Fundies and Government Aid

[geniebelle6901]

experiencedd, I agree, each area is different, and all resources should be looked into.

[bananacat]

I've thought a lot about this thread and how some people, even if both parents work, will still need government help, and I think I have been judgmental and coming from a place of privilage when thinking about this. All people deserve to have health care, it doesn't matter if they are a surfer dude that lives next to abba or if they are fundie mom who would never dream of working. No children should go hungry just because of their parents religious beliefs and it shouldn't be that only rich people should have kids. So this thread has changed my mind on those things made me look at it from a different perspective.

I still think abba is being hypocritical to whine about the surfer who doesn't want to work while she has said that even if she got a job she wouldn't take it because she doesn't want to work.

I agree with you. I think abba is being a hypocrite. But I also think that even hypocrites should not starve.

[abba12]

I just wrote a huge post, and it was eaten by the login monster. *sigh*

The point I made was. I am sorry for trying to compare apples and oranges, our social security systems are so very very different, I see reading through the posts on this thread that my situation put into your system dosen't work. I always heard americans talking about not having enough money to eat, but I thought it was a joke or exageration. Now I realise your country actually does let people get to that point. I have a whole new respect for single mothers who make ends meet in the US, it must be damn hard... Rent is a big issue here, but it's very rare for children to actually go without food. We don't have school lunch programs because we really have no need for them. Things get tight, rent is a big problem, but wow.

The australian welfare system is actually quite socialistic compared to yours. It does not have a limit or work requirment to pay pensions, people pay taxes partially so that the old and disabled will be supported. There is no limit to the time unemployment can be claimed, though there's some very strict activity requirments.

We have a parenting payment to support parents who are primary caretakers of children below school age who either have no spouse or have a low income/pensioner spouse. This is a payment geared specifically to single mums and dads and to stay at home parents.

We also, and I think this may be the biggest difference, have something called family tax benefit. Officially it is not welfare, it is a tax rebate that is paid in regular installments through the year instead of a lump sum at tax time. It is available in a full rate to families earning up to about 60k (the current average wage is 50k), and in a partial rate to families earning up to about 120k, so most families with children claim it, but despite being a 'tax rebate' it can be paid to people who pay no or little tax, so there's some controvery over whether or not it is welfare. Still, pretty much the only people who kick up a stink are the people who earn over 120k and don't get it, so whatever it is, it's claimed by most people and generally not seen as bludging.

It pays an amount, the amount varies but for a low to average income earner with a young family it's about $80 a week PER CHILD. Yes I believe this means a family with 10 children will recieve $800 a week from this 'tax rebate' (I've never spoken to a large family about their finances to confirm it). The idea is that children are our future, so just like we pay taxes to support the elderly and disabled of our community, we pay taxes to support whoever is currently raising our children.

It's a controversial topic no doubt, on one hand people earning enough to buy their own house plus investment properties are still recieving tax money for their kids, and a single mum with lots of kids is also recieving it. The idea is the payment is for the child to support them while they are young, irrespective of their family or siblings, not to the parent to do what they want with. Of course in practice it is paid to the parent. It's a tricky area. Yes, it does mean someone can live off having children, some people see it as bludging, others see it as an investment, particularly when the mother is married and the father is working. There is a lot of emphasis placed on parents being able to actively raise their children, hence the support for stay at home mums. Most people won't bat an eyelid at a married couple having children in regards to whether they can 'afford it' till they reach 4 or 5.

And yet despite the affordability of children in our country, our birth rate isn't much higher than yours. I think the average family is larger, with 3 or 4 kids not being at all uncommon, but there's also more childless couples and lifetime singles.

So I'm sorry for trying to put my situation into the context of your system, I've realised it just dosen't belong there. As similar as our countries are we also have huge differences that people often overlook. And I can tell you I won't look at american low income families the same way again.

And I think this is where the claims of hypocrisy come in too. An Australian generally wouldn't even put our family in the same basket as a surfer dole bludger. We see the family finances as a unit, so my willingness or unwillingness to work is less important than our families attempts to better itself. We have plans for our life that include skilling and work. Yes I will be on a pension my whole life and in the short term I have no real hope of finding work (though again I'll say I'm willing to work part time, I just can't get hired) but here that is accepted and sometimes even encouraged. Being a stay at home mum is usually respected, an increasing number of people actually frown on a mum that works before her youngest is school age. Our family has plans for work and life and self dependence, hopefully one day we will even earn enough to not claim the full rate of family tax benefit, though we will probably never earn enough to not be eligable completely, if we did then we really wouldn't need it anyway. The single surfer dude has no intention of ever working, if he married his wife would have no intention of working, and they have no plans to ever better themselves. So in our culture, they are very different situations, but I can now see why people here might see them the same way. The intentions matter far more here than the current situation.

[Witsec7]

...The single surfer dude has no intention of ever working...

Regardless of a superior unearned income tax rebate, you still can crap on the surfer. You are not working because you choose not to work. You could train, go to university online while raising your children to prepare yourself to enter the workforce. Just because you receive more benefits than surfer dude (simply because you have children and are married), doesn't make you mo bettah. It makes you a bit more financially advantaged is all.

I think its cool you both live in a country and can have some financial supports under the circumstances. But quit demeaning that man for making the same choices you are making.

[emmiedahl]

I still think you and your neighbor are the same abba. He has no intention of working, you have no intention of working. The only difference is that you are bringing small children into a bad situation while he at least is not.

[Mama Mia]

It sounds to me like Australia, unlike the U.S., just actually values raising children and considers it "work".

While I only got the opportunity to be home with my kids for a short while - I think it makes a great deal of financial sense to allow parents of young children to be home - the cost of daycare is far more expensive than the cost of welfare.

It does bother me when there are couples who are literally homeless and without enough food and one of the parents flat out refuses to find a job .. particularly because in a two parent family you can generally switch the childcare off between the two parents.

In the U.S. the comparison with the surfer dude is irrelevant anyway .. because there simply isn't a system that provides for non-disabled single adults long term.

[Wolfie]

This! There is always a "story behind the story." A family could have doing quite well for years and then someone has lost a job or someone ends up having a horrible illness. And just think about what this bad economy has done to countless people.

What about this one- to outsiders it looks fine, but to insiders.... Guy won't go to college, even though grandparents would pay for it. Loves working in a restaurant, also turns down culinary school. Guy meets girl, couple has one "oops" child. Okay, stuff happens, they get married. Guy gets good job managing a restaurant kitchen. Girl doesn't like his hours, makes him quit job. Girl wants another baby, while he is out of work she gets pregnant again. She is a waitress, he goes back to work as a waiter, he takes two other part time jobs. They rent a deceased family member's house with help from his mother (and possibly hers) and insist that they are going to buy it in a year. They rail against all those evil socialists who want handouts, while they are on WIC, their kids are on state insurance, in state preschool, and were born on state insurance. (I wouldn't take those things away, it isn't the kids' fault, even if the kids are not at all well behaved.)

I do not think that this family should have another child, I would never take their right away, but I will judge them strongly for it. I will mostly judge them for being hipocrites because they take the services and act like they are the only ones who deserve them.

[formergothardite]

It sounds to me like Australia, unlike the U.S., just actually values raising children and considers it "work".

While I only got the opportunity to be home with my kids for a short while - I think it makes a great deal of financial sense to allow parents of young children to be home - the cost of daycare is far more expensive than the cost of welfare.

It does bother me when there are couples who are literally homeless and without enough food and one of the parents flat out refuses to find a job .. particularly because in a two parent family you can generally switch the childcare off between the two parents.

In the U.S. the comparison with the surfer dude is irrelevant anyway .. because there simply isn't a system that provides for non-disabled single adults long term.

Yes, because parents who work and put their children in daycare aren't "raising" them. :roll:

[Mama Mia]

Obviously parents who have their kids in daycare are raising them. Who the fuck said they weren't ? I certainly was the one who raised my kids, and they all went to daycare.

But it is financially stupid to insist that parents of young children work outside the home if they are on welfare if the state is going to be paying for the daycare. It's a no brainer - daycare costs more than aid. Period. Full time care for a toddler in my area paid by the county is over $1,000 a month. The amount of aid paid to a single parent with one child is about $550.

There are many countries that do actually value raising children as an important activity and give parents of young children money to do so. Jesus Christ look it up. It would be the ones with the high standards of living and excellent health and social outcomes.

ETA : This is from the Ann Romney / Worked a day thread. I think this makes an excellent point that exactly covers the views we have towards caring for children in this country. This post was by Rosie, quoting and article in the Nation:

But the brouhaha over Hilary Rosen’s injudicious remarks is not really about whether what stay-home mothers do is work. Because we know the answer to that: it depends. When performed by married women in their own homes, domestic labor is work—difficult, sacred, noble work. Ann says Mitt called it more important work than his own, which does make you wonder why he didn’t stay home with the boys himself. When performed for pay, however, this supremely important, difficult job becomes low-wage labor that almost anyone can do—teenagers, elderly women, even despised illegal immigrants. But here’s the real magic: when performed by low-income single mothers in their own homes, those same exact tasks—changing diapers, going to the playground and the store, making dinner, washing the dishes, giving a bath—are not only not work; they are idleness itself. Just ask Mitt Romney. In a neat catch that in a sane world would have put the Rosen gaffe to rest forever, Nation editor at large Chris Hayes aired a video clip on his weekend-morning MSNBC show displaying Romney this past January calling for parents on welfare to get jobs: “While I was governor, 85 percent of the people on a form of welfare assistance in my state had no work requirement. And I wanted to increase the work requirement. I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless,’ and I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving daycare to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.’†(Don’t be fooled by the gender-neutral language—he’s talking about mothers.) In 1994 he told the Burlington Business Council that “work is ennobling†and that “we will do everything in our power to make sure that people who are on welfare have an opportunity and an obligation to go to work, not after two years but from day one if we could.â€

in the section of social services I work in we require all parents to go to work as quickly as possible ( or complete a training ) because they have to be able to pay their bills and aid in our community doesn't cover rent, let alone anything else. However paying for daycare is hugely expensive and often counterproductive if they do not have a subsidy.

[JesusFightClub]

Obviously parents who have their kids in daycare are raising them. Who the fuck said they weren't ? I certainly was the one who raised my kids, and they all went to daycare.

But it is financially stupid to insist that parents of young children work outside the home if they are on welfare if the state is going to be paying for the daycare. It's a no brainer - daycare costs more than aid. Period. Full time care for a toddler in my area paid by the county is over $1,000 a month. The amount of aid paid to a single parent with one child is about $550.

There are many countries that do actually value raising children as an important activity and give parents of young children money to do so. Jesus Christ look it up. It would be the ones with the high standards of living and excellent health and social outcomes.

This! But I think you guys are talking past each other and basically agree?

My brother is raising his family (Small and Smaller) as a single dad and he has a full time job. He has to take so many extra shifts it's unreal and it's like a circle. Need to pay for daycare, then need to find a carer while you take the shift to pay for previous daycare...the daycare they are with is extremely understanding, but the bills are eventually due.

My mum and Small and Smaller's great grandma help but GG is struggling now and my mum works full time, as do I. Tough row to hoe.