onfirewhenifoundit:

serenemolly:

rainewynd:

aegipan-omnicorn:

shitrichcollegekidssay:

entitledrichpeople:

I know I’ve posted numerous times about how welfare fraud is in fact very, very rare and welfare programs have lower fraud loss rates than things like businesses.  Which is true, but it’s also true that most actual technical welfare fraud doesn’t look much like the stereotype either.  Pretty much the only people who “get rich” off fraud are service end things like stores, hospitals, etc.  Nobody else really gets rich from lying on their food stamp paperwork.

Welfare fraud looks less like “cadillac and mansion” and more like:

• a disabled person lies about their level of mobility because medicaid will often only cover wheelchairs if you need them in the house, not if you need them to go out or do anything outside of the house
• a poor woman claims her boyfriend lives separately from her because the amount he contributes to her and their kids counts against her less if it’s listed as childsupport instead of part of the household income and that small difference can be enough to keep the children from going hungry
• a poor person sells part of their food stamps and lives on things like instant ramen because almost nobody gets cash assistance anymore and they need things like toilet paper or tooth paste
• a disabled person who could not hold down a regular job sells $100 a month in homemade crafts and doesn’t report it because they might have to spend months or even years re-fighting their social security case if they reported it
• a homeless person makes more than $20 a month begging but lists their income as zero because that’s less confusing
• other things like that

A lot of that is just survival.  It’s not a system set up in a way that makes it easy to even live unless you “cheat”.  People aren’t doing it to get rich, they do it to cling to the very basics and just manage to live.  I don’t blame people who violate the laws to keep their heads above water, I blame the people who set up a horrific system like this and who benefit from harming and exploiting poor people.

also looks like being homeless while you’re on food stamps 8) because thats illegal. you can’t have food stamps if you don’t have a home 8) 

8) also looks like having multiple sources of income even if both are minimum wage jobs that you only work for 3 hours a week 8) 8) if you have multiple sources of income and are on food stamps that is illegal.

welfare fraud is bullshit. plain and simple. if people are “cheating the system” its because theyre drowning in it, and the only cheating they’re doing is surviving. which. is. not. allowed.

The people are not cheating the system.

The System is Cheating the People.

Someone told me years ago that if they lived in Michigan, they couldn’t get married because they would have a combined income that was greater than the threshold for the wife to get disability benefits, even though it was still below the poverty line. So they moved to another state where they got less in benefits, had to deal with more red tape to prove every year she was still disabled, and once had to deal with someone claiming that because she could walk, she wasn’t disabled. But hey, they were able to get married, and therefore claim they both needed assistance because the husband couldn’t work a job that paid big money because he didn’t have skills or a degree.

One of our politicians recently confessed to this type of welfare fraud when she was younger to demonstrate how broken the system is. She did it to feed her kids. The political fallout was so severe she had to step down from her role as party leader. Another MP was identified as fraudulently claiming extra on his pension despite a massive salary, but the sole fallout from that is a hunt to seek out the leak of his private information.

A young woman commits minor fraud because it’s the difference between starving and having enough money to feed your kids? Intolerable! How dare you? A wealthy man cons the system to obtain an extra $60 a week that would be insignificant compared to the rest of his income? How dare we breach the privacy of a man clever enough to find a loophole!

If someone asks to be paid for a job (handywork, commissioned art, etc) in cash, it’s not necessarily because they don’t have a bank account (ooh, red flag! sigh) or they’re trying to evade taxes. They may just be on Social Security and trying to earn enough on the side to get closer to the poverty line.

People starve on assistance. People lose their homes on assistance. people die of preventable illnesses on assistance. The social safety net is better than nothing, but we mustn’t delude ourselves into thinking it’s enough.