Number of welfare recipients declines

[UpInArms]

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/6684084.htm

WASHINGTON - The number of people receiving welfare is declining, government statistics show.

The Health and Human Services Department said Wednesday that the number of individuals on welfare dropped more than 4 percent between March 2002 and March 2003, to about 5 million people. The number of families receiving welfare dropped about 2 percent, to a little more than 2 million.

Congress significantly overhauled the welfare system in 1996, allowing states to impose tough new rules on recipients.

Since then, there has been about a 60 percent reduction in the number of individuals on welfare and almost a 54 percent reduction in the number of families getting assistance, the government said.

...more...

[whathappened]

1. now that is going well

for the gov. , we now have the churches who are in bad shape for money , who are suppose to pick up the helping of the poor , look out streets , we are coming to live on you

[Systematic Chaos]

2. But the number of people in poverty is up by 1.4 million?

I think I'm detecting a pattern here....

[bread_and_roses]

3. The latest study I read

...admittedly from a few years ago but I doubt much has changed - was from NYC...and they couldn't find out WHAT had happened to a goodly # of people who used to be on welfare in NYC. They had just dropped entirely off the radar. HHS says "But Horn called it "very reasonable" to conclude that most people who got off welfare got jobs. He said that assumption is based on past studies." but any reasonable person is going to ask where are these jobs he thinks people are getting? And how one supports even one child on $5.25hr? Which is what many of the available jobs pay. The welfare reform act was a mean-spirited sop and one of the things I most hold against Clinton.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Meanwhile, in Orlando, Fl, cops are busting panhandlers.

*

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. The American voting class would not object to just euthanizing the poor

It's a surprisingly bipartisan attitude.

The truth is, the main way the poor make money for anybody is when they are subsumed into the justice system, where it costs more per head than it would to pay all their expenses and train them for a job that pays a living wage.

Americans don't mind paying a little extra if they can be sure their dollars will buy more suffering for those who have less.

[Laughing Mirror]

6. this heartening news can be read in the same light

as the unemployment figures that go down because millions of people become "discouraged" from looking for work when there's no job for them anyway

people stop applying for welfare because they know there's no money for them to apply for

[InkAddict]

7. Remember the 180 degree rule

create jobs in Bu$hspeak means create more welfare recipients cause the #s are "officially" down which trickles through and creates moolah for my corporate buddies in housing for those not humble enough to accept our generosity (criminals) and K-12 education (leaving those other kids behind)and tuition (where we really get those more mature students to buy our products (Coors)and teach them to hate those lazy welfare moochers.