HI Bob,

 ml> not everyone without a job is on welfare but they can still find ways
 ml> to provide for their needs... this does not mean that they do not
 ml> "work" for their "living"... contrary to what the gov't believes... 

OF course, because many who were forced to use the system
found the means tests and other hoops too onerous, because
once they submitted they'd never be able to escape.

BA> Some do. I've been unemployed, and have drawn unemployment (I'm not
BA> eligible for welfare due to my military retirement annuity).  At the
BA> moment I've been unemployed for just shy of two years, fortunately
BA> I'm eligible for and draw Social Security to pay
BA> the bills (that aforementioned annuity makes the house and insurance
BA> payments) - so I can say I'm retired. although not by my choice.

RIght, and some who do find themselves in a trap they can't
get out of.
SEe below.

BA> I can remember my parents griping in *1960* about second and third
BA> generations of people living on California's at-the-time quite
BA> generous welfare system.  Back
BA> in those days states provided varying levels of benefits and people
BA> were moving to California simply to get on the welfare system there,
BA> and the state attempted to place a residency time requirement before
BA> one would become eligible - and lost
BA> a federal lawsuit over it.  The feds gradually took over the entire
BA> welfare system -
BA> mainly by mandating that states provide certain levels of benefits
BA> and eligibility,
BA> not by paying for it.  The federal Medicaid program is even worse
BA> off than Medicare WRT funding - and has been for years.

MIght have been generous payments to the baby factories, but for those who
went blind the requirements were onerous.  IF
you wanted to, for example, return to working as an
automechanic, the cost of your tools, etc. counted against
you.  such programs, before federal standardization were
administered by the counties, and you were under the
capricious thumb of a possibly ignorant socialworker.  As
soon as you give somebody control over somebody else's life, especially when
that somebody is an otherwise powerless
paper shuffler then you've got a problem.  Federal
standardization, at least in the aid to the blind programs
made the rules the same for everybody.  IN other programs it was partially
inacted to stem the tide of migration from one place to another.

IF you want to read up on the subject from the point of view of intelligent
folks who found themselves as "beneficiaries" (victims) of the system, read
HOpe Deferred by Jacobus
TenBroek.

tenBroek was a law professor at UC. Berkeley, and blind
since he was a small boy as the result of an accident.
Real trouble is, what was supposed to happen didn't work as
reliably as they thought.  ONe was still subject to the
whims of whatever "caseworker" one had to deal with.  SOme
weren't really too clued up on the fact that so-called
disabled folks were still able to be productive, unless they were pushing
somebody into a menial dead-end job which
wouldn't really pull them out of poverty.  IT doesn't matter how much you
patch the system to try to eliminate this if
the socialworkers in the field don't understand, and
evenhandedly apply the rules.

THen there's the fact that the system is far more generous
to the babymakers, and too many loopholes have allowed those who should not be
qualified to receive benefits.  Iow the
system is still extremely dysfunctional and broken.

Regards,
           Richard
--- timEd 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin:  (1:116/901)