WELFARE LOSING ITS STIGMA!! (JUST WHAT WE NEED) !!!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: mensnewsdaily
Monday, November 30, 2009
By Amy Alkon
Kaus writes:

Assiduous bipartisan bureaucratic attempts to remove stigma from food stamps have at least partially succeeded, and the program has expanded rapidly, roughly doubling since 2000.
But a stigma placed on cash-like welfare (which food stamps are) remains a positive sign of a healthy work ethic. If you came across two societies--Society A, in which food stamps were stigmatized, with families reluctant to go on the dole even if they were eligible, and Society B, in which they weren't, you would want to bet on (and live in) Society A. It's one thing to relax the stigma on welfare in times of epic economic decline. It's another if the stigma doesn't return with the possibility of employment. The CBPP chart would also have demonstrated that food stamp rolls have risen rapidly before--in the slump from 1988 to 1994--only to fall just as rapidly when the economy picked up in the mid-90s. Of course, at that time we had a President (Clinton) who was campaigning against "welfare as we know it."** It seems unlikely that President Obama will repeat the performance. ...


Well, single motherhood has lost its stigma, and look how well that's working for all the kiddies -- like the ones I spoke to last week: the 11th graders, many of whom read at a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade reading level.

And no, this isn't a result of poverty -- there are poor kids who read fine, or way, way, way better than fine, like my ex-assistant, a Korean, first-generation American. Of course, she grew up in a home with not only a mommy and daddy but her only-Korean speaking grandma (cute little old lady who'd hang up on anybody who spoke English if she answered the phone).

These reading levels come straight out of not having a daddy, but hey, let's be "tolerant" of people's choices. (Of course, I think we should be highly intolerant of them, on behalf of the kids born without a choice into these situations.)