The Truth Behind the Welfare Queen Myth

[boysmom]

I have a smartphone, a cheap droid, that I got for free. My free phone died within the year's warranty and this is what they replaced it with. I had a dumbphone for the first one, with a keyboard, but no internet. I do love the smartphone, but only access the internet via Wifi with it. I love the calendar that syncs with google, that would be hard to give up. I take very good care of it because I"m guessing that if I lose/break it I will not get a new one.

So perhaps receptionists or MD's who know my kids get government health care due to hubby's lack of employment judge me, but this costs me no more than your average dumbphone. For that reason, I never judge. My friend Sally gets new droids all the time and gives her old one to people, she's going to give me the next one, so yet another way people get smart phones for free.

[lilith]

My smartphone is 40$ a month with no data (it's a particularly expensive plan, I just found out I can get the same stuff cheaper, and I will). I pay about 20 a month for regular internet. If I were to start getting internet on my phone, it would be cheaper than what I pay now. Very inconvenient for writing papers, but easily 10$ cheaper.

When I was using my phone as my main source of Internet I would plug it into my laptop and use it as a modem. The data allowance on my phone plan worked through the laptop. You may be able to do that to make term papers etc more doable

[emmiedahl]

It sounds like smart phone service costs less than my home internet and telephone. It is not really practical for a house full of people (with me working and going to class online also), but if it were just me with a normal job then I would save money by getting 3G and dropping the other stuff.

[luckystone]

I have never understood this myth.

Unless you're very lucky, you can't live off welfare as if it's luxurious.

You can scam them by committing fraud, but that's fraud not welfare luxury. That would be the same fraud anywhere else and the people who do that would commit fraud in a job or in a volunteer organisation or in a pyramid scheme etc.

I do hear complaints about people accepting welfare and buying lots of things like tvs etc. so omg they must have too much. If those anecdotes are true, it's probably because that's where those people choose to put their money, and they don't pay for other, more routine things if they choose to buy expensive equipment. I assume.

[shesinsane]

This is the first time I've ever wanted to see a Jericho post, but of course he's avoiding this thread. Seeing as how 90% of FJ already knew that the Cadillac driving welfare queen is an urban legend, I would be interested in the perspective of someone who really believes his tax dollars are paying for someone else's fake nails and fancy sneakers. Unsurprising, no Jericho here.

[jenny_islander]

I did the math once; if our family went completely down and out, we could use assorted government and local charity benefits to heat our house . . . part of the time. We could keep the lights on . . . some of the time. We could use emergency cash assistance to keep the mortgage paid . . . for a little while. We could keep our car, but not put gas in it beyond what was needed for vital tasks or fix anything that broke on it. We could line up for boxes of pasta with orange powder and little bags of squashy potatoes and limp carrots once a week at the food bank and get some peanut butter and canned vegetables from CFSP and TEFAP. We could use SNAP to eat brown lentils and cabbage for 3 or 4 days per week. WIC could give ONE child ONE serving each of protein, bread, and fruit or vegetable per day and we could make the other two try to live on the miserably inadequate lunches that the public schools are now forced to serve because if they get so much as two square inches more pizza than the government now says they deserve they might get OMIGOD FAT and also the schools would lose the lunch rebate for every student. Medical assistance would be available for our children, for a while. I might be able to take whatever crap job came available, IF I could get to the top of the waiting list for subsidized child care and my work hours could be kept to the subsidized hours.

Wow, the life of a welfare queen is just so rich!

[Wolfie]

If you are living 40 minutes from a library, you very likely could be living where cell service is bad or not even available. There are many parts of my county without service- one of the things I looked for when buying a house. I save money by no longer having a landline. When I did have one it was less than $20 a month, and if I had been low income it would have been less than $10. Many areas are limited in what carriers are available due to who has towers around- so a $30 plan is something I've never seen for a smartphone in my area.

As I said before, I'm not going to judge anybody on their cellphone unless I know more about the situation.

[jaynie]

If you are living 40 minutes from a library, you very likely could be living where cell service is bad or not even available.

I think we're basically agreed here that you can't judge a person's situation based on limited information, but I feel like I should clarify this point. It is a forty minute bus-ride (including a transfer and wait times) from my house to the library I would need to use as a student. There is a library 30 minutes away but it wouldn't be adequate for school work. I live in the middle of a city, and have excellent reception. If you're dependent on buses things aren't necessarily as accessible as they should be, even if your city has fairly good transit -- if I had a car it would only be a 15 minute drive, and it would be safer too as it wouldn't involve hanging out on street corners late at night waiting for a bus to show up. Cities with a lot of sprawl and few libraries will have this a lot (I've lived in two!).

[ElphabaGalinda]

I think we're basically agreed here that you can't judge a person's situation based on limited information, but I feel like I should clarify this point. It is a forty minute bus-ride (including a transfer and wait times) from my house to the library I would need to use as a student. There is a library 30 minutes away but it wouldn't be adequate for school work. I live in the middle of a city, and have excellent reception. If you're dependent on buses things aren't necessarily as accessible as they should be, even if your city has fairly good transit -- if I had a car it would only be a 15 minute drive, and it would be safer too as it wouldn't involve hanging out on street corners late at night waiting for a bus to show up. Cities with a lot of sprawl and few libraries will have this a lot (I've lived in two!).

That sounds almost exactly like my situation jaynie. Though it'd probably take me 30 minutes by bus. I live in an extremely big city, but a very sprawled out one, and I live in the suburbs. So excellent phone reception because it's a big city, but no accessible libraries because everything's so far apart and my area is particularly under served by libraries and bookstores for some reason. And this is how far I'd go for not the greatest library. Just thought it's interesting we're in the same situation for libraries! It's definitely so much harder when you're relying on buses. For the amount I needed to use the internet for my studies while I was in school and how all the library computers have time limits and waiting lists so that probably wouldn't work for anyone. No comment either way except to say that a lot of cities have this problem, both with their transit systems and the fact that resources are concentrated in one area where people are spread out. It'd take me 45 minutes by bus to get to the nearest bookstore, which makes me sad.

[YPestis]

All this talk about smartphones remind me of similar comments when I was growing up of poor people with TVs. In the 80's and 90's, some people complained about TVs in welfare recipients' households. I guess today it's cell phones. No one complains of the poor family that has a TV set anymore because they can be bought for so cheap (or second hand!). A few decades ago, it was a luxury. It's just funny how technology morphs our expectations.

Ideally, I shouldn't judge people for their situation. However, I can't shut my brain off and sometimes certain patients do stick in my head. And even those of us working in underserved areas will still find ourselves shaking our head in disbelief/disagreement/disgust at what goes on. I think it's only human to have opinions. That doesn't mean we lack compassion or empathy. But one can get quite cynical in a service job and dealing with people, poor or rich.

I think much of the political rhetoric on TV regarding welfare is sprouted by people who've rarely, if ever, interacted with the poor. There's a tendency to either demonize the poor ("illegals who come here to eat our free lunches") or put them on a pedestal ("hardworking families who were victims...."). In fact, most poor people fall somewhere in the middle. They ended up welfare because of bad decisions or bad luck or a combination of both.

The poor have one thing that separates them from the rest of the country and it's not because they are more likely to make poor decisions or lack personal responsibility. It's the lack of resources when they DO make poor decisions or act irresponsibly. Bristol Palin is no different than many of the poor, single, young mothers I've seen in the low income women's clinic but she will never need to get medicaid or wait two hours to see a doc. Her family's wealth protects her from her poor choices, allowing her the chance to attend college, own a house, have insurance.

I think there's less judgement on Palin because she's not seen as a financial burden on society. [*]Poor teenage mothers require taxpayers to help her raise her child. When people (i.e taxpayers) feel their money is being used by someone else, they feel justified in making stipulations of how it's used. I think that's a fair expectation even if the judgement itself is unfair (i.e conservatives embrace SAHM unless it's for single mothers on welfare).

My frustration with some patients who appear to make poor choices is that they can't afford to continue to make them, and they know this, but continue to do so. They may not be morally weaker than their middle class counterpart, but their lives allow them few "margins for error" so to speak. I think conservatives, and fundies' frustration is different than mine in this regard. They like to make moral judgments, as if money should be given to those that are "deservedly poor". To me, there's very few people that don't "deserve" food and medical care. However, I agree we are supporting an underclass if we just toss money in with no expectations. I believe it's important to push for job retraining, employment help, education assistance programs with expectations that people must go through them if they are capable of working and are on public assistance. It has nothing to do with improving people's morals. I just don't think financial dependency on gov't is healthy for anyone, mentally or otherwise.

[jaynie]

That sounds almost exactly like my situation jaynie. Though it'd probably take me 30 minutes by bus. I live in an extremely big city, but a very sprawled out one, and I live in the suburbs. So excellent phone reception because it's a big city, but no accessible libraries because everything's so far apart and my area is particularly under served by libraries and bookstores for some reason. And this is how far I'd go for not the greatest library. Just thought it's interesting we're in the same situation for libraries! It's definitely so much harder when you're relying on buses. For the amount I needed to use the internet for my studies while I was in school and how all the library computers have time limits and waiting lists so that probably wouldn't work for anyone. No comment either way except to say that a lot of cities have this problem, both with their transit systems and the fact that resources are concentrated in one area where people are spread out. It'd take me 45 minutes by bus to get to the nearest bookstore, which makes me sad.

Buses make it so much harder. My current city actually isn't that big or sprawled, and the transit is usually fairly good, but if you don't live on one of the major routes it can be tricky and time consuming because of transfers. My hometown suffered a lot more sprawl, and the transit system was much worse, to the extent that my daily commute to high school was forty-five minutes (although the school was a 10 minute drive from my home). I also didn't think about the time limits on library computers, but that's a good point. If every student at my uni tried to make due with library computers, everyone would fail, simple as that. There is just no way to make the numbers work.

[Wolfie]

Busses? Not everywhere has busses. I see a lot of hitchhiking in my community. But as for Internet, some of the most wealthy people are in the same boat as the poor. No cable, they are too low in a valley for sattelite, and no cell reception. It has to be dial up. I'm lucky that I can use cell and sattelite.

I think that the big push should be for better access to TV and Internet for all- just like the government subsidizes landlines, they could subsidize other forms of communications.

Not everybody lives in a city, or even close to one.

[ElphabaGalinda]

Buses make it so much harder. My current city actually isn't that big or sprawled, and the transit is usually fairly good, but if you don't live on one of the major routes it can be tricky and time consuming because of transfers. My hometown suffered a lot more sprawl, and the transit system was much worse, to the extent that my daily commute to high school was forty-five minutes (although the school was a 10 minute drive from my home). I also didn't think about the time limits on library computers, but that's a good point. If every student at my uni tried to make due with library computers, everyone would fail, simple as that. There is just no way to make the numbers work.

Going to the north end to the south end of this city takes about an hour and a half by transit, and about 45 minutes to drive that, and generally the further north you get, the less services. And I live as north as you can go (not rural at all though, as big city as you can get). So it takes me forever to get to things, and the transit system is sooo unreliable. Anyone who says you can expect the buses to come when they're supposed to has obviously never taken one. There are also a limited number of library computers, and when I go there, they're all full. You generally have to sign up and wait an hour for one to open up, which is a bigger waste of time. I did make use of the many many free computers in my university, in common areas and the school's library, and that was fairly helpful, but it'd be impossible to rely on a public library for computer use. There's just the assumption nowadays that everyone, from elementary student to elderly person, has access to their own computer. I'd get reliable internet access long before I'd get a tv or a home phone (no one I know that's my age who lives alone has cable or a home phone). Especially as a post secondary student, reliable frequent internet access is a necessity.

I didn't know other places didn't have easily accessible libraries. There were like 3 libraries within walking distance of where I went to university, but none anywhere near where I live. I just found out the library that is closest doesn't have free parking, so although the bus would take forever, to drive there would be expensive. I used to go to the library every week to get books, it's sad I can't do that now.

[ElphabaGalinda]

Busses? Not everywhere has busses. I see a lot of hitchhiking in my community. But as for Internet, some of the most wealthy people are in the same boat as the poor. No cable, they are too low in a valley for sattelite, and no cell reception. It has to be dial up. I'm lucky that I can use cell and sattelite.

I think that the big push should be for better access to TV and Internet for all- just like the government subsidizes landlines, they could subsidize other forms of communications.

I do think the government should subsidize internet access, because it's a necessity now.

As for everything, the unique problems and challenges depend entirely on where you live, though I've never seen a library equipped to handle the needs of the average post secondary student, and post secondary education is one great way to get out of poverty. I think some people (not you!) haven't caught up to how necessary the internet is now for education.

[jaynie]

Busses? Not everywhere has busses. I see a lot of hitchhiking in my community. But as for Internet, some of the most wealthy people are in the same boat as the poor. No cable, they are too low in a valley for sattelite, and no cell reception. It has to be dial up. I'm lucky that I can use cell and sattelite.

I think that the big push should be for better access to TV and Internet for all- just like the government subsidizes landlines, they could subsidize other forms of communications.

Not everybody lives in a city, or even close to one.

Ah, see, I got onto the buses thing because I assumed your previous comment (that if you lived 40 minutes from a library you'd also probably have bad phone reception) was in reference to MY previous comment (that, er, I live 40 minutes from the library), so that's what I was going off. I think people can forget how time consuming it is to get around a city on buses, so I wanted to make that point. But that actually further shows how little we can judge others, because it's so circumstantial. A poor living in a pokey little village in northern Alberta has very different needs than an equally poor person in downtown Vancouver.

[RosyDaisy]

I think conservatives, and fundies' frustration is different than mine in this regard. They like to make moral judgments, as if money should be given to those that are "deservedly poor". To me, there's very few people that don't "deserve" food and medical care. However, I agree we are supporting an underclass if we just toss money in with no expectations. I believe it's important to push for job retraining, employment help, education assistance programs with expectations that people must go through them if they are capable of working and are on public assistance. It has nothing to do with improving people's morals. I just don't think financial dependency on gov't is healthy for anyone, mentally or otherwise.

Exactly! Throwing money on the issue won't solve the problem long-term. There has to be a way to help those who are able to work find work.

[Antipodes]

In Australia we pay a very high taxation rate. This enables a welfare system that is reasonable and in the case of single parents especially those whose children have a disability it's quite generous.

For example a single mother with three children two of whom have issues. One with mild autism one ADHD. Receives

US $ 1030.77 per week.

She also receives US$5185.00 after the birth of each child.

Twice a year she will receive a top up payment US$622.20 x 2

All her medical expenses for her family are free, she will get discounted gas and electricity. If she's renting she will also receive a rental assistance payment.

Her health care card also entitles her to discounted public transport and a discount on car registration.

Edited to add she also receives a bonus for studying even if it's only a coup,e of hours a week.

[JesusFightClub]

All this talk about smartphones remind me of similar comments when I was growing up of poor people with TVs. In the 80's and 90's, some people complained about TVs in welfare recipients' households. I guess today it's cell phones. No one complains of the poor family that has a TV set anymore because they can be bought for so cheap (or second hand!). A few decades ago, it was a luxury. It's just funny how technology morphs our expectations.

Ideally, I shouldn't judge people for their situation. However, I can't shut my brain off and sometimes certain patients do stick in my head. And even those of us working in underserved areas will still find ourselves shaking our head in disbelief/disagreement/disgust at what goes on. I think it's only human to have opinions. That doesn't mean we lack compassion or empathy. But one can get quite cynical in a service job and dealing with people, poor or rich.

I think much of the political rhetoric on TV regarding welfare is sprouted by people who've rarely, if ever, interacted with the poor. There's a tendency to either demonize the poor ("illegals who come here to eat our free lunches") or put them on a pedestal ("hardworking families who were victims...."). In fact, most poor people fall somewhere in the middle. They ended up welfare because of bad decisions or bad luck or a combination of both.

The poor have one thing that separates them from the rest of the country and it's not because they are more likely to make poor decisions or lack personal responsibility. It's the lack of resources when they DO make poor decisions or act irresponsibly. Bristol Palin is no different than many of the poor, single, young mothers I've seen in the low income women's clinic but she will never need to get medicaid or wait two hours to see a doc. Her family's wealth protects her from her poor choices, allowing her the chance to attend college, own a house, have insurance.

I think there's less judgement on Palin because she's not seen as a financial burden on society. [*]Poor teenage mothers require taxpayers to help her raise her child. When people (i.e taxpayers) feel their money is being used by someone else, they feel justified in making stipulations of how it's used. I think that's a fair expectation even if the judgement itself is unfair (i.e conservatives embrace SAHM unless it's for single mothers on welfare).

My frustration with some patients who appear to make poor choices is that they can't afford to continue to make them, and they know this, but continue to do so. They may not be morally weaker than their middle class counterpart, but their lives allow them few "margins for error" so to speak. I think conservatives, and fundies' frustration is different than mine in this regard. They like to make moral judgments, as if money should be given to those that are "deservedly poor". To me, there's very few people that don't "deserve" food and medical care. However, I agree we are supporting an underclass if we just toss money in with no expectations. I believe it's important to push for job retraining, employment help, education assistance programs with expectations that people must go through them if they are capable of working and are on public assistance. It has nothing to do with improving people's morals. I just don't think financial dependency on gov't is healthy for anyone, mentally or otherwise.

It's an interesting post with a number of points. I qualify this by saying at the start I have been a worker in numerous service jobs with both rich and poor, and I've also been in the kind of poverty where you hide your giro (dole cheque) down your top because there are watching eyes and they want to see where you cash it. I have seen it from both sides of the aisle and I do not romanticise the poor. Being poor is about as romantic as a used condom in a close.

Poor people can end up poor because the system runs on a supply of poor people, to be honest. Bad luck implies "too bad, the factory had to close" and bad decisions "and you enjoy living on welfare too much to get hired at the factory next door". Sometimes it's "The economy in your area is screwed because the big factories got better deals elsewhere and offshored the manual jobs you would have been ideally suited for. You're not going to get the grades/be able to afford higher education any time soon. You can't go across the country because you can't afford it and you're a carer for your dad who's developing Alzheimers. You've also got two small children and your partner went off with that bitch from down the road. Next move."

It tends to be a perfect storm of things which happen, a combination of the global and local economies (something which tends to get forgotten in the morality-based attitude towards the poor, even though shifting patterns of trade and work are the most important thing), personal circumstances, societal attitudes and sudden blows. And yes, sometimes bad personal choices add to this, and I totally agree that there isn't the fallback that richer people have. But the exasperated "They KNOW this, why aren't they TRYING?" attitude isn't helpful either. Addiction, depression and a myriad of social problems play into where people are, and for many people the idea that they can just take a clear eyed assessment of where they want to be and what they're doing wrong isn't even remotely near where they are in life.

For example, there's a mum struggling to make ends meet. She's been dumped, she lives in a council flat with damp which is massively overcrowded (her, her teenage son, her two teenage daughters (one of whom is pregnant) and she herself is pregnant). She's waiting on rehousing from the council but every time she calls they say "There *is* a waiting list, you know, and you're not homeless." She's been waiting a couple of years now, with every prospect of waiting a fair bit longer. In the meantime, the paper's still peeling and she's worried about the kids' chests with the black mould and that. She likes her wee tot vodka with her mates because it helps her forget about things for a bit and have fun giggly girly times almost like they have on the telly.

You know if she laid off the drink her finances would improve vastly but what can you give her in return? The opportunity to lose all her benefits (such as they are) and slave away in Poundland on the minimum wage? The opportunity to....drink tea and read improving novels, as well as lose all her pals? What's in it for her? What can you possibly offer her?

[AmyP]

I have enjoyed reading some of these posts, it helps to see things from a different point of view. I admit, when I was first married and shopped at the most affordable store in our area I had a very bad attitude toward those who were getting food stamps, and who appeared to be able to afford nice vans, gadgets, etc. I was raised with a very strict attitude toward money. We were solidly middle class and every third word out of my parents mouth was "no, we can't afford that kind of thing". "No, those brands, gadgets, electronics, trips, cars, are not for people like us. Those are for wealthier families. We can't afford that." When I see people who are in a difficult financial situation buying those things it just goes against every concept of life that I was raised with.

[Curly Girl]

I have enjoyed reading some of these posts, it helps to see things from a different point of view. I admit, when I was first married and shopped at the most affordable store in our area I had a very bad attitude toward those who were getting food stamps, and who appeared to be able to afford nice vans, gadgets, etc. I was raised with a very strict attitude toward money. We were solidly middle class and every third word out of my parents mouth was "no, we can't afford that kind of thing". "No, those brands, gadgets, electronics, trips, cars, are not for people like us. Those are for wealthier families. We can't afford that." When I see people who are in a difficult financial situation buying those things it just goes against every concept of life that I was raised with.

Amy, I can relate to what you are saying here. I do certainly see and understand the other points that have been raised in this thread too. It is so easy to judge a person, until you walk a mile in their shoes....

[Minerva]

That sounds almost exactly like my situation jaynie. Though it'd probably take me 30 minutes by bus. I live in an extremely big city, but a very sprawled out one, and I live in the suburbs. So excellent phone reception because it's a big city, but no accessible libraries because everything's so far apart and my area is particularly under served by libraries and bookstores for some reason. And this is how far I'd go for not the greatest library. Just thought it's interesting we're in the same situation for libraries! It's definitely so much harder when you're relying on buses. For the amount I needed to use the internet for my studies while I was in school and how all the library computers have time limits and waiting lists so that probably wouldn't work for anyone. No comment either way except to say that a lot of cities have this problem, both with their transit systems and the fact that resources are concentrated in one area where people are spread out. It'd take me 45 minutes by bus to get to the nearest bookstore, which makes me sad.

This. You can live near the heart of the city and be half an hour away from anything useful if you don't have a car. I'm almost an hour away from work (on foot or by bus since the bus is such a detour), yet it'd be about 10 minutes by car. I'm less than a half hour from campus, and campus could accommodate all of my internet/computer needs, but I'm a good 40 minutes from the closest branch of my public library, which is what I'd be using if I was, say, a single mom taking a correspondence course from a college (none of which are anywhere near me). I've lived in a few areas that were 40+ minutes away from town, and cellphone reception was always as good as in town, but you couldn't get internet that was as fast or as cheap as in town, and some places still only have dial-up. So if anything, a smartphone would have been even more useful to me back then.

[emmiedahl]

I have enjoyed reading some of these posts, it helps to see things from a different point of view. I admit, when I was first married and shopped at the most affordable store in our area I had a very bad attitude toward those who were getting food stamps, and who appeared to be able to afford nice vans, gadgets, etc. I was raised with a very strict attitude toward money. We were solidly middle class and every third word out of my parents mouth was "no, we can't afford that kind of thing". "No, those brands, gadgets, electronics, trips, cars, are not for people like us. Those are for wealthier families. We can't afford that." When I see people who are in a difficult financial situation buying those things it just goes against every concept of life that I was raised with.

I don't think most poor people have those things, whatever they may be, or if they do it is because it is actually more economical. My husband and I share an obamaphone. It is so old it is embarrassing, but it makes emergency calls. No one notices the apartment complex full of people with these cheap, free, zero-function phones, but everyone notices the few people with a smartphone who use it because it is cheaper than paying for internet.

My parking lot has a lot of modest, functional vehicles and then a brand new Land Rover. Guess which one people notice?

[AmyP]

I don't think most poor people have those things, whatever they may be, or if they do it is because it is actually more economical. My husband and I share an obamaphone. It is so old it is embarrassing, but it makes emergency calls. No one notices the apartment complex full of people with these cheap, free, zero-function phones, but everyone notices the few people with a smartphone who use it because it is cheaper than paying for internet.

My parking lot has a lot of modest, functional vehicles and then a brand new Land Rover. Guess which one people notice?

Sure. That makes sense. Also, you don't notice people with normal food items in the grocery store, but the person whos cart is stuffed to the brim with generic orange cola, wonder bread, twinkies, and hot dogs sticks out like a sore thumb.

[RosyDaisy]

Not everyone has access to public transportation, especially those who live in rural areas. The same applies to access to libraries. As for having smartphones, meh, there are prepaid ones now, so I don't judge someone on public assistance that has one. Maybe I'm weird, but if the check out lane is long, I just pick up a magazine or something and wait my turn. I really don't care what's in other people's shopping carts or whether or not they are on public assistance. It's none of my business.

[chaotic life]

My cousin is a bona fide, stereotypical Welfare Queen. She DID have another child to extend her benefits. She DOES fall to declare her partner so she can increase her benefits. She has an Associates in accounting and once upon a time she used to take bookkeeping jobs from home to support herself and her kids when she was single. She is covered in tatoos and does spend money on expensive toys.

Even so, I realy don't CARE. She lives in Hawaii and I suspect the thing that keeps her most dependent upon aid is housing costs. Her partner is a field hand at a sugar plantation and she lost her contacts for the bookkeeping jobs. She has 3 little ones. I'm 100% in favor of providing for children in poverty. I don't believe if we met the basic needs of EVERY child in poverty that it would even come close to the socially acceptable corporate welfare our government provides.

I do judge my cousin on ONE point, and I laugh that she is SUCH a stereotype when in reality she is the rare presentation of a myth. Her side business in weed BUGS ME. It bugs me to know she is growing, selling, and using with those babies in her house. It bugs me even more that most of her FB posts are either brags about her benefits, or advertising for her business. I have considered turning her rear into the local authorities but I couldn't live with myself if it left her babies without a stable parent, and everything I can tell indicates she is good mother.

The funny thing is that we spent 2 years unemployed and recieving some benefits. I've known a LOT of people getting support in some fashion or another and my cousin is the ONLY person I have ever known that truly is a "Welfare Queen."