Brainfade Posted December 18, 2011 Posted December 18, 2011 http://thecollegeconservative.com/2011/12/13/my-time-at-walmart-why-we-need-serious-welfare-reform/ My Time at Walmart: Why We Need Serious Welfare Reform December 13, 2011 By crousselle 2,530 Comments During the 2010 and 2011 summers, I was a cashier at Wal-Mart #1788 in Scarborough, Maine. I spent hours upon hours toiling away at a register, scanning, bagging, and dealing with questionable clientele. These were all expected parts of the job, and I was okay with it. What I didnÃÕ expect to be part of my job at Wal-Mart was to witness massive amounts of welfare fraud and abuse. I understand that sometimes, people are destitute. They need help, and they accept help from the state in order to feed their families. This is fine. It happens. IÃÎ not against temporary aid helping those who truly need it. What I saw at Wal-Mart, however, was not temporary aid. I witnessed generations of families all relying on the state to buy food and other items. I literally witnessed small children asking their mothers if they could borrow their EBT cards. I once had a man show me his welfare card for an ID to buy alcohol. The man was from Massachusetts. Governor Michael Dukakis signature was on his welfare card. Dukakis last gubernatorial term ended in January of 1991. I was born in June of 1991. The man had been on welfare my entire life. ThatÃÔ not how welfare was intended, but sadly, it is what it has become. Other things witnessed while working as a cashier included: a) People ignoring me on their iPhones while the state paid for their food. (For those of you keeping score at home, an iPhone is at least $200, and requires a data package of at least $25 a month. If a person can spend $25+ a month so they can watch YouTube 24/7, I donÃÕ see why they canÃÕ spend that money on food.) People using TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) money to buy such necessities such as earrings, kitkat bars, beer, WWE figurines, and, my personal favorite, a slip n slide. TANF money does not have restrictions like food stamps on what can be bought with it. c) Extravagant purchases made with food stamps; including, but not limited to: steaks, lobsters, and giant birthday cakes. d) A man who ran a hotdog stand on the pier in Portland, Maine used to come through my line. He would always discuss his hotdog stand and encourage me to ÅÄome visit him for lunch some day. What would he buy? Hotdogs, buns, mustard, ketchup, etc. How would he pay for it? Food stamps. Either that man really likes hotdogs, or the state is paying for his business. Not okay. The thing that disturbed me more than simple cases of fraud/abuse was the entitled nature of many of my customers. One time, a package of bell peppers did not ring up as food in the computer. After the woman swiped her EBT card, it showed a balance that equaled the cost of the peppers. The woman asked what the charge was, and a quick glance at the register screen showed that the peppers did not ring up as food. (Food items had the letter ç next to their description.) The woman immediately began yelling at me, saying that, ŪtÃÔ food! You eat it! This wasnÃÕ the only time things like this happened: if a personÃÔ EBT balance was less than they thought it would be, or if their cards were declined, it was somehow my fault. I understand the situation is stressful, but a person should be knowledgeable about how much money is in their account prior to going grocery shopping. EBT totals are printed on receipts, and every cell phone has a calculator function. ThereÃÔ no excuse, and thereÃÔ no reason to yell at the cashier for it. The worst thing I ever saw at Wal-Mart Scarborough was two women and their children. These women each had multiple carts full of items, and each began loading them at the same time (this should have been a tip-off to their intelligence levels). The first woman, henceforth known as Welfare Queen #1, paid for about $400 worth of food with food stamps. The majority of her food was void of any nutritional value. She then pulled out an entire monthÃÔ worth of WIC (Women, Infants, and Children program) checks. I do not mind people paying with WIC, but the woman had virtually none of the correct items. WIC gives each participating mother a book containing actual images of items for which a person can and cannot redeem the voucher. This woman literally failed at image comprehension. After redeeming 10+ WIC checks, Welfare Queen #1 had me adjust the prices of several items she was buying (Wal-MartÃÔ policy is to adjust the price of the item without question if itÃÔ within a dollar or two). She then pulled out a vacuum cleaner, and informed me that the cost of the vacuum was $3.48 because, ÅÕhatÃÔ what the label says. The vacuum cleaner was next to a stack of crates that were $3.48. Somehow, every other customer was able to discern that the vacuum cleaner was not $3.48, but Welfare Queen #1 and her friend Welfare Queen #2 were fooled. Welfare Queen #2 informed me that she used to work for Wal-Mart, and that the Ã…Ãaws of Wal-Mart legally said that I would have to sell her the vacuum for $3.48. After contacting my manager, who went off to find the proper vacuum price, Welfare Queen #1 remarked that it must be tough to stand on a mat all day and be a cashier. I looked at her, smiled, shrugged, and said, Ÿell, itÃÔ a job. She was speechless. After they finally admitted defeat, (not before Welfare Queen #2 realizing she didnÃÕ have enough money to buy all of the food she had picked out, resulting in the waste of about $200 worth of products) the two women left about an hour and a half after they arrived at my register. The next man in line said that the two women reminded him of buying steel drums and cement. I said I was reminded why I vote Republican. Maine has a problem with welfare spending. Maine has some of the highest rates in the nation for food stamp enrollment, Medicaid, and TANF. Nearly 30% of the state is on some form of welfare. Maine is the only state in the nation to rank in the top two for all three categories. This is peculiar, as MaineÃÔ poverty rate isnÃÕ even close to being the highest in the nation. The system in Maine is far easier to get into than in other states, and it encourages dependency. When a person makes over the limit for benefits, they lose all benefits completely. There is no time limit and no motivation to actually get back to work. Furthermore, spending on welfare has increased dramatically, but there has been no reduction of the poverty rate. Something is going terribly wrong, and the things I saw at work were indicators of a much larger problem. Something must change before the state runs out of money funding welfare programs.
yoda Posted December 18, 2011 Posted December 18, 2011 You either feed useless people with useless welfare money and let them get fatter on government money, or you bomb the cr@p out of innocents world over. Wish there was a middle ground somewhere. :winky:
punjabi_khota Posted December 18, 2011 Posted December 18, 2011 Pretty sad situation. Similar to what is happening in England I hear.
G_B_ Posted December 18, 2011 Posted December 18, 2011 no system is perfect. You will always get people who benefit from a system without any issues. and speaking of entitlement society, maybe the person in question needs to look how much Wal Mart the company asks in subsidies/concessions from local governments. That too is a sort of corporate level entitlement.
cricket_usa Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 Before they use to give out EBT cards they gave vouchers with certain value, these welfare people would go and buy a soda and present the voucher and the clerk had to give back the balance in $$. Now they sell the EBT for 1/2 price. You can buy the groceries and the person with EBT will pay with the card and you pay that person 1/2 the money. I know people who are on the welfare for 3 generations and have never worked a day in their life. They know how to play the system. This is not democrats fault, this is the fault of the people who abuse the system. Like how the conservatives say "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." This is what messed up in US, you either have to be really rich or be on the welfare to survive. A middle class person who makes a nominal wage will have a hard time cause he is neither rich enough to afford medical etc nor poor enough to be on the welfare.
veer Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 ohhh man... this brings me some memory when I used to work at wal-mart as a cashier some 8-10 years back.. so many of these incidents had happened.. one of the biggest stunt one customer tried to pull was this... a customer came to my register with 5 boxes of baby milk.. the ones that they advertise on WIC list each box had about 20 cans...and each can was priced at about 5.99$ something.. this customer some how managed to stick fake barcode on about five cans.. I scanned it and it read 2.49 or something.. i scanned next one and it read $2.49 again.. she thought i would just multiply that number by 100 costing her $249 .. but trick was that when I scanned those it read 'blah blah Ravioli Pasta $ 2.49'.. I checked the can and then tried to see if barcode had any problems.. and literally the fake barcode came off with a little peel off..
punjabi_khota Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 Before they use to give out EBT cards they gave vouchers with certain value, these welfare people would go and buy a soda and present the voucher and the clerk had to give back the balance in $$. Now they sell the EBT for 1/2 price. You can buy the groceries and the person with EBT will pay with the card and you pay that person 1/2 the money. I know people who are on the welfare for 3 generations and have never worked a day in their life. They know how to play the system. This is not democrats fault, this is the fault of the people who abuse the system. Like how the conservatives say "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." This is what messed up in US, you either have to be really rich or be on the welfare to survive. A middle class person who makes a nominal wage will have a hard time cause he is neither rich enough to afford medical etc nor poor enough to be on the welfare. :WTF: Do we live in the same country ? :hmmm: Middle class person is not the one making nominal wage (<10$ an hour). Middle class is ~60k per year, an income on which you can live without ever needing food stamps or welfare, in suburbs or small towns.
yoda Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 ^^I think what he means is the lower middle class working families who make enough not to qualify for welfare, but not enough to make ends meet. I bet there are many such.
cricket_usa Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 :WTF: Do we live in the same country ? :hmmm: Middle class person is not the one making nominal wage (<10$ an hour). Middle class is ~60k per year, an income on which you can live without ever needing food stamps or welfare, in suburbs or small towns. In the South you are doing great if you make 12-15$ an hr and you are considered middle class. Even the teachers and cops don't make more than 35-36 K a year, those are middle class jobs. With the way the health care cost is increasing you are just one sickness away from bankruptcy.
Cricket_2_Death Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 This is the result of a handout society, it shouldn't be surprising one bit and it will continue so long as this dependency ideology is allowed to flourish.
Ram Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 Could not agree more with the sentiments of the OP. It blows my mind when someone wearing a $100 Nike shoe and having a $200 iphone, casually uses food-stamps to pay for their groceries.
ganeshran Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 Isnt there a time limit for claiming dole? Like a fixed number of weeks beyond which the government stops paying
G_B_ Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 enough of this moaning about society USA spends the lowest amount as a % of GDP on welfare in the OCED. Some of you need to travel beyond the USA to other countries in the developed world.
cricket_usa Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 enough of this moaning about society USA spends the lowest amount as a % of GDP on welfare in the OCED. Some of you need to travel beyond the USA to other countries in the developed world. I all for helping, but help someone who needs it and someone who is trying to better themselves. Quit helping career welfare kings and queens and people who have made a life out of welfare. Help working class people by bringing down the health care cost or by introducing single payer option where people can buy into it.
Ram Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 I do get the point of food-stamps and other similar forms of relief (there are people out there who are genuinely destitute and need help), but I have never understood the concept of unemployment benefits. The whole point of having a job is that whatever money you earn, you use some of it for your expenses and save the rest for future needs (both long term and short term). But giving unemployment benefits is an incentive to people to be reckless and overspend beyond their capabilities. It really frustrates me that my tax-dollars are going into a system that is riddled with largesse and fraud.
G_B_ Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 I all for helping, but help someone who needs it and someone who is trying to better themselves. Quit helping career welfare kings and queens and people who have made a life out of welfare. Help working class people by bringing down the health care cost or by introducing single payer option where people can buy into it. there will always be people who slip through the cracks and exploit the system. Ie you cant design a system which is 100% perfect. Even i would like a society where everybody chipped in. But thats not possible. You talk about welfare but what about the richest who have off shore accounts and dont pay taxes. They use the same roads and other services middle class americans use right? The point being the richest and the poorest always find ways to work the system. Its always the middle who cant wriggle out.
G_B_ Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 I do get the point of food-stamps and other similar forms of relief (there are people out there who are genuinely destitute and need help)' date=' but I have never understood the concept of unemployment benefits. The whole point of having a job is that whatever money you earn, you use some of it for your expenses and save the rest for future needs (both long term and short term). But giving unemployment benefits is an incentive to people to be reckless and overspend beyond their capabilities. It really frustrates me that my tax-dollars are going into a system that is riddled with largesse and fraud.[/quote'] name one developed country which does not have unemployment benefits. How about you tell me , who in your mind is really destitute. The USA has one of the most light tax regimes in the developed world. Move anywhere out of the USA and you will end up paying more in taxes for less.
Brainfade Posted December 19, 2011 Author Posted December 19, 2011 enough of this moaning about society USA spends the lowest amount as a % of GDP on welfare in the OCED. Some of you need to travel beyond the USA to other countries in the developed world. Or just wiki it. It's not about the extent of the welfare state. It is about abuse and fraud. It happens with individual welfare recipients as well as with corporate welfare recipients.
Ram Posted December 19, 2011 Posted December 19, 2011 name one developed country which does not have unemployment benefits. How about you tell me , who in your mind is really destitute. The USA has one of the most tax friendly regimes in the developed world. Move anywhere out of the USA and you will end up paying more in taxes for less. Why are you always resorting to comparisons? If someone says the US is like this, your default, knee-jerk reaction is Oh Europe is like that. Let me tell you I dont care what goes on in Europe, I dont live there. However, I do live in the US and pay my taxes and it is but natural to think that the money I am giving into the system is being wasted on frivolous expenditure and bloated entitlement programs that foster a culture of laziness and lack of accountability. I am not against contributing to the system By all means increase my taxes if you want. My lifestyle wont be impacted much if 5, even 10% more taxes. However, you must guarantee that the money is going to be used for substantive purposes.
Brainfade Posted December 19, 2011 Author Posted December 19, 2011 name one developed country which does not have unemployment benefits. How about you tell me , who in your mind is really destitute. The USA has one of the most light tax regimes in the developed world. Move anywhere out of the USA and you will end up paying more in taxes for less. You are absolutely correct, but there is an inexorable shift toward the "nanny state" - increasing expectations that the government should pay for my health care no matter the cost, government should pay for my college tuition no matter the cost, government should take care of me when my failure is a result of my decisions, and in the case of corporates, government should bail us out because we are too big to fail. Are we at the cusp of the Greecification of the USA?
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