charged with three counts of falsifying business records and three misdemeanor counts of food stamp misuse.

"The volume of fraudulent sale of food stamps attributable to this one location is staggering and we hope to make an example of them in order to discourage others from abusing a very worthwhile program to assist those in need, District Attorney Robert M. Carney said in a statement. Assistant District Attorney Katie McCutcheon will handle the prosecutions.

Agencies assisting in Wednesday's operation: Schenectady County's Probation, Social Services and Child Protective Services departments and state Parole, Tax and Finance, Financial Services and Office of Temporary Disabilities and Assistance departments.

The investigation was funded by money provided through Operation Impact.

[Ryan Ruck]

It May Now Pay More to Be on Welfare Than Get an Entry-Level Job in These 34 States

August 21, 2013

If it paid better to stay at home and not work, what would you do? That’s a question being asked in more than 30 states.

Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia have made it more attractive to seek welfare benefits than entry-level employment, according to a new report from the libertarian Cato Institute.

“One of the single best ways to climb out of poverty is taking a job, but as long as welfare provides a better standard of living than an entry-level job, recipients will continue to choose it over work,” said Michael Tanner, senior policy analyst and study co-author.



The study, an updated version of the one released in 1995, is a comprehensive overview of welfare benefits in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The 1995 study found that benefits from various government welfare programs easily exceeded the poverty level and “their dollar value was greater than the amount of take-home income a worker would receive from an entry-level job.”

Fast forward 18 years and little has improved. In fact, welfare spending has steadily increased at an unchecked rate, outpacing average entry-level incomes and making it more attractive in some areas to seek welfare over employment.

“The current welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work,” the study claims. “Welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and in 13 states it pays more than $15 per hour.”

The feds currently fund 126 separate welfare programs, the study notes. Of these 126 programs, 72 provide “cash or in-kind benefits to recipients.” Keep in mind these 126 programs are in addition to welfare programs provided at the state and local level.

“If Congress and state legislatures are serious about reducing welfare dependence and rewarding work, they should consider strengthening welfare work requirements, removing exemptions, and narrowing the definition of work,” says the study.

The national unemployment rate is currently stuck at approximately 7.4 percent. So let’s take a look at the top 15 locations in the U.S. where being on welfare pays better than having an entry-level job and their corresponding unemployment rates:

15. Minnesota
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 29,350
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 14.11
Unemployment: 5.2 percent

14. Nevada
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 29,820
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 14.34
Unemployment: 9.5 percent

13. Wyoming
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 32.620
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 15.68
Unemployment: 4.6 percent

12. Oregon
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 34,300
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 16.49
Unemployment: 8.0 percent

11. California
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 37,160
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 17.87
Unemployment: 8.7 percent

10. Maryland
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 38,160
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 18.35
Unemployment: 7.1 percent

9. New Hampshire
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 39,750
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 19.11
Unemployment: 5.1 percent

8. Vermont
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 42,350
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 20.36
Unemployment: 4.6 percent

7. Rhode Island
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 43,330
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 20.83
Unemployment: 8.9 percent

6. New Jersey
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 43,450
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 20.89
Unemployment: 8.6 percent

5. New York
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 43,700
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 20.01
Unemployment: 7.5 percent

4. Connecticut
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 44,370
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 21.33
Unemployment: 8.1 percent

3. Massachusetts
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 50,540
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 24.30
Unemployment: 7.2 percent

2. District of Columbia
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 50,820
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 24.43
Unemployment: 8.6 percent

1. Hawaii
Pre-tax Equivalent ($): 60,590
Hourly Wage Equivalent ($): 29.13
Unemployment: 4.5

A little over half of the entries on this list have above-average unemployment rates. Perhaps not high enough to claim definitely that generous welfare packages lead to increased unemployment – but one would be hard pressed to make the opposite argument. That is, for the states with high unemployment rates, making welfare more attractive than having a job probably doesn’t help anything.

Here’s a copy of the Cato report:

The Work Versus vs. Welfare

Fuck it. I'm quitting my job and becoming a bum in Hawaii.

[Ryan Ruck]

Thousands Wait In Line For Chicago Subsidized Housing Applications

August 14, 2013



We’ve seen signs the economy is improving, but in the Edgewater neighborhood today, we saw how many Chicagoans are struggling.

CBS’s 2 Jim Williams has the story in this original report.

It was a desperate attempt for a home: A line of thousands waited on Sheridan Road, north of Foster and around the corner.

Many, like Crystal Cooper, had been there all night.

“We’ve been here since 8 o’clock last night. We slept in our chairs with our covers,” said Cooper.

They waited for an application for subsidized housing – only an application with no guarantee of an apartment.

Moreover, security guard Hebert Furlow knew only a couple hundred units were available. Slim odds, but he and the others needed help.

“It’s definitely hard to make ends meet,” said Furlow.

At times, some grew impatient and some jumped the line. Cops were called in.

Neighborhood residents blamed the real estate company, the Kopley Group.

One neighbor described the process as, “very, very uncoordinated, unprofessional.”

City sources told us they urged the Kopley Group to issue numbers to the applicants a suggestion rejected.

Still, Herbert Furlow considered himself fortunate he got an application.

“It’s been a struggle,” said Furlow.

For three days, those long lines were at Sheridan and Foster.

We made numerous attempts to reach the Kopley Group to ask whether the process could have been managed better.

A spokesman for the Chicago Housing Authority says the CHA has nothing to do with that project.

[American Patriot]

They will be standing there when the first nukes fall, I suspect.

[Ryan Ruck]

23,116,928 to 20,618,000: Households on Food Stamps Now Outnumber All Households in Northeast U.S.

September 17, 2013

A record 23,116,928 American households were enrolled in the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—AKA food stamps—during the month of June, according to data released this month by the Department of Agriculture.

That outnumbers the 20,618,000 households that the Census Bureau estimated were in the entire Northeastern United States as of the second quarter of 2013.

According to the Census Bureau, the Northeast region includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Thus, in June, the households receiving food stamps exceeded the total combined households in all of these states.

The 23,116,928 million households on food stamps in June also outnumbered the 15,030,000 home-owning households in the entire Western United States in the second quarter of the year and the 18,018,000 home-owning households in the entire Midwest.

The West, as delineated by the Census Bureau, includes Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii. So, the number of households taking food stamps in June outnumbered all of the home-owning households in all of these stated combined.

The Midwest includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. So, the number of households on food stamps in June also outnumbered all the home-owning households in this set of states.

(According to the Census Bureau, in the second quarter of 2013, there were 20,618,000 households in the Northeast United States, including 13,021 households that owned their residence and 7,597 that rented. In the Midwest, there were 25,944,000 households, including 18,108 that owned and 7,926,000 that rented. In the West, there 25,322,000 households, including 15,030,000 that owned and 10,293 that rented. And, in the South, there 42,794,000 households, including 28,475,000 that owned and 14,318,000 that rented.)

The record 23,116,928 households on food stamps in June also equaled 20.16 percent—or more than one-fifth--of all 114,663,000 households nationwide in the United States as of June, according to the Census Bureau.

The 23,116,928 household on food stamps in June was an increase of 45,908 from the 23,071,020 household on food stamps in May.

In fiscal 2009, the year President Barack Obama was inaugurated, there was a monthly average of 15,161,469 American households on food stamps, according to the Department of Agriculture. The 23,116,928 households on food stamps in June exceeded that 2009 monthly average by 7,955,459 households—or 52 percent.

Thus, in America in June, there were 52 percent more households on Food Stamps than there were in the average month of the first year President Obama took office.

[Ryan Ruck]

Report: U.S. Spent $3.7 Trillion on Welfare Over Last 5 Years

October 23, 2013

New research from the Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee shows that over the last 5 years, the U.S. has spent about $3.7 trillion on welfare. Here's a chart, showing that spending versus transportation, education, and NASA spending:



"We have just concluded the 5th fiscal year since President Obama took office. During those five years, the federal government has spent a total $3.7 trillion on approximately 80 different means-tested poverty and welfare programs. The common feature of means-tested assistance programs is that they are graduated based on a person’s income and, in contrast to programs like Social Security or Medicare, they are a free benefit and not paid into by the recipient," says the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee.

"The enormous sum spent on means-tested assistance is nearly five times greater than the combined amount spent on NASA, education, and all federal transportation projects over that time. ($3.7 trillion is not even the entire amount spent on federal poverty support, as states contribute more than $200 billion each year to this federal nexus—primarily in the form of free low-income health care.)

"Because the welfare budget is so fragmented—food stamps are only one of 15 federal programs that provide food assistance—it makes effective oversight nearly impossible, at the same time disguising the scope of the budget from both taxpayers and lawmakers alike. For instance, it is easier for anti-reform lawmakers to oppose food stamp savings by obscuring the fact that a household receiving food stamps is often simultaneously eligible for a myriad of federal aid programs including free cash assistance, subsidized housing, free medical care, free child care, and home energy assistance.

"In the UK, six of the nation’s welfare programs have been consolidated into a single credit and total benefits have been capped at £26,000 (about $42,100 per family) in an effort to both improve standards and decrease net expenditures. A similar reform concept in the United States—combining welfare spending into a single credit—would still result in a surprisingly large welfare benefit while reducing expenditures and allowing for reforms that encourage self-sufficiency. For instance, a CATO study found that an average household in the District of Columbia currently receiving the six largest federal welfare benefits (Medicaid, TANF, SNAP, etc.) receives assistance with a converted cash value of $43,000. In Hawaii, it’s $49,000. Hypothetically, if net benefits from these myriad programs were combined into a single credit and capped at even 95 percent of that very large amount, it would save taxpayers billions while enabling reforms to promote self-sufficiency, reduce the penalty for working, and make the system fairer for taxpayers."

[American Patriot]

giving away all that money we made... to people who didn't earn it.

Isn't this a sane planet?

[Ryan Ruck]

And here it is...

Census Bureau: Means-Tested Gov't Benefit Recipients Outnumber Full-Time Year-Round Workers

October 24, 2013

Americans who were recipients of means-tested government benefits in 2011 outnumbered year-round full-time workers, according to data released this month by the Census Bureau.

They also out-numbered the total population of the Philippines.

There were 108,592,000 people in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2011 who were recipients of one or more means-tested government benefit programs, the Census Bureau said in data released this week. Meanwhile, according to the Census Bureau, there were 101,716,000 people who worked full-time year round in 2011. That included both private-sector and government workers.

That means there were about 1.07 people getting some form of means-tested government benefit for every 1 person working full-time year round.

The Census Bureau counted as recipients of means-tested government programs “anyone residing in a household in which one or more people received benefits from the program.” Many of these people lived in households receiving more than one form of means-tested benefit at the same time.

Among the 108,592,000 people who fit the Census Bureau’s description of a means-tested benefit recipient in the fourth quarter of 2011 were 82,457,000 people in households receiving Medicaid, 49,073,000 beneficiaries of food stamps, 20,223,000 on Supplemental Security Income, 23,228,000 in the Women, Infants and Children program, 13,433,000 in public or subsidized rental housing, and 5,854,000 in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Also among the 108,592,000 means-tested benefit recipients counted by the Census Bureau were people getting free or reduced-price lunch or breakfast, state-administered supplemental security income and means-tested veterans pensions.

The 108,592,000 people who were recipients of means-tested government programs in the fourth quarter of 2011 does not include people who received benefits from non-means-tested government programs but not from means-tested ones. That would include, for example, people who received Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, or non-means-tested veterans compensation, but did not receive benefits from a means-tested program such as food stamps or public housing.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, according to the Census Bureau, there were 49,901,000 people who received Social Security benefits, 46,440,000 who received Medicare benefits, 5,098,000 on unemployment, and 3,178,000 who received non-means-tested veterans compensation.

When the people who received non-means-tested government benefits from programs such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and non-means-tested veterans compensation are added to those who received means-tested government programs such as food stamps, Supplemental Security Income and public housing, the total number of people receiving government benefits from one or more programs in the United States in 2011 climbs to 151,014,000, according to the Census Bureau. The 108,592,000 people who were beneficiaries of means-tested government programs in the United States in 2011 not only outnumbered full-time year-round workers, they also outnumbered the total population of the Philippines, which is 105,720,644, according to the CIA World Factbook. They are also approaching the number of people living in Mexico, which is 116,220,947, according to the CIA.

[American Patriot]

WOW!

We could Feed the Philippines?

(That's really all I got out of that article, LOL!)