Nobody minds giving someone a hand when they need it. Stuff happens to everyone at one time or another. The problem is when people abuse the situation and keep getting it for years. Free money is hard to pass up. The answer is stop making it free. After 6 months or a year make it mandatory to work for the city two days a week to keep receiving food stamps and 3 days a week to keep receiving welfare. Have them clean up trash on the streets or paint over graffiti around the city. That might give them incentive to find a real job.

Transfers of benefits to individuals through social welfare programs have increased from less than 1 federal dollar in 4 (24 percent) in 1963 to almost 3 out of 5 (59 percent) in 2013. In that half-century, entitlement payments were, Eberstadt says, America’s “fastest growing source of personal income,”

THANKS OBAMA!

This has been going on way longer than Obama was president.

Obama put turbo on it!

Obama phone!

The phone program was signed into law by bush. so, bush phone.

Oh ya? , tell her that...https://youtu.be/tpAOwJvTOio

psh bush phones sucked.... obama got me a eyephone

Well, when even fast food workers get replaced by robots we are going to have to start think of new ways of giving people income since there just won't be enough conventional jobs to go around... Personally I'm all for the community service for benefits idea.

(robot source: http://www.businessinsider.com/...hines-burger-robot-2014-8)

automated drinks, automated ordering, automated cooking

now all we need is automatic desserts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

You should check this video out. As he says, it's not a matter of 'if' jobs will be taken over by robots, but 'when'.

They do this in Texas already i believe...not mandatory work, but they do make the assistance limited and you have to prove that you're actively searching for employment. If they find out you are fraudulently receiving assistance they will make you pay it back(or serve jail time?).

Subjugation to work camps; great idea!!! You can take our (government) poverty-level 'handout' or your can work full time and still remain (more ethically?) below the poverty line!!!

OR...

We could pour some of those dollars into educating them so they can get a 'real job' that pays more than a poverty-level salary. I'm not saying that everyone could do it, but they should have the choice of education first.

Why don't they have an education already? Because they screwed off in HS and did not learn anything. You crazy man if you think i have a chance to go to college. Guess that is right if you can't read more than a McDonalds sign

LOL, what do you really learn in high school that prepares you for anything other than a minimum wage job?

What sort of jobs are available right after high school without any sort of additional training/certifications, farmer?

Other than minimum wage jobs, a high school diploma doesn't really qualify you for much of anything nowadays. Even electricians/plumbers/HVAC/mechanics/welders will have to have more training/certs after just high school.

Education is key.

I've always been in favor of community service jobs in exchange for welfare payments. That's always been a good idea. When I was an instructor way back in Pennsylvania, the state there had a "continuing education" rider on welfare benefits. You could collect them as long as you were a full time student in some adult education program.

I even got sued because I had one guy that thought he could stay in school by hanging out in the lunch room playing pinball instead of actually attending classes, then when he failed, and was dropped from the program, he lost his welfare, and sued the school and me as if it was our fault that he was an idiot.

Arbeit macht frei

Heres the fun part. I am on SNAP benefits. I go to school 40 hours a week. I then come home and do nothing but take care of D and do my homework. My husband also works 40 hours a week on top of going to school. So while in theory Farmer that its a good idea, there are people that are trying to better themselves. Trying to squeeze in those community service hours into an already busy schedule would be difficult to do at best. While I agree there are moochs on the system that irritate the crap out of me, you can not lump sum everybody into that category.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLZuKGTZlEY

Trife it was meant as a sarcastic remark you left part of my post out. they part about "you crazy man if you think i have a chance to go to college" i know for a fact that that is how some of the people that end up on government handouts feel. When in reality if they would try in HS and make decent grades, they could get a free ride

Why don't they have an education already? Because they screwed off in HS and did not learn anything. You crazy man if you think i have a chance to go to college. Guess that is right if you can't read more than a McDonalds sign

guess i should have added going to school to it too. sounds like you have a full plate daspheebsie. It is just that some people have learned to work the system,and in some cases generations in the same family have been on it.